Documento 9 - Transcribed Documents relating to Father Mathew

• Notes from the register of the Dublin Capuchin community re novitiate arrangements in the early nineteenth century. It reads ‘Fr. Celestine Corcoran, Provincial Minister, in a letter to the Fr. General on Sept. 2nd 1815 mentions that he had arranged with the “Patre Provinciale Baeticae” to send young men to be received in that province. Six young men were received in the Convent of Seville, Spain, on Sunday, November 19th 1815, and were professed there on November 24th 1816. … At the request of Fr. Mathew in accordance with a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Regular Discipline of Dec. 20, 1825, the Convent of Frascati was appointed as a novitiate for Irish novices. … Irish friars were received also in Convents in Italy, and in Fr. Mathew’s time (1850) four were received in Bruges, Frs. Tommins, Dillon, Mitchell, and O’Reilly, and in the following year (1851) five entered in Frascati, Frs. Muldoon, Rourke, Dunne, Knaresboro and Maher’. The file also includes notes relating to Fr. Mathew taken from the Capuchin General Archives in Rome. The notes refer to the appointment of Fr. Mathew as Provincial Minister of the Irish Capuchins from c.1813-52. ‘In a letter to the Fr. General dated Sept. 2nd 1815, he signs himself “Provincialis Hiberniae”’. Also includes a copy of the decree by which the Irish Capuchins were permitted to have a novitiate in their houses in Ireland dated 29 May 1808. It is noted that a copy of this decree is preserved in the Franciscan Library, Merchants’ Quay, Dublin. Typescript, 3 pp.
• Extracts from the account book of the Capuchin Friary in Cork relating to the building of Holy Trinity (Father Mathew Memorial) Church. The extracts were compiled by Br. Nessan Shaw OFM Cap. The notes refer to the difficulties in securing funding for the completion of the church. It reads ‘During the great excitement of the temperance movement Fr. Mathew was pressed from many parts of Ireland to allow the church to be finished by subscriptions of teetotallers but would not allow the matter to be accomplished’. The following statement of accounts is also given in the notes:
‘Mr. Anthony, contracting architect received £13,000
Sir Thomas Deane & Co. received £1,000
Since 1848 to various parties £2,500
Total: £16,500
Collection made in 1854: £500
Total: £17,000’
Manuscript, 3 pp.
• Copy letter of Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC to David O’Meara, his secretary, affirming that he is attending to his sick brother in Kenmare, County Kerry. 30 Jan. 1848. Typescript, 1 p.
• Copy letter of Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC to Larry Egan, Herbert Park, Gardiner’s Hill, Cork, regarding his life assurance which he has assigned to William Rathborne of Liverpool, merchant. 11 May 1849. Manuscript, 1 p.
• Copy letter from Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC to Symon Carew, 96 Lower Mount Street, Dublin, re his brother’s (Charles) illness and the payment of rent. He writes ‘The persons who at present hold the land are no tenants of mine, neither have I any control over them. The will continue to keep possession and pay no rent’. 5 Feb. 1848. Typescript, 1 p.
• Copy letters of Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC from Maurice Denham Jephson, 'An Anglo-Irish Miscellany / Some Records of the Jephsons of Mallow' (Dublin: Allen & Figgis, 1964). The three copy letters are from Fr. Mathew to Lady Browne and Sir Denham Jephson-Norreys, (1799-1888), MP for Mallow, and date from 2 July 1844-5 Nov. 1844. Printed, 4 pp.
• Copy letter from Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC to Mrs Cronin re an Altar Stone consecrated by the late Pope Gregory XVI which he is happy to forward on to her. 24 July 1846. A note appended to the letter reads ‘The original [letter] is in the South Presentation Convent, Douglas Street, Cork / The original, from which I typed this copy, is in the hand of one of the secretaries of Fr. Mathew, David O’Meara’. Typescript, 1 p.
• Copy letter from Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC to the Rev. Guardian [possibly Fr. Vincent McLeod OSFC] re an accusation that Fr. Laurence O’Flynn OSFC (1807-1863) had ‘repeatedly hunted upon and destroyed game’ on the lands of Reginald Greene. Fr. Mathew writes ‘That a member of the Capuchin Order should subject himself to such a charge, and partake of such amusements, must fill a religious mind with horror. You will Rev. Father Guardian deliver the enclosed obedience to the Rev. Father O’Flynn, and take care that my mandate shall be strictly obeyed’. The letter is dated at Cork, 20 Sept. 1846. With a typed copy of the letter in Italian held in the Capuchin General Archives in Rome. Typescript, 2 pp.