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Letters to Fr. Paul Neary OSFC, Provincial Minster, requesting parish missions (and retreats. The file includes letters requesting missions in Belfast, Clare Island (Mayo), Gowna (Cavan), Rathkeale (Limerick), Carrick-on-Suir (Tipperary), Scotstown (Monaghan), Longford, Fermoy (Cork), Clonmel (Tipperary) and Youghal (Cork).

Letters to Fr. Aloysius Travers OSFC, Provincial Minister, and Fr. Paul Neary OSFC regarding parish missions and retreats. The letters refer to retreats in County Galway, Glenmore (Waterford), Castlebellingham (Louth) and Ballygawley (Tyrone).

Letters to Fr. Paul Neary OSFC, Provincial Minster, requesting parish missions and retreats. The letters are mostly from local clerics. Some of the letters provide information on religious practices and temperance activities in the locality. The file includes letters requesting missions in Louisburgh (Mayo), Clare Island (Mayo), Westport (Mayo), Carrick-on-Suir (Tipperary), Newport (Mayo), Clonmel (Tipperary), Waterford and Cahir (Tipperary). The file also includes some copy replies from Fr. Paul.

File relating to the commemoration of Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC at the 1902 Cork International Exhibition. Proposed by Edward Fitzgerald, Lord Mayor of Cork, this exhibition and fair showcased many facets of the industrial revival in Ireland. The exhibition included a pavilion devoted to the life and work of Fr. Mathew. The installation of a Father Mathew Pavilion at the exhibition was primarily the result of work done by Fr. Thomas Dowling OSFC (1874-1951). The Exhibition Pavilion was designed by James F. McMullen, architect. The file includes:
• Letters relating to the loan of exhibits, temperance souvenirs, personal effects, paintings and mementos displayed in the Father Mathew Pavilion at the exhibition. Correspondents include Fr. Thomas Dowling OSFC, Fr. Paul Neary OSFC, Fr. Mathew’s collateral descendants, J.D. Power, James Nugent, Fr. J. Kane, Parish Priest of Culdaff, Derry, Joshua Baily and William O’Connell.
• Letter from Denis Downey, Dawson Street, Dublin, to Fr. Thomas Dowling OSFC regarding a painting of Fr. Mathew in his possession. Downey adds ‘the late Father Columbus [Maher OSFC] of Church Street with Miss Redmond, the artist, called here and sketched the features for the O’Connell Street Statue, and Father Columbus told me he would purchase the picture as soon as he would be free from debt over the building of the Hall in Church Street’. 24 Jan. 1902.
• Letter from Thomas S. Bowdern, Supreme Council of the Knights of Father Mathew, St. Louis, Missouri, to Fr. Thomas Dowling OSFC thanking him for his kindness in sending ‘souvenirs of the Great Apostle of Temperance’. Bowdern wrote ‘I assure you we appreciate very highly these souvenirs and will hand them down to our successors in the Knights of Father Mathew that in the flight of years they will become even more and more highly prized if such is possible’. Reference is also made to the Knights’ intention to build a statue of Fr. Mathew for the World Fair. ‘As it is the desire to make our statue after the one in Cork I have been asked to write to you to have you inquire whether there is a replica or moulds in existence of the Cork monument’. 24 Feb. 1903.
• Copybook containing notes on the provenance of many of the items displayed in the Pavilion including temperance certificates and medals, Fr. Mathew’s stole, portrait paintings, Fr. Mathew’s piano and a model of the Capuchin chapel on Blackamoor Lane, Cork.
• Caption panels for objects displayed in the exhibition. Includes descriptions and provenance details for commemorative plates, teapots and other artefacts associated with Fr. Mathew. One of the captions reads: ‘The marble chimney-place at present in Refectory was also left in Father Mathew’s house when he left it, and was presented to Community by Mrs Ryan’.
• Visitors’ Book to the Father Mathew Pavilion at the Cork International Exhibition in 1902. The visitors included Cardinal Michael Logue, Archbishop of Armagh. A note on the final page by Fr. Thomas Dowling OSFC reads ‘No. of visitors over 4,500’.
• Copy prints showing Fr. Thomas Dowling OSFC outside the Father Mathew Pavilion at the exhibition in 1902. The other print shows the interior of the Pavilion with various artefacts associated with Fr. Mathew on display.

