“Tech in the morning, got Miss Whelan’s ring & the brooch pin soldered. I went to tea to St Declan’s & T. and I minded Louis while D. went out to a Mothers’ Pensions’ committee. Tom was writing his election address and D. brought Mrs Hayden back with her to consult him about hers.”
NLI Call Number: MS, 3582/36
NLI Catalogue Link can be found here
Date Range of Diary: 12th September 1919 – 27th January 1920
WEEK 110: 15th – 21st December 1919
Tuesday 16th Dec. – I was at the Tech all day and finished my lapis lazuli.
Monday 15th. – Upton paid a visit in the afternoon. He had been at St D’s the day before. He was just as usual – no explanation of why he did not write to us.
(125) ring. After tea I. J. Bell & his wife & Dorothea came in to discuss soul & spirit, and I found I. J. B.’s theory was very much the same as Mr Walpole’s. He talked a great deal about the development of the soul, & the long struggles he has gone through against his evil tendencies, and how daughters generally resemble their father most & sons their mother. He said he had never felt really in touch with me till the evening I was at tea there last month. Mrs B. mentioned psychic experiences she had had; she seems to have considerable powers. D. was very interested & after they were gone told me that people tell her I am brighter and have more to say than I used to – that I am developing some way, apparently my weariness of politics etc is a sign of it. Kitty Power told her I had always been developing one side of my brain & not
(126) the other, but now the second one had come alive. Its wonderful all the things that people think they know. – either one is absolutely ignorant of oneself, or they have queer delusions. Tom came just as the Bells were leaving, to bring her home.
Wednesday 17th. – Tech in the morning, got Miss Whelan’s ring & the brooch pin soldered. I went to tea to St Declan’s & T. and I minded Louis while D. went out to a Mothers’ Pensions’ committee. Tom was writing his election address and D. brought Mrs Hayden back with her to consult him about hers. She has great courage to stand. Louis was rather cross, but Tom got him to sleep by holding him down in bed.
Thursday 18th. – I went to town in the morning & got a lot of shopping done – photo frame for Aunt H., saucepan for Kate,
(127) etc; things for Aunt H, too. I took the ammonium sulphide home from the Tech & oxydised the Tara brooch, & finished it at home. I went to St Declan’s in the afternoon & minded Louis while D. went to visit Mrs Hayden. He was very good and cheerful, crawling about & listening to the musical box & looking out of the window, but when D. came back he made a lamentable outcry as if he had been in despair the whole time. Aunt H. & I went to the Newtown break up in the evening. There were some nice piano solos in the first part, & a few tableaux of which The Age of Innocence was the best, but the play after supper was splendid. It was composed by the elder boys, and was all about a labourer’s strike. The labourers were very ragged without a coat among them, & they wanted 7/- a week rise, bigger potato plots, a cow’s grass
(128) each, the grass of a goat for each child, & a new pair of boots per year. There was an inflammatory leader among them, one Alec Woods, who lammed the only reluctant one into willingness to join in the strike. The farmers were very fierce at first, & brought their sons home from school to help them, but finally had a conference with the men, & between a less stiff farmer & a more moderate labourer & a compromise was reached & all ended in peace, with A.W. saying “May the Lord bless ye!” very enthusiastically, & shaking hands with the leading farmer. The farmers showed them heavy blacksmith’s bills as an instance of the expense they laboured under, & the men replied that if they had spent less betting at races they would be better off. They all talked so naturally, with such a fine blas, you’d think they had lived in
(129) cottages half their lives. Even Bernard, who was one of the farmers, seemed to have lost most of his English accent. Uncle E. was in bed again at this time.
Friday 19 Dec. – I half made a ring with their bit of red glass in it for the carstand Powers, & did more shopping in the afternoon.
Saturday 20th. – The Tech closed this day. I finished the ring & got another half done, but those little grains are the devil. Uncle E. was better, but he did not really progress for a long time.
Sunday 21st. – Cold day. I went for a walk with D. and Louis out the road to Glenville in the morning. We went past the house, & she told me an idea she has that Mrs Power should take the house and let it in flats & supply communal dinners to the
(130) people. It sounds rather brilliant. The place was looking lovely in the sunshine, river & distance & all. Aunt H. & I were at St Declan’s in the afternoon.