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A collection of mainly legal and financial papers relating to St. Enda’s School (Scoil Éanna), an Irish language college established by Patrick Pearse in Cullenswood House on Oakley Road in Ranelagh, Dublin, in 1908. The school moved to the Hermitage, a former country house in Rathfarnham, in 1910. Pearse founded St. Ita’s School for girls along the same general lines as St. Enda’s in Cullenswood House in 1910, when he moved St. Enda's boys' school to Rathfarnham. Some of the records refer to the precarious financial state of St. Enda’s and to Pearse’s efforts to raise funds to keep the school solvent. The section also contains some miscellaneous notes by Pearse on education-related subjects. Some of the documents listed below are in either Pearse’s hand or are endorsed with his signature.

The subseries comprises a small collection of material relating to Roger Casement, a humanitarian, diplomat, and revolutionary. Born in Dublin on 1 September 1864, Casement was famous for his reports and activities highlighting human rights abuses in the Congo and Peru. He worked in Africa for commercial interests and later in the British diplomatic service. He was knighted in 1911 for his investigations into colonial atrocities. His consular investigation into crimes in the Congo eventually led him to adopt an Irish republican and radical separatist political outlook. After the outbreak of the First World War, he sought to obtain German military aid for a rebellion in Ireland against British rule. Casement believed that an Irish insurrection would be defeated unless it received substantial assistance from Germany, and when it became clear that adequate military help would not be forthcoming, he decided to travel to Ireland and try to prevent the planned rebellion from taking place. Shortly before the Easter Rising, he landed at Banna Strand in County Kerry. He was quickly arrested by the authorities. Stripped of his knighthood and other honours, he was subsequently convicted and hanged for treason in Pentonville Prison in London on 3 August 1916.

The subseries also includes some material relating to Robert Monteith (1879-1956), a former British army soldier and Irish nationalist. In late 1915 Monteith travelled to Berlin to assist Casement in recruiting an Irish brigade from among Irish prisoners-of-war held in Germany. He accompanied Casement to Ireland in April 1916. Monteith avoided capture and spent six months on the run including a period when he was hidden by Capuchin friars in Rochestown in County Cork. He subsequently escaped to the United States working in disguise as a sailor on a merchant vessel. Montieth returned to Ireland in May 1947. However, his residence in Ireland proved to be a short one. Monteith returned to the United States in 1953 and he died there on 18 February 1956. Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap., the editor of ‘The Capuchin Annual’, was a close acquaintance of Monteith, and the friar seemingly compiled this material for several articles on Casement’s life and career which he published in the periodical.

The subseries comprises a small collection of papers relating to Patrick Gallagher, better known by his sobriquet Patrick ‘the Cope’ Gallagher (‘cope’ being the popular Donegal version of ‘cooperative’). Gallagher was a cooperative organiser, businessman, and a campaigner for his native County Donegal. He is best remembered for founding the Templecrone Agricultural Co-operative Society in 1906, popularly known as ‘the Cope’, a co-operative association based in The Rosses area of West County Donegal. The file includes articles, clippings, and a letter from Gallagher to Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap. (21 August 1947). Also includes a copy of ‘The Irish Homestead’ (11 Nov. 1916) which has content on Gallagher’s campaigning work in Donegal.

The subseries comprises material assembled by Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap. for the 1937 edition of ‘The Capuchin Annual’ which included several articles exploring the life of the pietist Matt Talbot.

Talbot was born into a large working-class family in the North Strand area of Dublin in 1856. He left school at the age of twelve and subsequently worked as a labourer at the Port and Docks Board. From an early age, Talbot was an alcoholic. He frequented pubs in the city with his brothers and friends, spending most of his income on alcohol and running up considerable debts.

In about 1884, Talbot ‘took the pledge’ and renounced the consumption of liquor. He maintained sobriety for the following forty years of his life. He also began to attend daily Mass and assiduously read religious books and pamphlets. He collapsed and died of heart failure on 7 June 1925, whilst on his way to attend a religious service. His body was taken to Jervis Street Hospital, where the full the extent of his ascetic lifestyle was revealed. Attendants discovered a metal link chain wound around his torso, and lighter chains and knotted cords on the arms and below the knees. The latter likely caused discomfort when kneeling.

