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A flier advertising a concert in the Mansion House in Dublin in aid of the family of Sylvester Pidgeon who died on 28 September 1914 from wounds sustained in the Bachelor’s Walk massacre which took place in Dublin on 26 July 1914. A printer by trade, Sylvester Pidgeon left behind a widow and five children ranging in age from three months to eleven.

Notes in both English and Irish probably written by Patrick Pearse. Includes a sketch, possibly of the medieval Christian monastery on St. Macdara’s Island off the coast of County Galway. Also includes references to St. Enda, a sixth-century saint who founded a Christian monastic settlement on Inis Mór, and Mochuda of Lismore who ‘did fishing’.

Portrait photograph of Senator Margaret Mary Pearse. The print is credited to Adolf Morath, 88 Church Street, Liverpool.

A clipping of a short article reporting on the funeral of Mary Brigid Pearse (1884-1947) at the Church of Annunciation in Rathfarnham, Dublin. The clipping is taken from the ‘Irish Press’ (17 Nov. 1947). The article reads 'The President, Taoiseach and members of the Government were among those who attended the funeral of Miss Mary Brigid Pearse, which took place to Glasnevin Cemetery on Saturday, after Mass in the Church of the Annunciation, Rathfarnham, celebrated by Rev. Joseph Mallin, S.J., son of the executed 1916 leader, and a former pupil of St. Enda's'.

A letter to Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap. referring to Leon Ó Brion’s request for copies of photographs of the Pearse family for a publication in Belgium. The letter notes that Senator Margaret Mary Pearse claimed that Moynihan had ‘the best collection there was’.

Pledge card of William Pearse affirming his abstinence from intoxicating liquor and enrolling him as a member of the temperance association attached to St. Andrew’s Church on Westland Row in Dublin.

Three copy photographic images showing James and Margaret Pearse with their children Margaret Mary (born 1878), Patrick (born 1879), William (born 1881) and Mary Brigid (born 1884). Manuscript annotation on the reverse of two of the prints reads ‘Photo’s Geoghegan’s, Dublin’.

A poster for a benefit performance of two plays by Patrick Pearse in Foresters’ Hall on Parnell Square (formerly Rutland Square) in Dublin in about 1919. The plays were ‘The Singer’ (written in 1915) and ‘Íosagán’ (initially published as a short story by Pearse in 1907 and adapted as a play in 1910). Foresters’ Hall, located at the rear of 41 Parnell Square, was built in 1912 for the Irish National Foresters (INF). The event was organised in aid of St. Enda’s School. The poster was printed by The Gaelic Press.

Minute book of the Father Mathew Centenary Committee which had the responsibility for financing and erecting the statue of the Apostle of Temperance on Sackville (later O’Connell Street), Dublin. The Centenary Committee was made up of Catholics, Anglicans and other Protestant denominations and notably received the support of the Most Rev. William Plunket, Baron Plunket, the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin: ‘Most thoroughly do I sympathize in any movement for honouring the memory of one to whom the cause of temperance in this land is so largely indebted’. (10 Oct. 1889).
Prominent public (non-clerical) figures in the committee included:
George Noble Plunkett (1851-1948) an Irish nationalist and father of Joseph Plunkett, one of the executed leaders of the 1916 Rising.
John Redmond MP (1856-1918), an Irish home rule nationalist, later leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party.
Michael Davitt (1846-1906), a nationalist and agrarian campaigner.
Thomas Sexton MP (1848-1932), Lord Mayor of Dublin.
William Martin Murphy MP (1844-1919), a businessman and politician.
Timothy Charles Harrington MP (1851-1910), a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party.
The minute book reveals that from the outset committee members were in support of resolutions which would place the statue in a prominent public place in the city. For instance, Thomas Connolly suggested that a ‘statue should be erected similar to the O’Connell [monument], and that it should be placed at the other end of O’Connell Street so that people might be reminded by the two monuments of the two great men who were in a sense the complement of one another …’. (Oct. 1889).
• This intent was formalised in a resolution forwarded by the Committee to Dublin Corporation on 1 May 1890 ‘requesting them to grant a site in Upper O’Connell Street, Dublin, for the erection of the Memorial Statue to Father Theobald Mathew’. (1 May 1889).
• The aim of the Centenary Committee was from the beginning to site the statue in the most prominent space available in the city linking the historically concurrent campaigns undertaken by Fr. Mathew (temperance) and O’Connell (emancipation and repeal). It should also be noted that the Corporation was unanimous in granting the O’Connell Street site. (15 May 1890).
• An application was made to the boundary surveyor to obtain ‘the consent of the Corporation for a 16 feet square space on the site known as the “Retreat” in Upper O’Connell Street which has been already allotted to the Committee for the erection of the Father Mathew Centenary Memorial’. (5 June 1890).
The siting of an Fr. Mathew Statue on the main thoroughfare (St. Patrick’s Street) running through Cork city in 1864 influenced the Dublin Committee: Henry Brown reminded the Committee that the ‘citizens of Cork had already placed Father Mathew’s Statue in their city, where he remembered standing on the platform in Patrick’s Street, while the Mayor of Cork, John Francis Maguire MP was unveiling Foley’s exquisite statue’. (Oct. 1889). By October 1892 a total of £1,114 5s 3d had been collected by the Centenary Committee (13 Oct. 1892). The minute book includes subscription lists, accounts and pasted-in newspaper clippings re meetings of the committee and its efforts to raise funds for the memorial. Funding was sourced from various local temperance societies (both Protestant and Catholic), workingmen’s clubs, national schools and colleges, and public and professional bodies (corporations and the police force). Donations were received from across Ireland and from Irish emigrant communities in America, Canada, Australia and elsewhere.
The resolutions adopted at the official unveiling of the statue on 8 February 1893 reflected the widespread appeal of the Fr. Mathew commemoration and the ‘placing of a statue among the public monuments of the metropolis’:
• ‘That as the Rev. Theobald Mathew loved his countrymen of all creeds and laboured zealously for their moral improvement and temporal prosperity, this great meeting rejoices that this public monument to his memory has been erected to remind our people of what he accomplished in the cause of total abstinence’.
• ‘That the Centenary Statue of the Rev. Theobald Mathew having been erected by subscriptions from men of all parties, and regardless of religious distinctions, it is appropriate that it be now unveiled by the Right Hon. James Shanks as Lord Mayor of the City of Dublin’. (2 Feb. 1893).
Reference is also made in the Centenary Committee minute book to the very novel nature of the award of the commission to a female sculptor. Count Plunkett, a leading member of the Committee, referred to ‘the merit which characterizes the design of Miss Redmond, a young artist who had made her mark, not only in this country but on the continent, in spite of her youth’. (1 May 1890).

Printed photographic album relating to the commemorations of the centenary in 1938 of the inauguration by Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC of his temperance campaign. Includes images of celebrations and services in St. Mary of the Angels, Church Street, Dublin, Holy Trinity Church, Cork, and at Thomastown Castle, County Tipperary. Reprint of a photographic supplement in 'The Capuchin Annual' (1939), pp 177-208. The cover shows a bust of Fr. Mathew by John Hogan ‘Fra. Theobald Mathew, Ord. Cappuccin / J. Hogan fecit, 1834’.