Letter to Fr. Augustine (Donal) O’Mahony OFM Cap. from Texaco Ireland, 6-7 Lower O’Connell Street, Dublin 1, enclosing photographs taken at the presentation of the Texaco bursary at the recent Father Mathew Feis. Ink stamp on reverse of prints: ‘Photographic P.R. Services, 10 Mountjoy Square, Dublin 1’.
Inscribed on the bowl: Feis Maitiú. Three- and Four-Part Choir’. The base includes silver shields indicating winners from 1994-97: ‘Beaufort, Clongowes Wood College, St. Louis High School’.
Inscribed on the bowl: ‘John McCormack Cup’. On reverse of the bowl: ‘Presented to the Feis Maitiú on behalf of the John McCormack Society of Ireland on 19/4/1994 by Mr. Liam Breen Hon. President’. The base is engraved with the winners in 1995 and in 1997.
Photographic print of Mrs Belton, wife of Jack Belton, Lord Mayor of Dublin, opening the Capuchin Foreign Missions’ sale of work in Father Mathew Hall. The group includes Fr. Colman Griffin OFM Cap. and Fr. Virgilius Murtagh OFM Cap.
Flier for Brian Boru Fete and prize draw ‘to reduce a heavy debt of £3,800’ on Father Mathew Hall, Church Street. The first prize is a pony trap and harness, ‘a gift of a friend (the harness, a gift of J. Donnelly, North King Street)’.
Expenditure and receipt book for Father Mathew Hall, Church Street. The inside cover is annotated with a ‘History of Fr. Mathew Hall – copied from the other ledger (1881-1926)’. The history reads: ‘1891: Hall in Church St. formally opened up by Archbishop Walsh. Fr. Columbus Maher OSFC (President)’. The history chronicles extensions, leases and other financial matters concerning the Hall property. The remainder of the volume is made up of expenditure and receipt accounts from Sept. 1934-Sept. 1937. Expenditure is listed under the headings of details, cash and cheques. Receipts are listed under details, cash, total and lodgements. The entries include figures for rents (to the Merchant Tailors), rates (to Dublin Corporation) and the sales of tickets for pantomimes and for various badges, medals, certificates and other paraphernalia.
James McKenna (d. 1846) played a key role in the founding of the Cork Total Abstinence Society (CTAS) in 1838. He also acted as Fr. Mathew’s principal travelling secretary during the early years of his campaign. McKenna made extensive efforts to publicise the movement through newspaper advertising, the printing of posters, pamphlets and handbills but the most comprehensive expression of his temperance philosophy is preserved in his manuscript history of the movement. McKenna kept his voluminous records of the CTAS’s progress in his 'History of the Temperance Reformation in Ireland, England and Scotland by James McKenna, Chief Travelling and Confidential Secretary to the Very Reverend Theobald Mathew'. This eclectic, meticulously hand-written collection of hundreds of outsized pages of transcribed material was woven together in McKenna’s own strident presentation. The text recorded very many of the activities connected Fr. Mathew’s temperance campaign from 1838 to 1846. McKenna intended to publish his account, as the definitive, triumphal and popular history of what seemed like a permanent social revolution. McKenna’s sudden death (in Cork in 1846), and the temperance crusade’s rapid retreat, likely combined to prevent the manuscript’s publication. Although of dubious literary merit, McKenna’s manuscript represents an extremely important source for Fr. Mathew’s temperance crusade. The text is preserved in the Irish Capuchin Archives.
Notebook with references and extracts by Fr. Stanislaus Kavanagh OFM Cap. to McKenna’s unpublished history of Fr. Mathew’s temperance movement. The notes are arranged under various headings including: His piety His humility His priestly character His mode of life Regarded as a saint Working cures Results of his work His trials in his temperance work Rules of his society Manuscript, 41 pp. • Note by Fr. Stanislaus Kavanagh OFM Cap. re the travels of Fr. Mathew and James McKenna, his principal secretary, from May 1844 to Nov. 1845. Manuscript, 1 p. • Notes from McKenna’s 'The History of the temperance reformation in Ireland, England and Scotland'. Typescript, 28 pp. • Notebook containing an index to and summary of James McKenna’s unpublished ‘History of the temperance reformation in Ireland, England and Scotland’. The notes contain references to speeches of Fr. Mathew on temperance and brief summaries of the content of McKenna’s text. Manuscript, 69 pp.