3-078-283 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Father Mathew Centenary: Father Mathew's statue at Cork, by J. H. Foley, R.A., 1890. Monument to the "Apostle of Temperance". 'There have been many lovers of the poor in our day, but it would be hard to find one who loved them better than Father Mathew. In them he conceived he saw the image of the Redeemer, and while he was courteous to all, conducting himself in society with the stately dignity of a gentleman of the old school, to the poor he was ever sympathetic and gentle and reverent. The most unsavoury trades chose him for their confessor, and he had ample opportunities of knowing the very poor. Compulsory ignorance and idleness lay, he thought, at the root of their miseries, and he at once set about to remove the former. He opened a school for female children, and soon had 500 pupils. He founded night-schools for poor boys, and formed those in happier circumstances into little societies with a view to their helping in religious, educational, and benevolent work'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.