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A notebook containing extracts from letters received from parish priests and other individuals (mostly religious) referring to retreats and temperance missions given by Capuchin friars from 1913-19. The volume was compiled by Fr. Albert Bibby OSFC, Provincial Secretary. Most of the letters refer to requests for friars to conduct missions and (in some cases) to the need for the priests to converse in Irish. The volume includes:
• A letter from Fr. Innocent Ryan, Parish Priest, Fethard, County Tipperary, affirms that the local men ‘have safely ridden the storm of temptation that blew over the place on the occasion of the “old fair” on Friday last. Bucket fulls of coffey [sic] were consumed; and even Bovril (Friday and all!) was, under false ideas of permission, brought into requisition’. Nov. 1913.
• A letter from Rev. Phelan, Parish Priest, Glenmore, County Waterford, to Fr. Augustine Hayden OSFC, notes that the ‘harvest was threshed without drink and the farmers and labourers were perfectly happy. Only in two cases out of possibly 200 threshings was an attempt made to break through the pledge’. (17 Jan. 1914).
• A letter from Rev. J. Flavin, Parish Priest, Arklow, County Wicklow, to Fr. Peter Bowe OSFC, Provincial Minister, refers to his desire to have Fr. Laurence Dowling OSFC for a mission. He added ‘I did not mind who came with him provided he was not a Sinn Feiner’. (28 Dec. 1917).

Correspondence of Fr. Edwin Fitzgibbon OFM Cap., and Fr. Colman Griffin OFM Cap., with Robert F. Mahony, President, American Association for Recognition of the Irish Republic; Fr. Brendan O’Callaghan OFM Cap., Central Council of Irish County Associations; Eugene Twomey, Secretary, Fianna Fail, Inc., Irish Republican Party of America; Charles F. Tiernan; Joseph O’Byrne of the Fathers’ Albert & Dominic Committee; and the Irish American National Alliance. The letters refer to appeals from various Irish-American republican organizations calling for the repatriation to Ireland of the mortal remains of Fathers Albert Bibby OFM Cap. and Dominic O’Connor OFM Cap.

Copies of letters of An tAthair Peadar Ó Laoghaire to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. and ‘Sister Joseph’. The copies are on ‘The Capuchin Annual / Church Street / Dublin’ headed paper and were probably compiled by Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap. The letter to Fr. Albert (17 Sept. 1906) reads ‘The word “léighean” comprises every sort of literary speech as distinguished from oral speech, i.e., books of all sorts, whether written or printed’.

The fonds consists of the correspondence and papers of Capuchin friars detailing their involvement with participants in the national struggle. The majority of the material dates from 1916-1925 and includes many records highlighting the roles played by Irish Capuchins in ministering to republican leaders and their relations. Of particular interest is a large collection of prison letters including the correspondence of some of the leading figures of the Irish Revolution. The fonds also contains a large collection of republican publicity material, newspapers and miscellaneous items of ephemera and artefacts mostly relating to the military and political campaign organised by nationalists for Irish independence. A smaller collection relating to the repatriation of the bodies of Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. and Fr. Dominic O’Connor OFM Cap. from the United States to Ireland in 1958 is also extant.