The sub-series contains records relating to legal issues arising out of the management of Father Mathew Hall, Church Street, Dublin. The records specifically relate to the transfer of ownership of the Hall from elected trustees of the temperance sodality to the Capuchin Franciscan Order. This process was complicated by the legal guarantees required to ‘ensure that the purpose for which the property was acquired, and the Hall originally built would be maintained’. Other issues include negotiations with the representatives of the Merchant Tailors’ School, the original owners of the ground at 131-5 Church Street upon which the Hall was built and with the tenants of cottages on Bow Street and Nicholas Avenue who rented their properties from the Hall trustees.
This sub-series contains the correspondence of solicitors. Most of the letters relate to work connected with property-related transactions and associated fees and bills of cost.
The sub-series contains a collection of original Total Abstinence Society pledge cards. Most of the cards are signed by the pledge-taker and by Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC. The cards were decorated with various temperance symbols and vignettes. An illustration on one side of the cards depicted a scene warning of the dangers of intemperance – a man driven by alcohol to beat his wife. Another illustration showed a scene of temperance – a happy family reading together by the hearth. The cards are listed in chronological order.
