Item 3 - Reports on Local Temperance Missions

5 pp; Manuscript

Report by Fr. Benignus Brennan OSFC on temperance missions given in various part of the country. The report includes the location of the mission, frequently terse 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 report includes references to missions held in Burtonport, Dungloe, Gweedore, Falcarragh, Dunfanaghy, Ballyshannon, Athleague, Westport, Achill and Ballygar. The report for Achill Island (where a mission was held from 9-12 Nov. 1906) reads as follows:
‘Ochone, ochone, the memory of it is enough to make one laugh or weep. The people are moral but absolutely indifferent, if not worse. About 330 took the pledge in this district and most of the people didn’t come near the church at all, so our exhortations to come to the retreat the old woman would answer – “musha may I would and may be wouldn’t”. To give a triduum in Achill and thereby do good would require the eloquence of St. Chrysostom, the strength of a Jerome and the support of the cat o’ nine tails, with which to drive the semi junipers to church. “Sure”, say they, “if our priests can’t do their work, let them pay others to do it out of their own pockets”. The parish priest was a splendid curser and in mortal terror of Fr. P[au]l’.