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The subseries comprises a small collection of papers relating to the Irish Catholic priest and novelist Canon Patrick Sheehan.

Sheehan was born in Mallow in County Cork on 17 March 1852. He was educated at St. Colman’s College in Fermoy. He studied for the priesthood in St. Patrick’s College in Maynooth, County Kildare (1869-75). Sheehan was ordained on 18 April 1875 for the Cloyne diocese and sent on mission to England, where he served in Plymouth and Exeter. He returned to Ireland in 1877 to take up a curacy in his native Mallow. He was appointed parish priest of Doneraile in County Cork in July 1895. In 1903 he was appointed to the Cloyne diocesan chapter; hence he is most frequently referred to as ‘Canon Sheehan of Doneraile’. He was a prolific and successful author, writing a series of articles and essays on a variety of topics, and several novels, including ‘Geoffrey Austin, student’ (1895) and ‘The triumph of failure’ (1898). His most popular work was ‘My new curate’, published in 1900. Much of his writing centred on the issues faced by priests engaged in parochial work in rural Ireland. Sheehan took a keen interest in promoting modern agricultural methods, especially in tillage and dairy farming. He held weekly meetings with his parishioners in Doneraile and advised them in negotiations with their landlords following the passage of Land Purchase Act (Wyndham Act) in 1903. Sheehan also maintained a life-long friendship with the agrarian agitator William O’Brien (1852-1928). Canon Sheehan was diagnosed as suffering from cancer in 1910. Following a lengthy residence at the South Infirmary in Cork, he died on 5 October 1913. He was buried at the entrance to his church in Doneraile. A bronze statue of Canon Sheehan by Francis William Doyle Jones (1873-1938) was unveiled not far from his grave in October 1925.

Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap., the editor of ‘The Capuchin Annual’, was interested in Canon Sheehan’s literary career. Much of the material listed here was compiled for a special supplement marking the centenary of Canon Sheehan’s birth published in ‘The Capuchin Annual’ in 1952. A good portion of the original material was seemingly acquired by Fr. Senan from Presentation Sisters who resided in Doneraile and who were acquainted with Canon Sheehan during his lifetime.

The subseries comprises a small collection of papers relating to James Joseph O’Kelly, a Fenian, journalist, and nationalist politician. Born in Dublin in 1842, O’Kelly was sent to London at a very young age to learn sculpting from his uncle John Lawlor (c.1820-1901). His three brothers were artists, including the distinguished painter Aloysius O’Kelly (1853-c.1941). He was sworn into the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1860 and joined the French Foreign Legion in 1863. He later distinguished himself as a journalist with the ‘New York Herald’. As the paper’s war correspondent, O’Kelly reported on the Cuban revolt against Spanish rule in 1873. Subsequently, O’Kelly accompanied the United States Army in its war against the Sioux and reported on the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, otherwise known as ‘Custer’s Last Stand’. Upon his return to Ireland, O’Kelly became a staunch supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell and the Home Rule movement. He represented the Roscommon constituency in the House of Commons as an MP from 1880 to 1916. O’Kelly was central to what was called the ‘New Departure’ which bound together the forces of land agitation, Fenianism, and parliamentary politics in the 1870s and 1880s. He died in London on 22 December 1916.

The small collection of papers listed here relate to O’Kelly’s efforts to garner support for an Irish brigade to fight on the French side during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71). Like almost all Irish Catholics O’Kelly supported the French during the conflict. The section includes letters from O’Kelly’s acquaintances and fellow nationalists, including John O’Mahony (1815-1877), the founder of the Fenian Brotherhood, Patrick James Smyth (1823-1885), a Home Rule MP, and John O’Connor Power (1846-1919). The file also includes a letter from Fr. Patrick Lavelle (1825-1886), a Mayo-born priest and nationalist agitator. Despite success in forming an Irish ambulance unit for the French army, the sudden fall of Paris and the French defeat at the end of January 1871 effectively ended O’Kelly’s project to raise an Irish brigade. In February 1871 O’Kelly went to America and embarked upon his journalistic career.

