by Ultan Macken
But I seem to have strayed from my original theme which was to talk about love letters. I’m rather mixed about them. Definitely like all the rest of my sex I am wont to admire the beautifully long-winded epistles of the early days, scented and accompanied by bewigged and be-flowered footmen – I leave you to find the period – I am a bit foggy.
But we will never get those now – so that’s that. I think I can always find the sincerity in the ones I do get – and I have had some nice letters. I am rather sorry in a way that we have got so self-conscious as to drop all the nice little customs such as sending flowers – how silly it would seem now.
But did you know that I love flowers – particularly, smelly ones – that is the simplest way to express it, I think. My favourites are violets – but I’m sure I told you that already. In fact, here is rather a pretty story – or not exactly a story, but a custom which brings the scent of violets back to me every spring. Balla, where I was at school – or to give it its more fairy-taleish name, Athavallie Demesne, is a marvellous place for flowers. When I was at school there, the gardens were in pretty good condition. But anyhow there was a dear old nun who was in charge of the refectory and the flowers, and she discovered my particular weakness for violets – so every spring, I would be presented with a bunch, on the quiet, of course and every single year since I left school, she manages to send them to me somehow – with my little sisters or else through the post.
Honestly they put me in good humour for days – fancy that. I think they are beautiful, so simple and sweet and with such a fragrant scent bringing pictures of lovely gardens in which they only hold a low place.
I would really love to possess a big garden – but I don’t suppose I would be much use at keeping it as it should be kept. But, oh Wally, haven’t I drifted far away from the love-letter topic.
I fear that now I must get back to work – I still have lots to do and what a rush tomorrow is going to be – I shall need my Angel by my side to get through it successfully. I hear the editor walking around and so must really stop – goodnight, my dear, although I shall be seeing you at rehearsal later. Hope this is not too devastatingly long-winded, sounds like May O’Flaherty at her best.
Peggy
Incidentally, my mother became a wonderful gardener and built a garden in every house she lived in.
Another letter came from my father in Rosmuc:
Rosmuc.
Sat. 10.30
Although the sentiments of yesterday are like last year’s snow, I feel as if there has not been any thaw. I had intended to surprise you and go in on the 9.30 bus this morning. It was 10 when I woke. I told the lady of the house to call me, she failed. That sounds very bald on paper and just like my customary goings-on but please believe me.
It’s true and I feel sore at myself and I can hear my darling Peggy saying nothing but thinking in her heart – yes, he failed again. He really isn’t worth it and a few other things. I will be in next Saturday morning and if you still love me we can have tea in the scullery and I will not come back to this joint until Monday on the 7 bus.
Do you mind, darling if I tell you a little about this place, Rosmuc. It’s terrible – beautiful if you like but still terrible. The house I am in is nice. I have a big clean room, all to myself and I also eat here. It is awfully lonely. When I had posted your letter yesterday morning, I hitched up my breeches and went mountaineering. I climbed a mountain and looked out over the world.
I could have nearly touched the heavens with my head. It was a pretty stiff climb. Then looming away in the distance, I saw another mountain, separated from me by miles, by the valley between – the lake strewn valley – the small lakes nestling in its bosom like jewels set in a diadem. It was dotted here and there with cattle and two horses. So apart from them I was alone.
A hare sprang up and like a flash disappeared from my ken. With a dull whirring of wings, a grouse rose and fumbled away. I could have killed him, had I a stone or the inclination. I felt away from all the world. The sun was making a shy effort to break its cloudy bonds and now and again succeeding, it poured its rays into the drenched valleys It was beautiful but terrible in its loneliness. I descended into the valley, up the other mountain and down into Rosmuc. I liked being in the mountains because they are so impressive and austere that they forbid you to have any thoughts of your own. They rob your soul of its own fretfulness and infuse into your being with their own power and fill you with their own bigness.
Once you are back in the valley of Rosmuc and looking backwards at the monarchs you have left behind, your soul closes and the wounds and pangs of love and loneliness open up again and the pain oozes forth. I called for May Kilmartin and we went for a walk until 2. Then I had dinner and called for her at 3.30 whence we repaired to the schoolteachers and talked with them until 7. Then we had the tea. It started to rain and May K. stayed at home. I walked until nine and then returned to my lonely room to work and think.
That’s the tale love and I’m sure you can see the poignancy of it all …
Goodbye, my darling,
I love you always,
Your lonely,
Old Wally
Here is another letter from my mother where again she is lonely and worried, and Harry Casey is still clearly on the scene.
5 The Crescent, Galway.
15th April 1936
My own darling,
I don’t know how to tell you or even to begin to explain, how miserable I am. It is just 2.30 and I have had a long and busy day up to this; indeed, you could have come in to see me, because Harry Casey arrived just before I and is now gone to golf with Des. And I want to see you, dearest. He is going to the Taibhdhearc tonight, and I will collect him when I am finished here. I am all mixed up every way – sounds complicated, but perhaps you can follow my reasoning as usual.
