WEEK 25: (18th – 23rd March 1918)

width=“Dorothea had a visit from a girl named Minnie Doyle who was looking for Edward Jacob – she had a baby in New Ross workhouse when she was 16, through absolutely no fault of her own, & being left all alone at the time for hours after, the baby died & she was tried for murdering it, but acquitted, whereupon she was put into the Good Sheppard convent here, & very badly treated there according to her account. Edward Jacob had visited her in prison, & told her to apply to him when she came out, but when she asked the nuns for the wherewithal to write to him, they wdn’t give it.”

NLI Call Number: MS, 3582/33
NLI Catalogue Link can be found here
Date Range of Diary: December 10th 1917 – August 4th 1918

WEEK 25: 18th – 23rd March 1918

Monday 18th. – I was in bed nearly all day, reading Emma over again. Dorothea had a visit from a girl named Minnie Doyle who was looking for Edward Jacob – she had a baby in New Ross workhouse when she was 16, through absolutely no fault of her own, & being left all alone at the time & for hours after, the baby died & she was tried for murdering it, but acquitted, whereupon she was put into the Good Sheppard convent here, & very badly treated there according to her account. Edward Jacob had visited her in prison, & told her to apply to him when she came out, but when she asked the nuns for the wherewithal to write to him, they wdn’t give it to her. Dorothea went to the convent to inquire about

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her, & was thoroughly disgusted with the nuns. She kept Minnie till something could be found for her, & Emily was very glad of her company.

Tuesday 19th March. – A lovely fine day. Mr Ginnell & his canvassers called in the afternoon to ask information about people living in the parts, and Mamma went with him to Waterpark & various places to show him where they were. One was Grant’s at the top of the hill, & she found him a handworking Sinn Féiner and very agreeable.  Then Mr Ginnell came back & had tea with us, & before he was done, Uncle C. came in, to prevent Mr G. going to him & annoying his head later on, & they argued for some time, but Uncle C. is hopeless. He seems to think the fact that the poor in this country are less miserable than they were 30 or 40 years ago is an argument against separation. He said he felt a strong sentiment

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of loyalty to J.R., & elected that Mr G. had not been a Parnellite, & then he slammed the hall door after him in the middle of the first remark I had contributed to the discussion, to Mr G’s amusement. I found afterwards that he had signed Redmond’s nomination papers. Mamma & Mr G. went away together, she to th Dorothea’s evening [Superscript: on Aspects of Indian History] at the F.L.S and he to the club. D. and T. called with Mamma when she came back & left the paper for one to read. It was packed with information if only one could remember it, & nearly all of it took place before Christ. She must have read a terrible lot for it.

Wednesday 20th March. – In the evening I got Mamma to go with me to Mr Grant’s & introduce me, & then, with the assistance of his very nice sister, I got him to go out to Cove with me

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after those  blackguards. [Superscript: Murphy]. He was a very nice companion, with plenty to say about the election & his canvassing experiences & English labour papers etc, but if I had known he was out canvassing before, that day, I would not have asked him to come. Murphy was still out, but we saw his son, who said if he had a vote he wd certainly use it for Dr White, & he wd do his best with his father, & I left him some fresh literature. Grant is a very good canvasser. I went down to the club later on, but found no niche, & was told by what I think was Séan M’Entee, that Alice Milligan had been asking for me & was at the Granville, so I went there but she was out, so I went on to the Metropole and found Tash just wanting someone to help her make beds, & Kitty nearly painting on a chair. We made 2 single beds & one double one, &

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& Redmondite mob howled outside. Then we had supper in the little drawingroom & they told me whatever news they had. De Valera was taken from them & put in the Granville to catch Maguire’s vote, as they were told. The house was searched for arms for 3 hours on Friday night, but nothing was found, though their everyone’s night’s rest was destroyed except Ginnell’s who was not wakened. Tash seems to detest Mrs Wyse Power. Mrs P. still had her cold.

Thursday 21st March. – I went to town in the morning, to the club where I asked O’Mahony was there any canvassing still to be done & he gave me a list of names in O’Connell St, where J Wylie & I went, with new leaflets. We had no luck; they were all either too busy to speak to us or had promised the other side, except 2 who were out & one who never told anyone how he was going to vote.

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He was the second I’ve met who seemed to think it an impertinence to ask what he thought [superscript: if he had decided] or how he would vote, but I don’t see how else a canvasser is to manage. We went back to the rooms & I invited the carstand Powers. They had been canvassing with M’Donagh & McGuinness, at least Julia had, & said Fred Bell as good as promised them his vote. After dinner I went down again & spent an hour or so with Mrs W. Powers & 2 or 3 agreeable men who knew her but who I didn’t know, filling in & addressing instruction cards for voters. When I had finished my book no more were forthcoming, so I went home. E. & J. Power were at the same job with M’Entee in the room next the billiard room. After tea Mamma & I went down to the Mall to the meeting & had to wait some time before it commenced, Milroy spoke very well,

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Messrs A.H. Poole, 34 The Mall, Waterford, c.1910 (Image Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland, Poolewp2027)

& Griffith made interesting revelations about the Convention. When it was over Mamma went home & I went on to the Metropole where the end meeting was to be. The procession of Volunteers etc turned round in the middle of the 2 way & marched back, & didn’t arrive at the Metropole till some time after I had got there. We hung out of the coffee room windows to listen; Figgis spoke first & then De Valera, and in the middle of the latter’s speech I went home, having only gone in order to hear him again. He was talking about the Volunteers as usual; saying they came at their own expense & didn’t cost the organisation a penny. I met scores of Redmondites on the quay returning from a meeting on the Mall.