• Flier from the Father Mathew Centenary Committee seeking subscriptions for a fund for the completion of Holy Trinity (Father Mathew) Memorial Church, Cork. The flier includes a list of subscribers and the amounts given to the fund. March 1889. Printed, 1 p.
• Copy programme for a ‘Grand Vocal and Instrumental Concert in aid of the Father Mathew Centenary Celebration’ performed by the Cork Amateur Orchestral Society in the Opera House, Cork, on 9 Oct. 1889. The programme includes a recital of the Centenary Ode by Fr. Michael O’Flynn, CC, Saint Peter and Saint Paul’s Church, Cork. Copy print, 1 p.
• Copy obedience to Br. Masseo Hyland OSFC (d. 18 May 1908) allowing him to travel to the United States with Fr. Mathew O’Connor OSFC to receive subscriptions for the celebrations of the centenary of the Father Theobald Mathew and the completing of the Church of the Most Holy Trinity in Cork …’. The obedience is signed by Fr. Paul Neary OSFC, Provincial Minister, and is dated at Rochestown, 18 Oct. 1889. With a copy of a similar obedience (in Latin) to Fr. Mathew O’Connor OSFC. Manuscript, 3 pp.
• Notes re the Fr. Mathew ephemera and relics used in the Centenary Exhibition in 1890. The exhibited items included:
A banner painted by a sister from the South Presentation Convent.
A lock of Father Mathew’s hair which was loaned by Frank Driscoll, Garrick Street, Covent Garden, London. It is affirmed that ‘it was given to a Mr Regan, a devoted follower of Fr. Mathew, a few months before he died’.
A pair of heavy silver spectacles.
Temperance medals and cards including ‘the first medal sold in Cork by Fr. Mathew – sold to Wm. Kelly, and sent in by his daughter, Mrs Daly of Evergreen Street’.
A bible lent by Mrs Donegan, Monkstown. It had been given to Fr. Mathew by Mrs Donegan’s Aunt.
The file also includes notes by Fr. Nessan Shaw OFM Cap. on the wider centenary celebrations of Fr. Mathew’s birth in 1890. Many of the extracts appear to have been taken from the 'Cork Examiner'. Manuscript and typescript, 9 pp.
• Copybook containing extracts from 'The Standard' (14 Oct. 1889) and the 'Freeman’s Journal' (25 Oct. 1889) reporting on a meeting of a committee organising the commemorations of the centenary of the birth of Fr. Mathew. The article in 'The Standard' reads ‘As a rule the inhabitants of the sister island find it anything but easy to discover a common ground on which they may meet each other without fear of dispute. The names of famous Irishmen are usually rather emblems of discord than national rallying cries. According as the great men in Irish history were Protestant or Catholic loyal or disloyal men of the North, or men of the South so did they receive the sympathy or dislike of the various sections of the population. Hardly one of them is capable of uniting even for a moment the sentiment of the whole country … . The zealous and single-hearted priest whom the Irish race with its love of picturesque phraseology knows as the “Apostle of Temperance” is one of the very few persons whom the whole country agrees to honour. That Father Mathew was a brave and good man, and that he did his best to succour and to raise the peasantry is a fact which is never disputed in Ireland’. Extensive reference is also made to the plan to erect a statue on O’Connell Street commemorating the temperance campaigner. Manuscript, 23 pp.
• 'The Father Mathew Centenary / by John Francis Maguire / 1890' (Cork: Irish Temperance League, 1890). Printed, 8 pp.
• An article from 'The Shamrock' on the unveiling of the statue of Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC on O’Connell Street, Dublin. It reads ‘Father Mathew needs no statue to perpetuate his memory … but it is only proper that in the Capital of his Nation a grateful people should testify by some public memorial their recognition of his services, and should set his image in their streets as a witness of their gratitude. … Father Mathew would never have been suspected of being a clergyman from his dress. He wore no clerical coat or hat. He dressed like a gentleman of the time in a frock coat, hessian boots and a tall hat. Yet it was as a Capuchin Friar he did his marvellous work, and it is quite appropriate that in the statue which has been just unveiled in Dublin he should appear in the habit of that order. The statue is a fine work of art. It is by Irish hand, and the sculptor, to whom we offer our congratulations, is Miss Mary Redmond’. The article includes a sketch of the statue and of Thomastown Castle, Fr. Mathew’s birthplace. Feb. 1893. Printed, 4 pp.

