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Copy letter from James Pearse to Charles Bradlaugh. The letter reads ‘I am placed in a very paradoxical position – an image maker by profession and an image breaker by inclination’. He adds ‘I have been dangling – to use a scriptural phrase – between Hell and Heaven for the last twenty five years of my life: only that I reverse the meaning of the words: - everything appertaining to ecclesiasticism I regard as the former; and to be free of which, I regard as the latter’.

Copy letter from James Pearse to Charles Bradlaugh. The letter reads ‘I have written a letter to the “Agnostic Journal” upon [the] same subject (agnosticism and atheism) principally because my name was mentioned therein’.

Copy letter from Mary MacSwiney (Máire Nic Shuibhne), 23 Suffolk Street, Dublin, to Diarmuid Ó Murchadha, Seminary Villas, Cork, regarding her wish to have ‘Scéal “Sheandúin” published elsewhere. She asserts that its publication in ‘The Father Mathew Record’ should not prevent this.

Copy letter from Mary MacSwiney (Máire Nic Shuibhne), 23 Suffolk Street, Dublin, to Diarmuid Ó Murchadha referring to Br. Senan Moynihan’s assertion that he (Ó Murchadha) had supplied the manuscript copy of part two of ‘Scéal “Sheandúin” to the friar.

Copy letter from Maud Gonne MacBride (1866-1953) to Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap. She recalls her visit to Assisi in Italy and her joining of the Third Order of St. Francis in 1910. She also refers to her father who was a 'colonel of the 17th Lancers ... [and] assistant adjutant in Dublin at the time of his death'. She also mentions her article on Madeleine ffrench-Mullen (1880-1944) and her founding of St. Ultan's Hopsital. She writes 'For simple goodness and faith, she was was one of the most remarkable women I have known, and in spite of being a complete invalid for many years before her death, she accomplished great work for the poor children of Dublin'.

Copy letter from Roger Casement, Pentonville Prison, to his chaplain, Fr. E.F. Murnane, regarding the progress of his appeal against the indictment of high treason. With a letter (2 Aug. 1916) from E.F. Murnane, The Presbytery, Dockhead, [Bermondsey, London, S.E.], in the same hand, to George Gavan Duffy regarding Casement’s last hours. Includes a copy extract from a letter from the Prison Chaplain giving a brief account of Casement’s piety before his execution. The file also includes an original letter from Roger Casement, Wellington Club, Grosvenor Place, S.W., to Francis H. Cowper (16 Dec. 1903) declaring that all is well him ‘but fearful Congo row is brewing and I shall be the storm centre I fear’. He adds 'Give the brindled John my love and a kiss on his black nose. I wish I were in Lisbon now …’. The ‘brindled John’ was presumably a domestic cat or dog owned by Cowper; brindled referring to a specific type of patchy colouring most commonly associated with the patterned fur of cats. It is unknown how this letter was acquired by the Capuchin friars but it is likely that it was given to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. for safekeeping by an nationalist acquaintance.

Copy letter from T.J. Kiernan (1897-1967), Irish Minister to the Holy See, to Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap. Kiernan refers to the deprivations of life in Rome during the war. He writes 'It will be long before life is normal. We thought life would be easy after June (air-raids in March on 7th, 8th, 9th – 3 times – and 18th; the last was beside us and the house emptied quick enough ... We had no water for months and no electricity from 4th June. But now the difficulties are all the open robberies on the streets – the bandits are armed and strip the victims as clothes and boots are so valuable'. Kiernan also gives news of his family and refers to the experiences of the Irish community in Rome.

Copy letter from T.J. Kiernan (1897-1967), Irish Minister to the Holy See, to Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap. Kiernan refers to the deprivations and the scarcity of food stuffs in Rome. He adds 'Altogether for seventeen months there has been no real leadership. We lock ourselves in at 7pm because there is so much highway robbery under arms. The city administration collapsed'.

Copy letter to Fr. Juan Antonio de San Juan en Persiceto OFM Cap., Minister General of the Capuchin Franciscans, from Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., Capuchin Friary, Rochestown, Cork, referring to the decision to send him to America. He claims that ‘this decision would seem to be part of the penalisation which has been meted out to me, probably because of my activities during the period of hostilities in Dublin, last summer’. Fr. Albert encloses a statement, ‘The Case of Father Albert, O.S.F.C.’, defending his actions and declaring his ‘absolute impartiality’ during the War of Independence and later at the outbreak of Civil War hostilities in Dublin in 1922. Reference is also made in the statement to his previous pastoral work with republicans in the period from 1916. Fr. Albert declared: ‘The war of repression which England waged on Ireland since 1916, did not narrow my vision of duty. My mission as a priest was not to any one section or party, it was to “embrace all in one sentiment of charity”. … When feeling was bitterest against the “G-men” – the secret Police” – I saved one of them from death, and also facilitated the marriage of a member of the British Auxiliaries, who had won for themselves as hated a reputation as had the notorious “Black and Tans”’. Fr. Albert also emphasized his role as an intermediary between the Free State Army and irregular republicans during the attack on the Four Courts and in subsequent actions in Dublin during the initial phases of the Civil War. The copy concludes with a statement that the original document is held in the Capuchin General Archives, Rome (Annus: 1923; Prov. Hiberniae; Section 4). This copy has been made for the convenience of the Archives of the Irish Capuchin Province 'with the permission of the Most Rev. Fr. General, Fr. Benignus of S. Ilario Milanese OFM Cap.’. The certified copy is signed by Fr. Conrad O’Donovan OFM Cap., Definitor General, 28 July 1958.

A copy letter from Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap. to Maud Gonne MacBride (1866-1953) referring to her distress at her son's (Seán MacBride) current difficulties. Fr. Senan contents that Seán is 'well able to fight a battle too, his mother's son'. He also mentions the letter he wrote to her about Francis Stuart.