“I went to see the carstand Powers, & they took me to evening devotions at St John’s, & then I went to a Gaelic League Committee. We had a great fight as to whether a rule shd be made barring women out of the premises, except at meetings, during the summer, in order to keep out some bratty little girls who romp & flirt there at night.”
NLI Call Number: MS, 3582/33
NLI Catalogue Link can be found here
Date Range of Diary: December 10th 1917 – August 4th 1918
WEEK 35: 27th May – 2nd June 1918
Monday 27th. – I went to the Tech & burned a ring I was soldering together so that part of it melted away & I’ll have to make a new body to it. Seán Lane came in to give me a commission for a ring for his sister, but he didn’t care for any of the stones I had, so I had to buy one from Mr O’Shea – one that might be either a pinkish amethyst or a purplish garnet. I went to the hotel in the evening & found Tash in unusually good spirits & Mrs Power in bed. Mrs Phelan’s daughter Nan was found to be
(212)
going with a navyman, & was asked to explain it to Cuman na mBan or resign, so she resigned promptly with no explanation, & complained all over the town of how badly she was treated. So Mrs Power & the girls are much disgusted with her, & Mrs P. had a lot to say darkly about how badly Mrs Phelan treated her long ago and how well patiently she bore it etc. Its strange the gift she has of being on bad terms with her relations. I went to see the carstand Powers, & they took me to evening devotions at St John’s, & then I went to a Gaelic League Committee. We had a great fight as to whether a rule shd be made barring women out of the premises, except at meetings, during the summer, in order to keep out some bratty little girls who romp & flirt there at night. Miss O’Connor suggested this rule, &
(213)
Miss Doyle & especially J.D. Connolly, were eager for it, May New didn’t much care but thought me a fool to object to it on principle, & Doyle went so far as to say that it would be a slur on all the women in the branch. I wanted to have those particular girls who had behaved badly forbidden the premises, but there was an idea among the others that it would be impossible to keep them out without the general rule, which seemed to me ridiculous. Finally they remembered that a rule such as they wanted had been made at some committee meeting months ago – which I must not have attended – & that satisfied them.
Tuesday 28th May. – A young man called Lambert, a traveller from the Talbot Press, called to try & sell me books, & talked a while very interestingly. I ordered Casement’s poems & Darrell Figgis’s book
(214)
of prison memoirs. Lambert is inclined to think M’Donagh & Plunkett had no real meaning in their poems because he can’t understand them himself. I went to the Broad St cinema with Tash a.t. to see In the Palace of the King. It was rather good, though neither Don John nor Dolores was handsome enough. Inez was very good, & the women’ dresses were awfully graceful. Tash was furious because the priest in the end was made a bit comic. There was a comic American film after it about plumbers in a flat, & there were two enchanting young black bears that had got loose from a menagerie in it, who walked about everywhere & terrified the people into fits. The best bit was where they found a bath upside down on a landing with the plumber under it – he having fallen downstairs when carrying it – & he
(215)
trying to escape, crawl rapidly upstairs with the bath on top of him, pursued with amiable curiosity by the bears. It was nearly as killing as a donkey in Ali Baba.
Tuesday Wednesday 29th. – A grant hot day. I still drew wire at the Tech. [unclear short hand writing]There was an election committee in the evening with two country delegates at it.
Thursday 30th. – I visited Mrs Coade in the afternoon, & she lent me a book called Life Understood, by a Christian Scientist who believes the English speaking races are the lost ten tribes of Israel – which she believes too. I didn’t know she went in for Christian Science, but she said the book was a revelation to her. The man is a very learned engineer. Mrs C.’s arm is better but she can’t move it quite freely yet. I went on to
(216)
St Delcan’s & had tea there.
Friday 31st May. – A glorious fine hot day. Tom & I went by the 10.30 train to Cill Mic Tomáyín [Kilmacthomas] and cycled from there along a road that goes ne across in front of the Comeraghs, close up to Croghawan. There was some hawthorn still out & the whole country looked thoroughly summer, with the dusty white roads and hot blue sky and buttercups & the mountains in the sunshine. Croghawn looked beautiful when we were close to it – a long rough green stony slope up from the road, all over bracken. A bit beyond that we came out on a gorgeous front face view of the mountains with the little wood and the hollows of Com Seagáin & Crotty’s Lough, first one & then the other. I hardly ever saw the mountains look so grand. There was an exquisite little
(217)
stream falling onto the road from a bank & running across it & losing itself in the fields on the other side, a little beyond that. Then we came to Clonea castle, which had a faded tricolor flag flying from its top, & looked absolutely unclimbable. Then we came to a lovely stretch of road with a wooded slope over it & the Clodagh on the other side below, & we dined down by the river & read some of a book of Rushkin’s that T. had about art – the difference between rude attempts at art with promise of real life in them & attempts which could lead to nothing worth while. He considers the difference is that one tries humbly to follow & express nature while the other thinks to improve on it. We soon afterwards reached the back gate of Curraghmore, and the woman at the lodge who
(218)
took our pass said Lady Waterford had asked her to ask all passers for a subscription to her war hospital supply depot – trying to collect toll off everyone that goes through; a very low proceeding we thought. Curraghmore was exquisite, with the grand big stately trees & deep grass full of flowers and flowering rhododendrons, & miles of bracken under the trees. We arrived at the post office in course of time, and got a noble tea there, & Josephine took us to the factory to admire the pond & to see two men from the north (greatly admired by Mrs Harvey because they never stop working & never drink or mix with the low Catholics around them) who are taking all the old ironwork to pieces preparatory to their being removed by some one who had bought them. People in general have much more power of standing about
(219)
indefinitely than I have. Josephine gave us some lovely roses out of her little scrap of a garden. We had a delightful ride home in the cool of the evening with a noble sunset and the wind behind us and divine country nearly all the way. My new bicycle was a bargain.
Meiteam [Meitheamh] June 1918
Saturday 1st June. – Still Another hot day. Mrs Callender wanted to go up to the nursery to invite the women there to join the Union, & I went with her to show her the way. It was a good thing Mr Fennessy didn’t catch us. There were only about 9 women visible but they all said they wd
(220)
come & that they would tell those that weren’t present. I went to town a.d. & visited Mrs Hayden to say I would propose her – or rather that I had proposed her – for membership of the S.F. club as she desired. I told her about the way they & the League want to make rules against all women because of the bad behaviour of a few young girls, & she was very sensible & sympathetic. She is a very reasonable woman. After tea I took a tin kettle out to Rose Butler from Mamma, she not having one, & she was very pleased with it.
Sunday 2nd. – Mrs Callender went to Kilmacow with Mr Coates, on my bicycle, & admired it greatly; said it was the nicest she was ever on. Dorothea came to dinner; Tom had a cold & was doubtful about going out, but we
(221)
went up in the afternoon and brought him down to tea. It was decided to go to Tráit Mór at the end of the week if possible; D said she was longing for the sea.
I went to a committee in the evening but I forget what happened at it.