Letter from Rev. P.J. O’Rourke, Heppner, Oregon, to Fr. Aloysius Travers OFM Cap. enclosing a duplicate copy draft for £65 12s 6d. Fr. O’Rourke added ‘Knowing dear Father you can apply it to the best advantage. The donors wished it to be given principally to the survivors of those who fell during Easter Week’. With cover which has been opened by the censor. With an acknowledgment letter from F.X. Coghlan, Irish National Aid and Volunteer Dependents’ Fund, 10 Exchequer St., Dublin. Includes receipt to Fr. Aloysius Travers OFM Cap. for the sum £65 12 6d received from the aforementioned parishioners of Heppner, Oregon.
Recollections by Fr. Aloysius Travers OFM Cap. of the fighting of Easter Week, the surrender of the rebel forces and subsequent execution of their leaders. He provides an eye-witness account of the executions in Kilmainham Jail most notably that of James Connolly. The typescript copies are incomplete: 17 pp + 11 pp. With an undated typescript copy of ‘Connolly’s death speech’ taken from the 'Gaelic American'.
Letter from Patrick J. MacNally, Commandant, Collins’ Barracks, Cork, to Fr. Aloysius Travers OFM Cap. enclosing a typescript copy of his unfinished account of the Easter Week Rising. Comdt. MacNally also encloses a rough sketch of the Church Street area upon which he asks Fr. Aloysius to ‘mark roughly the positions of any barricades you saw … [and] houses that were occupied’. He also attaches ‘a sketch of the Bride Street area … to enable you to fix the corner where you stood at the surrender of Eamonn Ceannt’.
She expresses her regret on hearing of Fr. Aloysius’s recent illness. She wrote: ‘When I asked for you to go and see [her son] Don I had no notion that you were ill …’. She added ‘Please thank Fr. Albert from me and his promise to go and see Don, also for the copy of the Catholic Bulletin which I am delighted to have’. With photographic postcard print of ‘Donagh and Barbara MacDonagh children of Thomas MacDonagh, shot at Kilmainham, May 3rd 1916’.
Letter from the Bureau of Military History to Fr. Augustine Hayden OFM Cap. thanking him for presenting the Bureau with the certain documents. Enclosed are copies of some of the documents which Fr. Augustine provided for the Bureau’s Archives: Bill for £16 9s 0d from Hely’s Ltd., Dame Street, Dublin, addressed to the ‘Irish Volunteers per The O’Rahilly’, together with receipt attached dated 12/7/1916, made out in the name of Rev. Father Augustine, Church Street’; Typed letter from Hely’s Ltd, to Father Augustine, Church Street, dated 12 July 1916; Manuscript note in pencil, undated, bearing the signature ‘Ua Rathghaille, 40 Herbert Park’; One envelope bearing an annotation in pencil: ‘Last letter of Ua Rathghaille’.
Photocopies of letters from Capt. Rev. Dominic O’Connor OFM Cap., 21 Stationary Hospital, Salonika Forces, M[acedonian] E[xpeditionary] F[orce], and the Capuchin Friary, Fr. Mathew Quay, Cork, to his sister, [Sister Constantine O’Connor?], explaining his reasons for becoming an army chaplain. He wrote: ‘Well someone had to do the work and when those who had done all the recruiting were too cowardly to go there was nothing left except to have us who were anti-recruiters go and help the souls of the soldiers the others had sent out’. He later referred to conditions for the troops he is ministering to: ‘We have had more than half the troops down with malaria, dysentery, sandfly fever etc. and it is fortunate that there was no fighting here’. [c. 1915]. In reference to the political situation he later wrote: ‘There is no use in saying anything about the political situation. England seems set upon forcing conscription on us. And the Irish Nation is equally or rather more determined to oppose it. God protect us!’.
Copy cable from Diarmuid Lynch (1878-1950), New York, to Terence MacSwiney, City Hall, Cork, confirming that ‘Fogarty got no commission whatever from and was not authorised to act or speak for myself or friends. Advise Dublin’. Annotation reads: ‘Received 16 July 1920’. Copy in the hand of Liam de Róiste; With [copy] letter from Liam de Róiste (1882-1959) to Diarmuid Lynch acknowledging Lynch’s cable referring to the aforementioned Fogarty. In Irish.
Letters from Fr. Dominic O’Connor OFM Cap. to May Barrett, Watercourse Road, Cork, referring to the execution of Captain Pat Moran in Mountjoy Jail (died 14 Mar. 1921). Fr. Dominic wrote ‘What a lot of my friends have gone down since I was last in Cork or indeed in Ireland’. He expresses the hope that ‘they’d make Irish compulsory for the Dáil as it would put an end to some of the … long winded speeches’. With a newspaper clipping of a poem titled ‘Subvenite’ by Father Dominic, Parkhurst Convict Prison, ‘written in Prison on hearing of the execution of Captain Patrick Moran and Volunteer Thomas Whelan, both of whom were fellow-prisoners with him in Kilmainham’. (16 Mar. 1921). In Irish and English.
Letters from J.H MacDonnell, solicitor, 3-7 Southampton Street, Strand, London, to Fr. Aloysius Travers OFM Cap., Church Street, Dublin, referring to his hopes for a settlement in relation to the release of Fr. Dominic O'Connor OFM Cap. He writes: ‘I think the Prisoners will be released during the negotiations. I know Bob Barton is very keen on the matter and as I am personally known to all of the delegates who are coming over, I shall press them to push this matter forward’. He also refers to improving conditions of Fr. Dominic’s confinement.
