Pennsylvanian Capuchin Provincial’s visit

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Independent Wed Dec. 29. 48 Capuchin Provincial's Visit Very Rev. Father Clarence, O.F.M.Cap., Pittsburgh (left), and Very Rev. Father Claude, O.F.M.Cap., Minister Provincial, also of Pittsburgh, who are visiting this country. Compared with other countries on the Continent, Ireland had an enviable measure of contentment and prosperity, said Very Rev. Father Claude, O.F.M.Cap., Minister Provincial, St. Augustine's Province, Pittsburgh, in an interview with an Irish Independent representative. The Provincial and Very Rev. Father Clarence, O.F.M.Cap., also of St. Augustine's, are visiting Dublin, and are the guests of Very Rev. Father Virgilis, O.F.M.Cap., Guardian, and the Capuchin Fathers at Church Street. They had attended the Capuchin Conference in Rome in November and, having visited a number of continental countries, are now on their way back to America. Father Claude, who is of Bavarian and Irish descent, has not been to Ireland before, and told our representative that he and Father Clarence were delighted with their visit. They had been cordially received by President O'Kelly, and were pleased beyond expression at the hospitality of the people. VISIT TO GLENCREE A pleasant part of their stay in Ireland, he added, was a visit, accompanied by Mr. F. Fahy, Ceann Comhairle and Mrs. Fahy, to the Irish Red Cross Hostel at Glencree. "We cannot," said Father Claude, "sufficiently admire the noble, philanthropic and Christian effort on the part of your generous Government and the Red Cross Society for the poor German children. We found them comfortably housed, well-fed and efficiently trained in this fine mountain home." Father Clarence expressed the belief that Ireland was on the thres- hold of a great era, now that the country could develop its own economy according to its own resources and need no longer serve as a milch cow for any neighbouring Power. He hoped the Irish people would not be "jack-o'-lanterned" by the materialistic philosophy of the day, but would remain true to their ideals. CARPENTRY TRADE IN CLONMEL Sir—Re your leading article of the 3rd inst., the members of the Clonmel branch of the Amalgamated Society of Woodworkers wish to emphatically deny the statements made at a recent meeting of the South Tipperary Vocational Education Committee, when references were made to a "closed shop" existing in the carpentry trade, to which, it was stated, only sons of carpenters could be apprenticed. We would point out that at present there are twelve apprentices and exactly half that number are not carpenters' sons. Therefore we fail to see where the "closed shop" exists. Rule 7 of the 1937 Agreement between the representatives of the Saorstat Elreann Federation of Building Trades Employers and the Clonmel and District Building Trades Group, states:—"That each employer be allowed one apprentice to every four men employed on the average of the number of men working each week for the previous twelve months, except in the case of a craftsman's son…