WEEK 52: (23rd – 29th September 1918)

“She talked a lot about conscientious objections & their sufferings too. I went with her to the meeting house door to show her the way. & T. came to dinner. There was a general meeting at the club a.t. to choose delegates for the Convention, & they chose Butler, J. Connolly & me. “

NLI Call Number: MS 32582/34
NLI Catalogue Link can be found here 
Date Range of Diary: August 10th – 26th October 1918

WEEK 52: 23rd – 29th September 1918

Monday 23rd. – I went to see J. Ayres on the way to the Tech, & took her an old broom. About this time I finished Charlie Murphy’s thesis on the Induction Method, & should like to have a chance of reading it over again some time, for I don’t think much will stay in my head after a single perusal.

Wednesday 25th Sept. – I finished the brooch for Maud. I got a telephone message a.d. from Miss M’Carthy of Dún Garbháin asking me to go down & meet her at the Chamber of Commerce, so I went and found she had Mrs Hickey of Dublin with her; Seán Ó

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Flionn’s friend; a very nice woman to all appearance. She told me Mrs S.S. was chosen for some Dublin constituency. We went to the hotel & visited there, seeming Mrs P., Kitty & Tash. Marie had gone off for a holiday. Lydia Maria Webb, who was staying at Suirview, came to tea, & talked a good deal about Deborah etc. D. is far from well at present. There was a committee at the club, & I got a lot of promises of papers for the reading room which we are trying to institute at last.

Thursday 26th. – Fine day. I went for a walk with Eileen in the nursery a.d., and she told me about her late visit home when

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Steenie & her husband & child were there; how S. wouldn’t trust her to take the child for a walk, & how his wear uncles all send him gifts of different coloured garments (mentioning the price always, apparently) & he is therefore parti-coloured in attire. She says he is impudent, though obedient to his parents, but by her account she & her mother took no pains to assist in his training. Mrs Coade & Peggy called later on, to apologise for always being out when I went to see them Mrs C., & we found they were having a harvest festival in the Methodist church next day Saturday, so I said I would go down in the morning & help with the decorating, getting the idea that Mrs C. expected to be short of assistants. About 8 Charlotte called & took me

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for a walk out the road into Goff’s, which looked lovely by night. She talked mostly about her teaching.

Friday 29th. – I went to the Tech & made a little ring with a bit of waste triple wire & a little  bits of coral & lapis lazuli & a pentagon, for myself. It just went on my little finger. Of course O’Shea disapproved it because it was a fantastic sort of scratch production & I hadn’t made a drawing of it. The poor old cat from Catherine St. who seemed pretty well at first got sicker in the last week & would eat scarcely anything, & finally died very quietly this day. He was very affectionate and always wanted to sit on someone’s lap.

Saturday 28th Sept. – A very fine, sunny day. I went down with Mrs

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Coade & Peggy to their church and spent 2 hard hours, first putting string round pillars with one of the Robertson men, & then ivy over the string with Mr Coade, & then decorating the hot water pipes with odds & ends by myself. The altar, or what represents it, was being beautifully done with moss & apples & hops & grapes & flowers. A Norah Glynn of Belfast was planted on us for the Quarterly Meeting, & was there having dinner when I got back. She was a rather pretty blonde girl with plenty of conversation, a friend of Bessie’s, but much more given to books & public affairs. She was through college at Belfast, & knew of Maud White there. We were talking about

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the amalgamation of Quaker schools in Ath Cliath, and she said when Ulster Friends get on that subject they become dumb with rage. She was very curious to see Dr Clark, but he did not impress her much. She is studying to be a missionary, and is a pacifist too. I went out with Eileen after blackberries, we went to the same place on the Cheekpoint, or rather the Parkswood road where T. and I were two weeks before; the long hill with high bushy banks, but we got very few blackberries. It was a very fine bright evening, with perfect roads, but very cold. The tree were just beginning to change Eileen says Steenie is entirely bossed by her husband, and seems to think it a good thing, because she was such an impudent girl.

Sunday 29th September. – I found Miss Glynn able to talk quite freely and impartially about religion. I was complaining of the one-sided Catholic view of history, as in R. H. Benson’s novels,

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all Catholic martyrs & Protestant persecution, & no apparent consciousness that things were even the other way round, & she said “we” were just as bad the other way, which not one Protestant in 100 would say. She talked a lot about conscientious objections & their sufferings too. I went with her to the meeting house door to show her the way. & T. came to dinner. There was a general meeting at the club a.t. to choose delegates for the Convention, & they chose Butler, J. Connolly & me. Butler couldn’t go however.