Recollections of visits made to Kevin Barry (executed 1 Nov. 1920); to ‘six young heroes hanged at Mountjoy Prison, March 14th 1921’; and to Thomas Traynor (executed 26 Apr. 1921). The recollections refer to visits made by unnamed religious sisters. The transcripts focus on the piety and courage shown by the condemned prisoners. It reads: ‘All the young men were teetotallers and some of them abstained from smoking. We noticed two empty porter bottles in the grate in Flood’s cell. When he saw me looking at them he said “you know our friends can bring us in now anything one asks for. The Black and Tan guards here are decent to us and we ordered in drink for them”’.
Letter from Julia Breen, Upper Church Street, Tipperary, to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., thanking him for all ‘the trouble you took with our prisoners while they were suffering in Mountjoy, it was prayer and the masses for our prisoners that saved them from death’. With an annotation in Fr. Albert’s hand on the first page: ‘Letter from Commandant Breen’s (I.R.A.) mother. He was on hunger strike at Mountjoy Jail and it was there I met his mother’
Letter from Mary Alden Childers [wife of Robert Erskine Childers], 20 Wellington Road, Dublin, to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., asking him to fulfill a promise and to come to bless their new house.
Letter from Muriel MacDonough, 50 Marlbourough Rd., Donnybrook, to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., apologising for not seeing him when he called to her house. ‘My bell was out of order and it is practically impossible to hear knocks, especially with [her son] Don babbling making an uproar’.
Letter from Maud Griffith, 132 St. Lawrence Rd., to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., asking him to ‘find out anything about Arthur. He was arrested at 1 a.m. this morning, what I fear [is that] he may be deported tonight before I could see him …’.
Letter from Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. to Fr. [Aloysius Travers OFM Cap.] referring to his journey to the United States on board the steamship 'Republic'. In Irish
Letter from Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. to Fr. Aloysius Travers OFM Cap., Church Street, Dublin, stating that he is ‘getting weaker gradually – the end is apparently not far off’. Fr. Albert admits that the presence of Fr. Dominic O’Connor OFM Cap. is a great comfort as his death approaches.
Letter from Sister M. Gonzaga, Loreto Convent, Fermoy, County Cork, to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., expressing her hope that the ‘brave Sinn Feiner you are anxious about is safe now’. She also declares that ‘1916 is a year marked in letters of blood, the heart blood of our best and noblest’. She concludes by asking for a prayer for ‘the brave boys you helped to die’.
Invitation card to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. for a reception for released prisoners of war organised by the Irish National Aid and Volunteers’ Dependents Fund at the Mansion House, Dublin.
Letter from Alice and Laurence Ginnell, Liverpool, to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., Church Street, Dublin, apologising for not been able to visit as ‘details of preparation kept us both busy since we leave here today for Canada for the benefit of my health’.