• Letter from Patrick Forrestal to Fr. Aloysius Travers OFM Cap. giving his father’s recollections of Fr. Mathew. He writes ‘My father was born in 1832 in the Parish of Ramsgrange, Wexford. … . He took the pledge from Father Mathew and kept it about 16 years. … It was very remarkable the multitude that gathered around him, the platform was enormous, something like ten thousand. He [Fr. Mathew] walked off the platform to where my father stood and told him you are very young may God bless you and placed his two hands around his head …’. [c.1902]. Manuscript, 6 pp.
• Copy article from the 'Cork Examiner' on Fr. Mathew’s birthplace. 27 Oct. 1931. Typescript, 1 p.
• Note by Fr. Francis Hayes OFM Cap. re two contemporary engravings of Fr. Mathew in the possession of Charlie McCarthy. Fr. Francis notes that they were engraved and designed by John Brown, Patrick Street, Cork, heraldic artist for Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC, 1845. Typescript, 1 p.
• Note on the inscription on the Daniel O’Connell memorial window in Holy Trinity (Father Mathew Memorial) Church in Cork. It reads: ‘Sacred in gratitude and affection to the memory of Daniel O’Connell, liberator of his fellow Catholics from the inflictions of the Penal Code and assertion of equal rights of all communities to civil and religious freedom, RIP’. Manuscript, 1 p.
• Cuttings referring to the visit of Fr. Mathew to Kilkenny where he had ‘17,000 adherents to the total abstinence principles’ and a similar visit to Limerick. 'Morning Register', 23 Jan. 1840; 'Saunder’s News-Letter', 23 Mar. 1840. Pasted onto card, 2 pp.
• Copy excerpts from the 'Quarterly Review', December 1840-Mar. 1841, referring (negatively) to the relationship between the Fr. Mathew’s temperance movement and ‘Romanism in Ireland’. Typescript, 1 p.
• Notes by Fr. Paul Neary OSFC re Fr. Mathew taken from 'The Nation'. Manuscript, 10 pp.
• Letter from Deborah Webb to Fr. Silvester Mulligan OSFC enclosing her recollections of a meeting with Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC in Rathfarnham, Dublin. 25 Oct. 1913. Manuscript, 5 pp.
• Extracts relating to Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC in the Life of Catherine MacAuley. Typescript, 1 p.
• Extracts from 'Tuckey’s Cork Remembrances' (Cork, 1838), John D’Alton, 'History of the County of Dublin' (Dublin, 1838), 'The Irish Magazine', and 'Dublin University Magazine' re the Capuchins in Cork and Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC. One of the extract reads ‘10 Oct. 1810: The corporation determined to improve this city, by pulling down the houses on the right of Blackamoor Lane, and continuing Sullivan’s Quay to the South Bridge’. Manuscript, 8 pp.
• Extract from An Irishman’s diary by Quidnunc in the 'Irish Times', 9 Aug. 1943, referring to visit to London by Fr. Mathew in Aug. 1843. ‘Led off by prayer and a speech, the temperance pioneer received pledges from 3,000 abstainers during one day, of which number about one-half were Irish’. Typescript, 1 p.

