Lists of retreats and missions given by the Capuchin friars. The lists provide information in respect of the names of the friars giving the mission or retreat, the location (with occasional reference to the parish priest), and the date. Several lists are extant in the file. The file includes general mission lists from 1927-9.
List of missions and retreats given by the Irish Capuchin friars. Gilt title to front cover of the volume reads: ‘Record of Missions / Capuchin Friary’. The information is given under the headings of place, diocese, name of conducting priest and remarks (usually the name of the group, sodality (Third Order of St. Francis), confraternity, or congregation to whom the mission or retreat was given). A clipping of an article titled ‘Hints to Preachers’ from 'The Tablet' (10 Dec. 1960) is inserted into the front of the volume. A colour print of a group of religious from the Scarboro Foreign Mission Society is also pasted into the front of the volume.
Large-format schedule outlining mission and retreats to be given by the Capuchin friars. The entries are listed under the dates of the mission, parish, diocese, the name of parish priest, the friars engaged on the mission, and remarks.
Large-format schedule outlining mission and retreats to be given by the Capuchin friars. The entries are listed under the dates of the mission, parish, diocese, the name of parish priest, the friars engaged on the mission, and remarks.
Letters to Fr. Paul Neary OSFC, Provincial Minster, requesting parish missions and retreats. The file includes letters requesting missions in Waterford, Carlingford (Louth), Clonmel (Tipperary), Carrick-on-Shannon (Leitrim), Rathmines (Dublin). The file also includes requests for missions for Irish emigrant communities in Glasgow and Sunderland.
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).
The series includes mostly copies of contemporary letters and documents relating to Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC and his temperance campaign. Most of the transcriptions of original source material in this series are undated but it can be surmised that they were compiled in the early decades of the twentieth century. Note that the date element refers to the original date of creation of the document or the time-period to which the research pertains. The original material is for the most part described in separate files.
Flier for a tea festival to mark the opening of the Franciscan Great Temperance Hall, Mary Street, [Cork]. It is noted that the ‘Very Rev. Theobald Mathew and other grater advocates of temperance will attend’.
Photocopies of Temperance Reports held in the State Paper Office (now the National Archives of Ireland). The reports are part of the Official Papers Collection (OP/1840/131/10). Police and magistrates in the southern counties of Ireland submitted detailed reports on the progress of the temperance crusade in their districts at the beginning of 1840 in reply to a circular (12 March 1840) from the Chief Inspector of the Constabulary in Dublin. These replies (the Temperance Reports) have survived in the original handwriting of the police officers and magistrates. The counties covered in the reports include Waterford, Limerick, Kerry, Tipperary, Wexford, Cork, Clare and Galway. The file also includes a copy of the ‘Rules of Saint Mary’s Temperance and Mortality Society established July 28th, 1839, in Limerick’. The photocopies were acquired by Fr. Nessan Shaw OFM Cap. in March 1982. The file also includes notes (compiled by Fr. Nessan) taken from evidence found in the Temperance Reports particularly in respect of the locations visited by Fr. Mathew and the numbers pledged.
James McKenna (d. 1846) played a key role in the founding of the Cork Total Abstinence Society (CTAS) in 1838. He also acted as Fr. Mathew’s principal travelling secretary during the early years of his campaign. McKenna made extensive efforts to publicise the movement through newspaper advertising, the printing of posters, pamphlets and handbills but the most comprehensive expression of his temperance philosophy is preserved in his manuscript history of the movement. McKenna kept his voluminous records of the CTAS’s progress in his 'History of the Temperance Reformation in Ireland, England and Scotland by James McKenna, Chief Travelling and Confidential Secretary to the Very Reverend Theobald Mathew'. This eclectic, meticulously hand-written collection of hundreds of outsized pages of transcribed material was woven together in McKenna’s own strident presentation. The text recorded very many of the activities connected Fr. Mathew’s temperance campaign from 1838 to 1846. McKenna intended to publish his account, as the definitive, triumphal and popular history of what seemed like a permanent social revolution. McKenna’s sudden death (in Cork in 1846), and the temperance crusade’s rapid retreat, likely combined to prevent the manuscript’s publication. Although of dubious literary merit, McKenna’s manuscript represents an extremely important source for Fr. Mathew’s temperance crusade. The text is preserved in the Irish Capuchin Archives.