The Cork Total Abstainer, or the Irish Temperance Journal was first published on 20 February 1841, edited by John Francis Maguire (1815-1872), and printed weekly by S.M. Thompson from an office in Great George's Street (the modern Washington Street). As its subtitle suggests, it was a campaigning organ for the efforts of Fr Theobald Mathew (1790-1856) to encourage abstinence from alcohol among Cork's poorer classes. The second-last issue announced the paper's replacement with a new title, The Cork Examiner, which duly appeared, again under Maguire's editorship, on Monday 30 August 1841.
Special Collections holds a bound photocopy of The Cork Total Abstainer, containing Issues 1 (20 February) to 18 (3 July) 1841.
Hyland, C.P. "The Cork Total Abstainer," Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society 100 (1995): 167-171.
Portrait of Fr Theobald Mathew (1790-1856), from the cover of Seán Ua Ceallaigh's An tAthair Tiobóid. Dublin : M.H. Gill, 1909, 2nd edition.
See O'Connor, Thomas. "Theobald Mathew," Dictionary of Irish Biography.
