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This section contains a large collection of mostly lease maps relating to properties held or associated with the Capuchin friars of Church Street, Dublin.

This section includes records relating to the construction and repair history of the Capuchin Friary of St. Mary of the Angels, Church Street, Dublin. The subseries includes specifications for buildings, correspondence, bills of cost for construction, property upkeep and improvement, and contracts for repair and servicing of machinery.

This section includes records relating to accounts held by the Capuchin friars of Church Street mostly with the Smithfield branch of the National Bank in Dublin. The National Bank was merged into Bank of Ireland in 1969.

A collection of quest books and street collection accounts associated with the Capuchin friars in Dublin.

The section includes documents pertaining to demands for and payments of ground rents by the Capuchin friars.

This section includes documents pertaining to payments made for insurance policies covering fire, engineering, and public liability.

This section includes a large collection of receipts, vouchers, and invoices, mainly comprising bank deposits and cheques, personal letters and bills of receipt, subscriptions, tax receipts, and receipts for goods for use in the Capuchin Friary, Church Street. The receipts refer to goods chiefly purchased from local suppliers in Dublin (particularly in the north-inner city). The retailers include booksellers, plumbers, carpenters, stationers, clothiers, chemists, locksmiths, and medical suppliers, china, food and drink, services (including funeral, transport, sundry repairs), jewellers, gold and silver smiths and watchmakers, kitchenware, grain suppliers, seed merchants, coal merchants and furniture makers. The sub-series also includes some receipts for maintenance and improvements to friary property. The receipts are arranged chronologically.

The Catholic Boys’ Brigade was founded by Fr. Benvenutus Guy OSFC (1860-1927), a Capuchin friar, in March 1894. Mainly composed of impoverished children from the Church Street area, the organisation was initially called St. Joseph’s Boys’ Brigade. The stated objects of the Brigade were ‘to crush vice and evil habits among boys, to instruct them thoroughly in the Christian doctrine … to give them habits of obedience, discipline, and self-respect and love for ecclesiastical authority and holy religion and to promote their moral, physical and temporal well-being’. The idea of forming a Brigade for the Catholic boys of Dublin sprung from the success achieved by the Protestant Boys’ Brigade. The first meeting hall of the Brigade was in a house in Smithfield which was rented at 5s per week. This meeting was held on 24 April 1894 with nine boys in attendance. The organisation grew rapidly. The Brigade Hall was soon relocated to a property (formerly a smelting foundry) at 156 Church Street which was purchased for the sum of £300. The organizing committee also succeeded in obtaining the use of an old vegetable market at the rear of the Hall which was used as a drill yard in 1895. The newly furnished hall and gallery could hold 1,500 attendees. A uniform was supplied to each enrolled boy consisting of a sash, a cap and a badge. An important aspect of the Brigade’s activities was physical exercise and participants routinely trained in ‘physical drilling, figure marching, squad and company drills’. A band was also established under the supervision of Fr. Sebastian O’Brien OSFC (1867-1931). A night-school for instructing illiterate young boys was founded in October 1899 and soon attracted thirty-five students. Religious instruction was supplied by the Capuchin friars. This was initially performed by Fr. Benvenutus Guy OSFC and later by Fr. Paul Neary OSFC (1857-1939). In 1904 the Church Street Capuchins transferred trusteeship of the properties owned by the Catholic Boys’ Brigade to lay stewardship.