Correspondence between Thomas W. Bewley, secretary, W. & R. Jacob & Co. Ltd., and Fr. Aloysius Travers OFM Cap. regarding a cheque for £25 given by the directors of Jacobs to the Capuchins as a mark of appreciation ‘for the deep sense of thankfulness that our Factory was spared from serious injury during the time of the recent rebellion’. Includes a copy reply from Fr. Aloysius returning the said cheque. He writes ‘Any services that I may have rendered during the recent sad crisis were such as … any other priest in the same circumstances would render’. Fr. Aloysius suggests that the cheque should more fittingly be sent to the Lord Mayor’s Fund for the Relief of Distress.
Declaration of Muriel MacDonagh’s (wife of Thomas MacDonagh) reception into the Catholic Church. It reads: ‘I Fr. Aloysius OSFC declare that … I have this eighteenth day of April 1917 received into the Catholic Church Mrs. Muriel MacDonagh observing the prescribed rites and ceremonies’. The document is signed by Muriel Mary MacDonagh.
She expresses her regret on hearing of Fr. Aloysius’s recent illness. She wrote: ‘When I asked for you to go and see [her son] Don I had no notion that you were ill …’. She added ‘Please thank Fr. Albert from me and his promise to go and see Don, also for the copy of the Catholic Bulletin which I am delighted to have’. With photographic postcard print of ‘Donagh and Barbara MacDonagh children of Thomas MacDonagh, shot at Kilmainham, May 3rd 1916’.
Note from Military Headquarters, Parkgate Street, to Dublin Metropolitan Police. The note reads: ‘Please tell the Franciscan Fathers at Church Street that the two men they wish to see at Kilmainham Detention Prison should be seen by them tonight’. Printed heading reads: ‘Dublin Metropolitan Police Telephone’. Patrick Pearse, Thomas MacDonagh and Thomas J. Clarke were executed on the morning of 3 May
Letter from Major Gerald Henry Pomeroy Colley, Headquarters, Irish Command, Parkgate, Dublin, to Fr. Aloysius Travers OFM Cap., declaring that he is ‘glad to say your kind offices will not be required to night’. Colley was referring to Fr. Aloysius’ attendance to imprisoned rebel leaders.
A flier from the Irish Drapers’ Assistants Association (IDAA) dated March 1906. The IDAA was founded by Michael O’Lehane (1873-1920), a Cork-born trade unionist. Unlike the more traditional trade unions O’Lehane was prepared to recruit women members. Out of a total effective membership of 4,000 in 1914, 1,400 IDAA members were women. It is noted in the flier that 40% of drapery employees in Dublin were female. The main objective of the IDAA was a reduction in the working hours per week. Reference is also made in the leaflet to the unhealthy working conditions endured by drapery employees and the risk particularly from tuberculosis.
The series includes records relating to general missions, retreats and tridua given by the Capuchin friars to parishes, lay confraternities, sodalities and associations, working men’s clubs, and (particularly) religious congregations and societies. The series contains administrative records including mission lists, schedules and reports. A large assemblage of correspondence is also extant.
Silver memorial plaque presented to Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC. The inscription reads: ‘Presented to the Very Rev. Theobald Mathew by Messrs Dugdale and McClean in the name of the Catholic and Scottish Union for the Suppression of Intemperance / Patronized by the Right Hon. The Earl of Stanhope in token of their esteem for him as the honoured instrument under God for the Destruction of Intemperance and the Moral Renovation of Mankind / 29th Sept. 1847’. The obverse shows a man and woman either side of a shield. The man bears a banner with the words ‘sobriety’. The woman bears a banner with the words ‘Domestic Comfort’. The shield is flanked with a ribbon with the words ‘Peace on Earth and Good Will to Men / Be Thou Faithful to Death’.
