The letters relate to the purchase of the ground rent of a property known as ‘Morrissey’s, 17 Friary Street’, from AIB Bank by the FMC Trust for £1,000 and to the proposed purchase of the said premises by Kilkenny Corporation. Correspondents include John Lanigan & Nolan, Abbey Bridge, Dean Street, Kilkenny, Fr. Leo Cullen OFM Cap., the Town Clerk’s Office, Kilkenny Corporation, and the Charitable Commissioners Office. A letter from John Lanigan & Nolan refers to the property as being let to tenants called ‘the Floods … [comprising] two Alms Houses i.e. the old “Munster Arms” at an annual rent of £11.50 due half yearly’.
Correspondence (with invoices) of Fr. Berchmans McCarthy OFM Cap., guardian, Ard Mhuire Friary, with A.H. Masser Ltd., Kylemore Road, Dublin 10, re the installation of a washing machine.
Letters to James Pearse from Annie Besant, Freethought Publishing Company, 63 Fleet Street, and Oatlands, Mortimer Road, St. John’s Wood, London. The letters refer to Pearse’s efforts to have his article published by the Freethought Publishing Company. Many of the letters relate to Pearse’s account with the publishing company and to progress of sales of the publication. Besant’s letter of 29 January 1883 states that Pearse can dedicate his article to Charles Bradlaugh. The letter (13 March 1883) reads ‘I send you the MS of “Heaven”, the printer having found it after considerable trouble. The other MS has disappeared in the bottomless pit of used copy’. Other letters suggest the titles of Pearse’s work are ‘Thoughts or Heaven’ and ‘House of Commons’. In a letter from Pearse to Besant (25 May 1884), he expresses his wish to use the word ‘Humanitas’ rather than his name in any published report. A letter (4 October 1884) from Besant reads ‘your pamphlet, issued anonymously would not sell in large numbers, and you would certainly lose. Further, Socialism is not a selling subject. Even Mr. Bradlaugh’s pamphlet against [it] … have not sold so largely as the other issues of the same series by the same writers’.
Letters to James Pearse from Arthur Bonner, 20 Circus Road, St. John’s Wood, London, providing an estimate for the printing of Pearse’s manuscript titled ‘Socialism’. Includes an Invoice from the Freethought Publishing Company to Pearse for the printing of one thousand copies of ‘Socialism a curse’. The letters (from 1889) refer to the poor health of Charles Bradlaugh (1883-1891).
Correspondence of J.H.J. Edgeley, chief boiler engineer, and H.C. Brown, chief engineer, British General Insurance Company, Ocean Buildings, Cross Key Court, Copthall Avenue, London, with the guardians of the Church Street community, regarding liabilities and insurance for repairs to the Friary’s boiler and water system. With covers.
Correspondence of James Pearse with Charles Bradlaugh (1833-1891), 20 Circus Road, St. John’s Wood, London. The letters refer to various publications on atheist and secularist issues by Bradlaugh and to Pearse’s dealings with the former’s publishing house. In a letter (29 September 1884) Bradlaugh wrote ‘As we have started a completely equipped printing office at 67 Fleet Street in addition to our publishing department we shall be pleased if at any time you can favour us with any commands for printing’. A copy letter from Pearse to Bradlaugh (5 December 1884) noted that it has been ‘six weeks since my pamphlet “Socialism a curse” was issued from your office’. A letter (4 July 1885) from Bradlaugh reads ‘I have heard some of your pamphlets [are] highly spoken of by friends. I am glad you liked the Birmingham meeting’. A letter (2 July 1885) from Pearse to Bradlaugh 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’. A letter (7 July 1885) from Pearse reads ‘The fact is I am extremely disgusted with what I read in this morning’s papers, especially the action of the ungrateful Irish Party’. A letter (16 Sept. 1889) from Bradlaugh reads ‘it is quite impossible for me to print in the “National Reformer” anything which William Stewart Ross prints in the “Agnostic Review” as he has ‘circulated the very vilest libels about me’. In a letter (17 Sept. 1889) Pearse writes ‘I have written a letter to the “Agnostic Journal” upon [the] same subject (agnosticism and atheism) principally because my name was mentioned therein’.
Correspondence of Fr. Berchmans McCarthy OFM Cap, guardian, Ard Mhuire Friary, with Córas Iompair Éireann re travel concessions on rail and bus fares for the Capuchin community.
Correspondence with G.C. Pillinger & Co., 43 Grand Parade, Cork, regarding the inspection and maintenance of the boiler and heating systems at the Capuchin Friary, Church Street. With promotional literature from the company.
Correspondence of Fr. Columbus Murphy OSFC, President, Father Mathew Hall, regarding demands for payments of income tax. The file includes demand notices and letters from the Inspector of Taxes. In April 1938 Fr. Columbus wrote ‘The Father Mathew Hall is the social centre attached to the Sacred Thirst Sodality. Since 1891 it has provided a club for the people of the district acting as a powerful factor in uplifting these people and encouraging temperance amongst them. In providing for these people decent and safe pastimes and entertainment we produce each year plays, concerts etc the artists in which are drawn from the members of our hall and are of course members of the Temperance Association Sodality. The Hall is heavily in debt and any profits are applied to reduce this debt’. Fr. Columbus later admitted that a good many of the shows staged in the Hall are run at a loss and that the ‘Feis is usually a financial failure – but it is doing good work so we continue’.
