“I finished a ring with the moonstone that I gave Eileen Power in a pendant in 1918, & which she wanted in a ring instead. I took it to them in the afternoon and E. was very pleased with it. They were interested in Tom being on the Corporation & told me the mean conduct of P. W. Kenny in persuading Mr Power to stand (Leave it all to me – I’ll put you in) & then doing nothing whatever, so that Mr P. was beaten. It was disgraceful. I went to Willie Jacob’s essay meeting – some Dickens Character & their Originals.”
NLI Call Number: MS, 3582/36
NLI Catalogue Link can be found here
Date Range of Diary: 12th September 1919 – 27th January 1920
WEEK 115: 20th – 29th January 1920
Tuesday 20th. – Fine day. Stasia not much improved if at all. She had a horrid habit of putting china away without washing it properly. I took Louis out to Goff’s in the afternoon.
[Superscript: small short hand symbol and the numbers 22 written”]
Friday 23rd Jan. – Stasia had pains in her back and couldn’t stay, & we had to get that terrible Anne
(159) [Superscript: upside-down partial text]: & one or two others. Mary Doyle’s name is barely mentioned & I searched in vain for any description of her conduct at the siege of Ross which when I first read of it used to awaken in me the same delicious ecstacy of admiration as Floratius [sp.?] keeping one bridge or Custume destroying another the stories of Floratius and Sergeant Custume. In a book of [sp.?] something was certain to be left out but I wish it had not been that splendid incident. There is one other omission that vexed me even more. The chapter on Mrs Tone is perhaps the most interesting & sympathetic in the book, but though we possess, in the first edition of Tone’s Auto, a fascinating account from Mrs Tone’s pen of part of her life in France under the first Empire that not a single extract from it is given. – not even the unforgettable description […text trails off]
(160) Barron that used to lodge with Kate. [Short-hand symbols here]. Aunt H. better.
Sunday 25 Jan. – Fine cold day. Tom & I & Louis went some way out to the Grange road in the morning. [Short-hand symbols here] etc.
Tuesday 27th Jan. – I finished a ring with the moonstone that I gave Eileen Power in a pendant in 1918, & which she wanted in a ring instead. I took it to them in the afternoon and E. was very pleased with it. They were interested in Tom being on the Corporation & told me the mean conduct of P. W. Kenny in persuading Mr Power to stand (Leave it all to me – I’ll put you in) & then doing nothing whatever, so that Mr P. was beaten. It was disgraceful. I went to Willie Jacob’s essay meeting – some Dickens Character & their Originals.
[Superscript: upsidedown partial text]: Mrs Concannon has brought no lack of enthusiasm to her work. She has succeeded in making real personal acquaintance with almost all her heroines & has gathered together so great a mass of information concerning them that the reader tho she may doubt in her heart whether they can all have been such exceptional & charming women yet constrained by so much knowledge. The book is divided into sections dealing with Mothers of ’98, Wives of ’98, Sisters of ’98 & the young, small class of persons whose place in history is independent of their male belongings, all except Anne Devlin, women whose very names are barely known to the mass even of educated people – Miss Moore, Betsy Hay
[Transcribers Note: The next page is unnumbered. The text appears to be in pencil and has faded with time or been partially erased]
SU 9 dinner [unclear text] …France Moyne Rd.
M 10 Town coat & cap [unreadable text]…Stephenes
[Three lines unreadable]
W 12 Tech …
Th 13 Town tickets R Butler tea ….
F 14 Tech jumping, C Coade, skipping etc
S 15 Tech Anne a.d. ill
Su 16 Rain St D’s a.d. Stephen’s daughter …
M 17 Tech visited Janie…
Tu 18 ” visited Mrs Coade Mrs P…
W 19 ” Aunt H. & I visited Mrs Murray…
Th 20 Town b.d St D’s a.d…
F 21 Tech St D’s T at home, Louis…
[Transcribers Note: Next page unnumbered. Text in pencil and has faded with time or been partially erased]
First seven lines unreadable until Su 25
Su 25 out Grange Rd with T & L.
M 26 Tech & Town
M 27
Tu 27 Wasted Island moonstone ring Carstand Powers Willie Jacob, Dickens Characters, Ruth Bell
W 28 Tech St D’s Feminine Woman, Wasted Island
Th 29 Cold, Wet & stormy
F 30
S 31
Su 1, T & I & L. out road our lack of intuition, being oneself
M 2
Tu 3 Tech took L to Sview a.d. tea at St De’s then to dancing class
W 4
Th 5 Town tickets
F 6 no Ellie Tech
S 7 E’s relapse, Anne worse. Bell’s a.d. D & Louis he very good. Ruth
Su 8 T. & I & Louis out rd. sixth sense
M9. Hunting for maid May came, Anne left took L out & minded him at St. D’s.
Tu 10 L. out a.d. Anna, Henry Bell, & Mrs W. Jessie’s prayer.
W 11. Tech. Castle to set. A. finds R. Co. more r[…] for Ireland than P’s.
Th.
END OF Diary: MS 32582 (36)
NLI Call Number: MS, 3582/37
NLI Catalogue Link can be found here
Date Range of Diary: January 27th 1920 – October 26th 1920
January 1920 continued
(1)
Edith was there giving the tea, the first time I’d seen her for ages. I was taking to Millicent & Kathleen Garnett, I asked the latter if Ruth was ever slapped & she said no, & she couldn’t see what objection people could have to smacking children. Ruth seems rather troublesome, and she says Grace is very lax with her. The essay was more interesting than most people wd have made it; a lot about wicked schools, & a lot of questions from David Copperfield, mainly about Dora, but Troddles was mentioned, strange to say. Dickens had a beautiful & saintly young sister in law who died at 17, who was the original of some of his tiresome heroines. There wasn’t
(2)
much discussion, but it was a pleasant evening. It’s a great farce having Annie as president, & she gone to Dún Mór for at least 3 months. I was reading the Wasted Island at this time on loan from T. & D. who had it on loan from Séan. It was much the most civilized modern Irish novel I have met, & certainly very cleaverly written, but there was too much of it, and all the women in it were very tiresome. I don’t care about any of the men except perhaps Uncle Christopher, but their conversation in interesting sometimes, and there is a pretty free tone about monks & nuns. The end part is very absorbing but even if its true it should not, as Ben afterwards said in a letter, be put forward for the first time in a novel, where the other party can’t freely challenge it. It makes out Pearse etc as between scoundrels & lunatics, especially Joseph Plunkett. But the end scenes are very well told, fighting & all.
(3)
Wednesday 28th. – I was at St Declan’s in the afternoon & we had a rather interesting discussion about the mentality of the feminine type of woman, D. saying that the unselfishness of her mind leads her to accept the male point of view in everything and never feel the want of a feminine one or feel any unfairness to women as women. I can’t help feeling that there’s some deficiency in abstract thinking & in consciousness of mind, besides the unselfishness, & also I don’t yet admit that no woman consciously insists on the feminine point of view is really feminine by nature.
Thursday 29th. – Cold wet & stormy.
Featured Image: Image taken from page 97 of gems and Precious Stones of North America, by George Kunz – British Library Image Commons 1890