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A poem by William Allingham titled ‘The Frightful Child of Ballyshannon’ and dated 1 October 1849. As noted in Allingham’s introduction, the poem refers to a story that a ghostly apparition (taking the form of a child) haunted Robert Stewart, better known as Lord Castlereagh (1769-1822), a leading Anglo-Irish statesman and politician, probably best remembered for his role in suppressing the 1798 Rebellion and in securing the passage of the Act of Union in 1800.

The verse recounts a local tradition that Stewart was visited by the spectre while inspecting a military barracks in Ballyshannon in County Donegal. Allingham suggests that Stewart was subject to an ‘unusual gloom and melancholy for a period after the spectral visit’. Stewart was known to be susceptible to paranoia and later severe mental health problems. It is likely that Allingham’s poem was also influenced by the fact that Stewart was a widely reviled figure in Ireland.

The last stanza of Allingham’s poem reads:

Then, through the Holy Island still
Were nests of goblins left, to fill
Each mouldy nook & corner close,
Like spiders in an ancient house:
And this one read within the face
Intruding on it’s dwelling-place,
Lines of woe, despair, & blood;
By Spirits only understood;
As mortals now can read the same
In the letters of his name
Who in that haunted chamber lay,
When we call him — Castlereagh.

A short review piece on ‘Paddy the Cope’, an autobiography of Patrick Gallagher who ‘brought co-operatives to Ireland’. A note suggests that this review was published in ten Catholic newspapers.

A letter from Patrick Gallagher, Dungloe, County Donegal, to Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap. forwarding reviews of his book and referring to his impending departure from Cobh for the United States.

A letter from Charles Lynch, 29 Antrobus Street, London, to Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap. confirming the receipt of an edition of ‘The Capuchin Annual’ and referring to the copy letters he recently sent to the friar regarding his experiences during the 1916 Rising. Lynch asks whether his letters will be published in the ‘Annual’. He writes ‘The main reason I sent it was because I read various histories of that event and all differed substantially from the truth, and I thought as a matter of history, the truth so far as I saw it should be known to all’.

A copy of a letter from Charles Lynch to ‘Willie’ giving an account of the opening hostilities of the Easter Rising. Reference is made to skirmishes, ambushes, and military casualties around the Four Courts on the North Quays and the General Post Office on Sackville Street in Dublin. The letter is titled ‘Letters from Dublin. Easter 1916. 1st Letter’.

A copy of a letter from Charles Lynch to ‘Willie’ referring to attacks on the magazine fort in the Phoenix Park and on Dublin Castle during the Rising. Lynch also refers to various rumours such as a plan to shell the Four Courts and the arrival of army reinforcements from England. He also mentions the successful use of a ‘locomotive boiler casing on a Guinness motor wagon’ to assault rebel-held positions. The letter is titled ‘Letters from Dublin. Easter 1916. 2nd Letter’.

A copy of a letter from Charles Lynch to ‘Willie’ referring to his company taking positions in a cinema on Dame Street during the latter stages of the Rising. He notes that the cinema had previously been ‘occupied by Sinn Feiners who had been driven out by the bayonet, and the walls were bullet marked in several places’. He also describes the shelling and destruction of Sackville Street and the North Quays. He affirms that his duty was to ‘prevent the Halfpenny Bridge being used as a way of [rebel] escape to our side of the river’. He later describes the capitulation of some of the rebel garrisons, and particularly the surrender of Constance Markievicz. He refers to the mistakes made by the rebels during the insurrection and to the ‘unchecked looting’ which took place. He also suggests that ‘a noticeable change took place’ upon the arrival of General Sir John Maxwell. Thereafter the fighting ‘took an ordered course’.

Reference is also made to the youth and inexperience of the British soldiers, the casualties suffered by the army, and the reasons for their heavy losses. Incidences of indiscriminate shooting and civilian deaths are also mentioned. Lynch wrote ‘Personally, I never used my rifle through the whole of the trouble, not that I would have done so had I seen a definite enemy’. Finally, Lynch expresses his opinions on the reasons for the outbreak of the Rising. The letter is titled ‘Letters from Dublin. Easter 1916. 5th Letter’. An annotation in pencil on the second page reads ‘Charles M. Lynch / 29 Antrobus Street, SW1’. The annotation is dated 28 January 1942.

A note from Commandant Thomas Hunter to Commandant Éamon de Valera during the 1916 Rising. The pencilled note reads ‘Have sent word to headquarters / will let you know result at once / Commandant [Thomas] Hunter’.

A letter from Edward Massey, bookseller and antiquarian, 3 Crampton Quay, Dublin, to Fr. Senan Moynihan offering for sale a ‘rare collection’ of twenty-six broadsides relating to the 1798 Rebellion. Massey also offers three ‘old flint pistols said to belong [to] a member of a family who actually took part on the Irish side in the rebellion’.

A copy of a letter carrying a report by General Ralph Dundas referring to a violent clash with rebels around the town of Kilcullen (referred to in the bulletin as ‘Kilcullen Bridge’) in County Kildare.