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Letters from Éamon de Valera, Sean F. Lemass, Seán T. O’Kelly, Oscar Traynor and John A. Costello concerning offers to defray the expenses involved in the repatriation and later accepting invitations to attend the Mass and re-internment of Fathers Albert and Dominic at Rochestown Capuchin Friary, County Cork.

Letter to Tim Healy from various republican internees asking him intercede in a dispute with prison authorities. The manuscript provides background to the dispute. The letter is in two distinctive hands and is (copy) signed by ‘Michael Staines, Head Leader; James Murphy, leader, no. 1 room; Edward A. Morkan, leader, no. 2 room; R.J. Mulcahy, leader, no. 3 room; Thomas D. Sinnott, Leader no. 4 Room’. The letter reads:
‘Recently the military authorities in charge of the Camp here have adopted such an attitude of consistently vindictive injustice towards us that we are reluctantly compelled to believe that there must be some ulterior motive behind it. … We can do very little to help ourselves, cut off as we are from all the world, and strictly prohibited – officially – from sending out a single complaint’.
In September 1917 Healy acted as counsel for the family of the dead Sinn Féin hunger striker Thomas Ashe. He was one of the few King’s Counsel to provide legal services to members of Sinn Féin in various legal proceedings in both Ireland and England after the 1916 Rising. This included acting for those illegally interned in 1916 in Frongoch in North Wales.

Letter to Lena May Murphy, Cork, from Fr. Dominic O’Connor OFM Cap. (23 Nov. 1918). It reads: ‘I must thank you very sincerely for your great kindness to my dead father in his last illness. All at home are never done telling everybody of you and your wonderful goodness’. This letter was sent by [Maire] Murphy, 35 Mercier Park, Curragh Road, Cork, to Fr. Nessan Shaw OFM Cap. (13 Nov. 1991), explaining that Lena May Murphy was her late aunt. With a copy photograph of Lena May Murphy, and notes by Fr. Nessan re Lena May who worked as a nurse caring for elderly patients.

Letter from W.T. Cosgrave, Reading Internment Camp, to Fr. Aloysius Travers OFM Cap., conveying his sympathy on hearing of the death of Fr. Aloysius’s brother. Cosgrave concludes by declaring his ‘kindest remembrance to all your Fathers – particularly Fathers Augustine and Albert and of course yourself’.

Letter from William Walsh, Archbishop of Dublin, to Cardinal William Henry O’Connell, Archbishop of Boston. The printed letter refers to the former’s donation of £105 to the Irish National Fund inaugurated by the First Dáil.

A letter from William Partridge to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. referring to his arrival in County Mayo.

Letter from William Partridge to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. giving an outline of his life and career in the trade union movement.

Letter from the Most Rev. Daniel Cohalan, Bishop of Cork, to Fr. Edwin Fitzgibbon OFM Cap., Provincial Minister, referring to the withdrawal of Fr. Dominic’s faculties due to his inability to take the examination for renewal of faculties. Bishop Cohalan also refers to his unease on reading an announcement in the papers that Fr. Dominic is to be appointed honorary chaplain to a brigade of the IRA. The Bishop wrote: ‘Now I put it to you that a lay body has no authority to confer an ecclesiastical honour from a lay authority’. He later asks Fr. Edwin: ‘Are you not conceding to a military brigade what belongs essentially to the church?’ With a copy reply from Fr. Edwin claiming that he knew nothing of Fr. Dominic's appointment as chaplain to the IRA until his attention was drawn to a report in the Cork newspapers.

Letter from [T. Martin?], 12 Trinity Street, Dublin, to Fr. Aloysius Travers OFM Cap. enclosing an Irish Volunteer button. One is in brass with a harp decoration. Also enclosed is a uniform badge: I.V. (Irish Volunteers) with green enamel inlay, initials and central harp, the reverse stamped ‘P. Quinn & Co., Belfast’. The letter informed Fr. Aloysius that ‘in searching among the ruins of G.P.O. I found the enclosed. I thought it might interest you and took the liberty of sending it to you’.

Letter from Sr Bernard Heuston OP (1889-1960), Dominican Convent, Galway (a sister of Seán Heuston), to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. thanking him for his remembrance of her brother as the first anniversary of his execution approaches. The letter reads:

‘Dear Fr. Albert
Thank you for your long & interesting letter & above all for your promise of the Mass for poor Jack on Tuesday. I knew that you would not forget him. I can scarcely believe that that awful time is only a year ago & yet in another sense it seems decades away! There seems to be a great many anniversary masses, indeed they seem to have been kept up during the year & I am sure the dear dead ones will obtain many graces for the land they gave their lives for. The number of conversions certainly proves the excellent religious foundation of their patriotism.
I think it does my mother good to have a little chat about Jack sometimes – you sympathise with the cause for which he dies.
I am hoping that when the sad memories of the anniversary have faded somewhat, she will brighten up again – the wound of such a loss will never completely heal.
My mother sent me a list of anniversary Masses – certainly they have got more prayer than most people can dare to expect. The spirit still lives on.
A letter from the Archbishop of Adelaide [the Dublin-born Dominican friar, Robert Spence, 1860-1934] came here yesterday. It was written in or about St. Patrick’s Day & he said that all the meetings held in honour of the Feast were unanimous in their condemnation of the treatment meted out to the Irish by the English government – feeling is strong there.
You must be very pleased by the evident thoroughness of the Countess’ [Markievicz’s] conversion. I shall pray to get prayers for her & for all the others in whom you are interested. Should you be in the west any time during the summer I am sure you will call. I shall be very pleased to see you.
With all kind regards & grateful thanks,
Very sincerely yours
Sr Bernard’