3-078-287 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Father Mathew Centenary: tower, near Cork, commemorating Father Mathew's reception in England, 1890. 'In 1843 the famous "Apostle of Temperance" came to England, and preached temperance in the towns of Lancashire and Yorkshire, in London and Norwich. He held various meetings in the Metropolis, and there are many now living who attended them. In Bermondsey and Westminster an organised opposition stopped his meetings, but in the Barbican, in the East-End, and in the north of London they were very successful. In the Barbican, the Earl of Arundel and Surrey took the pledge, as did Lord Stanhope at the meeting in the Commercial-road, the latter entering into the work with such ardour that Father Mathew embraced him on the spot and kissed him...One of Father Mathew's Irish admirers, Mr. [William] O'Connor, a wealthy tradesman in Cork, was so delighted at the sympathy thus shown by England that he determined to commemorate the event by building a tower on the Glanmire side of the river Lee. The foundation-stone was laid Oct. 30, 1843'. From "Illustrated London News", 1890.