[Society for Irish Church Missions to the Roman Catholics.] Printed promotional pamphlet, including ‘The West Galway Church Building Fund / Appeal from the Bishop of Tuam.’ [i.e. Thomas Span Plunket]

A scarce item: the only copy on COPAC at Trinity College Dublin. (WorldCat records a German library holding). See the entry on the Society’s founder, Rev. Alexander Dallas, in the Oxford DNB. The organisation, which still operates, is a controversial one. It was founded to convert Irish Roman Catholics to Protestantism, and the attitude of those involved can be gauged by the fact that its members considered the Potato Famine a judgement on the Catholics and made relief conditional on conversion, and that the Bishop of Tuam evicted tenants for not sending their children to Protestant schools. The present item is 7pp, 12mo. Stabbed and unopened, on a folded half-sheet. In good condition, on aged paper. There is a list of officers beneath the drop-head name of the organisation on the first page, and this is followed by a statement dated ‘November, 1850’ ending on p.3. Pp. 3-4 carry ‘Extracts from Roman Catholic Documents’. Pp.5-7 carry the ‘Appeal from the Bishop of Tuam’ regarding ‘The West Galway Church Building Fund’. P.7 ends with a list of ‘Contributions’ that ‘have already been made’, including the considerable sum of £200 from ‘The Hon. Justice Jackson, Sutton House, Baldoyle’.