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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.

Parties:
Rev. Thomas A. Finlay, 35 Lower Leeson Street, city of Dublin (the Settlor); 1st part.
Rev. Thomas A. Finlay, George O'Brien, 40 Northumberland Road, county Dublin, Doctor of Letters and Joseph Hugh Murray, 40 St. Kevin’s Park, Dartry Road, County Dublin, Esquire (the Trustees); 2nd part.

Preamble:
Fr Finlay is entitled to several sums of £1,075 and £1,228.10s 5% state-guaranteed mortgage bonds of the Agricultural Credit Corporation with which he wishes to establish a Rural Industrial Trust Fund.

Terms:
Fr Finlay transfers the money with a view to the formation of the Trust Fund, to the Trustees subject to a number of clauses, including that the Trustees apply the annual income arising from the bonds ‘in aiding or assisting in such manner as they shall consider most beneficial the poorer workers in Rural Industries…in any part of Ireland including Northern Ireland.’

Expression of sympathy on the death of Fr Thomas A. Finlay SJ by the delegates to the Annual General Meeting of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society of which Fr Finlay was Vice-President.

Letter from Thomas McCreevy, Garland’s Hotel, Suffolk Street, Pall Mall, London, to Fr Thomas A. Finlay SJ concerning Fr Finlay’s “attitude to Mr Lennox Robinson in regard to his story ‘The Madonna of Slieve Dun’…I presume that you accept Mr Robinson’s repudiation of the suggestion that his story was a parody of the Scripture History of the Incarnation.” Protests about the attitude of a ‘small section of the press in Ireland’ with regard to ‘Christian standards’, defends Mr. Robinson and states ‘I…regard it as binding, in us Catholics particularly, to see that injustice is not done in our name in this matter…I am prepared to urge Mr. Robinson to get the matter considered by the Holy Office itself if necessary rather than submit to the injustice of being treated as a blaspheming parodist.’

Signed copy of the portrait of Fr Thomas A. Finlay SJ by Leo Whelan. Fr Final’s death notice attached.

Thomas A. Finlay SJ, 1848-1940: educationalist, editor, social reformer. Four Courts Press, Dublin, Ireland.