Photocopies of letters from Capt. Rev. Dominic O’Connor OFM Cap., 21 Stationary Hospital, Salonika Forces, M[acedonian] E[xpeditionary] F[orce], and the Capuchin Friary, Fr. Mathew Quay, Cork, to his sister, [Sister Constantine O’Connor?], explaining his reasons for becoming an army chaplain. He wrote: ‘Well someone had to do the work and when those who had done all the recruiting were too cowardly to go there was nothing left except to have us who were anti-recruiters go and help the souls of the soldiers the others had sent out’. He later referred to conditions for the troops he is ministering to: ‘We have had more than half the troops down with malaria, dysentery, sandfly fever etc. and it is fortunate that there was no fighting here’. [c. 1915]. In reference to the political situation he later wrote: ‘There is no use in saying anything about the political situation. England seems set upon forcing conscription on us. And the Irish Nation is equally or rather more determined to oppose it. God protect us!’.
Letter from Seán Tomás Ó Ceallaigh (Sean T. O’Kelly) to Terence MacSwiney referring to the occasion of the beatification of Blessed Oliver Plunkett. A delegation consisting of Count O’Byrne, Professor Stockley and Art O’Brien went to Rome on behalf of the Dáil to represent the Government of the Republic at the beatification ceremonies. Sean T. O’Kelly and Mr. D. Hales, Consul in Italy, were also part of the delegation. In Irish
A tribute to Terence MacSwiney seemingly published in Madrid, Spain, in August 1921. The text of the tribute is given in Spanish with an Irish and English translation. A portrait print of MacSwiney by the Spanish artist Maroto accompanies the text. This copy is signed by his sister Mary MacSwiney (Máire Nic Shuibhne) dated 25 October 1922.
Flier for a commemorative event organised by the Corporation of Cork to mark the deaths of Tomás Mac Curtain and Terence MacSwiney, former Lord Mayors of the city.
Letter from the deputy governor of Parkhurst Prison to Fr. Aloysius Travers OFM Cap., Church Street, re the condition of Fr. Dominic O’Connor OFM Cap. He is in ‘his usual health. He is in hospital and receives any medical attention necessary’.
Letter from the Most Rev. Daniel Cohalan, Bishop of Cork, to Fr. Martin Hyland OFM Cap., Guardian, Rochestown Capuchin Friary, expressing his happiness that Fr. Dominic O’Connor OFM Cap. is back in Cork again. He notes that he ‘has been a good while in prison [and] previous to that he was a war chaplain’, and requests that he prepare for examination for the renewal of faculties to preach and to hear confessions. The examination will be a written test on moral and dogmatic theology. With copy reply from Fr. Edwin Fitzgibbon OFM Cap., Provincial Minister, asserting that ‘owing to the degrading and cruel treatments he suffered for the past thirteen or fourteen months at the hands of the British’ it would be unwise to ask Fr. Dominic to prepare for the aforementioned examination.
Letter from the Most Rev. Daniel Cohalan, Bishop of Cork, to Fr. Edwin Fitzgibbon OFM Cap., Provincial Minister, referring to the withdrawal of Fr. Dominic’s faculties due to his inability to take the examination for renewal of faculties. Bishop Cohalan also refers to his unease on reading an announcement in the papers that Fr. Dominic is to be appointed honorary chaplain to a brigade of the IRA. The Bishop wrote: ‘Now I put it to you that a lay body has no authority to confer an ecclesiastical honour from a lay authority’. He later asks Fr. Edwin: ‘Are you not conceding to a military brigade what belongs essentially to the church?’ With a copy reply from Fr. Edwin claiming that he knew nothing of Fr. Dominic's appointment as chaplain to the IRA until his attention was drawn to a report in the Cork newspapers.
Letter from Fr. Dominic O’Connor OFM Cap., Hermiston, Oregon, to Fr. Edwin Fitzgibbon OFM Cap., regarding the disposition of Stanfield Church and the progress of building works on other churches in his ministry in Oregan. He wrote: ‘As soon as the weather moderates I will begin the building of the Church at Pilot Rock. I intended to call it Santa Clara but I will get a donation of $1,000 if I call it Saint Agnes. What’s in a name? I’ve been called many names myself, few of them as complimentary in the change as this one’.
Memorial cards for Fr. Dominic O’Connor OFM Cap. (with photographic print). ‘Capuchin Pastor of St. Mary of the Angels, Hermiston, Oregon. Civic Chaplain to Lord Mayor Thomas MacCurtain and Lord Mayor Terence MacSwiney, 1920. Died at Bend, Oregon, 17th Oct. 1935’.
Letters from R.G. Browne, Town Clerk, Urban District Council, Westport, and John Maher, Town Clerk, Cashel Urban District Council, offering their sympathies to the Capuchin Order on the death of Fr. Dominic O’Connor OFM Cap. The resolution from Cashel Urban District Council reads: ‘During the martyr struggle of Terence MacSwiney (Lord Mayor of Cork) in Brixton Prison, the late Father Dominic by his attention and fidelity to the noble sufferer and the cause for which he suffers, he has left to Ireland a name that links him with the bravest and most heroic we boast of’.
