Dossier 11 - Correspondence regarding the conveyance of properties on Walkin Street

Correspondence (including many copies) regarding the protracted negotiations with the Rev. Andrew Craig Robinson, to secure the conveyance to the Capuchin friars of two houses on Walkin Street (See CA KK/2/1/1/3/13). Correspondents include Rev. Andrew Craig Robinson, Ballymoney Rectory, Ballineen, County Cork, Fr. Berchmans Cantillon, Fr. Peter Bowe, W. Carrigan, John R. Peart, conveyancing counsel, Nicholas Shorthal, solicitor for the Capuchin friars, and Michael Buggy, solicitor. Robinson noted that the said premises were mortgaged to Michael Buggy, that he was a joint owner with his sister-in-law and nephew, and that they would seek £625 for the outright purchase of the holding. One of the copy letters (8 Jan. 1916) from the Rev. Robinson to Nicholas Shorthal notes that he has received a letter from Lord Ormonde’s agent ‘saying that in consequence of a fire by which a valuable number of documents were lost they have no maps of the property in Kilkenny in the eighteenth century’. The file includes letters mainly referring to emendations to the draft conveyance of the properties, to negotiations over the purchase price, and to a dispute over the bill of costs for securing the conveyance and to the amount of tithe rentcharge payable out of the said premises. On 1 July 1917 John R. Peart wrote to Nicholas Shorthal affirming that they had ‘certainly had trouble in this case out all proportion to the purchase money and to the scale of fees involved’. Fr. Bowe wrote on 28 Dec. 1917 ‘we had patience so long with Rev. Mr. Robinson I suppose we must keep it up to the end’. One of Shorthal’s correspondents, James F. Reade, acknowledged the receipt of £3 3s 0d and referred to the air raids in London in June 1918 as ‘most damnable experiences. … One never gets used to these raids, the noise of the bombs falling, guns firing, shells singing and exploding and machine guns etc. make an infernal row’.