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Fragment of a diary sporadically kept by the Reverend Samuel Monsell (1743-1818), curate of Mallow from 1766 to 1780; Precentor of Ardfert from 1791 to 1811; and Vicar of Clondulane from 1805 until his death in 1818. Monsell was the younger son of the Reverend Daniel Monsell from his second marriage to Deborah née Tuthill and grandson of the shipping merchant William Monsell of Tervoe, county Limerick (for whose letter book see P29/1/1). He had a younger sister, Anne, and an older half-brother, Captain William Monsell, from his father's first marriage to a cousin, Mary née Monsell. At the time of diary, Samuel's uncle William Monsell and his second wife Dymphna née Pery resided at Tervoe.

The journal covers Monsell’s time as a student of theology at Trinity College, Dublin, where he enrolled in 1757, and his curacy in Mallow from 1766 until 1777. The diary is brooding and introspective, providing an intimate view of a tormented man who repeatedly fails in his attempts to lead a virtuous life and who seeks God’s forgiveness and the strength and discipline to mend his ways, only to fall time and again at the first hurdle. The diary is simultaneously an account of Monsell’s daily activities as a student and curate and a confessional in which he lays bare his sins. Throughout the course of the diary he is in perpetual debt and struggling to avoid his creditors. As a student, he steals books and food from his fellow students and makes futile attempts to ingratiate himself with his uncle and aunt at Tervoe in the unrealistic hope of succeeding to the property. As a curate, he keeps a mistress and has intimate encounters with other females, including married women. He is convinced that his parishioners entertain a low opinion of him and is haunted by the fear of being found out and by eternal damnation for his sins. He berates himself for his own behaviour yet appears incapable of change.

Apart from being a record of Monsell’s inner life, the diary contains a number of interesting details. These include a list of his clothes, a detailed description of his residence in Mallow, and frequent references to the compilation of a catalogue of books in his possession, some of which he inherited from his father. His private library appears to have been substantial, and some indication of its size can be found in his will (for which see P29/1/9).

Monsell appears to have derived the idea of journaling from Pythagoras’s advice to review one’s day at bedtime and in the morning and to have favoured the format of a commonplace book devised by the English physician and philosopher John Locke (1632-1704). References to a large commonplace book Monsell was compiling are scattered throughout the diary, and the uneven pagination suggests that it originally formed part of such or some other much more substantial document. The first part, paginated 34-58, comprises a coherent narrative, to which have been added fragments of six other pages. The first four of these are numbered 620, 669, 675 and 681, respectively, while the last two fragments bear no pagination.

Handwritten document entitled ‘A Character’, providing a character analysis of an unidentified person but probably the Reverend Samuel Monsell (1743-1818).

Last will and testament of the Reverend Samuel Monsell, in which he bequeaths his house in Ballydaheen, Mallow and all its contents to Mary Hodges of Mallow, spinster, for her natural life, except for three hundred of his best books, which he bequeaths to the Right Reverend Joseph Stock, Lord Bishop of Waterford ‘to be by him disposed of to and amongst his Children as he shall think Proper’. The will bears Samuel Monsell’s seal but is unsigned. A note on the reverse states: ‘Testamentary Paper found in the Iron chest of the late Samuel Monsell in Waterford 7 November 1818 – Daniel Henry Wall’.

Bound hardback letter book containing copies of some 1,200 letters sent by shipping merchant Samuel Monsell of Tervoe, county Limerick in the course of managing his extensive trading activities in Ireland, England, France, Holland and Spain. The letters deal in the main with the buying and shipping of goods, the insuring of cargoes and the complex financial transactions on which trading depended. The letters provide information on the names of ships and their captains going in and out of Limerick harbour, the cargo they contained and the fluctuating prices of goods over the years. The most common items in which Monsell traded included wheat, beans, hops, beef, pork, butter, tallow, hides, tanned leather, staves, coal, turf, salt, soap, candles, wine, vinegar and tobacco. The letters illustrate the difficulties of trading in perishable goods and the utter dependence of the business on good weather. In a letter to William Cleavland, written on 29 December 1723, Monsell notes that Captain Thomas Tarlton ‘was seen at the rivers mouth with 2 or 3 more sailes that has been outward bound and ready to saile these six weeks or 2 months past and the wind has Continued S. E. ever since till this morning.’ As a consequence of the vagaries of winds, trade fluctuated wildly between shortage and excess. Many of Monsell’s letters are written in response to queries from merchants seeking information on the current price of goods or attempting off-load goods that had flooded the market. On 8 September 1723, Monsell advised Robert Low of Liverpool that ‘this is no markett for leaf tobaco unless extraordinary good… sugars of noe kind will do here they are supplyed from Corke with refined sugars cheaper than you can afford…’

