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An image of a group of Capuchin friars swimming in the lake on the grounds of Rochestown Friary, County Cork. A manuscript annotation on the cover provides a description.

Fr. Aloysius Travers OFM Cap. (1870-1957) and Fr. Angelus Healy OFM Cap. (1875-1953) with a large group of lay people on a pilgrimage to Lough Derg in County Donegal.

Notes re various parish missions and retreats given to lay sodalities and local parishioners. The notes were compiled by Fr. Fidelis Neary OSFC (1855-1932). The notes refer to missions given by Fr. Fidelis and other friars in Counties Cork, Kilkenny, Waterford, Longford, Galway, Dublin and elsewhere. Some of the more detailed descriptions refer to the effects of Parnellite split and political disputes upon the populace and mission attendees, and to hostilities with local Protestant landed proprietors. The notes include:
• Mullinavat, County Kilkenny. Apr. 1892: ‘A most memorable week. Commenced by a “Boycott” by the Parnellists …’.
• Glenmore, County Kilkenny. June 1893: ‘The Parish of Glenmore, like Mullinavat, was badly infested by Parnellism, a “Boycott” was worked up by the “Hog boys” of Ballybricken, Waterford, with Hogs’ Band etc. On hearing of the happy results in Mullinavat, the project was abandoned, and a public meeting held after Mass the previous Sunday withdrawing all opposition to the retreat and resolving to attend it. … Thus end[ed] the Parnell division in South Kilkenny’.
• Castlecomer, County Kilkenny. June 1894: ‘One of the most remarkable incidents of the week was the arrival of Father Prendergast, the famous Parnellite priest, from Urlingford …’.
• Church Street, Dublin, July 1894: ‘A retreat for the members of the Sacred Heart Sodality commenced in the above Church on Sunday night, July 22nd and concluded [on] Sunday night, 29th. The above retreat was not a success, but rather a poor business. Couldn’t be otherwise owing to majority of members and almost all leading members [had] rabid Parnellite tendencies. They didn’t attend and didn’t allow others attend. Fr. Francis Hayes OSFC had charge of the Sodality at the time’.
• Douglas, County Cork, July 1894: ‘Peculiarities of retreat were many, the most serious, the unnatural hour of morning devotions. … Some who had to come a distance had to get up at ¼ to 4am. Yet, notwithstanding two sledgehammer appeals, proprietors would not yield or allow one hour in the morning. Alleged excuse – the “Protestants at work would lose ¼ day and could not understand it”’.

The series includes records relating to general missions, retreats and tridua given by the Capuchin friars to parishes, lay confraternities, sodalities and associations, working men’s clubs, and (particularly) religious congregations and societies. The series contains administrative records including mission lists, schedules and reports. A large assemblage of correspondence is also extant.

A flier from the Irish Drapers’ Assistants Association (IDAA) dated March 1906. The IDAA was founded by Michael O’Lehane (1873-1920), a Cork-born trade unionist. Unlike the more traditional trade unions O’Lehane was prepared to recruit women members. Out of a total effective membership of 4,000 in 1914, 1,400 IDAA members were women. It is noted in the flier that 40% of drapery employees in Dublin were female. The main objective of the IDAA was a reduction in the working hours per week. Reference is also made in the leaflet to the unhealthy working conditions endured by drapery employees and the risk particularly from tuberculosis.

File relating to temperance meetings and demonstrations organised by various trade and workingmen’s associations in Dublin. Includes handbills, fliers for meetings held in Father Mathew Hall, Church Street, Dublin, and letters to Fr. Aloysius Travers OSFC from the Operative Plasters’ Society, the Painters’ Trade Union and the Irish National Foresters’ Benefit Society. With a complete copy of 'The Drapers’ Assistant, the Official Journal of the Irish Drapers’ Assistants’ Benefit and Protective Association', IV, no. 2 (May 1906).

Illustrated souvenir of the Great Temperance Demonstration held in Longford Town on 3 July 1910. Includes photographs and reports on speeches at the demonstration including an address by Most Rev. Joseph Hoare, Bishop of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise, Fr. Aloysius Travers OSFC and many other public figures.

