Item 15 - Letter from Fr. C. O’Neill to Fr. Canice Bourke OFM Cap.

2 pp; Manuscript

A letter from Fr. C. O’Neill, St. Peter’s Presbytery, Milford Street, to Fr. Canice Bourke OFM Cap., a Capuchin friar, referring to the effects of bombing raids during the Belfast Blitz in April 1941. He writes ‘A great disaster has befallen this city and I have lost a few very saintly tertiaries. Many people have left, for the houses are not habitable; others have fled in fear. But no-one on the Falls Road area was injured. The Catholic Church in the city was damaged save for a few panes of glass. The disaster will affect our Triduum somewhat, but I think it is better to have it, all the same. It would never do to give up on prayer and the people are saying the Rosary in the streets every night in this parish. The horror of an air-raid is inconceivable until one has seen it’.