WEEK 111: (22nd – 28th December 1919)

“Fine cold day. Aunt H. gave me a new umbrella & some chocolate. W. Waring sent me a little round photo frame, but the glass arrived cracked, J. Webb sent me a queer little tiny pen in a case, Aunt Maggie some lovely handkerchiefs, Aunt Bessie a handkerchief, Helen a cobwebly little handkerchief case. T. & D. a fine big muffler of the sort that’s going now, & Nancy a very grand Browning calendar. I have Aunt H. The Ship that Sailed too Soon & a photoframe, & Uncle E. green grapes. Ben sent me Darrell Figgis’s Byeways of Study, & I read most of it that morning. The articles on Parnell & H. O’Neill’s terms were very interesting. “

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WEEK 101: (13th – 19th October 1919)

“I went down with Hanna to Harcourt St to see what was going to be done about the Árd Feís that was proclaimed that morning. There was the usual male crowd there, increasingly rapidly as delegates arrived. It came out that Griffith, Mick Collins, & Milroy & a few other prominent men had held a midnight meeting in a hotel, with blocks of delegates from other hotels, which they called an Árd Feís, & decided to keep on all present officers & have no compromise with the Party in future Ulster elections. There wasn’t a single woman at it, & several male members of the executive also were not notified.”

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WEEK 95: (1st – 7th September 1919)

“There was a S.P.C.A. committee in the afternoon. Uncle E. & Mr Robinson are both resigning. I think Sir James Power wd make a good president. Tom etc went to Woodstown in the motor in the evening, to clear up after the Bannans, and took Aunt Isabella. I went over to St Declan’s after tea to stay a while. They came back at 8, in time for D. to put Louis to bed. That evening there was a lot of talk & facetious reminiscences about flirting & falling in love; I don’t know why sex attraction should always be trusted as a comic subject of the “nuff said” & then laugh sort, nor why Tony should talk as if he was the greatest flirt in the world when he is nothing of the sort.”

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WEEK 94: (25th – 31st August 1919)

“Very wet morning. B. showed me nice photos of her brother Mike & his family. How superior he looks to the 2 English brothers in law. She was telling me about the farce she wrote about Cats when she was at the Ursuline, it sounded very good in parts. It cleared in the afternoon & she took one over the castle which was rather interesting, but the only thing of any importance known about it seems to be that it belonged to the Ormonds & Black Thomas Butler lived there. Then we visited a china shop kept by a Mrs Hinkson whom B. knows in Cumann na mBan, & I bought 2 nice plates for 6′”

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WEEK 82: (2nd – 8th June 1919)

“In the afternoon we went in to town in the motor and visited at Suirview and went to the theatre to see “David Garrick” by a company belonging to a man named Macready who gives the impression of thinking a lot of himself, and seems much admired. The play was no good; the only pleasant things in it were some parts of the drunken scene, though as a whole that was deplorable (“me murdered love!”) and the beautiful legs of one of the lowbred commercial guests, who otherwise was supremely hideous. Garrick might have made himself fairly goodlooking, but so much depends on dress & hair in those 18th century plays…”

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WEEK 75: (14th – 20th April 1919)

“I went to the Tech & finished the carbuncle pendant, which was much admired. Dorothea came over a.d. to look at furniture for the Saratoga. I wish they wd change the name of it, but they won’t. Tom & I were raking out the garret later, & found the story of Edward, which had been lost for years. Mrs Hayden came to see me […] & we discussed the Bible & the 10 Commandments. She affirmed that there was no difference between them & Christ’s teaching, & that “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God…& thy neighbours as thyself” was one of them, till I showed them to her. She objects greatly to nuns.”

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WEEK 69: (27th Jan – 2nd February 1919)

“Tash came to afternoon tea, and Nancy too, so that they could see each other. They talked about houses, and Nancy scorned Waterford because there are not enough houses built here, & also scorned the notion of any distance being too far to walk to work. She told us more about her house than I ever knew before; it must be a frightful place, with a pump opposite the hall door, & no other water.”

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WEEK 13: (24th – 30th December 1917)

“We were talking of Uncle Tom’s Cabin which Kitty had never read, & I got it from Suirview to show her the pictures which appeared to interest her. She has a blessed power of being interested in things that you tell her, & in people especially. The more I read that book the more I am impressed by its merits & the more I like St Clare. Its only now that I am beginning to appreciate Uncle Tom himself.”

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