The documents listed below were found within an envelope annotated ‘Fenians’. However, it is unclear how (and from whom) Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap. may have obtained O'Kelly's papers.

The subseries comprises a small collection of papers (including photographs) relating to Dom Columba Marmion OSB, an Irish Benedictine abbot and spiritual writer.

Joseph Marmion was born in Dublin on 1 April 1858 to an Irish father and a French mother. On the completion of his secondary studies, he was received at the seminary in Clonliffe College in Dublin in January 1874. He completed his preparation for the priesthood in Rome and was ordained there in 1881. On returning to Dublin, he was appointed professor of philosophy at Clonliffe. On 21 November 1886 he entered the newly founded Belgian abbey of Maredsous, with which, by virtue of the Benedictine vow of stability, he was to be associated for the rest of his life. On commencing his life as a Benedictine, he took Columba as his religious name. The first thirteen years of his monastic life (1886-99) were spent at Maredsous itself. In 1899 he was sent as prior and professor of theology to the abbey of Mont-César in Louvain, Belgium, where he remained for ten years. He was appointed the third abbot of Maredsous in 1909, and he remained there for the rest of his life. He died in Maredsous on 20 January 1923. The first of Marmion’s great spiritual books, ‘Christ, the life of the soul’, was published to considerable acclaim in 1916. This was followed in quick succession by ‘Christ in His mysteries’ (1919), and ‘Christ the ideal of the monk’ (1922). Collectively, these books are seen as classics of Christian spirituality. Dom Columba Marmion OSB was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 3 September 2000.

The subseries comprises a small collection of records relating to various Irish landlord defence associations and related loyalist and unionist political organisations in the late nineteenth century. The collection includes mostly printed circulars, fliers, and ephemera sent to members of these organisations. The goal of these interrelated associations was to defend the rights and interests of landed proprietors in Ireland. The organisations were set up in response to the activities of the Land League, a tenant farmer movement, which had as its primary aim the reform and eventual abolition of landlordism in Ireland.

The collection includes records generated by the Property Defence Association (PDA) which was formed in Dublin in December 1880 to assist landlords targeted by the Land League or by rural agitation in general. Led by James Stopford, 5th Earl of Courtown (1823-1914), the association served writs on tenants, provided (often armed) caretakers for evicted holdings, supplied labourers to boycotted landlords, and bought stock and farms at sheriffs’ sales. The Orange Emergency Committee, established by the loyalist Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, also in December 1880, had similar functions to the Property Defence Association. Both the PDA and Orange Emergency Committee were subscription-based aid organisations. The Irish Landowners' Convention was set up in early 1888 to protect the interests of landowners in the face of agrarian agitation and legislative reforms which enabled tenant proprietorship. James Hamilton , 2nd Duke of Abercorn (1838-1913), was elected its first president and he led the organisation for nearly a decade.

The collection also includes a small number of records relating to the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union (ILPU), a unionist political organisation, established to oppose the nationalist Home Rule movement. The ILPU was formed in Dublin in May 1885 by a small number of southern businessmen, landowners, and academics. It sought to unite Liberals and Conservatives on a common platform of maintenance of the union between Great Britain and Ireland. The Irish Unionist Alliance was founded in 1891 by ILPU members, which it replaced. The Irish Unionist Alliance (IUA), also known as the Irish Unionist Party, was led for much of its existence by Colonel Edward James Saunderson (1837-1906) and later by William St John Brodrick, 1st Earl of Midleton (1856-1942).

Finally, the collection also includes a small number of fliers and printed ephemera relating to by-elections for the constituency of Trinity College (University of Dublin) in 1875 and in 1887. The college constituency was dominated by a Conservative and Unionist electorate. In January 1875, Edward Gibson, later 1st Baron Ashbourne (1837-1913), was elected for the Conservatives to serve as MP for Trinity College, Dublin. Dodgson Hamilton Madden (1840-1928) was elected Conservative MP for the university in the July 1887 by-election.

Internal evidence suggests that this material was originally assembled by John Ribton Garstin (1836-1917), a landlord and unionist, who served as High Sheriff of County Louth from 1880 to 1881. It has however not been ascertained how these records were acquired by Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap., the editor of ‘The Capuchin Annual’.

