“I went to Dr Lynn’s & visited her & Madeline at breakfast, & they told me the true inwardness of the De V. reception fiasco. It seems it was all arranged by a few of the I.R.B. inner ring in the executive, & Ald. Kelly even knew nothing of it till he saw the arrangements with his own name underneath published as officially ordered. So now the movement is saddled with the obloquy of the failure. They seemed to think it wd be brought up at the Ard Fheis but they were very mistaken. I had just got a seat in the round room when MacDonagh came beside & talked to me, & he got on the same subject & said the headquarters are going to blazes with caballing & intrique.”
WEEK 57: (28th Oct – 3rd November 1918)
“Fr O’Flanagan pointed out that if you must vote for the Republican candidate whatever his minor sins; even if he disagrees with you in religion or social questions, he is the lesser of 2 evils. At 1…we formed up in the front garden of the Mansion house & marched round Grafton St into College Green & gathered under Grattan’s statue. I was between Mrs S S and Countess Plunkett, & Mrs Pearse was somewhere near. Fr O’F. was the only speaker, he had a good powerful voice for open air speaking. Three peelers tried to get through at one point, but we shoved them back and they retired.”
WEEK 40: (1st – 9th July 1918)
“This was the day French’s proclamation of Sinn Féin, the G.L., Cumann na mBan & the Volunteers as dangerous societies appeared in the press. I went to the court house a.d. to see if I could get in to see George Murphy’s trial, & on the way I met Mrs Callender with her 2 little daughters Margaret & Ita.”