Letter from Patrick Carey to Messres Helys Ltd, 29 November 1915

Foo, Bar; Bar, Foo

Letter from Patrick Carey to Messres Helys Ltd, 29 November 1915

1 29th Novr. 1915 Gentelmen, I am directed by the Board of Guardians
of above Union to inform you that they have accepted
your tender (at the price specified therein) for the
supply of Stationery to the 30th September 1916. Owing to the proposed introduction of
the new Dietary Scale and the consequent alteration in
the forms at present in use, the Guardians have decided
not to not to enter into a Contract for the supply of
Bound Books for the current year, Yours faithfully
Clerk of Union. Messrs Helys Ltd,
Dame St, Dublin,

Patrick Carey (1853-1934) was the Union Clerk for the Killarney Poor Law Board of Guardians. Poor law unions and their workhouses were established by the Poor Law (Ireland) Act, 1838, as a response to widespread poverty, and were each governed by a Board of Guardians. This letter comes from the Killarney Poor Law Board of Guardians Minute Book. Messrs Helys was a printworks operating from Dame Lane from 1897 up to the 1960s. Under the control of Charles Wisdom Hely (1856-1929) Hely's printworks were imortalised in James Joyce's Ulysses. In 1916 Helys was performing a balancing act between entertaining Irish nationalists and the British military authorities. After printing several recruitment posters for the British the company were warned to cease printing "British propaganda". Shortly after the printers would produce a commemorative booklet “The ‘Sinn Fein’ Revolt, Illustrated” (1916) along with a series of postcards documenting the destruction of the GPO during Easter Week.

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How to cite

Letters 1916, published by the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities, Vienna, 2026 (https://letters1916static.github.io/letters1916-static/item__4075.html)