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 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 Julia Breen, Upper Church Street, Tipperary, to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., thanking him for all ‘the trouble you took with our prisoners while they were suffering in Mountjoy, it was prayer and the masses for our prisoners that saved them from death’. With an annotation in Fr. Albert’s hand on the first page: ‘Letter from Commandant Breen’s (I.R.A.) mother. He was on hunger strike at Mountjoy Jail and it was there I met his mother’
Letters to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. from Eva Gore Booth, 33 Fitzroy Square, mostly referring to her sister Constance Markievicz, the East Clare by-election and to the publication of an article in the 'Catholic Bulletin'. With covers.
Letters from Kathleen Clarke (wife of Tom Clarke), 15 Barrington Street, Limerick, to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., mostly concerning family news. She also wrote: ‘Limerick does not agree with me. I am tired all the time here. I have an unsettled feel here too … . I find it hard to realise that my home and everything is gone, the only thing left is hope, and if our hopes for Ireland’s future are fulfilled the sacrifices will have been worth the making’. She also refers to Ernest Blythe: ‘We had hoped for better for him. I suppose he is left Arbour Hill by this and there would be no use in writing to him
Letters from Nannie O’ Rahilly (wife of ‘The O’Rahilly’), to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., expressing her regret that a mass in honour of the rebels of 1916 could not be held in Church St. Friary ‘as you did so much for the men who died’. Later she added ‘Thank God we had the Mass at Mt. Argus, it was most touching and edifying and as you say the spirit was splendid, without any outward demonstration. So the priests who refused us might easily have had more courage’.
Letter from Áine b. Ė. Ceannt, [wife of Ėamonn Ceannt], 44 Oakley Rd., Ranelagh, noting that ‘it is terrible to find that the rebels at Church St. are not only self-willed but so mightily independent’. She compliments Father Albert for saying the mass in Irish: ‘I felt how pleased poor Eamonn would be’. She gives news of the ailing condition of Muriel MacDonough’s ‘poor soon [who] has to go to a nursing home and lie on his back for months’. She also refers to the North Roscommon by-election and a well-received letter from Fr. Augustine Hayden which was printed in the Roscommon Herald