Friday 22nd March. – Beautiful fine sunny day. I went to the Tech and soldered the ring together which was extremely hard, & worked at a copper brooch.

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Brother Gerald was there, talking rather like Sinn Feiner & prophesying a very close result. In the afternoon I went to visit R. Butler, who seemed pretty well & had sporty sitting with her, & them to Mrs Coade but she was out, as I went to see what the carstand Powers were doing. I found a De La Salle Brother come from Down-patrick to vote, just going to the polling station. T. Murray was there too. [unclear short hand text here] People seemed to be working hard bringing in voters & sitting in [superscript: rooms opposite] the stations recording all who voted etc etc, & there were more tales of violence & of Mrs Murphy of the Waterside’s language. When I got home I found Miss M’Carthy & Miss Brodrick from Dun Gharbain, come down to look at the election. They had been booed & followed on Ballybricken because they talked to Volunteers of their acquaintance who were on guard there.

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Miss M’C. talked steadily till 8 o’clock, largely about Cumann na mBan, wishing us here  to town turn the feminine part of the club into C. na mb. As they have done in Dun Gharbain. We went down to the club at 8 to see was there any news, but only found some rank & file in the billiard room & G. Bishop in one of the inner rooms, who told us the outlook was gloomy, & that the prominent men from a distance were dissatisfied with the members as workers.

Saturday 23rd March. – Another lovely day. I went to town in the morning and came to the Mall just as a camera was being stood on top of a bread-van to photograph a group in the window of the Imperial, including Captain Redmond I suppose, though it seemed to me all women. There was a crowd looking on & cheesing rather poorly. I had difficulty in making my way through them,

Imperial Hotel and coaches, The Mall, Waterford (Image courtesy of the National Library of Ireland, Pooleimp 149)

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and with the bicycle, & one woman made a grab at my badge, seeming infuriated at seeing me still worn, but the pin was too firm in it. I went to leave the stuff for my coat & skirt at Mrs O’Sheah, & then to the Metropole. I overtook P.W. Kenny going there also & he told me the figure – 4gp majority, & a man abused him with great vigour. There were a lot of little soldiers in tin hats standing in the street by the wall of the Dominican Church, & the hall of the hotel was full of men, & the bar closed, & people standing round the door. I went up to Tash in the little diningroom & she told me the man who was brought in there very badly hurt the previous night had been taken to the infirmary, & she didn’t think he’s recover, and it seems the one who was attacked in Hanover St & fired at the attackers & was knocked down & kicked & taken to the police station in Mary St was her

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friend George Murphy from Át Cliat. She gave me two wires to send, one to the Whelans about him. She & Kitty seemed to think I wd be killed going home, on account of my badge, but I wasn’t. A poor old woman caught me just outside to ask was it true that Redmond had won, & seemed hardly able to believe it. In the afternoon Mamma & I went up to St Declan’s and visited T. & D. in the garden. They have all the laurels cleared away from the top end of it, and are making a rock garden there. D. had a letter from Nancy giving further particulars about Bob Clark, to whom we heard on Thursday that she had got engaged; he is a friend of Stephen’s & Ben’s who went to the war as stretcher bearer & came home wounded in the right arm, which is still comparatively useless, though he is a clerk in the engineering department under the Belfast corporation. He is said to be a Socialist, & Nancy doesn’t like his

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female relations. Nancy & Ben were to come down the next Wednesday for Easter.

Sunday 24th March. – D. & T. came to dinner, & D. remarked when we were talking of something connected with Germany, that Ben admired the German young women very much because they had so much sex in them. I thought women in general were supposed to be oversexed. D. instanced Aunt Maggie as a woman with a lot of sex & I said she seemed to be very indifferent [superscript above: not to care] to about or notice charm in men, but D. said women with plenty of sex can be charmed by any man; it’s the sex in him that’s all they ask; so I suppose that shows that my demand for beauty in men is a sign of being under sexed. She says Sean O’Floinn and Mettrick are both very sexless. I went to the club in the evening, but there was no committee, only a lot of gossip about the election

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Some of the girls there want a first aid class, & said they would ask a nurse named Power who goes there if she would teach.

Featured Image: Granville Hotel, Waterford 1922. (Image courtesy of National Library of Ireland, Poole Photographic Collection, POOLEWP3041)