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This collection comprises a scrapbook compiled by Charles Henry Gubbins and a number of loose items found inserted inside the book. The collection provides insights into the personal life of a humorous and sociable man and, more broadly, the rich cultural and sporting life of Munster in the last decades of the nineteenth century.

A sermon by Father Prout cut out from a newspaper, with linen backing.

Press cuttings relating to the departure from Limerick of Charles Henry Gubbins, manager of the firm of Messrs W. J. Shaw and Sons, to manage the firm’s branch in Cork.

Press cutting relating to the death by drowning of William Beaumont, a prominent athlete and member of the Limerick Boat Club.

Photograph (45 x 68 mm) of Charles Henry Gubbins with a cornet in his hands standing next to a seated man holding an accordion. Both men are wearing top hats and smiling broadly. Image by Thomas Horsfall Midwood of Ramsey, Isle of Man.

Fragment of stationery bearing the logo and contact details of W. J. Shaw & Sons’ Garryowen Bacon Factory.

Bound hardback scrapbook embossed on the front cover ‘Amusing Scraps & My Records 1881 – C. H. Gubbins’. The scrapbook contains press cuttings relating to sports, especially activities of the Limerick Amateur Athletic and Bicycle Club, Cork Amateur Athletic Club and English and Irish championship meetings of athletic sports. Many of the press cuttings contain references to Charles or his brothers. Of particular interest is a lengthy newspaper article entitled ‘A Bicycle Tour in France’, written by Charles Henry Gubbins and published in the Limerick Chronicle on 16 October 1880. Pasted alongside the article are comic sketches involving penny-farthings and a very fine photograph of a man standing in front of a penny-farthing. The book further contains humorous accounts reported in newspapers; comic poems, limericks and other ditties; and comic sketches cut out from magazines, including one entitled ‘Limerick Races 1880 Election Stakes’ featuring ‘Trade ridden by Sellors, Whig Hack ridden by Connolly and Political Ass ridden by Ellard’. Also contained in the scrapbook are sports and theatre programmes (many of the latter featuring Charles Henry Gubbins in various roles); reviews of concerts and plays; and descriptions and programmes of fancy dress and other balls, including a detailed and lengthy account of one held at Adare Manor in 1893. Items of a more personal note have also been included on the pages of the scrapbook, such as photographs, letters and covers of envelopes; obituaries of Charles’ athlete friends and press cuttings relating to his promotion first to Cork and later to Manchester, his wedding and the birth of his first child. A short play entitled ‘Castle Spectre’ alongside programmes of Christy Minstrels’ Entertainment at the Theatre Royal in aid of Barrington’s Hospital in 1885 and 1887 can also be found in the book.