This subseries includes a large collection of the correspondence of Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap. The subseries includes letters from many prominent Irish political, literary, artistic, and religious figures. Notable correspondents include Maud Gonne MacBride, Jack B. Yeats, Georgie Yeats, Seán O’Sullivan, Michael Healy, and the sculptors Clare Sheridan and Seamus Murphy. Prominent Irish writers represented in the correspondence include Pearse Hutchison, Benedict Kiely, Seamus MacManus, Francis MacManus, Francis McCullagh, Kathleen M. Murphy, William Frederick Paul Stockley, Germaine Stockley, Ernie O'Malley, Daniel Corkery, Máirín Cregan, D.L. Kelleher, Helena Concannon, Alice Curtayne, and Denis Gywnn. Other notable correspondents include Aodh de Blacam, Frank Duff, Aloys Georg Fleishmann, Michael A. Bowles (the founder of the National Symphony Orchestra), Frank Ryan, Thomas MacGreevey, Sophie Raffalovich O’Brien, Robert Monteith, T.J. Kiernan, Margaret Mary Pearse, Joseph Patrick Walshe (Irish Ambassador to the Holy See), Victor Waddington, and Charles E. Kelly. The collection also includes letters from significant political figures such as Seán T. O’Kelly, Gerald Boland, James Ryan, Richard Mulcahy, and Seán MacBride.

Letters from several Irish language authors and cultural revivalist figures such as Monsignor Pádraig De Brún, Tomás Ó Con Cheanainn, Seán Ó Súilleabháin, Seán Ó Cuirrín, Tadhg Ó Donnchadha (‘Torna’), Pádraig Ó Siochfhradha (‘An Seabhac’), Tomás Ó Muircheartaigh, Seán Ó Ciarghusa, Gearóid Mac Spealáin, Aindrias Ó Muimhneacháin and Críostóir Ó Floinn are also present in the collection. There are also many letters from prominent religious and church figures such as Archbishop John D’Alton, Archbishop Joseph Walsh, Bishop William MacNeely, Fr. Thomas O’Donnell CM (Rector of All Hallows College, Dublin), Archbishop Redmond Prendiville, Archbishop Thomas O’Donnell, Fr. Paschal Robinson OFM, Archbishop Gerald O’Hara, Bishop John Dignan, Archbishop Anselm Edward John Kenealy OFM Cap., Archbishop Sylvester Mulligan OFM Cap., Canon Patrick Rogers, Fr. Terence L. Connolly SJ (Librarian, Boston College, Massachusetts), and Bishop Timothy Phelim O’Shea OFM Cap. Fr. Senan’s most prolific correspondent (in terms of quantity of letters) was Joseph O’Connor (Seosamh Ó Conchubhair), a writer from Fossa near Killarney in County Kerry. O’Connor seemingly exerted an early literary influence on Fr. Senan who consistently addressed him as ‘teacher’. The writer invariably signed his letters to Fr. Senan by using the pen name ‘Jocundus’. The files also include letters from Capuchin friars, advertisers, sales representatives, printers, and other individuals involved in the production of the ‘The Capuchin Annual’.

The subseries comprises a large collection of bound volumes containing photographic material, newspaper and magazine clippings, original historical records and ephemera compiled by Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap., the editor of ‘The Capuchin Annual’. The content of the volumes is extremely varied and, in many instances, includes rare original records reflecting Moynihan’s interest in Irish history, and particularly the revolutionary period. Some of the material complements content published in ‘The Capuchin Annual’ with several of the original photographs reproduced in various editions of the periodical. Other content (especially the clippings) is suggestive of Moynihan’s eclectic interest in Irish church history, Franciscan history, antiquities, literature, Gaelic culture, historiography, and the contemporary political and economic situation in Ireland especially during the Second World War.

This section includes records relating to the financial and business affairs of the Capuchin Publications Office. The files include orders and receipts, account books and journals, associated with the printing and publishing of the 'Annual'.

