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This section includes records relating to accounts held by the Capuchin friars of Church Street mostly with the Smithfield branch of the National Bank in Dublin. The National Bank was merged into Bank of Ireland in 1969.

This section includes records relating to the construction and repair history of the Capuchin Friary of St. Mary of the Angels, Church Street, Dublin. The subseries includes specifications for buildings, correspondence, bills of cost for construction, property upkeep and improvement, and contracts for repair and servicing of machinery.

The Catholic Boys’ Brigade was founded by Fr. Benvenutus Guy OSFC (1860-1927), a Capuchin friar, in March 1894. Mainly composed of impoverished children from the Church Street area, the organisation was initially called St. Joseph’s Boys’ Brigade. The stated objects of the Brigade were ‘to crush vice and evil habits among boys, to instruct them thoroughly in the Christian doctrine … to give them habits of obedience, discipline, and self-respect and love for ecclesiastical authority and holy religion and to promote their moral, physical and temporal well-being’. The idea of forming a Brigade for the Catholic boys of Dublin sprung from the success achieved by the Protestant Boys’ Brigade. The first meeting hall of the Brigade was in a house in Smithfield which was rented at 5s per week. This meeting was held on 24 April 1894 with nine boys in attendance. The organisation grew rapidly. The Brigade Hall was soon relocated to a property (formerly a smelting foundry) at 156 Church Street which was purchased for the sum of £300. The organizing committee also succeeded in obtaining the use of an old vegetable market at the rear of the Hall which was used as a drill yard in 1895. The newly furnished hall and gallery could hold 1,500 attendees. A uniform was supplied to each enrolled boy consisting of a sash, a cap and a badge. An important aspect of the Brigade’s activities was physical exercise and participants routinely trained in ‘physical drilling, figure marching, squad and company drills’. A band was also established under the supervision of Fr. Sebastian O’Brien OSFC (1867-1931). A night-school for instructing illiterate young boys was founded in October 1899 and soon attracted thirty-five students. Religious instruction was supplied by the Capuchin friars. This was initially performed by Fr. Benvenutus Guy OSFC and later by Fr. Paul Neary OSFC (1857-1939). In 1904 the Church Street Capuchins transferred trusteeship of the properties owned by the Catholic Boys’ Brigade to lay stewardship.

This section includes records of community meetings held in the Capuchin Friary, Church Street, Dublin.

A Capuchin chapel has stood on Church Street from at least 1720. The present-day Church of St. Mary of the Angels was designed James Joseph McCarthy (1817-1882) in a decorated Gothic style. McCarthy was also responsible for St. Saviour’s Dominican Church on Dominick Street in Dublin (also constructed in the fourteenth-century Gothic style), Mount Argus Church in Dublin, Maynooth College Chapel, and parish churches in Celbridge and Kilcock in County Kildare. The foundation stone for St. Mary of the Angels was laid by the Most Rev. Paul Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin, on 12 June 1868. The sermon for the occasion was preached by the celebrated Dominican preacher, Fr. T.A. Burke OP (1830-1883). The building was constructed under the supervision of the architect and was completed in 1881. The builders were Hammond of Drogheda. Fr. Daniel Patrick O’Reilly OSFC (1831-1894) was responsible for the raising of funds for the church’s construction and adornment. Two side-altars, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to St. Francis, were installed in 1876. They were the work of Farrell and Sons of North Gloucester Street Lower (now Seán McDermott Street). Their most famous works in Dublin are the monuments to Archbishop John Troy and Cardinal Cullen in the Pro-Cathedral on Marlborough Street, and the statues of Sir John Grey and William Smith O’Brien on O’Connell Street. This section includes records relating to the construction and maintenance of the Sacred Heart Chapel which was built as an aisle church in 1908-9. This chapel was later enclosed and converted into a large sacristy.

The section includes documents pertaining to demands for and payments of ground rents by the Capuchin friars.