A view of the ‘Innisfallen’ docked at the Port of Cork in about 1955. Constructed in 1948 for the British & Irish Steam Packet Company (later known as B&I Line), this was the third ship named ‘Innisfallen’ to serve on the Irish Sea route between Cork and the ports of Fishguard and Swansea in South Wales. The ship was built at William Denny and Brothers Shipbuilders in Dumbarton, Scotland. The ship continued to serve the Port of Cork until 1968 when it was sold to Hellenic Maritime Lines in Greece and renamed ‘Poseidonia’. Following its long years of service, it ended its days at a shipbreakers’ yard in Brindisi, Italy, in 1985.
An anthology of poetry titled ‘Liber Anotationum de Poeticis scriptis’ dated 1 June 1846 at Sancte Cuthberte Collegio. The annotated anthology of poems appears to have been compiled by Percy Nugent, possibly a clerical student at St Cuthbert’s College, Durham (formerly the English College, Douai and now Ushaw College). The transcribed poems included ‘The Smugglers’ Cane’, ‘Lines written upon a Waterfall’ and ‘The Burning of Moscow’. Explanatory footnotes are given. For example at pp 25-6: ‘This piece is written as a sort of conversation between The Exile and a countryman of his, when he meets in his banishment. P[ercy] N[ugent]. It was written ante Xmas 1843. It is very faulty throughout but at the time it was composed, the author had no perfect knowledge of English Poetry having never studied its principles. P[ercy] N[ugent]’.
Recollections by Fr. Aloysius Travers OFM Cap. of the fighting of Easter Week, the surrender of the rebel forces and subsequent execution of their leaders. He provides an eye-witness account of the executions in Kilmainham Jail most notably that of James Connolly. The typescript copies are incomplete: 17 pp + 11 pp. With an undated typescript copy of ‘Connolly’s death speech’ taken from the 'Gaelic American'.
A record by Fr. Columbus Murphy OFM Cap. of events between 30 April and 4 May 1916. Most of the memoir refers to his interaction with British military officers and his efforts to minister to the rebel leaders prior to their executions in Kilmainham Jail. The memoir begins: ‘I have been asked repeatedly to write out a detailed and connected account of my personal experiences, what I actually saw and did during the Rising. At length I have decided to comply with the request. I do so however not with the intention of ever publishing this report. … As I sit then at my desk here in the silence and solitude of my monastic cell in Dublin, fourteen weeks have elapsed since those eventful days. I take up my pen. …’.
Copy of a special supplement to the 'Cork Examiner' commemorating its 50,000th edition. The supplement includes a section titled ‘Remembering Father Mathew’ at p. 11.
Manuscript transcript of song ‘Republicans are We’ to the air of ‘The Soldiers’ Song’. The first verse reads: ‘When bravely we’d fought our land to free Our Tricolour flying o’ar us, The ancient foe for peace did seek, From I.R.A. victorious Our envoys went to London town And there, let our Republic down; But still, till Freedom battle’s won Republicans are We’.
An image of two inhabitants of the Aran Islands in about 1940. The title of the print is ‘seanchas’, an old Irish word referring to the act of storytelling and conveying an ancient tale handed down by oral tradition. A ‘seanchaí’ was a storyteller or a custodian of this tradition.
The song uses the refrain ‘Up Plunkett and McGuinness! For I want my four green fields'. Joseph McGuinness contested the 1917 South Longford by-election. At that time, he was prison in Lewes, Sussex, for his part in the 1916 Rising.
