A Capuchin chapel has stood on Church Street from at least 1720. The present-day Church of St. Mary of the Angels was designed James Joseph McCarthy (1817-1882) in a decorated Gothic style. McCarthy was also responsible for St. Saviour’s Dominican Church on Dominick Street in Dublin (also constructed in the fourteenth-century Gothic style), Mount Argus Church in Dublin, Maynooth College Chapel, and parish churches in Celbridge and Kilcock in County Kildare. The foundation stone for St. Mary of the Angels was laid by the Most Rev. Paul Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin, on 12 June 1868. The sermon for the occasion was preached by the celebrated Dominican preacher, Fr. T.A. Burke OP (1830-1883). The building was constructed under the supervision of the architect and was completed in 1881. The builders were Hammond of Drogheda. Fr. Daniel Patrick O’Reilly OSFC (1831-1894) was responsible for the raising of funds for the church’s construction and adornment. Two side-altars, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to St. Francis, were installed in 1876. They were the work of Farrell and Sons of North Gloucester Street Lower (now Seán McDermott Street). Their most famous works in Dublin are the monuments to Archbishop John Troy and Cardinal Cullen in the Pro-Cathedral on Marlborough Street, and the statues of Sir John Grey and William Smith O’Brien on O’Connell Street. This section includes records relating to the construction and maintenance of the Sacred Heart Chapel which was built as an aisle church in 1908-9. This chapel was later enclosed and converted into a large sacristy.
This section contains a large collection of mostly lease maps relating to properties held or associated with the Capuchin friars of Church Street, Dublin.
A collection of records mostly relating to the Temperance Sodality of the Sacred Thirst attached to St. Mary of the Angels, Capuchin Friary, Church Street, Dublin.
This sub-series contains plans, drawings and architectural or engineering specifications and blueprints for properties and premises acquired by the Capuchins in Kilkenny. The section includes many drawings for the extension to the Friary, designed by Samuel F. Hynes (1854-1931), and completed in 1897. It all also includes plans (by the architect Sylvester Bourke) for the extension to the Capuchin novitiate at the Kilkenny Friary which was completed in 1960.
The sub-series contains an important collection of original temperance society medals. Most of the medals in the collection are associated with Fr. Mathew’s campaign but some relate to temperance activities before and after him. The Cork Total Abstinence Society’s medals were important because they served as important reminders of the pledge, and also as miniature temperance catechisms for the many illiterates who took the pledge. Fr. Mathew’s medals were large and inscribed with familiar religious symbolism. Most were of pewter, although some silver and gold medals were also available for particularly distinguished members. Generally, one side had the words of the pledge within a shining cross, together with Fr. Mathew’s name and the Society’s founding date (10 April 1838). The reverse depicted a well-dressed man, carrying a banner, ‘prosperity’, and a woman, ‘domestic comfort’, stood next to a lamb, surmounted by a cross and an angel. This scene was overlaid by the Latin phrase, In hoc signo vinces (‘by this sign shall you conquer’).
This sub-series contains wills, executors’ accounts, solicitors’ correspondence and related legal documents re legacies, bequests, and other forms of donations to the Capuchin community in Kilkenny. The material is arranged chronologically. The Mass Intentions’ Ledger Book at CA KK/1/1/3/5 contains a list of mass bequests from c.1930-60.