A very large collection of metal stereotypes and photoengraving plates (most of which are mounted on wooden blocks) used for printing purposes for 'The Capuchin Annual'. Photoengraving was a process used in preparing illustrations for printing by transferring images to metal plates by a combination of photography and acid etching. Photoengraving was widely used in making plates for various printing processes, reproducing a wide variety of graphics such as lettering, line drawings and photographs. A stereotype consisted of engravings from a drawing or from an illustration. If required, duplicate stereotypes could be set beside text composed on a linotype machine and headings in hand-set type. Photoengraving plates and stereotype blocks were frequently mass-produced for advertisements and were sent to various printers, newspapers and publishers. These photoengraving plates and stereotype blocks were transferred (many still extant in filing cabinets) to archival storage following the closure of the Capuchin Publications Office in 1977. Many of the plates and blocks are numbered but only a few have identifying captions or annotations.

The sub-series contains proofs and pulls from block printing for illustrations and visual content published in 'The Capuchin Annual'.

The subseries comprises a small collection of correspondence and family papers relating to William Woodlock (1832-1890), a barrister, and Dublin Police Court Magistrate.

William Woodlock was a member of a prominent and well-connected middle-class Catholic family. His grandfather was William Paul Woodlock (c.1780-1834). Originally a native of Roscrea in County Tipperary, in 1798 he moved to Dublin where he established a successful hardware business. One of his sons, Bartholomew Woodlock (1819-1902), was an influential Catholic clergyman, the founder of All Hallows College in Dublin (1842), a founding member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Ireland (1844), and the second rector (1861-79) of the Catholic University of Ireland (now University College Dublin). He also served as Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise from 1879 to 1895. Bartholomew Woodlock’s sister Joanna Woodlock married (1829) the eminent Irish physician Dominic Corrigan (1802-1880). Bartholomew’s brother Thomas Woodlock married (1830) Ellen Mahony (1811-1884), a renowned philanthropist and Catholic charity worker who helped establish the Children’s Hospital on Buckingham Street in Dublin in 1872 (now Temple Street Children’s Hospital). The Reverend Francis Sylvester Mahony (1804-1866) or ‘Father Prout’, the well-known priest, writer, and humourist, was an elder brother of Ellen Woodlock.

William Woodlock was born in Dublin in 1832. He was the son of William Woodlock (1801-1883) and Catherine Woodlock (née Teeling). The elder William was a lawyer and an associate of the nationalist politician Daniel O’Connell. His son William was educated at the Jesuit College in Fribourg and was afterwards a gold medallist in oratory at Trinity College, Dublin. He was called to the Bar during Trinity Term in 1855. He was later appointed a magistrate to the Dublin Police Court. He worked from offices at 13 Hardwicke Place, and later at 15 Mountjoy Square in Dublin. He married Frances Dillon (c.1832-1916) on 4 February 1865. They had one son (Henry Woodlock). William Woodlock was a devout Catholic. He was also a keen scholar and linguist, contributing several articles to the Jesuit devotional magazine, ‘The Irish Monthly’. William Woodlock died (suddenly) in Dublin on 12 June 1890 (aged 58). His funeral was celebrated by his uncle, Bishop Bartholomew Woodlock, and he was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.

The content of this small collection is eclectic and includes family correspondence, photographs, ephemera, and writings pertaining to several generations of the Woodlock family of Dublin. Aside from records directly relating to the legal career of William Woodlock (1832-1890), the collection also includes documents pertaining to his siblings, and to his uncle Bishop Bartholomew Woodlock (1819-1902), and to other Catholic religious connected to the Woodlock family (particularly religious sisters of the Society of the Sacred Heart). A small amount of material relating to Thomas F. Woodlock (1866-1945), a Dublin-born economist who emigrated to the United States in 1892, is also extant. Thomas F. Woodlock was appointed editor of the ‘Wall Street Journal’ in 1905. Thomas F. Woodlock was the elder brother of the Irish Jesuit priest Fr. Francis Woodlock SJ (1871-1940), and a grandnephew of Bishop Bartholomew Woodlock (1819-1902).

Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap., the editor of ‘The Capuchin Annual’, was responsible for compiling this collection, presumably for research purposes.