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Note from C. Burgess [Cathal Brugha], Dublin Castle Hospital, to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., Franciscan Capuchin Church, Church St. It reads: ‘I should be obliged if you dropped in here any time tomorrow or Friday to hear my confession. As there has been a new regulation made here with regard to the admission of the clergy it might be as well if you brought this card with you’. During the Rising Brugha was severely wounded by a hand grenade, as well as by multiple gunshot wounds, and was initially not considered likely to survive. He recovered over the next year, but was left with a permanent limp.

Letter from Henry O’Hanrahan, prisoner no. q. 150, Lewes Prison, to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. and Fr. Augustine Hayden OFM Cap., thanking the Capuchin fathers for their services during the Rising. He also refers to increasing clerical support for the republican cause. O’Hanrahan fought at Jacob’s Biscuit factory during the Rising. The letter reads:
‘Just a short note from an Irish felon to thank you both very much indeed for your many enquiries, for your words, and also for your many kindnesses to my dear mother and sisters. It will indeed be a while till we here, our friends, or Ireland forget what we owe to “Church St[reet]” – of course it did not and does not surprise some of us, even though we had not met some you till a very memorable Sunday. That indeed was a Sunday which we will all remember till we “surrender” to the God of Nations and I wonder what has He in store for our little country. Would we had some of your over here. … on that particular Sunday – the difference – but then in all her struggles religious and otherwise – Ireland’s friends were the [Religious] Orders. Thank God, from all we hear the young men of Maynooth etc. are “making good” and God knows its time.
Now I know you are pretty conversant with our life etc. here and perhaps before you read this you will have seen or heard of [Gerard] Crofts who is next for invaliding and as I know you are both such friends and also that you are aware space (even in paper) with us is limited, you will excuse my coupling you in this short note’.

Card signed by ‘Constance de Markievicz, I.R.A.’ and Kathleen Clarke. Dated at Holloway Jail, Dec. 1918’. With cover opened by the censor.

Letter to Tim Healy from various republican internees asking him intercede in a dispute with prison authorities. The manuscript provides background to the dispute. The letter is in two distinctive hands and is (copy) signed by ‘Michael Staines, Head Leader; James Murphy, leader, no. 1 room; Edward A. Morkan, leader, no. 2 room; R.J. Mulcahy, leader, no. 3 room; Thomas D. Sinnott, Leader no. 4 Room’. The letter reads:
‘Recently the military authorities in charge of the Camp here have adopted such an attitude of consistently vindictive injustice towards us that we are reluctantly compelled to believe that there must be some ulterior motive behind it. … We can do very little to help ourselves, cut off as we are from all the world, and strictly prohibited – officially – from sending out a single complaint’.
In September 1917 Healy acted as counsel for the family of the dead Sinn Féin hunger striker Thomas Ashe. He was one of the few King’s Counsel to provide legal services to members of Sinn Féin in various legal proceedings in both Ireland and England after the 1916 Rising. This included acting for those illegally interned in 1916 in Frongoch in North Wales.

Letters from Kathleen Clarke (wife of Tom Clarke), 15 Barrington Street, Limerick, to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., mostly concerning family news. She also wrote: ‘Limerick does not agree with me. I am tired all the time here. I have an unsettled feel here too … . I find it hard to realise that my home and everything is gone, the only thing left is hope, and if our hopes for Ireland’s future are fulfilled the sacrifices will have been worth the making’. She also refers to Ernest Blythe: ‘We had hoped for better for him. I suppose he is left Arbour Hill by this and there would be no use in writing to him

Letter from Austin Stack, prisoner no. 148, Manchester Prison, to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., thanking the ‘friars of Church St.’ for the interest they have shown in their incarcerated ‘fellow countrymen and women’. Reference is also made to their prison conditions and to prisoner Fionán Lynch. With cover. The letter reads:
‘Your letter (which was written on the day following our removal from Belfast) was sent on after me to this place and I received it on the 3rd. I should not have got it at all in Belfast the way things were there.
Of course we deem it good of you to think of us in this way but this is only what I should expect of you and the other Friars of Church Street and I hope that we may prove worthy of the interest in us shown by our fellow countrymen and women.
There are ten of us here (including Fionán Lynch whom you know). We are devitalised of course after fourteen weeks solitary confinement in Belfast, but otherwise we are fairly well. A month hence I expect to be fit again with God’s help.
Our good Capuchin fathers will ever be kindly remembered by the Irish prisoners and their friends, God bless you … Aibhistín de Staic’.

Letter from Maud Griffith, 132 St. Lawrence Rd., to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap., asking him to ‘find out anything about Arthur. He was arrested at 1 a.m. this morning, what I fear [is that] he may be deported tonight before I could see him …’.

Invitation card to Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. for a reception for released prisoners of war organised by the Irish National Aid and Volunteers’ Dependents Fund at the Mansion House, Dublin.

Photographic print (black and white) of Fr. Albert Bibby OFM Cap. and Fr. Dominic O’Connor OFM Cap. outside the Church Street Friary, Dublin. A woman, carrying an umbrella, and a young boy are following them. The print is pasted onto card and is annotated on the reverse: ‘donated by Mrs. H. Cass, Huntstown, Kilmanagh, County Kildare’. It is noted that the copyright of this image was held by J. Cashman, 13 Manor Place, Dublin, and the 'Irish Press'.

Memorial card for Micheál Ó hAnnrachain