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Letter from Br. Alexius Paolucci OFM Cap. (1898-1983) to Fr. Edwin Fitzgibbon OFM Cap., Provincial Minister, on the progress of building work in Northern Rhodesia. He writes: ‘These buildings of course will be of native constructions, up to the time that the Fathers will have enough bricks made to build good buildings’.

The file includes a letter from Fr. Albert to Fr. Edwin Fitzgibbon OFM Cap., Minister Provincial [Dec. 1922], referring to his time in the parish. He declares that the priests there have no interest in Ireland. ‘It doesn’t count here apparently’, and added, ‘unemployment [is] very serious. The “Daily News” urges the setting up “unemployment committees” …’. Later, Canon Palmer, Ilford, Essex, wrote to Fr. Peter Bowe OFM Cap., Provincial Minister, Church Street, Dublin, seeking to have Fr. Albert come over to cover for one of his clerical assistants who is unwell. On 11 Oct. 1923 Fr. Palmer wrote: ‘I would gladly give him all accommodation and he could help us. In strict confidence with yourself I wish to say at the same time that if there is any radical objection to his coming or having facilities. I would not presume to ask you at all’. With letter from Fr. Peter Bowe to Fr. Albert granting permission to ‘absent yourself from the Province for the benefit of your health, and to go to Very Rev. Canon Palmer of Ilford … to help in Parochial Work during the absence of the Senior Curate, until the end of February 1924’. The file also includes a letter from Fr. Sylvester Mulligan OFM Cap. to Fr. Peter Bowe OFM Cap., regarding the sending of Fr. Albert to Ilford, Esssex. Some political references are made by Fr. Albert in a letter to Fr. Stanislaus Kavanagh OFM Cap. (4 Mar. 1924). He wrote: ‘I am able to follow the events pretty well. Tis an awful pity that the being in power of the Labour Party is not availed of to scrap or modify the Treaty – a united body at home could now get anything – not that Labour is pro-Irish. It is not, but … because of the support on which it depends it could not turn down a united Ireland – or a large section demanding it’

Correspondence of Fr. Edwin Fitzgibbon OFM Cap., and Fr. Colman Griffin OFM Cap., with Robert F. Mahony, President, American Association for Recognition of the Irish Republic; Fr. Brendan O’Callaghan OFM Cap., Central Council of Irish County Associations; Eugene Twomey, Secretary, Fianna Fail, Inc., Irish Republican Party of America; Charles F. Tiernan; Joseph O’Byrne of the Fathers’ Albert & Dominic Committee; and the Irish American National Alliance. The letters refer to appeals from various Irish-American republican organizations calling for the repatriation to Ireland of the mortal remains of Fathers Albert Bibby OFM Cap. and Dominic O’Connor OFM Cap.

Letter to Fr. Edwin Fitzgibbon OFM Cap. from Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap. (21 Oct. 1936) re the financial situation of 'The Capuchin Annual' and 'The Father Mathew Record'. Fr. Senan insists that the publications office is ‘solvent’. He adds ‘I am about half-ways through with the 1937 'Annual'. 21,000 copies will be printed. The gross revenue from this edition will be £4,125. … The total cost of the production will be £2,500. The gross profit £1,625; from £800 to £1,000 net profit’. Several account statements are attached including 'The Father Mathew Record' expenses, Sept. 1931-Aug. 1932; distribution accounts for the St. Anthony of Padua publication; Receipt and expenses for 'The Capuchin Annual', 1930-2; Outstanding advertising accounts for 'The Father Mathew Record' and 'The Capuchin Annual', Aug. 1932.

Letters to Fr. Peter Bowe OSFC, Provincial Minister, Fr. Edwin Fitzgibbon OSFC, Fr. Sylvester Mulligan OSFC, Fr. Laurence Dowling OSFC, Fr. Fiacre Brophy OSFC and other Capuchin friars regarding parish missions and retreats. Many of the requests from religious congregations and institutions. The letters refer to retreats in the South Parish (Cork), Eyrecourt (Galway), the Convent of the Poor Clares, Lynton (Devon), Our Lady of Sorrows Capuchin Friary, Peckham (London), Kilrooskey (Roscommon), Crosshaven (Cork), Athy (Kildare), Kinsale (Cork), the Sisters of Mercy Convent, Thurles (Tipperary), the Capuchin Friary, Pantasaph (Wales), Saint Alban’s Convent, Pontypool (Wales), Curragh Army Camp (Kildare), Dunfanaghy (Donegal), Dunmore East (Waterford), Bundoran (Donegal), Mooncoin (Kilkenny), Ballyshannon (Donegal), Sisters of Charity Convent (Dublin), Carmelite Convent, Tallaght (Dublin), Catholic Truth Society (Kerry), Loreto Convent, Navan (Meath), St. Joseph’s Daughters of the Cross Convent, Donaghmore (Tyrone), and the Little Sisters of the Poor Convent (Waterford).

