Fr. Dominic O’Connor OFM Cap. served as chaplain to Terence MacSwiney and the Cork Brigade of the IRA. He ministered to the Lord Mayor of Cork during his imprisonment in Brixton Prison. The sub-series includes some correspondence associated with MacSwiney’s political career which may have been acquired by Fr. Dominic during the performance of his duties. Of particular interest is a collection of correspondence from notable figures in the republican administration including Richard Mulcahy, Michael Collins, Arthur Griffith and Seán T. O’Kelly.
A photographic print of the wedding of Terence MacSwiney and Muriel Murphy in June 1917. In February 1917 MacSwiney was deported from Ireland and interned in Shrewsbury and Bromyard internment camps until his release in June 1917. It was during his exile in Bromyard that he married Muriel Murphy, a member of a wealthy brewing family in Cork. Fr. Augustine Hayden OFM Cap. an Irish Capuchin friar (2nd row, third from the right), was the celebrant at the wedding.
Copy speech made by Terence MacSwiney on the occasion of his election as Lord Mayor of Cork after the assassination of Tomás Mac Curtain. The final page is signed ‘Toirdhealbhach Mac Suibhne’. MacSwiney noted that the ‘circumstances of the vacancy in the office of Lord Mayor inevitably governed the filling of it; and I come here more as a soldier stepping into the breach than an administrator to fill the post in the municipality’. In Irish and English. With Lord Mayor’s Prayer. A message to Republican prisoners on hunger-strike. The text begins: ‘To my Comrades in Cork. On your 57th day I greet you! …’.
Typescript letter from Risteárd Ó Maolchatha (Richard Mulcahy), Chief of Staff of the IRA, to Terence MacSwiney, expressing his alarm on hearing that he ‘had been going about Cork during the day and even staying at home and elsewhere at night without any protection’. Mulcahy added ‘I want you to try and realise what a blow it would be to our prestige, if, after, what has happened in Cork, you should be attacked without having a scrap of protection … . A simple general instruction is being issued on this matter, but you must understand that your position is unique …’. Manuscript annotation on the reverse: ‘Toirdhealbhach Mac Suibhne’.
Letter from Art Ó Gríobhtha (Arthur Griffith), Acting President Dáil Éireann, to Terence MacSwiney, acknowledging receipt of ‘unanimous resolution of the Corporation of the city of Cork requesting the Executive of Dail Eireann to bring the verdict returned by the Corner’s Jury at the inquest on the late Lord Mayor of Cork to the attention of the Governments of the civilised world’. Tomás Mac Curtain, Lord Mayor of Cork, was shot on 20 March 1920.
Circular letter from Toirdhealbhach Mac Suibhne (Terence MacSwiney), Sinn Féin Executive, Macroom, re the collection of money for the Dáil Éireann Loan in Mid-Cork. MacSwiney confirms that ‘in our Constituency over £6,000 has been subscribed to the Loan for the Government of the Irish Republic’.
Copies of the 'Irish Independent' and 'Irish Times' carrying reports referring to the court martial of Fr. Dominic O’Connor OFM Cap. He was arrested following a raid on the Church Street Friary in Dublin in January 1921. He was court martialled in Kilmainham Jail and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment but was released the following year under the terms of a general amnesty following the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.
Letter from Fr. Dominic O’Connor OFM Cap., c/o Commandant, Kilmainham Prison, to Fr. Stanislaus Kavanagh OFM Cap, asking that a breviary and other spiritual reading could be sent to him.
