9 - Letter from Father Peter Bowe regarding a land compensation dispute

9

Letter from Father Peter Bowe regarding a land compensation dispute

2 pp; manuscript

A letter referring to a legal and financial disagreement regarding monetary compensation and rent claims over a plot of reclaimed land at Rochestown. Written by Father Peter Bowe OFM Cap., Superior of the Franciscan Capuchin Monastery at Rochestown, County Cork, and addressed to L. J. C. Cornwall, Esq., the text characterizes the dispute as a miserable question of compensation for a corner of doubtful dimensions and of no material value’. Father Peter states that because Cornwall refuses any mutually agreeable terms, the friars intend to appeal the case directly to the Papal Nuncio and warns that if the matter is forced into a secular court, the community will robustly defend its position. He argues against Cornwall’s demand for an ‘exorbitant rent’, explaining that the plot was a marshy corner reclaimed entirely at the monastery’s extensive expense to remove a public eyesore and danger. Highlighting that landowner Mr. Glasgow receives only a nominal rent for the broader estate, Father Peter explicitly refuses terms that require the monastery to pay back-rent for ten years and permanently bind future successors to a lifetime rental sum.

ISAD(G) 2nd edition