Bound volume containing newspaper clippings providing accounts of the tenement collapse and the subsequent funeral and burial of the seven victims. The clippings also give lists of subscribers to the relief fund established after the disaster. The volume also contains a manuscript list of twenty-seven Capuchin friars at St. Marys of the Angels, Church Street, at Rochestown College, and at Father Mathew’s (Holy Trinity) Church in Cork. The list is headed by Fr. Paul Neary OSFC, ‘the Lord Mayor’s Chaplain’. The list also includes Fr. Joseph Fenlon OSFC, ‘superior of Fr. Mathew’s Church, Cork’, and Fr. Edwin Fitzgibbon OSFC, President, Rochestown College, Cork. The volume also contains a manuscript list of people with private addresses in the environs of Church Street and North King Street. The list also notes ‘Father Mathew Hall’ for all the signatories. This may be a list of members of a religious sodality or, alternatively, a list of subscribers to the Tenement Disaster fund.

Memorandum by Fr. Stanislaus Kavanagh OFM Cap., Provincial Secretary, referring to the discovery in the Church Street Archives in 1922 of a collection of papers labelled ‘Correspondence between Dr. Cullen and the Fathers relative to the New Church in North King Street’. Fr. Stanislaus refers to a loose folio sheet titled ‘Notabilia’ relating to the Baron Hale bequest which was the ‘only authentic expression of an obligation for Masses to be found … in the Archives’. (See CA CS/2/3/2). The memorandum affirms that the ‘Notabilia’ document was submitted by Fr. Stanislaus to a definitory meeting in November 1922 which ordered him to investigate the whereabouts of the investment and interest money referred to in the bequest. The memorandum reports Fr. Stanislaus’s findings in relation to the Hale bequest. It notes that in 1893 the legacy, which had been converted to stocks worth £181 11s 5d, was transferred to the Commissioners for the Reduction of National Debt and was subsequently paid to Jane E. Pratt, lawful sister and next of kin of Fr. Daniel Patrick O’Reilly OSFC, one of the priests in whose name the legacy was invested. Fr. Stanislaus concludes by affirming that ‘interest on the investment was drawn up in 1883 which warrants the assumption that the masses were likewise said up to that time’. With copies of the memorandum and transcription of the ‘Notabilia’ document made by Fr. Stanislaus on 10 Nov. 1921. One of the copies is endorsed by Fr. Stanislaus: ‘submitted to the General Definition, Rome, Decree of Condonation from the Sacred Congregation, dated, Feb. 22, 1927 [and signed by Fr. Edwin Fitzgibbon OFM Cap.], appended’. The file also includes a typescript note suggesting that ‘Baron Hale’ may refer to Sir Matthew Hales, Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. Some of the notes by Fr. Stanislaus also refer to the correspondence of Fr. Lawrence Gallerani, Irish Capuchin Commissary General, with Archbishop Paul Cullen, regarding the construction of St. Mary of the Angels.

Letters from Bishop Bernard Cornelius O’Riley (1868-1956), Vicar Apostolic of the Cape of Good Hope, Western District, and Fr. John Morris, editor of the Southern Cross, to Fr. Edwin Fitzgibbon OFM Cap., Fr. Kevin Moynihan OFM Cap., Fr. James O’Mahony OFM Cap., Provincial Ministers, and Fr. Kieran O’Callaghan OFM Cap., Provincial Secretary, regarding the prospects for establishing Irish Capuchin missionary foundations in the Athlone, Parow and Langa parishes in the Cape Province, South Africa. Fr. John Morris wrote: ‘There are only about thirty priests in the whole vicariate. This number includes three Jesuits, two Redemptorists, and some six Salesians. … Alas, there are no Franciscans in South Africa. You will therefore be real pioneers’ (16 May 1927). The Bishop wrote: ‘There are pagans and heathens in abundance in my Vicariate which covers some 17,000 sq. miles and I can assure there is endless scope in the Vicariate for the missionary efforts of your good Fathers’ (30 Mar. 1928). Later, he affirmed that the ‘poor people of “Athlone” (which is the name of the place of your first mission in South Africa) are nearly all coloured, a good simple lot, who have been working hard for some months past in their spare time to build with their own hands school-rooms’ (6 Dec. 1928). Reference is also made to the provision of a school for coloured children at Claremont (16 Feb. 1931) and to the financial state of the Vicariate (20 July 1932). The file includes a memorandum and agreement for sale from Bishop O’Riley to the Irish Capuchins of sites at Claremont, at Athlone, and at Parow (1 Nov. 1931), and a letter from Fr. John Morris requesting the Irish Capuchins supply a priest for the Philippi mission in the Vicariate (17 Mar. 1950).