Letter from Austin Stack, prisoner no. 148, Manchester Prison, to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., thanking the ‘friars of Church St.’ for the interest they have shown in their incarcerated ‘fellow countrymen and women’. Reference is also made to their prison conditions and to prisoner Fionán Lynch. With cover. The letter reads: ‘Your letter (which was written on the day following our removal from Belfast) was sent on after me to this place and I received it on the 3rd. I should not have got it at all in Belfast the way things were there. Of course we deem it good of you to think of us in this way but this is only what I should expect of you and the other Friars of Church Street and I hope that we may prove worthy of the interest in us shown by our fellow countrymen and women. There are ten of us here (including Fionán Lynch whom you know). We are devitalised of course after fourteen weeks solitary confinement in Belfast, but otherwise we are fairly well. A month hence I expect to be fit again with God’s help. Our good Capuchin fathers will ever be kindly remembered by the Irish prisoners and their friends, God bless you … Aibhistín de Staic’.
Letter from Robert Barton, Mountjoy Gaol, to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., stating that ‘prison life is no affliction to me. I much prefer the rest, seclusion and study of a cell to discoursing in public platforms’. He also discusses his reading of economic literature and affirms that he is learning Irish.
Recollections of visits made to Kevin Barry (executed 1 Nov. 1920); to ‘six young heroes hanged at Mountjoy Prison, March 14th 1921’; and to Thomas Traynor (executed 26 Apr. 1921). The recollections refer to visits made by unnamed religious sisters. The transcripts focus on the piety and courage shown by the condemned prisoners. It reads: ‘All the young men were teetotallers and some of them abstained from smoking. We noticed two empty porter bottles in the grate in Flood’s cell. When he saw me looking at them he said “you know our friends can bring us in now anything one asks for. The Black and Tan guards here are decent to us and we ordered in drink for them”’.
Letter from Liam Mellows, Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, to his mother. Written at 5 a.m., shortly before his execution. It reads: ‘The time is short and much I would like to say must go unsaid. But you will understand in such moments heart speaks to heart. At 3.30 this morning we (Dick Barrett, Rory O’Connor, Joe McKelvey and I) were informed that we were to be “executed as a reprisal”. … I go to join Tone and Emmett, the Fenians, Tom Clarke, Connolly, Pearse, Kevin Barry and Childers. My last thoughts will be on God, and Ireland, and you. …. I had hopes that some day I might rest in some quiet place – beside Grandfather and Grandmother in Castletown (Co. Wexford), not amidst the wordly pomps [sic] of Glasnevin but if it is to be the prison clay, it is all the sweeter for many of our best lie here …’.