Emotionally I seem to be exhausted – I only know that I want you, my dear, I always will. I get all teary and sad today when I think of us. Honestly everything seems to be against us, but that is all the more reason why we must do something.
You got a very nice critique from Fitzie [Billy Fitzgerald, a ‘Connacht Tribune’ reporter] – I imagine you will like it. I notice that the dailies, except for the ‘Irish Press’, gave nothing about it at all today – I shall have to talk to you when I see you. Remember I love you, sweetheart.
Always,
Peggy
Here is another of my father’s letters from Rosmuc:
Rosmuc.
11.30 p.m.
My dearest darling Peggy,
I’m writing this letter to you now because tomorrow being a holiday, I will have to rise early and undertake the expedition go dtí an tAifreann [going to mass] and it is over 3 miles away. And now how are you my very own love. I have been thinking and dreaming about you today and I am sorry if the letter I posted you today was gloomy or morose but that was just the way it felt.
Although the day was fine, it was breezy and going up a mountain, I stripped to the pelt, as they say and let the rays of sun trickle over my body. My colour, bodily, is a cross between a red Indian and the skin of a Spanish onion …
The old Irish is improving anyhow but the whole expedition is a fallacy for the simple reason, that none of us – and that includes Dermody and all the directors – save Liam Ó Briain can talk Irish. Our knowledge of the language is only superficial and you would want to spend about 5 years at least in the Gaelteacht before you could acquire even the semblance of a blas. And I find out here that I am like a German talking bad French to Alexander Dumas. They don’t know what the devil I’m talking about and they have nothing on me because I don’t either.
I note that I haven’t yet given you an account of my day. Having posted your letter (and thanks muchly, darling, for the stamps) I procured the book of stamps and wended my way up the mountains. I also brought along my togs. This was midday. Reaching a secluded nook I pondered whether or not I would divest myself of my apparel, it was breezy, ye ken.
> Ah to hell with it, I say and in a few moments, I was as God had made me. Then stretching myself to the full height of my young naked manhood, I inhaled the fresh mountain air. I pulled the togs over my loins, made a note to start a nudist colony in Galway and stretched myself on the grassy sward, ticklish withal but wholesome. For awhile I pondered on the joys of an open air life and then my thoughts turned to you. I spent from 12 to 3 – three solid hours – thinking about you continuously.
It was beautiful up there, you can’t realise how beautiful – and to feel the mountain grass against your bare flesh and the warm wind gently massaging your naked body. It was pagan, I admit, but oh so beautiful. I haven’t suffered any ill-effects so far and my upper legs are the only things which are stinging a little. I journeyed to the school to Criostóir. We read a bit of Kavanagh until 4 whence I journeyed to dinner, got your delightful letter, read the ‘Irish Press’ avidly and shaved.
I saw May Kilmartin on the road. She had just come back from some forsaken spot where she had been staying a day and a night with a female – tá sé (probably a teacher). She told me she had a telegram from Liam Ó Briain and he wanted to know if she could find a room for Eibhlin (he would then send her out) [Eibhlin Ó Briain, another Taibhdhearc actress]. She found a room for her and cabled Liam about it. She went home and I went to Críostóir’s house. We read James Clarence Mangan, Byron, Dr Anderson, some Irish pieces and had a delightful time – we talked women, sex and appeal and other things which I can’t mention to you or you’d think I was horribly vulgar.
Then we went to the local football pitch. Boy! It was great fun while it lasted and I now know that, though slim (or is it skinny) I can yet succeed in bowling over many rustics of robust build and savage inclinations.
We left the battlefield at 11 p.m. I came home, grabbed a delicious cup of milk – fresh from the cow’s udder – and locked myself up to write to you and be with my own darling sweetheart. I will go to bed now – it is 12.40 – and thank God for his munificence in giving me you to love and hold and hide and mind for ever and ever to infinity.
I love you, love you, love you and I say it to myself about, at least a million times a day. I’m sure you must hear me! Saturday love – don’t forget, lock it into your mind. I will be in Galway at 11.30. If you could leave a note in the house, it would help. I’m simply crazy about you Peggy, darling – nuts – foolish. Love me and miss me until Saturday.
Your own lonely,
Wally A.
My mother writes about her worries for their future, particularly their plan to elope:
Good morning, my darling,
I did not see you so far today, and I was sure you would be there this morning [she expected to see him at early morning mass] but, however, I prayed for us as I always do and always will. Somehow, during my prayers at the Novena last night, and they were more in the form of a meditation than a prayer, I felt they would be heard. I have started praying to my darling Esso – and if anyone can do anything at all for us, I am sure she will. I only know that my happiness lies with you – my life is irrevocably bound up with yours.
Pa is coming in and there are some things to be cleared up. I believe our female friend [a reference to her stepmother] is in bad humour this morning – alas Darling, I won’t be able to stand much more of this, won’t you hurry and try and do something? As I said before we will be so careful that nobody is going to suspect until we are quite ready [a reference to their plan to elope] – you know what I mean, dear heart. My heart is full again today, I find it hard to write all the lovely things God has engraved in my heart – my beloved how I long for peace and you – you mean peace of mind and soul to me.