Report by Fr. Albert Bibby OSFC on temperance missions from Oct.-Dec. 1906. The report includes the location of the mission, information on the success (or otherwise) of the preaching including the numbers taking the pledge and the general state of the temperance cause in the locality. The locations include Ballyforan, Ballygar, Louisburgh and Clare Island. The report on Ballygar, County Galway (where a mission was held from 2-16 Dec 1906) reads as follows: ‘Nearly all the heads of families took a pledge not to give intoxicating drinks at funerals or wakes or American wakes (held on night previous to some member of family going to America) whilst all others promised not to accept drink on these occasions’. The ‘American Wake’, sometimes referred to as the ‘Live Wake’, was a unique leave-taking ceremony for rural Irish people travelling to the United States. ‘American Wakes’ took place prior to the Great Famine, but most of the documentary evidence survives from the late 1800s and early 1900s. It was most commonly practiced in counties along the western seaboard where traditional customs remained most potent. Usually held on the evening prior to an emigrant's departure, the ‘American Wake’ resembled its ceremonial model, the traditional wake for the dead. It represented a permanent breaking of earthly ties for people who regarded emigration as death’s equivalent.

The Mission and Retreat Apostolate

Since the foundation of the Order in the early sixteenth century preaching by the Capuchin Franciscan friars has played an important role in the life of the Catholic Church. It was also one of the foremost apostolates and evangelistic activities undertaken by the Irish Capuchins. The practice of preaching week-long special missions became widespread in Ireland after Catholic Emancipation (1829). The upsurge in devotional practices and the dramatic increase in Mass attendance in the late nineteenth century created a widespread demand for parish missions and retreats. Secular (diocesan) priests were not always plentiful so there was a general dependence upon religious orders for preaching and for parish mission work. The geographical extent of these missions ranged throughout the entire country. The content of the sermons preached during these missions centred on traditional themes such as vices and virtue and punishment and glory, embodying the Franciscan charism of self-denial, the performance of penance, and peace and goodwill to all. The form of the mission followed traditional patterns with sermons preached by the friars focusing on devotion and prayer. This was frequently adapted to local circumstances. The increasing demand for parish missions and retreats from both the laity and from religious congregations placed a severe demand on the Capuchins. It was difficult to maintain regular religious observance, staff churches and run lay sodalities when many friars and preachers were away on mission work. Despite these difficulties, the number of missions conducted by the Irish friars increased in the first decades of the twentieth century. In the years from 1910 to 1913 the Capuchins undertook 405 weeks of missions throughout Ireland. Fr. James O’Mahony OFM Cap. (1897-1962), Provincial Minister, referred to the importance of mission preaching in a circular letter to the friars dated 31 August 1943:

'A mission or retreat is a very serious and sacred thing in the eyes of the secular clergy and the people who … who expect us to be distinctive and other, bringing with us that Franciscan atmosphere … We, therefore, exhort the priest to compose their lives, when on missions and retreats, that they will give a true picture of Franciscan spirituality. Let them avoid everything that might shock the spiritual susceptibilities of the clergy and the people; let them observe such external properties as are demanded by the Gospel; and God will bless and reward them as true heirs to the apostolate of St. Francis of Assisi'.

The Temperance Crusade in the twentieth century

Mission work increased dramatically when the Capuchins accepted an invitation from the Irish Catholic hierarchy to preach a national temperance crusade in 1905. Inspired by the life of the famed temperance campaigner and Capuchin priest, Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC (1790-1856), the Irish bishops entrusted the campaign to promote teetotalism throughout Ireland to the friars. The Capuchins dedicated themselves wholeheartedly to the task. Twelve priests were selected to undertake the work and they preached dozens of temperance missions every year. The characteristics of the temperance crusade built upon the existing missionary work of the friars. Travelling from parish to parish, the priests would preach on temperance, give the pledge to refrain from alcohol for at least twelve months, and encourage the congregation to go to confession and receive communion. In order to perpetuate the fruits of their work, efforts were also made to establish temperance sodalities which would meet once a month in the local church. The crusade, which began in earnest in January 1906, was solidly supported by the bishops and clergy who facilitated the efforts of the Capuchin preachers. In 1906, 117 parishes in 23 of the 28 dioceses in the country were visited and a total of about 200,000 pledges were given. In 1912, Fr. Thomas Dowling OSFC (1874-1951), Provincial Minister, informed the General Minister of the Order that since 1905 the pledge had been given to 1,141,191 persons. 'The Father Mathew Record', a monthly magazine founded by Fr. Aloysius Travers OSFC (1870-1957) in 1908 to advance the cause of temperance, published glowing accounts of temperance demonstrations, missions and processions throughout the country. Fr. Aloysius was also responsible for founding the League of Young Irish Crusaders in 1909. Membership of this organisation was confined to persons under twenty years of age. It aimed to promote total abstinence and loyalty to the church and encourage the study of the Irish language and culture. In the first year of its existence, the League succeeded in enrolling almost 100,000 members.

