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An obedience from Fr. Peter Bowe OFM Cap., Provincial Minister, to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. requiring him to leave the Church Street Friary in Dublin and to take up residence in the Capuchin Friary in Rochestown in County Cork.

Copy letter to Fr. Juan Antonio de San Juan en Persiceto OFM Cap., Minister General of the Capuchin Franciscans, from Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., Capuchin Friary, Rochestown, Cork, referring to the decision to send him to America. He claims that ‘this decision would seem to be part of the penalisation which has been meted out to me, probably because of my activities during the period of hostilities in Dublin, last summer’. Fr. Albert encloses a statement, ‘The Case of Father Albert, O.S.F.C.’, defending his actions and declaring his ‘absolute impartiality’ during the War of Independence and later at the outbreak of Civil War hostilities in Dublin in 1922. Reference is also made in the statement to his previous pastoral work with republicans in the period from 1916. Fr. Albert declared: ‘The war of repression which England waged on Ireland since 1916, did not narrow my vision of duty. My mission as a priest was not to any one section or party, it was to “embrace all in one sentiment of charity”. … When feeling was bitterest against the “G-men” – the secret Police” – I saved one of them from death, and also facilitated the marriage of a member of the British Auxiliaries, who had won for themselves as hated a reputation as had the notorious “Black and Tans”’. Fr. Albert also emphasized his role as an intermediary between the Free State Army and irregular republicans during the attack on the Four Courts and in subsequent actions in Dublin during the initial phases of the Civil War. The copy concludes with a statement that the original document is held in the Capuchin General Archives, Rome (Annus: 1923; Prov. Hiberniae; Section 4). This copy has been made for the convenience of the Archives of the Irish Capuchin Province 'with the permission of the Most Rev. Fr. General, Fr. Benignus of S. Ilario Milanese OFM Cap.’. The certified copy is signed by Fr. Conrad O’Donovan OFM Cap., Definitor General, 28 July 1958.

Letter from Margaret 'Aggie' Bibby to Fr. Bonaventure Murphy OFM Cap. She writes that she has met ‘friends of poor Tomás [Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap.] who had just come from America. Immediately after his death the leaders of A.A.R.I.R. made a request on superior Fr. Joseph [Fenlon] to be allowed ship his body to Ireland as Tomás wished. He cabled to Fr. Peter [Bowe]. Reply came two days later: "Bury Fr. Albert in Santa Inez in the usual way". She later notes that care was taken to ensure that Fr. Albert's body was buried in a ‘metal casket hermetically sealed’. She concludes by expressing the hope that her brother's ‘bones will rest in the land he loved so well. Never shall we forget the Franciscan tyrants’.

Memorial card for Pádraig MacPiarais and William MacPiarais

First anniversary card for Major John MacBride

Memorial card for Terence MacSwiney, ‘Lord Mayor of Cork, Died for Ireland in Brixton Prison, England on October 25th, 1920'

Two memorial cards for Peadar Healy (Peadar Ó hÉaluighthe), from Phibsboro in Dublin, who died on 23 April 1919. Healy was a captain in the 1st Battalion of the Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers and was a participant in the 1916 Rising. One of the cards (with Irish text) has a photographic print. It was produced by Brian na Banban, a pseudonym used by Brian O’Higgins (1882-1963), a founding member of the Volunteers and himself a 1916 veteran.

Memorial card for Liam Mellows, Rory O’Connor, Joseph (‘Joe’) McKelvey and Richard (‘Dick’) Barrett who were executed by firing squad in Mountjoy Jail in Dublin on 8 December 1922.