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Letter from Sinéad de Valera, Greystones, County Wicklow, to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. referring to the suggestion of holding a ‘national novena to the Sacred Heart’ for the welfare of Ireland.

Letter from Sinéad de Valera to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. referring to her anxiety over ‘the midnight raid and Saturday’s paper’. She adds ‘Dev is in Gloucester prison. I had a message from the Governor saying to send on some clothes’.

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’

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 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.