7 December 2025

Drama in the Seminary

At Saint Joseph’s Seminary in Blackrock, the students would balance study with entertainment. A core element was putting on plays, which are extensively documented through photography. One photograph album spans 1941 to 1947 and features The Knockbeg Goldrush (1941), Captain X (1942), The Sport of Kings (1943), The Money Doesn’t Matter (1944), Peter (1945), The Whip Hand (1946) and I Killed the Count (1947). Each year, the play was performed in January.

Below you can see the 1946 and 1947 performances. Dermot O’Dowd and Brendan O’Dowd in the character lists were blood brothers. A lot of work clearly went into the costumes and set-making.

5 December 2025

Setting up Saint Mary’s School for the Deaf, Cabra 

In the archives, we have copies of two letters, translated from French, that speak about setting up a school for the ‘deaf and dumb’ and are written by a ‘Reverend Mr Furon’, very probably to Father Thomas McNamara CM. Father Furon mentions a superioress of a community agreeing to help to set up a school in Ireland for children with hearing impairments. Two members of a religious community are to be sent from Ireland to France to be trained in Le Bon Saveur School for six months before returning to Ireland. These Irish Sisters must have been Dominican Sisters who would then bring back newly acquired knowledge of how to care for deaf children.

Father Furon appears to have been a priest of the Diocese of Bayeux, and chaplain to the community of Sisters of Bon Saveur in Caen, where there was a school for deaf children. It is documented that Father McNamara CM himself visited that school in Caen in advance of his helping the Dominican Sisters to set up their own school in Cabra in 1846. He became a co-founder of Saint Mary’s school for the Deaf in Cabra in that year. Father McNamara was to become Provincial of the Irish Province much later in 1864, the second Vincentian to hold that position in Ireland, succeeding Father Philip Dowley CM.

3 December 2025 

A Moment of Rest with Dogs

Here we have a nice sepia photograph from circa 1910, showing three priests and two dogs. The location is not specified. The two men on the left are identified as being Father Gerald Robinson CM and Father James McDonnell CM.

The photo must have been taken between 1886 and 1924, as both men were ordained and living at that time. The priest on the right may potentially be William O’Connor CM; if it is, it would narrow the date of the photograph to between 1886 and 1897, as Father O’Connor died in 1897.

It is not very common to have photographs as old as this one, and it is all too frequent not to have names or dates on photographs, so this photograph is valuable, as well as being unusual with its inclusion of dogs, because it gives a lot of information often absent from many other archival photographs.

1 December 2025

Saint Peter’s Church, Phibsboro

While we have nothing medieval in our archives, Saint Peter’s Church in Phibsboro is neo-Gothic, based on the Gothic design common to many medieval churches, which was emulated by many of those built in the nineteenth century.

Saint Peter’s in Phibsboro had been part of the parish of Saint Paul’s when the running of it was handed over to the Irish Vincentians in 1838, 10 years before they officially joined the worldwide Vincentian Congregation as the Irish Province in 1848. Less than twenty years later, an official document by Cardinal Cullen dated dated 2 May 1854, gave them the rights to running the church forever.

There was an original, small, chapel on the site which was opened in 1926, which housed schoolrooms and priests’ living quarters in the same building. Extensions were built in 1843 to the church, with new buildings being constructed for the schools next door. Two years previously in 1841, Daniel O’Connell as Lord Mayor of Dublin, had held a public meeting at Saint Peter’s, on foot of which funds were raised to relocate the schools.

In 1862, Father Thomas McNamara CM, as Provincial, wanted to considerably renovate the church, including installing a tower. It led to a long and drawn-out legal case regarding whether the proposed construction was structurally sound, and the tower was not allowed to be left in place.

The year 1902 finally brought with it a new nave, two aisles and a tower that did not cause issues this time. You can see here the front elevation of the church, drawn up by Ashlin, Architect, dated 11 February 1902, with the proposed changes.

29 November 2025

An Early History of Sheffield 

You can see here the cover of a typescript volume detailing the history of the Vincentian mission in Sheffield, written nearly completely in 1861. The original manuscript was written by Father Michael Burke ISCM [indignus Sacerdos Congregationis Missionis] before being typed. As can be seen from the photograph, the cover of the typescript document is very brittle, due to the acidity of the paper itself, and probably because of exposure to the surrounding environment over time. On the left and right, you can see where archival quality tape has been used to stabilise the edges so that they will not tear or crease further.

However, to the right of the centre, we can see where, in the past, a long tear was ‘repaired’ by conventional sticky tape. Over time, it has caused a yellowing of the page underneath, and when it eventually falls off, there will be a remaining residue of colour and small flakes of adhesive substance, as well as a return of the brittleness of the tear. The archival grade tape used to stabilise the edges of the cover are sufficient to stop a hand or sleeve catching on the uneven edges of the page and causing a worse tear, but the best solution is for a conservator to use Japanese tissue paper. A blog post by Preservation Equipment Limited shows how this is done: https://preservingforthefuture.blogspot.com/2016/01/paper-repairs-with-japanese-tissue.html

Regarding the cover of the typed history of the Vincentians in Sheffield in its first decade, it is interesting to see the extensive dedication of the Sheffield history to God by Father Michael Burke.

From the top of the page downwards, we see:

“Deo Vota Sit Vita Mea M.B.” – May my life [Michael Burke] be consecrated to God

“Haec olim meminisse juvabit” – Someday these things will be remembered with joy

“A.M.D.G.A.” – Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam [in Aeternam] – For the greater glory of God [forever]

“I humbly beg leave to dedicate this little Work imperfect as it is to Divine Providence of Whose doings and dispensations in regard of this Mission it is a faithful history.”

“Soli Deo Honor et Gloria” – To God Alone be Honour and Glory

“J.M.J.V.” – Jesus Mary Joseph Vincent