Talbot’s funeral took place in Glasnevin Cemetery on 11 June 1925. As word of his piety spread, Talbot became an icon for the temperance movement in Ireland and for the large Irish expatriate communities in Britain and in the United States. This rapidly developed into a substantial devotional movement, promoted by the clergy and by lay activists, with Talbot held up as a possible candidate for canonisation as a Catholic saint. In October 1975 Pope Paul VI declared him to be the Venerable Matt Talbot, an important step to canonisation.

Talbot’s remains were removed from Glasnevin Cemetery to Our Lady of Lourdes Church on Seán McDermott Street in 1972. The church has since become a site of pilgrimage. The Talbot Memorial Bridge, completed in 1978, was named in commemoration of the former dock worker. A statue of Talbot was also erected at the southern end of the bridge.

The subseries comprises a small collection of records relating to various Irish landlord defence associations and related loyalist and unionist political organisations in the late nineteenth century. The collection includes mostly printed circulars, fliers, and ephemera sent to members of these organisations. The goal of these interrelated associations was to defend the rights and interests of landed proprietors in Ireland. The organisations were set up in response to the activities of the Land League, a tenant farmer movement, which had as its primary aim the reform and eventual abolition of landlordism in Ireland.

The collection includes records generated by the Property Defence Association (PDA) which was formed in Dublin in December 1880 to assist landlords targeted by the Land League or by rural agitation in general. Led by James Stopford, 5th Earl of Courtown (1823-1914), the association served writs on tenants, provided (often armed) caretakers for evicted holdings, supplied labourers to boycotted landlords, and bought stock and farms at sheriffs’ sales. The Orange Emergency Committee, established by the loyalist Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, also in December 1880, had similar functions to the Property Defence Association. Both the PDA and Orange Emergency Committee were subscription-based aid organisations. The Irish Landowners' Convention was set up in early 1888 to protect the interests of landowners in the face of agrarian agitation and legislative reforms which enabled tenant proprietorship. James Hamilton , 2nd Duke of Abercorn (1838-1913), was elected its first president and he led the organisation for nearly a decade.

The collection also includes a small number of records relating to the Irish Loyal and Patriotic Union (ILPU), a unionist political organisation, established to oppose the nationalist Home Rule movement. The ILPU was formed in Dublin in May 1885 by a small number of southern businessmen, landowners, and academics. It sought to unite Liberals and Conservatives on a common platform of maintenance of the union between Great Britain and Ireland. The Irish Unionist Alliance was founded in 1891 by ILPU members, which it replaced. The Irish Unionist Alliance (IUA), also known as the Irish Unionist Party, was led for much of its existence by Colonel Edward James Saunderson (1837-1906) and later by William St John Brodrick, 1st Earl of Midleton (1856-1942).

Finally, the collection also includes a small number of fliers and printed ephemera relating to by-elections for the constituency of Trinity College (University of Dublin) in 1875 and in 1887. The college constituency was dominated by a Conservative and Unionist electorate. In January 1875, Edward Gibson, later 1st Baron Ashbourne (1837-1913), was elected for the Conservatives to serve as MP for Trinity College, Dublin. Dodgson Hamilton Madden (1840-1928) was elected Conservative MP for the university in the July 1887 by-election.

Internal evidence suggests that this material was originally assembled by John Ribton Garstin (1836-1917), a landlord and unionist, who served as High Sheriff of County Louth from 1880 to 1881. It has however not been ascertained how these records were acquired by Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap., the editor of ‘The Capuchin Annual’.

The subseries comprises a small collection of papers relating to Fr. Michael P. O’Hickey (An tAthair Micheál P. Ó hIceadha), an Irish priest, academic, and Irish language campaigner.