File relating to cures associated with visits to the grave of Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC in St. Joseph’s Cemetery in Cork. The file was compiled by Fr. Stanislaus Kavanagh OFM Cap. The file includes:
• Statements from Hannah Keohane regarding her son who was cured through the intercession of prayers at the grave of Fr. Theobald. (18 Mar. 1943).
• Letters to Fr. Stanislaus from Fr. Mel Farrell OFM Cap. and Fr. T.J. Walsh re Annie Nolan, 21 Abbey Street, Cork, who reputedly recovered her sight through the intercession of Fr. Theobald.
• Statements and correspondence re Madge Twomey whose throat condition was cured through visits to the grave.
• Letters relating to Mrs Kathleen Skillington (née Walsh) whose leg was cured following a visit to Fr. Theobald’s grave. The file includes the testimony of Dr D. F. Hegarty, surgeon. 5 Jan 1938.
• Letter from Fr. Paul Neary OFM Cap. to Fr. Stanislaus Kavanagh OFM Cap. referring to the cause of Fr. Mathew. He wrote ‘It is to be regretted that there is no one of ourselves free and willing to take an interest in the cause – as according to rumours a great many things occur at the grave. The people come from a distance. No one has any knowledge of themselves, the favours they have received or where they come from’. 28 Jan. 1932. Manuscript, 2 pp.
• ‘Father Mathew / Leader and Priest / Cures wrought at his tomb’. The text of a speech given by Fr. Aloysius Travers OSFC on the occasion of the 123rd anniversary of the birth of Fr. Mathew. Oct. 1913. Typescript, 8 pp.
• Prayer for the beatification of Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC. It is noted that this prayer was submitted to the Most Rev. Daniel Coholan, Bishop of Cork, for ecclesiastical approval in May 1928. Typescript, 1 p.

Letters from Mrs Poer Shee [var. Power Shee], Kilmacthomas, County Waterford, to Fr. Paul Neary OSFC, Vicar Provincial, regarding negotiations for the handing over of the Archer Chalice to the Capuchins in Kilkenny. The chalice was originally presented by Walter Archer to the Chapel of the Blessed Mary in the Monastery of St. Francis in Kilkenny in 1606. Fr. Angelus Healy OSFC wrote to Fr. Paul explaining that Miss Poer Shee ‘will hand over the chalice to us in Kilkenny to be held until the Franciscans would get a foundation there, when she would wish it to go there (as being more in accordance with its origins) … . She gives the chalice quite freely and generously’. It is unclear from the correspondence if the agreement handing over the chalice to the Capuchins was ever fulfilled. With a sketch of the chalice. The file also includes a letter from [J.S. Gill], St. Mary’s, Lanark, Scotland, to Fr. Angelus regarding an ‘OFM Chalice’ with a Kilkenny connection dating to 1632 (the letter is dated 20 Feb. 1936), and a clipping from 'The Father Mathew Record', Vol. 39, No. 6 (June 1945) of an article titled ‘The Story of a Chalice’ by Colin Johnston Cobb. The said chalice is inscribed ‘CAPVCINORUM LOCI KILKENIAE’. See also CA KK/8/15.

Letters to Fr. Peter Bowe OSFC, and Fr. Paul Neary OSFC, Provincial Minister, requesting parish missions and retreats. The file includes letters requesting missions in Burtonport (Donegal), Dungloe (Donegal), Westport (Mayo), Ballygar (Galway), Achill Island, and Athleague (Roscommon).

Letters to Fr. Peter Bowe OSFC, Provincial Minister, Fr. Paul Neary OSFC, and other Capuchin friars, regarding requests for parish missions and retreats. The file includes letters requesting missions in Letterkenny (County Donegal), Dungarvan (Waterford), Newry (Down), Kingwilliamstown (Ballydesmond, Cork), Ballymahon (Longford), Frenchpark (Roscommon), Fermoy (Cork), Drumshanbo (Leitrim), and Abbeylara (Longford).