A review of 'The account books of the Franciscan House, Broad Lane, Cork 1764–1921. Edited by Liam Kennedy and Claire Murphy' (Pre-published version)

Abstract

This book, making accessible in printed form the accounts of the Cork Franciscan Friary, should be read in conjunction with the database available on the Irish Manuscripts Commission website. Both book and database are the result of painstaking and meticulous transcription and analysis by Clare Murphy and Liam Kennedy of almost 130 years of accounts (no records are extant for the years 1785 to 1803). Although the level of information available varies over the period, with the greatest detail appearing up to the mid-nineteenth century, the work is an invaluable guide to the day-to-day expenditure as well as to some of the larger capital outlays of a religious house in a provincial Irish city from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century. Every entry (almost all exactly dated) outlines the nature of the transaction and the amount of payment in pounds, shillings and pence, with decimalised equivalents for those unfamiliar with the ‘old money’ of pre-1971.