I have been kept busy since I came back, my own darling, but I love, love you, sweetheart, that is all I can say. Darling, my heart is stretching out to yours, it always will – I’m so horribly lonely when I’m away from you sweetheart.
I’ll have to stop, now darling,
I love you, love you,
Peggy
Another letter from my mother gives a true idea of the difficulties the young couple were facing:
Thursday, 3.00 p.m.
My heart and indeed my mind are both so full, darling, that I don’t know what to write to you – however, by this time, I think you know how much I love you – I’d like to emblazon it to the world at large. I feel like Isolde must have felt without Tristan, for so far away do you seem to be from me now.
Although I don’t feel in the least optimistic today, yet I say again we have got to do something – desperate circumstances need those desperate actions we are so fond of talking about. But now we must go beyond dreams – vain dreams – I seem to have spent my life looking forward to a fulfilment which ever eludes me – this time with God’s help, I shall somehow find my happiness and yours.
You cannot imagine how terribly hurt I felt when you were spoken of as you were today and yesterday [probably by her stepmother]. My soul wept with the angels – of course, let us be sensible and remember it is all meant. Put yourself in their places – oh, those well-meaning friends who never consider the finer feelings which make everything worthwhile – and you will see that it seems on the surface justified.
I am sorry for everyone now when I begin to see things in their true perspective and realise that come what may – and I see plenty of trouble ahead – it is inevitable that you and I will be together always. It matters not where, or how, you know that. I am still seething though I did not let you know that today, so you see I can hide some things even from you, my best beloved. If only, Wally, you got a break – this financial question unfortunately has to be considered in circumstances like ours, or if only I was not Peggy Kenny – but it is no use saying if, ad infinitum.
My head swims when I try and think of anything feasible. I forgot whether I told you or not, that I wrote a desperate letter to Mr Delacey yesterday, asking him if he could suggest anything at all. You know I look upon him as one of my best friends and I would value his advice accordingly. Of course he is a delightfully inconsequential person, so he may not write back anything in return at all. But, it is no harm, and anyway it relieved my harassed feelings yesterday immensely to write him, even a guarded letter.
Is there nobody you could write to and act to help us out? I would do almost anything, but we must devise a very careful plan of campaign – go slowly to a certain extent, and see what we can do. Yesterday and again today, I felt an awful loneliness. This is what made me so weepy, I wanted my poor darling, Esso so much – she would be such a help now – if only she was left for another few years.
Fitzie says that Wilmot [Seamus Wilmot, a director of the Taibhdhearc] said today that May Kilmartin was excellent in the play and that Mr Macken was very, very good on the second night. You were the only two he mentioned. May [Peggy’s sister] has just been giving out – she heard the reverberations of what I got yesterday – and she says that everyone should mind their own business. How I wish they would, dearest. Wally why didn’t we meet some years ago – and we could have had everything settled up long ago. Please don’t say you would die without me, darling – you will always have me in spirit – for I find my mind wandering off answering yours in the weirdest way at times.
There is a definite communion of spirit between us and we must keep it beautiful and like that – like it was on Monday – you remember? Heart of mine, I love you, that is the only thing in life for me – we shall have to be brave, and that especially applies to me – and now I have to earn my four guineas too – so God bless you, my darling Wally, and keep you for me, and bring us to our goal soon.
Always,
Peggy Edel
Here is another letter to my mother from my father, who spent around a month in Rosmuc, although he tried to get to Galway at least once a week to see her:
Rosmuc.
Tuesday morning 10.45
As you doubtless notice I over-slept myself this morning. I didn’t waken until 10.30 and it’s a horrible d
ay. The sky is just one black mass of clouds and it is raining like hell. What a spot and what a climate and I have to wait until nearly 3 before I get your letter. My Irish is terribly poor. I didn’t really know how poor and weak it was until I came out here. I’m barely able to put a sentence together and as a matter of fact I don’t know whether it is broken Irish or broken English, I am speaking …
My adventures yesterday were null and void. At twelve I went to the Post Office and just managed to catch the post and give them the letter I wrote to you. Then I returned and called to pick up May Kilmartin. The plan was to go to Críostoir Mac Aonghusa’s school and that he would put the boys talking and we listen to the blas. When we got to the end of the road, May K. said that she was damned if she would go to any old school and listen to a crowd of kids so she whipped two cigarettes off me and went in to spend the time with Mrs Mac Aonghusa. She would wait there until I came out of the school.
Having arrived at the school, Críostóir and myself did all the talking and it was only later that he thought about the kids. He has a most original way with them. He puts four of them, one on each side of the room and lets them hammer away at each other. They do everything but beat each other. Epithets like ‘gander,’ ‘lark’, ‘bushy’ and so on fly through the air and they can tell you what Michaleen Thomas’ mother’s grandfather had for breakfast. Talk about washing dirty linen in public.
And the essays those babies can write! Each and every one of their essays is 50% better than the one I did for my Leaving Cert, and that’s a fact. They sure can use their imagination. When we got tired of playing with the kids, he sent them out to play and then he started in on me.