O’Hickey was born in Carrickbeg near Carrick-on-Suir in County Waterford on 12 March 1861. Both his parents knew Irish as did most of the adult population of Carrickbeg, but by the time of his birth Irish was receding rapidly in his locality. However, the young O’Hickey did manage to acquire a certain knowledge of the language. He studied for the priesthood in St. John’s College in Waterford and was ordained in 1884. He ministered on the Scottish mission until 1893. On his return to Ireland, he became an active member and vice president of Conradh na Gaeilge (Gaelic League) and studied under the well-known Irish scholar Seán Pléimeann (1814-1897). O’Hickey also became a member of the Royal Irish Academy. In 1896 he was appointed Professor of Irish in St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth. O’Hickey was convinced that it was possible to revive the use of Irish as a widely spoken language. However, after several clashes with the Catholic hierarchy and the Maynooth College authorities, he was dismissed in 1909 from his position as Professor of Irish, for his conduct in a controversy about making Irish compulsory for matriculation in the newly founded National University of Ireland (NUI). He publicly and repeatedly implied that episcopal members of the senate of the NUI who opposed making Irish compulsory for matriculation were traitors to Ireland and personally corrupt. He received support from several prominent Irish nationalists (including Eoin MacNeill and Patrick Pearse), Irish language activists, and some of his colleagues including Maynooth’s Theology Professor, Fr. Walter McDonald. He appealed his dismissal to the Vatican, but his case was ultimately rejected. O’Hickey subsequently returned to Waterford, and he died in Portlaw on 19 November 1916. He was buried in a family plot in Carrickbeg.

The material listed here was assembled by Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap., the editor of ‘The Capuchin Annual’, and includes a bound volume containing several of O’Hickey’s pamphlets on Irish education published by the Gaelic League. A subscription list for a testimonial established by O’Hickey’s friends and supporters following his dismissal from his position in Maynooth is also extant.

The subseries comprises a small collection of papers (including photographs) relating to Dom Columba Marmion OSB, an Irish Benedictine abbot and spiritual writer.

Joseph Marmion was born in Dublin on 1 April 1858 to an Irish father and a French mother. On the completion of his secondary studies, he was received at the seminary in Clonliffe College in Dublin in January 1874. He completed his preparation for the priesthood in Rome and was ordained there in 1881. On returning to Dublin, he was appointed professor of philosophy at Clonliffe. On 21 November 1886 he entered the newly founded Belgian abbey of Maredsous, with which, by virtue of the Benedictine vow of stability, he was to be associated for the rest of his life. On commencing his life as a Benedictine, he took Columba as his religious name. The first thirteen years of his monastic life (1886-99) were spent at Maredsous itself. In 1899 he was sent as prior and professor of theology to the abbey of Mont-César in Louvain, Belgium, where he remained for ten years. He was appointed the third abbot of Maredsous in 1909, and he remained there for the rest of his life. He died in Maredsous on 20 January 1923. The first of Marmion’s great spiritual books, ‘Christ, the life of the soul’, was published to considerable acclaim in 1916. This was followed in quick succession by ‘Christ in His mysteries’ (1919), and ‘Christ the ideal of the monk’ (1922). Collectively, these books are seen as classics of Christian spirituality. Dom Columba Marmion OSB was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 3 September 2000.

The subseries includes material relating to the publication titled ‘Dánta Dé / idir sean agus nuadh / Úna Ní Ógáin do bhailigh iad, idir focla agus fuinn, Riobard Ó Duibhir do chuir comhsheinm orgáin’ (Dublin: printed by Colm Ó Lochlainn at Comhartha na dTri Coinneal [Three Candles Press], 1928).

The book includes the text of old and new religious hymns in Irish. The words and music were collected by Úna Ní Ógaín and arranged for the organ by Robert O’Dwyer. Úna Ní Ógaín (Agnes Young) died before the hymnal was completed and it was published posthumously in 1928. Most of the lyrics are religious poems in the bardic tradition while others were seemingly derived from traditional songs and poems. The file includes numerous inserts which were originally placed in the volume. The inserts include clippings of reviews of the book along with many letters to Douglas Hyde commending the publication (Hyde had assisted Úna Ní Ógaín in the preparation of the text). The file also includes lists of subscribers, fliers, publicity material, and manuscript notes in Irish. Also includes a letter from William T. Cosgrave (Liam T. MacCosgair). Other correspondents with Hyde include Alice H. Henry (5 Sandford Terrace, Ranelagh, Dublin), Seoras Mac Aoidh (Perthshire), Lilian Russell (10 Selwood Place, London), Hilda Campbell (Elm Grove, Ockham, Ripley, Surrey), and Lily O’Connor (Carrigafoyle, 38 Arthur Road, Wimbledon Park, London).