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Collection
Sheil, Leonard, 1897-1968, Jesuit priest and missionary London
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Letters and report to the Irish Fr Provincial from Fr Leonard Sheil SJ concerning missions in Spain

  • IE IJA J/16/10
  • File
  • 7 September [1961] - 30 November 1965
  • Part of Irish Jesuits

Letters and report to the Irish Fr Provincial from Fr Leonard Sheil SJ concerning missions in Spain, comparisons with missions in Britain and Ireland and the possibility of Fr Sheil’s working in South America. Includes:
– letter from Fr Sheil to the Irish Fr Provincial seeking permission to go to Spain to study Spanish missions in order to adapt certain practices for use in Britain (7 September. 1961, 4pp);
– copy of a ‘Report on Missions in Spain’ following a visit by Frs Shiggins and Sheil who attended five missions around the country (n.d., 4pp);
– letter from Fr Sheil to the Irish Fr Provincial in which he discusses certain Spanish customs which could be used on Missions in Britain. Remarks that he will send the Provincial a report ‘on the meetings I now hold with Protestant clergymen after missions in Ireland’ and that he has sent in ‘full reports on our missions in Britain’ ‘almost every year for ten years’. Also mentions a new member of the mission staff, Fr Kevin Laheen SJ – ‘You will be glad to know that Fr Laheen on this his first mission did very well. He preaches well and his musical voice was a help to O'Beirne and I. I need not tell you that O'Beirne preaches very well, and is a wonderful companion on a mission. He sleeps badly’ (Fr Gerry O'Beirne) (23 March 1963, 3pp) and
– letters seeking permission to go to Spain (and Italy) as a supply priest (25 May 19?? – 30 November 1965, 4 items).

Correspondence concerning Fr Leonard Sheil's return to Farm Street Church, London on mission work

  • IE IJA J/16/13
  • File
  • 17 April - 9 December 1966
  • Part of Irish Jesuits

Correspondence concerning Fr Leonard Sheil's return to Farm Street Church, London on mission work. Includes:
– letter from Provincial Fr Brendan Barry SJ to Fr John Brooks SJ, Superior of the English Provincialate in Mount Street, London, offering the services of Fr Sheil for mission work amongst Irish immigrants. ‘I should let you know that last December Father Sheil had an operation for cancer in the intestine. However, he is in very good form again and is most anxious to take on plenty of work. His doctor wrote to me in January to say that it is quite possible that he may continue to have many years of useful activity’ (17 Apr. 1966, 1p.) and
– letter to the Provincial from Fr Sheil describing the week he spent working among the inmates in Wormwood Scrubs Jail. ‘There are 1,500 prisoners, 700 of them under 20. Of these youths, 81 are Catholic, 19 of them born in Ireland; 12 had not made First Confession, but all the Irish-born knew their religion. I was supplying for the prison chaplain R.C., an excellent man who spent 16 years of his life at Westminster Cathedral. But they tell me he doesn’t visit the cells. I did, 81 of them. It’s pathetic. And I got locked in twice, because if the cell door slams, there is no possible way of getting out till some warder changes (sic.) to come along’ (13 Jul. 1966, 2pp). Encloses a report he wrote for 'Chaplain’s Weekly' on ‘Farm St(reet) Hotel work’ describing the work of the chaplains in London bars, restaurants, residential clubs and hotels (11 Jul. 1966, 2pp).

Correspondence between Vice-Provincial Brendan Lawler and the English Provincialate relating to Fr Leonard Sheil’s illness

Correspondence between Vice-Provincial Brendan Lawler and the English Provincialate in Mount Street, London, relating to Fr Leonard Sheil’s recall to the Irish Province due to his final illness. Includes:

  • letter from Irish Fr Provincial Brendan Barry SJ to Fr Thomas Dunphy SJ of Mount Street in which he states that Fr Sheil ‘…is beyond medical aid, since he has cancer of the liver. He is not confined to bed and – characteristically – he is all on for doing some work for God before he dies. Nevertheless it is obvious that his days at Farm Street have come to an end. I am therefore putting him in the Catalogus as withdrawn from Farm Street and stationed at the College of Industrial Relations, Sandford Road, Dublin 6. He went there from the nursing home last week and he is to stay there as long as his health allows. Please advise Father Corrigan that it seems best now to regard Father Sheil as no longer applied to the English Province or attached to Farm Street’ (19 Oct. 1967, 1p.) and
    – reply from Fr Dunphy to Fr Lawler – ‘I need hardly say how sorry we are about this, because he has been such a wonderful man. There is no doubt that he has done great work in the parish and has been deeply loved and respected by all who knew him. He was certainly a source of great edification to this community’ (22 Oct. 1967, 1p.).

File entitled Missions in Britain 1950s

File entitled Missions in Britain 1950s containing eleven sections: Introductory letter from Fr Leonard Sheil SJ (20 February 1960, 5pp);

  • report for Irish Fr Provincial (8 January 1958, 8pp);
  • list of places and dates of Irish Missions in Britain 1949 - 1959 (19[59], 6pp);
  • copies of commendatory letters (7 November 1953 - 24 November 1958, 3 items);
  • Report for Irish Fr Provincial on Missions 1958 - January 1959 and cuttings from the [Irish Independent] on the Mission Campaign in Britain by Fr Leonard Sheil SJ (20 January 1959, 3 items);
  • three ‘typical’ reports on three 1959 Missions for the Bishop of Ferns (1959, 4pp);
  • ‘Account of an Ideal Mission for the Bishop of Ferns’ by Fr Sheil (n.d., 7pp);
  • press articles by Fr Sheil describing the Missions (September - October 1958, 6 items);
  • photographs of Birmingham and Westminster Cathedrals, Brompton Oratory, photographs of ‘children of the Irish’ (13 items) and
  • map of England indicating the routes of Fr Sheil’s motorcycle travel (1 item).
    Also includes booklets and advertising leaflets for the Missions (7 items) and memorandum for Irish Fr Provincial by Fr Sheil containing suggestions for better organisation of the Missions (1959, 2pp).