One way to protect goods was to ensure that the casks used for transportation were of the highest quality. To safeguard himself against potential loss, Monsell took extra measures as he explained in a letter to Arthur Hamilton of Liverpool, 24 September 1723: ‘I oblidge Every Cooper I deal with to burn their names att length on the Cask and any Cask that proves bad by leaking pickle they must pay for the barrell, att least itt will keep them in awe and make them take Care & Make their barrels good’. Insuring not only the cargo but also the vessel was paramount. Merchants often pooled together to hire a vessel, each insuring their own part of it. One insurer Monsell used was Joseph Percival of Bristol. On 26 May 1724, Monsell instructed him to ‘make the Insurance soe that in Case of Loss I should Recover soe much as I mentioned for the goods Cost me £815 Irish and the ⅛ of the Ship £64 English’.

In 1724, Monsell had to deal with the failure of his Cadiz-based business, Monsell & Stacpole, and its near-catastrophic financial consequences. Tired of the high-risk nature of trading and constant delays in payments, he decided to retire ‘to my country house within 3 miles of the town’ and only ‘Export the produce of my owne grounds and resolve Intirely to Quit trading onely what I doe to Cadiz’ (Monsell o John Moniers, 9 April 1725). From this date onwards, Monsell’s letters deal mainly with land transactions as he set about increasing his estates in counties Limerick and Clare. In December 1723, he ‘purchased the Manor of Doonass which Cost me £3000 it is worth me about £400 per annum a Lease for 99 Years’ (Monsell to Messrs Monsell & Stacpole of Cadiz, 17 January 1724). Almost exactly two years later, he took ‘from our new Bishop my owne part and Twigs part of Mungrett as also I have purchased the fee of KilGobbin near Adare 262 acres of as Good Land as any I know… I have likewise Got Castle Ceale near Carrigoran for £1000… my Bargain In Castle Keale Is worth a Thousand pound more than It Cost me, with a little Improvement’ (Monsell to his son Samborn Monsell, 26 December 1725). In the end, he came to learn that land speculation was almost as wrought with complications as trading.

In addition to trading and land speculation, Monsell’s letters are rich in vignettes of other aspects of his life. He describes contentious council meetings, during one of which ‘Jack Roach began to use me with such freedom as I was nott able to beare… and was oblidged to make use of my Cane to Correct the old Raskell for his unmanerlyness…’ (Monsell to General Pierce in Dublin, 12 October 1725). In 1722, he purchased a wig but was obliged to return it to the manufacturer Francis Montgomery, it ‘not being fitt for my use tis neither full Enough of hair nor wide Enough on the head’ (18 October 1722). In November 1724, his life took a dramatic turn when he ‘had the Misfortune to have a dispute with a Gent in a narrow room & both our swords being drawn & my Servant man in & endeavouring to part us run himself in the Other Gents sword & recd it in his right breast of which he died Instantly[.] Thank God I have no hurt but one through my left hand which is in a fair way of doing well & the other Gent in his right breast which will likewise do well…’ (Monsell to Robert Adair, both 13 November 1724 ). The sword severed the tendons in Monsell’s hand and caused an injury from which he never fully recovered.

