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 Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. from [signature indecipherable], St. Brigid’s Clara, giving family news and referring to Fr. Albert’s exile in America. With cover annotated on reverse: ‘Fr. Albert died on Feb. 14th [1925]. Return this letter unread, Joseph’
Letter of Fr. Hilary McDonagh OFM Cap., Via Boncompagni, 71, Rome, to Fr. Paul Neary OFM Cap., informing him that he has located a letter from the late Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap, in the archives of the General Capuchin Curia. Fr. Hilary writes: ‘I am informed that it is not usual nor advisable to allow such documents into any hands outside the Curia, so I fear it will not be possible to allow it to be used by any historian of the sad period about which it centres – at least for the present’. With cover.
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 Sister M. Gonzaga, Loreto Convent, Fermoy, County Cork, to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., expressing her hope that the ‘brave Sinn Feiner you are anxious about is safe now’. She also declares that ‘1916 is a year marked in letters of blood, the heart blood of our best and noblest’. She concludes by asking for a prayer for ‘the brave boys you helped to die’.
Letter from Sinn Féin, 23 Suffolk Street, Dublin, to Fr. Peter Bowe OFM Cap., Provincial Minister, Church St., Dublin, forwarding a resolution from the party regarding the recent death of Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. In Irish
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’.
