Although the association of the Capuchin friars with the Walkin Street (now Friary Street) area of Kilkenny dates to the late seventeenth century, the documents in this section relate primarily to the present-day Church of St. Francis, built by Fr. Peter Joseph Mulligan OSFC (1793-1853) in 1848. The section also contains documents relating to the subsequent extensions to the Friary, most notably in 1897 when a large three-storey building between Walkin Street and Pennyfeather Lane was constructed to provide, among other things, accommodation for novices. The relatively large number of documents relating to the Walkin Street properties has necessitated the creation of a further three sub-sub-series relating to a particular plot of ground, purchase or sale.
This property formed part of the historic Munster Arms’ site (see section 2.1.1.1). It was situated on the north side of Walkin Street approximately two hundred yards from the junction of that street with High Street and immediately opposite the entrance to the Capuchin Friary. The property was bounded to the north by the Regent Cinema (demolished in 1998), to the west by Garden Row, to the south by Friary Street, and to the east by the Friary Street Car Park which was owned by Kilkenny Corporation. By the late twentieth century, the property at 17 Friary Street comprised a three storey nineteenth-century residence, formerly end-of-terrace but afterwards detached. The property had been left vacant for many years. The file relates to the sale of the property by the Capuchin Order to property developers in the late 1990s.
An image captioned 'Dominion Monarch / 1947'. The photograph shows a line-crossing ceremony on the ship, an initiation rite that commemorates a person's first crossing of the Equator. Built in England between 1937 and 1939, the 'Dominion Monarch' was a passenger liner which regularly operated services between Britain and ports in the southern hemisphere (particularly in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand).
