Part 4 - 47-50 North King Street

14 items 15 files; Manuscript and printed.

This section includes deeds, leases and other legal documents relating to the acquisition of properties and plots of ground at 47-50 North King Street. In 1861, Fr. Lawrence Gallerani OSFC was appointed Capuchin Commissary General in Ireland. He immediately set about the task of building a new Capuchin Friary and Church in Dublin. When he could not procure any ground near the existing chapel on Church Street (except on a short lease of thirty years), he begun to look for another site, and found one at 47-50 North King Street. With the permission of the Most Rev. Paul Cullen (1803-1878), Archbishop of Dublin, he set about acquiring these sites. First, he got possession of nos. 49 and 50 and the two houses were fitted up as a temporary friary pending the erection of new buildings. On 23 July 1862, the Capuchin community left their residence at 18 Queen Street and took up residence in North King Street. Later that year, Fr. Gallerani obtained possession of two more houses (nos. 47-8), and on the advice of the Archbishop, began to build a friary before commencing work on a new church. Partly as a result of the opposition of the parish clergy of St. Michan’s, the Capuchins went no further on North King Street than building the friary which they inhabited for several years. The North King Street properties were sold by the Capuchins in 1883, when the present-day Friary was built on Church Street.