File 1 - Transcribed Documents relating to Father Mathew

40 pp; Manuscript, typescript and printed

• Transcript from the 'Limerick Reporter', 3 Sept. 1841, referring to the appointment of Fr. Mathew to the ‘High Office of Commissary Apostolic’. The extract reads ‘Proud indeed may Father Mathew be, that his vast toils, are thus recognised by the venerable Pope Gregory XVI. … We congratulate the Apostle of Temperance …’. Typescript, 1 p.
• Inscription on the Gong presented by Fr. Mathew to the South Presentation Convent in Cork. It reads: ‘May each sound of the bell be accompanied to the mercy seat by a pious supplication for the conversion of sinners of whom I am the chief / Theobald Mathew’. Manuscript, 2 pp.
• 'Dublin University Magazine', June 1849, containing a biography of Fr. Mathew and a description of his temperance campaign. Printed, pp 694-706.
• Copy letters of Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC to John Maher, Mrs. C. Hall, Rev. T. Fitzgerald, Hugh Green, and Richard Scully, c.1846-7. Subjects include the Famine, the Ursuline Convent in Thurles, and his precarious financial situation. Typescript, 5 pp.
• Lyrics for a song celebrating Fr. Mathew’s temperance crusade. The first lines read:
‘Ye teetotallers all both great and small
Of every rank and station
Once rally around this clergyman
The pride of Erin’s Nation’.
Manuscript, 2 pp.
• Copy letters of Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC. The copies were made by Fr. Stanislaus Kavanagh OFM Cap. An annotation on the first page suggests that some of the originals ‘are held in the Cork Museum’. Another annotation indicates that they were copied into an archival source book by Fr. Stanislaus. The notebook includes:
Copy letter from Fr. Mathew to Elizabeth O’Connor (16 Sept. 1849).
Copy letter from Cardinal Paul Cullen to Fr. Mathew (10 Oct. 1841).
Copy will of Fr. Theobald Mathew OSFC (21 Nov. 1849). The witnesses are noted as David O’Meara and Cornelius R. Mahony.
Copy extract from Social Notes / concerning social reform, social requirements and social progress, editor, S.C. Hall FSA, Part 7 (Sept. 1878). The extract provides a biography of Fr. Mathew. The copy notes give a transcription date of 3 Oct. 1923.
Manuscript, 18 pp.

The notebook is badly frayed and some of the pages are torn at ends. Careful manual handling is required.