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Typescript copy of last letter of Capt. Seán Mac Aodha [Seán Heuston] to his sister, ‘an Irish nun’.

Copy note from Major W.S. Lennon, Commandant, Kilmainham Detention Barracks, to Fr. Aloysius Travers OFM Cap. The note reads: ‘The Prisoner H.T. Pearse [sic] desires to see you and you have permission to visit him. Failing you he would be glad to see any of the Capucines [sic]’.

Copy note ‘taken from a postcard (blood-stained) taken from the breast pocket of a dead German soldier by young Canniffe of Barrick St., Cork – Dec. 1914’. It is added ‘The p[ost] c[ard] was sent to Canniffe’s father by young Canniffe’. In German.

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.

Copy letter from Roger Casement, Pentonville Prison, to his chaplain, Fr. E.F. Murnane, regarding the progress of his appeal against the indictment of high treason. With a letter (2 Aug. 1916) from E.F. Murnane, The Presbytery, Dockhead, [Bermondsey, London, S.E.], in the same hand, to George Gavan Duffy regarding Casement’s last hours. Includes a copy extract from a letter from the Prison Chaplain giving a brief account of Casement’s piety before his execution. The file also includes an original letter from Roger Casement, Wellington Club, Grosvenor Place, S.W., to Francis H. Cowper (16 Dec. 1903) declaring that all is well him ‘but fearful Congo row is brewing and I shall be the storm centre I fear’. He adds 'Give the brindled John my love and a kiss on his black nose. I wish I were in Lisbon now …’. The ‘brindled John’ was presumably a domestic cat or dog owned by Cowper; brindled referring to a specific type of patchy colouring most commonly associated with the patterned fur of cats. It is unknown how this letter was acquired by the Capuchin friars but it is likely that it was given to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. for safekeeping by an nationalist acquaintance.

Photocopy of a letter from Fr. Michael O'Shea OFM Cap., Capuchin Franciscan College, Rochestown, County Cork, to Winifred Etheridge, c/o Major F. Etheridge DSO, Broadway Cottage, Littleham, North Exmouth, Devon. The letter (27 January 1923) provides a detailed, eyewitness description of an engagement between Free State soldiers and irregular republicans near Rochestown College in August 1922. Winifred Etheridge was a sister of Ian McKenzie Kennedy, a Scottish-born republican, who died during the battle. The file also includes a photocopy of a letter (26 August 1922) from Nora Lucey, 3 Pembroke Street, Cork, to Mrs McKenzie Kennedy providing further detail on the skirmish and on the death of her son, Ian McKenzie Kennedy. A copy sketch map (drawn by Fr. Michael O'Shea OFM Cap.) showing details of the battle between Free State forces and Anti-Treaty irregulars around Rochestown is also extant in the file.

A copy letter from Fr. Edwin Fitzgibbon OFM Cap. to the Most Rev. Daniel Cohalan, Bishop of Cork, claiming that he knew nothing of Fr. Dominic O'Connor's appointment as chaplain to the IRA until his attention was drawn to a report in the local newspapers.

Copy letter from Fr. Aloysius Travers OFM Cap. to the editor of the 'Irish Catholic' protesting against the ‘obvious and unkind suggestion’ made in relation to Thomas MacDonagh in a recent edition of the paper. Fr Aloysius declared: ‘I feel bound to emphatically assert that his preparation for his last moment manifested a depth of Catholic Faith and a tenderness of piety most edifying and impressive and that he received the rites of his Church with a devotion which not easily be forgotten by The Priest who assisted him’