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The note reads: ‘The General Officer Commander in Chief directs that every facility be given to his Revered Father Albert [Bibby] OSFC to visit rebel prisoners at any of the places of detention or internment, to hear confessions and administer the rights of his Church, at all times’. With typescript copy.

The file includes a letter from Fr. Albert to Fr. Edwin Fitzgibbon OFM Cap., Minister Provincial [Dec. 1922], referring to his time in the parish. He declares that the priests there have no interest in Ireland. ‘It doesn’t count here apparently’, and added, ‘unemployment [is] very serious. The “Daily News” urges the setting up “unemployment committees” …’. Later, Canon Palmer, Ilford, Essex, wrote to Fr. Peter Bowe OFM Cap., Provincial Minister, Church Street, Dublin, seeking to have Fr. Albert come over to cover for one of his clerical assistants who is unwell. On 11 Oct. 1923 Fr. Palmer wrote: ‘I would gladly give him all accommodation and he could help us. In strict confidence with yourself I wish to say at the same time that if there is any radical objection to his coming or having facilities. I would not presume to ask you at all’. With letter from Fr. Peter Bowe to Fr. Albert granting permission to ‘absent yourself from the Province for the benefit of your health, and to go to Very Rev. Canon Palmer of Ilford … to help in Parochial Work during the absence of the Senior Curate, until the end of February 1924’. The file also includes a letter from Fr. Sylvester Mulligan OFM Cap. to Fr. Peter Bowe OFM Cap., regarding the sending of Fr. Albert to Ilford, Esssex. Some political references are made by Fr. Albert in a letter to Fr. Stanislaus Kavanagh OFM Cap. (4 Mar. 1924). He wrote: ‘I am able to follow the events pretty well. Tis an awful pity that the being in power of the Labour Party is not availed of to scrap or modify the Treaty – a united body at home could now get anything – not that Labour is pro-Irish. It is not, but … because of the support on which it depends it could not turn down a united Ireland – or a large section demanding it’

The file includes letters from various American Associations for the Recognition of the Irish Republic to Fr. Peter Bowe OFM Cap., Provincial Minister, re the Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. Includes:
Letter from Mrs John Flanagan, Secretary, Liam Mellows Council of the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic, Portland, enclosing a resolution protesting against the exiling of Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. and other Capuchin Priests. With annotated cover: ‘Not Answered, F[ather] P[eter]. Deserves none except mind own business’. 25 Mar. 1925.
Letter from Martin Howard, American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic, 3 East 42nd Street, New York, enclosing a resolution condemning the ‘victimization’ of Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. and other Capuchin priests who merely expressed ‘a deep rooted love of their motherland, Ireland … and were therefore looked on as a menace to the so-called Free State Government in Ireland …’. 21 Apr. 1925.
Letter from Loretta A. Ryder, Secretary, Kevin Barry Council of the American Association for the Recognition of the Irish Republic, enclosing a resolution condemning ‘the unchristian conduct of the Superiors of the Capuchin Order of Priests in Ireland in exiling Father Albert and other Priests of their Order because they had the courage to stand up for Ireland’s rightful independence’. 4 May 1925

Letters from Brigid E. Whelan, Staplestown Rd., Carlow, to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., regarding a subscription from local people ‘to have a Mass said in the Cathedral, Carlow, for the repose of the soul of the I[rish] V[olunteers] who died in connection with the 1916 Rising which proposal was refused by the administrator ’. (2 May 1916). She later reprobates the ‘clergy [who] had abandoned the cause of their motherland’. She added ‘Thank God that there are such men as you and your “Beloved Brethren”’. (4 May 1917).

Letters from D. O’Callaghan, prisoner no. q 128, Portland Prison, to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., Church Street, referring to his health. The official letter states that O’Callaghan is in ‘bad health’ and notes that if he behaves well, shall ‘be allowed to write another letter about 19 Jan. 1918’. A letter M.H. Smith, medical officer, Portland Prison, reports that O’Callaghan ‘is in his usual health’. With cover