The collection comprises primarily letters and copies of letters by members of the Monsell family or individuals associated with them. Of particular note is a letter book kept by the shipping merchant William Monsell (P2/1/1), which contains copies of some 1,200 items of mainly business correspondence, giving a unique insight into Limerick as a maritime mercantile city in the early eighteenth century. Of equal interest is the fragment of a diary (P2/1/12) kept by his grandson, the Reverend Samuel Monsell (1743-1818), Precentor of Ardfert from 1791 to 1811, which provides an extraordinary account of the private life and innermost thoughts of a Church of Ireland clergyman struggling to stay on the path of virtue.

The material consists of leases, mortgages, conveyances, marriage settlements and wills relating to the families of Odell (1782-1891), Morony (1831-1937), Lloyd (1829-1965) and Allott (1947-1999). Of particular interest is the copy will relating to Helen Sophia Chenevix (1890-1963), General Secretary of the Irish Women Workers’ Union (1955-1957), member of the Irish Trade Union Congress executive committee (1946-1956), and one of the first female graduates of Trinity College, Dublin (see P27/1/4/1/3/1). There are also extensive records relating to the dairy farm managed at Odellville from 1945 to 1994, including stock breeding and sales records, milk records and farm accounts (P27/2/1/2-6). There is some architectural material relating to improvements carried out at Odellville between 1880 and 1900 (P27/1/2/7/1-3). There are also 19th-century scrapbooks and other items of Quaker interest relating to the Watson and Webb families (P27/3/1/1-4).