Monsell’s wife and children, particularly his three eldest sons, also feature prominently in his letters. He took care to provide his sons with a good education and find suitable positions for them. His eldest, William, who eventually succeeded to Tervoe, was sent to London to study law. The second son, Samborn, was set up in Dublin as a merchant, but proved a unreliable business partner to his father, repeatedly failing to deliver his messages or to act upon his instructions. Exasperated by his antics, Monsell warned him sternly to ‘for Godsake never omitt any business I give you on charge what you think may be no consequence may be of the most to me.’ (Samborn Monsell, 15 March 1727). When his third son, John, was about to set off on a voyage with shipment of beef, Monsell offered him this fatherly advice: ‘keep the men to their duty, pray take care how you behave yourself, for your life dont drink more than what you can well bear, nothing makes a man of business more ridiculous than being in drink & nothing recommends a man more than being a sober man…’ (24 December 1726).

The most frequent recipients of Monsell’s letters include his sons William and Samborn Monsell; the latter’s father-in-law Daniel Conyngham, merchant of Dublin; Monsell’s business partner Thomas Stacpole in Cadiz; merchants Arthur Hamilton of Liverpool, John Finlay of Dublin, John Monier of London, William Crosbie & Co. of Liverpool, Francis and William Lynch of Cork, Dublin, London and Nantes, Brian Blundell of Liverpool, Crisp Gascoyne of London, Edward Webber of Cork, James Browne of Dublin and William Cleveland of Liverpool; attorney Bryan McMahon; the private bank of Messrs Burton and Harrison of Dublin; Thomas Sinnott of Ratoath, Dublin; Messrs Harper & Morris of Cork; Sir Henry Hugh of Dublin; Messrs Webb and Addis of Limerick; Joseph Perceval of Bristol; and Lucy Southwell (née Bowen) of Dublin.

Letter from ‘April’ at an unidentified location to the Reverend Samuel Monsell, Bishop’s Palace, Waterford. The writer refers to a recent meeting with Monsell in his bed-chamber and her desire ‘to renew the gratification at the earliest period’.

Letter from Edwin Richard Wyndham Quin (1812-1871), Viscount Adare, in Ormeau, Belfast to his sister Lady Anna Maria Monsell née Wyndham Quin (1814-1855), wife of William Monsell of Tervoe, county Limerick, informing her of his and his wife’s safe arrival in Ireland and giving a tentative idea of their forthcoming movements.

Letter from Joseph Stock (1740-1813), bishop of Killala and Achonry to his son Henry F. Stock, 21 Temple Street, Dublin. Stock consoles his son over his proposal of marriage which has been rejected and expresses concern over Henry’s brother Charles, who was mentally fragile.

Letter from Thomas Monsell (1763-1846) to ‘Sam’, possibly his first cousin Samuel Monsell, a barrister-at-law. Thomas Monsell was uncle to William Monsell, 1st Baron Emly (1812-1894), and father to the hymnist John Samuel Bewley Monsell (1811-1875) and botanical artist Diana Conyngham Ellis (1813-1851). Thomas gives an account of his life during the eight years that have passed since he last saw Sam. He notes that ‘my Father… is as sturdy as ever in his resolution never to have any communication with me, even the most distant.’ He has been settled in the perpetual curacy of Buncrana in county Monaghan by the Bishop of Derry and gives a short account of his surroundings, his wife and their four children, including their names and dates of birth. He expresses a sincere wish to see Sam, or to at least hear of him again.

Letter from William Bennett, Bishop of Cloyne (1746-1820) in London to the Reverend Samuel Monsell in Fermoy. The letter relates to the Board of First Fruits deeds, which Bennett encourages Monsell to sign. He also assures Monsell that ‘I will not call upon you to build a Glebe House’.

Letter from William Monsell (1772-1837), Windsor Castle, to his uncle, the Reverend Samuel Monsell, ‘to be left until called for Pos=offce [sic] Edinburgh Scotland’. William hopes to have the pleasure of his uncle’s company in Windsor. He gives a detailed description of apartments taken in the Horseshoe Cloisters within Windsor Castle by Mrs Stock, presumably the widow of Bishop Joseph Stock who had died in August 1813, for William notes that ‘she is pitied by everyone she appears in so much grief’.