Item 3 - Accounts of early Capuchin Retreats in County Cork

3 pp; typescript

Transcribed accounts of early missionary and retreat activities of the Capuchin Franciscan Community of Rochestown, County Cork, during the mid-1880s. The first leaf contains a brief historical account of a mission given by Fr. Fidelis Neary OFM Cap. at Ballygarvan (then part of the parish of Douglas), featuring a humorous local anecdote passed down by the curate, Rev. T. Flemming, about a farmer who claimed he could listen to the friar preach for a week without food or drink. The remaining two leaves provide a detailed transcription and analysis of an undated contemporary newspaper clipping regarding a major retreat held at Monkstown in 1884 or 1886. Initiated by the parish pastor, Very Rev. Canon McNamara, this retreat drew massive crowds (including a ‘flotilla of boats’ carrying parishioners across the water from Spike Island) and was conducted by Fr. Paul Neary OFM Cap., Superior, and Father Charles Lonergan. The account details the extensive local clergy assistance needed for confessions, a powerful concluding sermon delivered by Fr. Charles about ‘Perseverance’, and a subsequent surge in local enrolment for the League of the Cross temperance organisation. A final note provides biographical context, explaining that Fr. Charles (Charles Lonergan) later obtained a brief of secularization to labour in England while maintaining cordial relations with the Irish Capuchins until his death.