5 - Correspondence and Papers of the Pearse Family

5

Correspondence and Papers of the Pearse Family

39 files and 177 items; Bound volume; Manuscript; Typescript; Newspaper clipping; Photographic print; Printed

The subseries comprises a small collection of papers relating to the Pearse family, most notably Patrick Pearse (1879-1916), a writer, educationalist, and revolutionary. The collection also includes material relating to Patrick’s father, James Pearse (1839-1900), an English stonemason and sculptor who came to Ireland in about 1860. Following the death of his first wife in 1876, James Pearse married Margaret Brady (1857-1932), a Dublin-born shop assistant. The couple had four children, Margaret Mary Pearse (born 1878), Patrick Pearse (born 1879), William Pearse (born 1881), and Mary Brigid Pearse (born 1884).

The collection includes some papers compiled by Margaret Pearse (née Brady), later a prominent nationalist figure and Dáil deputy, and her eldest daughter Margaret Mary Pearse (1878-1968), a teacher and Fianna Fáil politician. There are also a small number of papers associated with William Pearse (1881-1916), the younger son in the Pearse family.

Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap., the editor of ‘The Capuchin Annual’, was a close acquaintance of Margaret Mary Pearse and frequentlycorresponded with her. Moynihan was seemingly gifted this small archive of family records by Margaret Mary Pearse, and the collection was later preserved among his personal papers.

The papers are arranged into five sections relating to the individuals responsible for their creation, Patrick Pearse (1879-1916), his elder sister, Margaret Mary Pearse (1878-1968), his younger brother, William Pearse (1881-1916), and his parents, Margaret Pearse (née Brady) (1857-1932), and James Pearse (1839-1900). All the papers have been arranged chronologically within the various sections.

See a similar collection of Pearse family material assembled by Fr. Senan Moynihan OFM Cap. now held in Trinity College Dublin. (IE TCD MS/8265). https://iar.ie/archive/papers-prick-henry-pearse-family/

ISAD(G) 2nd edition