Item 4 - Letter from Fr. Augustine Hayden OFM Cap. to Elizabeth O’Farrell

4 pp; Manuscript

A letter from Fr. Augustine Hayden OFM Cap. to Elizabeth O’Farrell recounting the events of the Easter Rising. The letter is dated 7 February 1953 and reads:
‘… I was very pleased to read your very accurate account of when and where you met Father Columbus [Murphy] at that time when I happened to be Guardian (superior) of our Friary at Church Street.
It will interest you to learn that actually I did not hear of the surrender at the GPO, nor at the Four Courts until the following (Sunday) morning at 6.55 when Fr. Columbus returned to the Friary and told me when I was waiting to say the 7 o’clock Mass.
For some reason or other the military concealed both surrenders from me though I had been speaking to them twice that afternoon and evening. I actually spoke to our grand boys from the street where North King Street crosses Church Street above the Father Mathew Hall where I had been all that afternoon. I actually got a truce until the following morning [between] the boys and the military each promising not to fire if the other did not fire. …’.

Born in Dublin, Elizabeth O’Farrell (1884-1957) was a midwife at the National Maternity Hospital and a member of Cumann na mBan. She acted as a courier during the 1916 Rising and was one of just three women present in the GPO. She played a key role after the surrender when, accompanied by Fr. Columbus Murphy OFM Cap., she delivered messages to both Irish Volunteer leaders and the British military. Pearse was accompanied by O’Farrell when he surrendered to General Lowe. Though partly obscured by Pearse, she is present in an iconic photograph taken at the moment of the surrender but was removed from subsequent versions. Fr. Augustine Hayden OFM Cap. was instrumental in securing the surrender of the Irish Volunteers in Jacob’s Factory and in the South Dublin Union.