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The subseries contains material assembled with a view to undertaking a beatification process for Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC. The files include evidence and investigations into cures attributed to the intercession of prayers at Fr. Mathew’s grave in St. Joseph’s Cemetery in Cork.

The sub-series contains files relating to the commemoration in 2006 of the 150th anniversary of the death of Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC

This section includes a large collection of receipts, vouchers, and invoices, mainly comprising bank deposits and cheques, personal letters and bills of receipt, subscriptions, tax receipts, and receipts for goods for use in the Capuchin Friary, Church Street. The receipts refer to goods chiefly purchased from local suppliers in Dublin (particularly in the north-inner city). The retailers include booksellers, plumbers, carpenters, stationers, clothiers, chemists, locksmiths, and medical suppliers, china, food and drink, services (including funeral, transport, sundry repairs), jewellers, gold and silver smiths and watchmakers, kitchenware, grain suppliers, seed merchants, coal merchants and furniture makers. The sub-series also includes some receipts for maintenance and improvements to friary property. The receipts are arranged chronologically.

The subseries comprises a small collection of correspondence and family papers relating to William Woodlock (1832-1890), a barrister, and Dublin Police Court Magistrate.

William Woodlock was a member of a prominent and well-connected middle-class Catholic family. His grandfather was William Paul Woodlock (c.1780-1834). Originally a native of Roscrea in County Tipperary, in 1798 he moved to Dublin where he established a successful hardware business. One of his sons, Bartholomew Woodlock (1819-1902), was an influential Catholic clergyman, the founder of All Hallows College in Dublin (1842), a founding member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in Ireland (1844), and the second rector (1861-79) of the Catholic University of Ireland (now University College Dublin). He also served as Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise from 1879 to 1895. Bartholomew Woodlock’s sister Joanna Woodlock married (1829) the eminent Irish physician Dominic Corrigan (1802-1880). Bartholomew’s brother Thomas Woodlock married (1830) Ellen Mahony (1811-1884), a renowned philanthropist and Catholic charity worker who helped establish the Children’s Hospital on Buckingham Street in Dublin in 1872 (now Temple Street Children’s Hospital). The Reverend Francis Sylvester Mahony (1804-1866) or ‘Father Prout’, the well-known priest, writer, and humourist, was an elder brother of Ellen Woodlock.

William Woodlock was born in Dublin in 1832. He was the son of William Woodlock (1801-1883) and Catherine Woodlock (née Teeling). The elder William was a lawyer and an associate of the nationalist politician Daniel O’Connell. His son William was educated at the Jesuit College in Fribourg and was afterwards a gold medallist in oratory at Trinity College, Dublin. He was called to the Bar during Trinity Term in 1855. He was later appointed a magistrate to the Dublin Police Court. He worked from offices at 13 Hardwicke Place, and later at 15 Mountjoy Square in Dublin. He married Frances Dillon (c.1832-1916) on 4 February 1865. They had one son (Henry Woodlock). William Woodlock was a devout Catholic. He was also a keen scholar and linguist, contributing several articles to the Jesuit devotional magazine, ‘The Irish Monthly’. William Woodlock died (suddenly) in Dublin on 12 June 1890 (aged 58). His funeral was celebrated by his uncle, Bishop Bartholomew Woodlock, and he was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.

The content of this small collection is eclectic and includes family correspondence, photographs, ephemera, and writings pertaining to several generations of the Woodlock family of Dublin. Aside from records directly relating to the legal career of William Woodlock (1832-1890), the collection also includes documents pertaining to his siblings, and to his uncle Bishop Bartholomew Woodlock (1819-1902), and to other Catholic religious connected to the Woodlock family (particularly religious sisters of the Society of the Sacred Heart). A small amount of material relating to Thomas F. Woodlock (1866-1945), a Dublin-born economist who emigrated to the United States in 1892, is also extant. Thomas F. Woodlock was appointed editor of the ‘Wall Street Journal’ in 1905. Thomas F. Woodlock was the elder brother of the Irish Jesuit priest Fr. Francis Woodlock SJ (1871-1940), and a grandnephew of Bishop Bartholomew Woodlock (1819-1902).

Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap., the editor of ‘The Capuchin Annual’, was responsible for compiling this collection, presumably for research purposes.

The section includes biographical material relating to various contributors to 'The Capuchin Annual'.

The subseries comprises a small collection of papers relating to the Irish Catholic priest and novelist Canon Patrick Sheehan.

Sheehan was born in Mallow in County Cork on 17 March 1852. He was educated at St. Colman’s College in Fermoy. He studied for the priesthood in St. Patrick’s College in Maynooth, County Kildare (1869-75). Sheehan was ordained on 18 April 1875 for the Cloyne diocese and sent on mission to England, where he served in Plymouth and Exeter. He returned to Ireland in 1877 to take up a curacy in his native Mallow. He was appointed parish priest of Doneraile in County Cork in July 1895. In 1903 he was appointed to the Cloyne diocesan chapter; hence he is most frequently referred to as ‘Canon Sheehan of Doneraile’. He was a prolific and successful author, writing a series of articles and essays on a variety of topics, and several novels, including ‘Geoffrey Austin, student’ (1895) and ‘The triumph of failure’ (1898). His most popular work was ‘My new curate’, published in 1900. Much of his writing centred on the issues faced by priests engaged in parochial work in rural Ireland. Sheehan took a keen interest in promoting modern agricultural methods, especially in tillage and dairy farming. He held weekly meetings with his parishioners in Doneraile and advised them in negotiations with their landlords following the passage of Land Purchase Act (Wyndham Act) in 1903. Sheehan also maintained a life-long friendship with the agrarian agitator William O’Brien (1852-1928). Canon Sheehan was diagnosed as suffering from cancer in 1910. Following a lengthy residence at the South Infirmary in Cork, he died on 5 October 1913. He was buried at the entrance to his church in Doneraile. A bronze statue of Canon Sheehan by Francis William Doyle Jones (1873-1938) was unveiled not far from his grave in October 1925.

Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap., the editor of ‘The Capuchin Annual’, was interested in Canon Sheehan’s literary career. Much of the material listed here was compiled for a special supplement marking the centenary of Canon Sheehan’s birth published in ‘The Capuchin Annual’ in 1952. A good portion of the original material was seemingly acquired by Fr. Senan from Presentation Sisters who resided in Doneraile and who were acquainted with Canon Sheehan during his lifetime.

The 'Feis Maitiú' was established in 1909 by Fr. Aloysius Travers OFM Cap., who saw the need for a festival to encourage people interested in preserving Irish culture and language. The programme for the annual Feiseanna gradually expanded to include competitions for singing, instrumental music, speech and drama, in both English and Irish. The collection consists of organizational records and promotional materials which document the activities of the Father Mathew Feis from its inception. Correspondence and financial records document the development of the Feis, while other records such as competition results, photographs, posters and fliers primarily document competition productions and performances.