“Then I went to the club committee & found a row going on, J. Wylie had said in a speech on Labour day that the less some people said about what they had done for Ireland the better, & Brazil took this to himself & was raging, & wanted J. W. to withdraw it, & so did everyone else except Ald. Power, who never encourages people to be offended, J. Wylie & myself. J. W. had already said he didn’t mean Brazil, but that wdn’t satisfy them. They prating how a withdrawal was the only way to restore harmony, whereas it seemed to me a forced withdrawal was the best way to increase & perpetuate ill feeling.”
NLI Call Number: MS, 3582/35
NLI Catalogue Link can be found here
Date Range of Diary: 29th October 1918 – 11th September 1919
WEEK 79: 12th – 16th May 1919
Monday 12 May. – Alfred Poole came to help Mr Byron. He is rather small but has a nice face. I left by the twelve train & got to Suirview just after Aunt H. had left to go to Át Cliat for a bit to J. Webb. Simon & Mrs K. were there, & some furniture from home. I went to St Declan’s in the afternoon & found Louis looking better. He had a different food, a
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sort of composite affair of butter & oatflour & milk & Mellin’s. D. had a slight cold.
Tuesday 13th. – I visited Mrs Coade in the afternoon. She doesn’t know yet whether they will be let stay another year. She was talking about her relations in Wexford & I was giving her news of them. We were also talking of America, she seemed to regard it as a place where there were lots of spiritually awake & interested people, and I abused it from the text of the magazine Janie Bell lent me, & described the latter to her till she got quite shocked.
Wednesday 14. – Went to the Tech and worked at a pendant for Genia. I read aloud to my uncle in the evening, as Miss B. wasn’t there; an article about Charlotte Bronte’s letters to Heger, & how it wasn’t he kept them but his wife, more
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successful than I expected. Then I went to the club committee & found a row going on, J. Wylie had said in a speech on Labour day that the less some people said about what they had done for Ireland the better, & Brazil took this to himself & was raging, & wanted J. W. to withdraw it, & so did everyone else except Ald. Power, who never encourages people to be offended, J. Wylie & myself. J. W. had already said he didn’t mean Brazil, but that wdn’t satisfy them. They [Superscript: especially Kenny] prating how a withdrawal was the only way to restore harmony, whereas it seemed to me a forced withdrawal was the best way to increase & perpetuate ill feeling. Finally they showed him into it, after wasting nearly an hour of time. ‘Twas a most disgusting scene. Ald. Power is in some ways the most sensible man there. It all came from backing out of the Dawn
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Mist of course.
Thursday 15th. – I went to Miss Watt, paid her bill & took her the bridesmaid’s dress to be altered. In the afternoon I was at St Declan’s, & their garden is lovely, and then I went to the hotel and saw Mrs Power for the first time since December. She looked pretty well & is getting able to move better, & talks as much as ever. She was very fierce against the club for fighting her bill for lodging & feeding Volunteers at the election. They wanted her to take £50 off it. I believe there were faults on both sides, for I afterward heard in committee that she gave each Vol. 2 eggs regularly for breakfast, they being 5 ½ ‘ each at the time, & I suppose the rest of her catering was on the same scale. However, I was quite ready to criticise the club.
Friday 16th. – I finished the pendant. It has 2
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little grains on it, which are easy to make, but the absolute devil to clean & put on. I found Mrs Clancy had got Trevlyn Hold at last, so I bought it – 1/- in paper. I visited Eileen in the afternoon, Hilda & family are still with her, & her mother was there too. They may be turned out of their house soon; the landlord is going to sell it if he can. I went to St Declan’s in the evening; we were going over Papa’s old sketches & choosing which to keep. Its very interesting to see how the drawing improved from the sixties on. T & I were sorting things at home a lot this week, letters & so on. I got very hopeless of ever finding room for all the things I want to keep. I got on pretty well with Uncle E., & didn’t suffer as much from his deafness alone with
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him as when there’s a third person, because alone with him one always speaks so to a deaf.
Featured Image: Newspaper Image of Rosamond Jacob, from MS,33135. (National Library of Ireland, Collection List No. 30, Papers of Rosamond Jacob).