“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.”
WEEK 24: (11th – 17th March 1918)
“The Redmonites had a procession in the evening & I, not being sure at first that they were Redmonites, hung a flag out of the drawing room window, which infuriated them so that a lot of them came and hurled themselves against the door, & yelled & shouted, and put up a torch to burn the flag, I pulled it in just in time & they threw a torch in after it, but it went out as soon as it fell.”
WEEK 23: (4th – 10th March 1918)
“I went to town in the morning & in the afternoon to the Powers, who produced a tall good-looking young man named Murray, on the way to be a priest, & sent him & me to the asylums. We went to the Walsh place at the foot of Convent hill, and got the names of 12 old women there – the matron brought them in to us one by one and I think it was quite a piece of entertainment for them.”
WEEK 22: (25th February – 3rd March 1918)
“They were talking of doctors, & Miss Phillips had an idea that no man wd dare consult Dr Mary Strangman for fear she would kill him for being a man.”
Continue reading “WEEK 22: (25th February – 3rd March 1918)”
Week 21: (18th – 24th February 1918)
“Aunt Maggie talked very interestingly about various things, we were discussing the isolation of Tom & me as children & how I didn’t get on with other kids, & she gave me more idea than I ever had before of the horror everyone held the family in as atheists […] I never thought before that people realised it so or took so much notice of us.” Continue reading “Week 21: (18th – 24th February 1918)”
WEEK 20: (11th – 17th February 1918)
“In the afternoon I went to the Powers, to go on plebiscite work to some monastic institutions. We went first to the de la sale college & saw Br. Ignatius, a big red fat man, not very polite & entirely opposed to us, taking refuge behind politics & the governmental nature of the place, of course. They asked if the students could sign outside, which he could not deny. The Powers of course disliked him even more than I did.”
WEEK 19: (4th – 10th February 1918)
“I went to a committee. at the League in the evening; it was partly going over the feis syllabus which a subcommittee has drawn up – their idea was to have the junior history period 1840-49 only, it seemed very extraordinary & they consented to give it up in favour of 1780 – 1882 or something like that. The middle ones have the Young Ireland movement & the seniors Grattan’s Parliament. Its a good idea for them to specialize on a movement, but not for kids.”
WEEK 70: (3rd – 9th February 1919)
“Before that some of us were sitting round the fire in 6 with the Countess, and Mrs Gallagher brought in a reporter & a big Canadian Khaki soldier – whom she & he wished to introduce to the Countess, but behold, she wouldn’t shake hands with him. I think it was great cheek to bring him there, but Miss Power of the Cove, & probably Mrs Gallagher thought she was very severe.”
WEEK 18: (28th Jan – 3rd February 1918)
“The officers’ class was all about a rifle. Paddy – , the bold officer, had one drawn, & all its pasts named, but he didn’t show the inside of it. I learned that an oak is the best tree to shelter from bullets behind, being hardest for them to get through, & how a cartridge is made – he had a cartridge which he took to pieces for us, & showed us the cap & the little holes the spark comes through to the powder…. Paddy – says that in an execution squad only one rifle is loaded, which seems to me a ridiculous arrangement.”
WEEK 17: (21st – 27th January 1918)
“Cathal Brugha came in off the 9.30 train & I was late for my class because I stayed listening to him. He is small & very dry & wan looking, & lame, with a rather long moustache. He told a lot about the Convention, & Middleton’s & Redmond’s efforts to fix up a scheme without full control of the customs, & the great danger there is of a majority of the country accepting whatever scheme the Convention does agree on. Then he sat down to a tea with horrid looking black kidneys on toast, & I went away.”