Emily’s Diary: April 2, 1913
CRAIGDARRAGH. SINCE CROSSING THE threshold I have gone around hugging every wall, window, and door in the place! Mrs. O’Carolan can hardly believe what she is seeing; she goes around muttering under her breath that she always knew it ran in families. Dear Mrs O’C! I almost hugged her when I saw her waiting on the platform at Sligo Station. Oh dear, the look she would have given me!
It is all as I imagined it on the train up from Dublin. Complete and perfect in every detail, the people, the faces, the places. The people: Mrs. O’Carolan fat and fusty and kind; Mummy a poet and an artist and a tragic queen out of legend all rolled into one; Daddy worried and hurried and so busy with his telescopes and sums I’m sure he’s already forgotten I’m here. And the places: the red of the early rhododendrons, the blue sea, and beyond it, like a cloud, purple Knocknarea. Woods, mountains, waterfall: wonderful! Today I visited the Bridestone up above the woods on the slopes of Ben Bulben. How good it was to be alone and at peace. Up there, with only the wind and the song of the blackbird for company, it is like nothing has changed for a thousand years. It was easy to imagine Finn MacCool and his grim Fianna warriors hunting the leaping stag with their red-eared hounds through the woodland glens, or the sunlight glinting from the spear points of the Red Branch Heroes as they marched to avenge a slain comrade.
Perhaps reality was too much for me after months with nothing to call upon but my imagination: I could have sworn that I was not alone as I came down from the Bridestone through the green woods; that there were shadowy shapes flitting from tree to tree, unseen when I looked for them, giggling at my foolishness. Ah, well, I have always thought it was an enchanted faery place.
The Bushes
Stradbally Road
Sligo
Dear Mrs. Desmond,
Thank you for inviting Grace to the surprise parry you are holding in honour of Emily’s fifteenth birthday; I am delighted to accept on her behalf. She is looking forward to the twelfth with mounting excitement. A grand and gay time will be had by all, I am certain.
With regard to transport out to Craigdarragh, I have arranged for Grace to travel with the O’Rahilly twins, Jasmine and Briony, in the O’Rahillys’ motor car. Reilly the chauffeur will see to it that they get themselves up to no mischief and are home by a decent hour.
Yours sincerely,
Janet Halloran
April 9, 1913
Clarecourt
Bailisodare
County Sligo
My Dear Edward,
I shall be only too delighted to accept your invitation to Craigdarragh House, and am honoured to learn that I will be the first recipient of the most eagerly awaited event in the astronomical world at the moment, the secret of Bell’s Comet.
However, I fear that the fifteenth is impossible for me. I am required at the House of Lords for the reading of a piece of legislation close to my heart, the Irish Home Rule Bill, and what with trains and steam packets and the like, I must leave on or around the fourteenth. Would the twelfth be acceptable? Please let me know. I am most eager to visit, as this business in London will prevent me from attending the meeting of the Royal Irish Astronomical Society. My intention is to travel on the train which will arrive at Sligo Station at 6:16 P.M. I look forward to seeing you then. Until the twelfth, then, my warmest regards to you, your wife, and your charming daughter.
Sincerely,
Maurice: Clarenorris