Dossier 8 - Letters from the Most Rev. Daniel Colahan, Bishop of Cork

Letters from the Most Rev. Daniel Colahan, Bishop of Cork, to the guardians of Holy Trinity Friary, Father Mathew Quay, Cork. The recipients include Fr. Fiacre Brophy OSFC and Fr. Flannan Downing OSFC. Some of the letters were written by the Bishop’s secretary, James Hurley. Many of the letters relate to requests from the Bishop to the Capuchin community for confessors (particularly for convents of religious women) and to other aspects of ecclesiastical administration in the diocese. Reference is made to masses for benefactors including the Christopher Dunn bequest. On 9 Feb. 1940, Bishop Colahan wrote a circular letter to the clergy warning of the need to the keep the Church ‘detached and Independent of party politics’. The file also includes several printed pastoral letters: 5 Apr. 1942, referring to the ‘sacrament of matrimony’; 16 Mar. 1947, warning of the threat of ‘Communist’ activities in Cork.