Showing 18952 results

Letters from the Most Rev. Anthony McFeely, Bishop of Raphoe (1909-1986), to Fr. Nicholas O’Brien OFM Cap. and Fr. Berard Creed OFM Cap. thanking the Capuchin friars for placing Ard Mhuire at the disposal of diocesan priests for their annual retreats. Bishop McFeely also refers to the plans for the Friary. He writes: ‘We understand, of course, that the future of Ards presents you with a difficult problem; we only hope that the Fathers can remain’.

Letters from Bishop Bernard Cornelius O’Riley (1868-1956), Vicar Apostolic of the Cape of Good Hope, Western District, and Fr. John Morris, editor of the Southern Cross, to Fr. Edwin Fitzgibbon OFM Cap., Fr. Kevin Moynihan OFM Cap., Fr. James O’Mahony OFM Cap., Provincial Ministers, and Fr. Kieran O’Callaghan OFM Cap., Provincial Secretary, regarding the prospects for establishing Irish Capuchin missionary foundations in the Athlone, Parow and Langa parishes in the Cape Province, South Africa. Fr. John Morris wrote: ‘There are only about thirty priests in the whole vicariate. This number includes three Jesuits, two Redemptorists, and some six Salesians. … Alas, there are no Franciscans in South Africa. You will therefore be real pioneers’ (16 May 1927). The Bishop wrote: ‘There are pagans and heathens in abundance in my Vicariate which covers some 17,000 sq. miles and I can assure there is endless scope in the Vicariate for the missionary efforts of your good Fathers’ (30 Mar. 1928). Later, he affirmed that the ‘poor people of “Athlone” (which is the name of the place of your first mission in South Africa) are nearly all coloured, a good simple lot, who have been working hard for some months past in their spare time to build with their own hands school-rooms’ (6 Dec. 1928). Reference is also made to the provision of a school for coloured children at Claremont (16 Feb. 1931) and to the financial state of the Vicariate (20 July 1932). The file includes a memorandum and agreement for sale from Bishop O’Riley to the Irish Capuchins of sites at Claremont, at Athlone, and at Parow (1 Nov. 1931), and a letter from Fr. John Morris requesting the Irish Capuchins supply a priest for the Philippi mission in the Vicariate (17 Mar. 1950).

Letters from Bishop Francis Henneman SAC (1882-1951), Vicar Apostolic of the Cape of Good Hope, Western District, later Vicar Apostolic of Cape Town, to Fr. Edwin Fitzgibbon OFM Cap. and Fr. Colman Griffin OFM Cap., Provincial Ministers. The letters refer to requests for the Irish Capuchins to take over missionary outstations including those at Matroosfontein and in the Welcome Estate.

Letters from Bishop Hugh Boyle (1897-1986), Vicar Apostolic of Port Elizabeth, to Fr. James O’Mahony OFM Cap. and Fr. Colman Griffin OFM Cap., Provincial Ministers, requesting that more priests be sent to South Africa to work on local missions in the Vicariate of Port Elizabeth. The file includes correspondence with the Most Rev. Martin Lucas SVD, Apostolic Delegate to South Africa, referring to the urgent need for more missionaries in the district of Peddie, Cape Province.

Letters from Brian Wain & Associates, architects, Maryborough Lodge, Douglas, Cork, to Fr. Eustace McSweeney OFM Cap., guardian, regarding liability for fire insurance cover. Fr. Eustace is asked to notify the insurance broker to the effect that the Capuchins have ‘placed a contract with Messrs Joseph Lane & Sons, building contractors, for the amount of £359,355.98’.

Letters from Brigid E. Whelan, Staplestown Rd., Carlow, to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., regarding a subscription from local people ‘to have a Mass said in the Cathedral, Carlow, for the repose of the soul of the I[rish] V[olunteers] who died in connection with the 1916 Rising which proposal was refused by the administrator ’. (2 May 1916). She later reprobates the ‘clergy [who] had abandoned the cause of their motherland’. She added ‘Thank God that there are such men as you and your “Beloved Brethren”’. (4 May 1917).