Letters, telegrams, memoranda and notes relating to Belgian refugees in Ireland. Irish Fr Provincial Thomas V. Nolan SJ was a member of the Distribution Committee ‘appointed by the Local Government Board to look after the welfare and distribution of the Belgian Refugees arriving in Dublin’. Most of the letters comprise offers to house refugees or concern schemes to aid them, both physically and spiritually. Includes:
– letter from Dr Bernard Coyne, Bishop of Elphin (1913-1926) to Lady Moloney seeking her assistance in the securement of a disused barracks in order to provide shelter for Belgian refugee families (21 Oct. 1914, 1p.);
– bills from drapers and household stores for items purchased for the refugees;
– letters relating to troubles between Protestants and the Catholic refugees in Portadown;
– letters to Fr Nolan from refugees and members of the Belgian Refugees Committee;
– lists of names and locations of refugees in Ireland and names and addresses of people who housed refugees.

On 17 October 1914, the Father Provincial of the Irish Province of the Society of Jesus, Thomas V. Nolan, received a letter from the Local Government Board to go down to the North Wall at 7.30am on the 18th and meet the 100 Belgian refugees ‘and one hundred each of the following days’. This was due to ‘a few of your Order, who speak Flemish’. Subsequently, the Irish Provincial became a member of the Distribution Committee which looked after the welfare and distribution of refugees arriving in Ireland. The Irish Jesuits received offers to house the refugees and organised schemes to aid them, both physically and spiritually.

A file relating to a proposal by Dr Fehily of the Colonial Office that some Jesuits be incorporated in the Welfare Mission which he is leading to Hong Kong following the liberating army.

Material relating to the Jesuit presence in Galway in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Includes:

• letter from Fr James Rabbitte SJ to Fr John MacErlean SJ, concerning Galway records and Jesuit chalices (1 December 1935, 2pp);
• notes by Fr John MacErlean SJ on the chalice of the Galway Jesuits (n.d., 1p.) and drafts of a typescript article by [Fr Francis Finegan SJ] on the Centenary of St Ignatius’ Galway, recalling the history of the Jesuits in the city in the seventeenth century (1963, 8pp and 9pp);
• copybook by Fr John MacErlean SJ on the Jesuits in Galway using James Hardiman's version of 1651 map, and his history of Galway [1905], (71pp). Includes letter from Fr John MacErlean SJ, University College, St Stephen's Green, Dublin to Fr William Byrne SJ, St Ignatius, Galway on townlands (19 September 1905).

Mission Office material relating to Fr Thomas Ryan SJ. Includes photographs, announcement of death, obituaries, personal record; review of ‘Jesuits Under Fire’ (1943-4), proofs and illustrations of ‘Jesuits Under Fire’ by Fr Ryan; correspondence between Fr Coyne, St. Francis Xavier, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin, Ireland and the publishers of ‘Jesuits Under Fire’; censorship judgements, book requests and receipts for the book; article entitled ‘The Church in China’ (1950); and correspondence between Fr Ryan and Fr Thomas J Martin SJ, Mission Office, Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin, Ireland.

Note on Fr Jean Claude Jautard SJ (Spiritual Father of the newly Restored Society; buried at Clongowes in 1821), as Chaplain to George’s Hill Convent, 1814, made by Fr Fergal McGrath SJ (Irish Province Archivist until 1986).