Memorandum re the need for temperance reform and the establishment of the Total Abstinence Association and the Catholic Total Abstinence Union. The report was read in the Father Mathew Hall, Church Street, Dublin. It is noted that the organisation shall be ‘Catholic and non-political’.
List of papers read at the Father Mathew Union Meetings from 1902-24 ‘which it is proposed to reprint in a memorial volume’. The report of the Father Mathew Union for 1910 has ‘Rev. C.C. Hynes, “St. Patrick’s Temperance League of the West”’.
An address to Fr. Angelus Healy OSFC and Fr. Benignus Brennan OSFC from the members of the Kilcormac Temperance Hall in King’s County (Offaly). The address commends the friars’ temperance mission in the parish.
Report by Fr. Benignus Brennan OSFC on temperance missions given in various part of the country. The report includes the location of the mission, frequently terse information on the success (or otherwise) of the preaching including the numbers taking the pledge, and the general state of the temperance cause in the locality. The report includes references to missions held in Burtonport, Dungloe, Gweedore, Falcarragh, Dunfanaghy, Ballyshannon, Athleague, Westport, Achill and Ballygar. The report for Achill Island (where a mission was held from 9-12 Nov. 1906) reads as follows:
‘Ochone, ochone, the memory of it is enough to make one laugh or weep. The people are moral but absolutely indifferent, if not worse. About 330 took the pledge in this district and most of the people didn’t come near the church at all, so our exhortations to come to the retreat the old woman would answer – “musha may I would and may be wouldn’t”. To give a triduum in Achill and thereby do good would require the eloquence of St. Chrysostom, the strength of a Jerome and the support of the cat o’ nine tails, with which to drive the semi junipers to church. “Sure”, say they, “if our priests can’t do their work, let them pay others to do it out of their own pockets”. The parish priest was a splendid curser and in mortal terror of Fr. P[au]l’.
Correspondence of Fr. Paul Neary OSFC, and Fr. Peter Bowe OSFC, with the Catholic Bishops of Derry, Ferns, Waterford and Lismore, Down and Connor, Dromore, Clogher, Kilmore, the Archbishop of Tuam, the Archbishop of Dublin, and Cardinal Michael Logue, Archbishop of Armagh, re the publication of the Capuchin Franciscan 'Temperance Manual', the establishment of temperance sodalities in the various dioceses, and the general progress of the temperance crusade conducted by the friars. The draft letter from Fr. Paul Neary OSFC to Archbishop William Walsh (1841-1921) refers to the good work Fr. Aloysius Travers OSFC is doing among the trades’ societies and artisan classes in Dublin (10 Apr. 1906).
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).
Letter from the Most Rev. Jeremiah Kinane, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, to Fr. Colman Griffin OFM Cap., Provincial Minister, re the inclusion of the centenary of the inauguration of the total abstinence campaign in the Bishop’s Lenten Pastoral Letters. With a typescript reply from Fr. Colman.
Lecture titled ‘The Father Mathew Union and the Bishop’s Commission to the Capuchins’ delivered by Fr. Paul Neary OSFC (1857-1939), Provincial Minister, in Sligo in June 1906. With a clipping from the 'Irish Catholic', 16 June 1906, reporting on the lecture. Manuscript additions and corrections are made to the text.
A flier from the Irish Drapers’ Assistants Association (IDAA) dated March 1906. The IDAA was founded by Michael O’Lehane (1873-1920), a Cork-born trade unionist. Unlike the more traditional trade unions O’Lehane was prepared to recruit women members. Out of a total effective membership of 4,000 in 1914, 1,400 IDAA members were women. It is noted in the flier that 40% of drapery employees in Dublin were female. The main objective of the IDAA was a reduction in the working hours per week. Reference is also made in the leaflet to the unhealthy working conditions endured by drapery employees and the risk particularly from tuberculosis.