Item 1 - Dublin Total Abstinence Association Medal

Fr. John Spratt O. Carm (1796-1871) was a Dublin-born priest of the Carmelite Order. In 1816, he went to Spain to be educated in a Carmelite College in Castile where he remained for four years. He returned to Ireland and later became Superior of the Irish Carmelites. He was the prime mover in the foundation of many Catholic churches and charitable institutions in Dublin including the Carmelite Church on Whitefriar Street, St. Joseph’s Night Refuge (Brickfield Lane) and the Catholic Asylum for the Blind (Merrion Road). He was an early supporter of the temperance movement and joined Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC in leading a crusade against intemperance in the mid-nineteenth century. He died on 27 May 1871 and was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.