A history of the Capuchins in Kilkenny by Fr. Angelus Healy OSFC. The text covers the period from the arrival of the Order in the city in 1643 to about 1825. The text includes transcripts and extracts from contemporary sources including: • The petition of the Capuchins in Kilkenny to the General Assembly of the Irish Catholic Confederation [c.1645/6]. In Latin. • Reply of the General Assembly of the Irish Catholic Confederation ‘fully admitting the Capuchins to establish themselves as members of the regular clergy in Ireland …’. [c.1645/6]. In Latin. • Letters and petitions from the Franciscans and Dominicans to the Most Rev. David Rothe, Bishop of Ossory stating their opposition to the establishment by the Capuchins of a foundation in Kilkenny. [c.1647]. In Latin. • Letter from Fr. Inocencio de Caltagirone OSFC, Minister General of the Capuchin Order, to Fr. Barnabas Barnewall OSFC, Commissary General, Kilkenny, reporting on the favourable conduct of the Capuchins in Ireland. 22 Apr. 1650. In Latin. • Extracts from The Laffan Papers re the Capuchins in Kilkenny (1689). • Declaration of the state of the Irish Capuchin mission signed by Fr. Cyprian of Armagh. 1 Dec. 1689. • Report on the state of the Diocese of Ossory sent to Propaganda Fide, Rome. 1769.
Biographical details compiled by Fr. Angelus Healy OFM Cap. of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Cork Capuchins. The document is titled ‘Vassy, 23rd April 1833’. Those named are: ‘James O’Leahy. Died in France, 22 January 1817; Thomas Chinnery. Received in Vassy, 3 November 1783. Information is also given in respect of Edward Nugent (from Dalytown, County Longford), Died in France, 1795; James Jones (from Dunshaughlin, County Meath) ‘Died in Dublin in 1805, whilst seeking priests to help in his missions’.
Chronology (probably compiled by Fr. Angelus Healy OFM Cap.) of important events associated with the Capuchin presence in Kilkenny dating from 1643 to 1876. Many of the later entries are references from local newspapers.
Transcript by Fr. Angelus Healy OFM Cap. of an appeal seeking support for a number of Capuchin friars ‘expelled under circumstances of peculiar hardship from the Nantes Convent’, as a result of the ‘policy of persecution adopted by the present French ministry’. The appeal may have been made in circa 1880. The appeal refers to the need to expand Holy Trinity Friary, and to ‘the heavy charge of forty religious actually dependent on a house, already full and heavily weighted with a large ground rent for Church and Convent and with building work on hand’. Subscriptions are to be directed to Fr. Simeon Gaudillot OSFC, Commissary General, Mr. Thomas Lyons, JP, Passage West, and others. The original printed appeal is extant in a volume at CA HT/7/20.
Draft resolution forwarded by Fr. Angelus Healy OSFC, Vice-President, Father Mathew Hall. Fr. Angelus suggest that the resolution ‘asks two things … first to endorse the work of the Irish Temperance Association and secondly to appeal for further financial support to enable the Hall Committee to extend their temperance propaganda’. The resolution refers to efforts to curtail the sale of alcohol on Sundays. The report notes that ‘we have Sunday drinking not in the interest of the public but in the interest of the publican’.
Extracts by Fr. Angelus Healy OFM Cap. from John Windle’s (1801-1865) 'Historical and Descriptive Notes of the City of Cork and its Vicinity' relating to Cork parishes and Holy Trinity Church.
Extracts by Fr. Angelus Healy OFM Cap. from the Patent Rolls of James I (1611) and the Civil Survey (1654) re the occupiers of lands around Ards in County Donegal.
A history of the Capuchin novitiate in Kilkenny, 1875-77 by Fr. Angelus Healy OFM Cap. Referring to the decision to found a novitiate, Fr. Angelus wrote ‘In the month of May 1875 a visitation of the Irish Custody was made by Very Rev. Arsenius, the Provincial of Paris Province. At the conclusion of the visitation he called the Custos [Fr. Patrick O’Reilly OSFC] and his two assistants [Fr. Edward Tommins OSFC and Fr. Aloysius Hennessy OSFC]. They met in our Convent at Dublin on May 25th. At this meeting it was decided to apply to our Superiors General in Rome, for permission to establish a Novitiate for the Irish Custody’. The novitiate was transferred from Kilkenny to Rochestown on 14 Feb. 1877. Fr. Angelus concludes by noting that the ‘account of the Novitiate in Rochestown from 1877 to 1886, when it returned to Kilkenny may be given in another paper’.
List compiled by Fr. Angelus Healy OFM Cap. of the Capuchin community in the time of Fr. Theobald Mathew’s guardianship of the Cork house. Those named are: Fr. Francis O’Donovan OSFC; Fr. Augustine Burke OSFC; Fr. Patrick Mooney OSFC; Fr. Angelus Power OSFC; Fr. Louis O’Riordan OSFC; Fr. Vincent MacLeod OSFC; Fr. George Brennan OSFC; Fr. Aloysius O’Connell OSFC; Fr. Laurence O’Flynn OSFC; Fr. Joseph O’Reilly OSFC; Fr. Louis Connolly OSFC. Undated, but the list probably relates to 1840-50.
List of deeds and leases (compiled by Fr. Angelus Healy OSFC) relating to property held by the Capuchins in Cork. The list includes deeds dating from 2 Nov. 1832 (see CA HT/2/1/2/10) to 8 Mar. 1880 (see CA HT/2/1/2/23).