The missionary zeal of the friars ensured that their temperance work extended to almost every part of the country. From Falcarragh in north Donegal to Bantry in west Cork, and from Achill Island off the western seaboard to the urban centres of Dublin and Belfast, the Capuchins worked tirelessly on the temperance mission. Despite the encouraging signs, it quickly became evident that the friars’ labours were not all that effective. At the end of a short mission, they would give the pledge to all comers and then move on to another parish the following week. Without any organizational support to follow-up, many of those who took the pledge soon fell away. It was clear that enthusiasm for temperance cooled when there was no permanent structure in place to continue the work. On returning to parishes that had previously been visited, the friars found only disappointing evidence of their missionary labours with no central register recording renewals of the pledge. It also appeared that many had rapidly discarded their temperance badges. Fr. Aloysius admitted in 1914 ‘that despite wonderful success attending our missionary zeal in every part of Ireland … the result in so far as it remains a permanent memorial of our work is not what it should be’. For a time, temperance societies and pledge-giving did flourish in locations where the Capuchins maintained a permanent foundation or residence. Many friars continued to work enthusiastically for the cause and priests on missions rarely neglected a sermon on the dangers of intemperance but there was to be no revival of a nationwide Capuchin-led total abstinence movement. By the early 1960s dramatic cultural and economic changes in Irish society resulted in a marked decline in popular enthusiasm for the temperance cause. Membership of total abstinence societies (such as the Sacred Thirst Sodalities, the League of Young Irish Crusaders and the Pioneers) collapsed. The steady decline in vocations also ensured that the Capuchins (in common with other religious orders) no longer had the personnel or resources to conduct the kind of extensive parish missions and retreats which were once a defining feature of their ministry in Ireland.

Collection Content

The collection includes records relating to parish missions and retreats preached by the Irish Capuchin Franciscan friars in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The collection also includes material relating to temperance missions given by the friars in response to a call from the Irish Catholic hierarchy to undertake a nationwide total abstinence campaign in 1905. Record series include lists of missions or retreats given by the Capuchins, local mission accounts and commentaries, temperance and pledge-taking records, correspondence, publicity material, printed ephemera and newspaper reports on missions preached by the friars.

Assorted notes by Fr. Angelus Healy OFM Cap. on the history of the Capuchins in Kilkenny. Most of the notes are loose and fragmentary. The more substantial records include:
• ‘The Capuchins in Kilkenny / 1643-1937 / The Capuchins in Walkin Street’.
• Notes on the ‘names of Friars who died in Kilkenny, with the dates of death, place of burial, and inscriptions on tombstones’. The list covers circa 1647-1930.
• Manuscript extract from 'The Kilkenny Journal', 30 Oct. 1875, referring to the first reception of novices in Kilkenny.
• Extract from 'The Kilkenny Journal', 18 Mar. 1876, on the ‘impressive ceremony of the clothing of four novices … at the Church of St. Francis, Walkin Street … celebrated by Fr. Albert Mitchell OSFC’.
• Extract from 'The Kilkenny Journal', 4 Nov. 1876, referring to the celebration of the Feast of All Saints at the Capuchin Friary, Kilkenny.
• Transcripts of Latin documents referring to Capuchins connected with Kilkenny (primarily in the seventeenth century) including extracts from Fr. Robert O’Connell’s 'Historia Missionis Hibernicae Capucinorum' (Bibliothéque de Troyes, MS 706); a eulogy on Fr. Sebastian Butler OSFC (d. July 1647); a eulogy on Fr. Thomas Tuite OSFC (d. 12 Sept. 1649).
• Newspaper cutting referring to Fr. John Brenan (d. 1847) of Kilkenny, author of the 'Ecclesiastical History of Ireland'.
• Note asking the question ‘Was the Capuchin Convent closed after the death of Father Peter Joseph Mulligan OSFC in 1853’?
• Biographical notes on Fr. Peter Joseph Mulligan OSFC: ‘His life in Ireland was spent entirely in Kilkenny where he died on December 4th 1853’.
• Obituaries for Fr. Felix Duggan OSFC (d. 22 June 1847); Fr. Augustine Dunne OSFC (d. 19 Mar. 1860); Fr. Aloysius Hennessy OSFC (d. 2 Dec. 1879). Copy obituary articles taken from 'The Kilkenny Journal'.
• ‘The Capuchins in Kilkenny’. Copy text from 'The History and Antiquities of the Diocese of Ossory'.