File 8 - Extracts from Mass Registers, 1889-1914

Reference code

IE CA HT/7/8

Title

Extracts from Mass Registers, 1889-1914

Date(s)

  • c.1920 (Creation)

Level of description

File

Extent and medium

27 pp; 18.5 cm x 11.7 cm; Bound volume; Manuscript

Name of creator

(26 February 1875-20 August 1953)

Biographical history

Patrick Healy was born on 26 February 1875 in Graiguenamanagh, a small town on the border between Counties Carlow and Kilkenny. He entered the Capuchin novitiate at Rochestown in County Cork on 7 July 1894 and took the religious name of Angelus. He took his solemn vows in December 1897 and was ordained a priest in February 1902. Fr. Angelus cultivated a life-long interest in the history of the Irish Capuchins. In 1904, he worked alongside Fr. Stanislaus Kavanagh OFM Cap. (1876-1965) in transcribing autograph copies of two seventeenth century histories of the Irish friars by Nicholas Archbold ‘The historie of the Irish Capucins’ (1643) and Robert O’Connell ‘Historia Missionis Hiberniae Fratrum Minorum Capucinorum’ (c.1654). The original texts had been brought from France to the National Library of Ireland in Dublin for copying. Fr. Angelus was considered an authority on the history of the Irish Capuchin Province, and in 1919 he was chosen as a witness in the beatification cause of two seventeenth-century Capuchin martyrs, Fr. Fiacre Tobin OSFC (c.1620-1656) and Fr. John Baptist Dowdall OSFC (c.1626-1710). He also held several important administrative positions in the Irish Province. Three times he was elected as definitor (or counsellor), from 1910-3 and from 1922-5. He also held the position of Vicar-Provincial and was elected Custos General in 1913 which enabled him to attend the General Chapter of the Order in Rome. He was appointed Guardian of the Church Street Friary and was, at various times, Master of Novices, editor of ‘The Father Mathew Record’ periodical, and director-general of the Total Abstinence Association. Fr. Angelus never considered himself an academic historian but throughout his life he worked assiduously to assemble a vast corpus of documentary records on the history of the friars in Ireland. His ‘Pages from the Story of the Irish Capuchins’, published in 1915 to mark the tercentenary of the arrival of the first friar in Ireland, offered a concise introduction to the subject. ‘The execution of a more scholarly work’, he claimed, demanded ‘more patient research than he could ever command’. Known as an able missionary and preacher, he was also acclaimed as the ‘Guardian of the Reek’ in honour of his long association with the annual Croagh Patrick pilgrimage in County Mayo. His association with Croagh Patrick (also called ‘St. Patrick’s Reek’) lasted from 1906 to 1949, during which he climbed the mountain forty-two times missing only two years, in 1919 due to a railway strike, and in 1922 due to the Civil War. He died at the Presbytery in Westport Parish at the foot of Croagh Patrick on 20 August 1953. He was buried in the Capuchin plot in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin.

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Scope and content

Transcripts and notes compiled by Fr. Angelus Healy OFM Cap. from mass registers of the Cork community. The notes mainly refer to personnel matters giving the names of community members, the dates of transfers, details of chapter meetings and the appointment of guardians. The title page reads: ‘This book contains notes made from an examination of the mass register of the Cork house. I mean the register signed by the Fathers of the masses discharged by the community. The examination extended over the books from 1889 to December 1914, a period of 25 years. It gives the names of the different Fathers in the community, superiors, dates of visitations and transfers from the community. I also examined house books from July 1883 to April 1885 to 1887 during which Fr. Englebert of Huissen OSFC was guardian. He used a special ledger of his own, as appears from an entry made by Fr. Matthew O’Connor OSFC who succeeded him in office’.

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