“I think it was this day the conscription bill was known to have passed the first reading. I went to town in the afternoon, to Jennings & then to Miss O’Shea, where I had to wait ages in the shop talking to her husband about conscription. Then I went to the hotel & found Kitty was up again but still set against going to Mt Melleray, so Mrs Power decided she wd go with me on Saturday.”
WEEK 25: (18th – 23rd March 1918)
“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 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.”
WEEK 12: (17th – 23rd December 1917)
“I went on to the club committee then; it was nearly all about the plebiscite. There have to be articles in the local press to prepare the public’s mind, & handbills distributed; & they say of course Redmond will send orders to all his followers not to sign it.”