A report titled ‘housing in Dublin’ by Fr. Angelus Healy OFM Cap. referring to the corporation-sponsored Church Street and Beresford Street Improvement Schemes. Fr. Angelus refers to the history of Capuchin involvement in the campaign for housing improvement in the areas around Church Street. He wrote: ‘The Capuchins were directly responsible for the improvements that began in 1890, when Father Columbus [Maher] erected the Father Mathew Hall. Later on Father Nicholas [Murphy] obtained possession of the area extending from the Hall down to the Church. This was a very insanitary area, with a number of courts and alleys of ill-repute. It is now occupied by an extension of the Hall and by the garden attached to the Capuchin Friary. Reference is also made in the report into the Church Street Tenement Disaster of September 1913. This article was published in 'The Father Mathew Record', Vol. 27, No. 8 (Aug. 1934), pp 407-16.
Photograph of the High Altar, sanctuary and interior of St. Mary of the Angels, Church Street. A single unidentified friar is sitting in the pews. The photographer/studio is credited as Thomas F. Geoghegan, 6 Sackville Street, Dublin
Photographic print of a group of Capuchin friars playing croquet in the garden of the Church Street Friary. The game is taking place in front of a high wall which fronts out onto Bow Street. Fr. Paul Neary OSFC and Fr. Aloysius Travers OSFC appear to be participating in the game.
Letter from W.V. Nagle, National Bank, 34 College Green, Dublin, to Fr. Augustine Hayden OSFC, guardian, Church Street Friary, referring to the ‘American draft’ of £59 5s 6d and enclosing copies of two accounts of the Capuchins with the aforementioned Bank.
Letter from the Most Reverend Henry Henry, Bishop of Down and Connor, to [Fr. Mark McDonnell OSFC], referring to a request made by one of his Belfast priests to establish a Boys’ Brigade similar to the one founded on Church Street. Archbishop Henry asks for a copy of the rules and inquires whether ‘the results produced would justify the expenditure of time and trouble and I suppose funds’.
An unsigned draft letter to Fr. Benignus Gannon, Provincial Minister of the Order of Friars Minor, enclosing copies of the preliminary rules and constitution of the Catholic Boys’ Brigade. The author requests ‘a statement as to how far your Order on Merchants’ Quay, Dublin, is identified with the said “Catholic Boys’ Brigade” …’. Reference is also made to the need for the three Capuchin friars identified as clerical trustees of the organisation to sign over their trusts.
