Another Page From The Diary Of A Well Lived Life

My stony heart is gone. I feel a great wish to help the poor people round about, especially the children and the old.

There is plenty to do. There are my lunatic friends at the asylum. I go and see them on days when I am in Cork for organ lessons.

Last week I had a picnic lunch for forty women women lunatics. I arrived with Con and there the poor things were, ready. Two or three nurses were of the party and we all shuffled off as far as we were allowed to go and sat on a bank under trees in the asylum grounds, out of sight of any buildings that reminded them of their sad lot.

The lunatics had made themselves very smart for the occasion; their hats were wonderful in colour and shape; each wore a clean pinafore or apron with an assortment of coloured bows. and a large bunch of purple phlox pinned in the middle. They were very good and Oh! so happy. 

Thompson had sent up a wonderful tea. sugar cakes with mice on them, and plum cakes and barmbrack and bread and butter. They all had one idea which was that I should not be allowed to get sunstroke. One or another mounted guard over me with an open parasol, even when I sat in the shade. If I protested they all patted their heads, signed first to me and then to themselves. Do they think that they are in the asylum because of sunstroke? 

Mrs Leary, from Castle Freke, was there. She calls herself Lady Carberry as a rule, but when others are there she tells the others t call her Lady Glandore. 

Jane Tyner came too. the girl with whom I play duets. She was engaged to marry a curate. When he heard that her mother had died in an asylum he broke off the engagement Jane, heartbroken, went off her head. 

Here is the old dear who jabs one with a knitting needle, if one does not look out, and then is so sorry.! Her beliefs are complicated, she believes a picture of her is being made in Heaven. If she on earth she is cross and jabs people with knitting needles, then the picture will be ugly; if she is good and patient and, doesn't jab it will be lovely. When she dies she will go to Heaven and she and her picture will be one.

There is a priest's sister, a very beloved woman, dark, beautiful, who knows she is "queer" and takes it as her cross and tries to show love to rest.

One woman, the nurse told me, they dared not bring, tho' she cried and promised to be good, because on my last visit on my last visit she had followed me about (I didn't know it) threatening to "send that lady west". Two nurses shadowed me all the time that day.

We talked at the picnic exactly as if it was a garden party at Castle Freke, and if one of us gave a sudden shriek or laughed at nothing. or even rolled over on the grass, no one took any notice. It was a lovely day, and no one enjoyed it more than I did; except for the kissing at the end. Lunatics, like nuns, are fond of kissing people they fancy, whether they know them well enough or not. And with lunatics one can never be sure they won't bite.

Dr Woods gave leave for them to be photographed and Herr Kraft, the photographer, arrived looking quite pale. The nurse had to pose us, for when Herr Kraft approached the patients shrieked or else wanted to kiss him. So he entrenched himself behind the camera, but it was ages before they would all sit still, several of them wanting to know why he had put his head in a black bag, before they consented to settle down.

A Page Of A Diary From A Well Lived Life

 I had gone out chiefly to see old Dinny whose wife died early this morning. Mrs Leary, the fisherwoman, brought the news. Mary Dinny was a plain woman, with squinny eyes and snaggle teeth,; coming from the county Kildare, she was looked upon as a foreigner. Dinny and Mary loved one another very much but they were lonely for the four children who went very long abo to America. At first they wrote often and from time to time sent home little presents of money. They were "getting on fine; they were going to be married; they had babies; they were lucky to be in good places.". Then times were not so good. One by one they left off writing. Then perhaps a neighbour's son or daughter "out there" might send a word of news. After that, silence. I tried one way and another to trace them, but in vain. "If we c'd know how it is wid them ... if they be living or dead, or what way it is at all!".

The door was open, letting in a long beam of the westering sun. A turf fire smouldered on the hearth under the swinging kettle, a loaf' and a twist of sugar were on the table beside a battered tea-pot. The room was empty but for a couple of hens.

From the inner room came the sound of Dinny's voice. it was dim in there, for the pane of glass fixed into the wall, which did duty for a window, let in little light. The air was stale and acrid. Dinny sat on a box wedged between bed and wall; his gret head was on the pillow. Someone had shut his wife's squinny eyes and laid pennies on the lids; her arms, her toil-worn hands were lying stiffly either side of her. Her lips were drawn up showing the wolf-like fangs.

"Me darlin', me Darlin'," the old man was murmuring, "Me lovely one ... whatever'll happen me widout ye?". he looked up and saw me, "Here's the ladyship come to see us" he said to the white thing on the bed, getting up. Poor Dinny! Poor dazed Dinny! He squeezed along the wall and stood beside me at the foot of the bed; we looked at her together. "An" she  to be tuk from me that have the great need of her ... 'tis a quare thng," he said. "An' what will I do ... och! what will I do alone in the house wid meself?"

One of his neighbours has come in to make his tea; there is minced beef in a jar which James McCarthy brought from the well of his car, to be spread on his bread, or to be heated in the embers. Katie will comfort Dinny with her homely words better than I can. He comes out to the car with me, a dirty dishevelled old man, with fine manner for his race. "you'll forgive me for me being a bit moidhered , " he said as he put the rug over my knees. Then he looked up to the angry sky. "Get ye home, James McCarthy,", he said "For there is a great rain a comin' on the dark wind of night, a dark wind an' a great rain, an gloom all over the world. 

The above is practically a short story and Ireland circa 1900 in microcosm. But it is just one page from the diary of an Anglo/Irish country lady, published in 1998. It was edited by her grandson, the writer Jeremy Sandford. 'Mary Carberry's West Cork Journal 1898-1901' is a well respected book in Irish studies. It describes rural life, the ease with which pietism combines with wealth as easily as it works with poverty, and describes the gilded life of the landed classes with a gentleness that half makes the reader think we could go back there, and it would not be so bad for everyone, even though that life was for the few. It has compassion as it's underlying narrative even when oprobium might seem apt in describing certain characters.  

A Diary Entry From A Well Lived Life

I had gone out chiefly to see old Dinny whose wife died early this morning. Mrs Leary, the fisherwoman, brought the news. Mary Dinny was a plain woman, with squinny eyes and snaggle teeth,; coming from the county Kildare, she was looked upon as a foreigner. Dinny and Mary loved one another very much but they were lonely for the four children who went very long abo to America. At first they wrote often and from time to time sent home little presents of money. They were "getting on fine; they were going to be married; they had babies; they were lucky to be in good places.". Then times were not so good. One by one they left off writing. Then perhaps a neighbour's son or daughter "out there" might send a word of news. After that, silence. I tried one way and another to trace them, but in vain. "If we c'd know how it is wid them ... if they be living or dead, or what way it is at all!".

The door was open, letting in a long beam of the westering sun. A turf fire smouldered on the hearth under the swinging kettle, a loaf' and a twist of sugar were on the table beside a battered tea-pot. The room was empty but for a couple of hens.

From the inner room came the sound of Dinny's voice. it was dim in there, for the pane of glass fixed into the wall, which did duty for a window, let in little light. The air was stale and acrid. Dinny sat on a box wedged between bed and wall; his gret head was on the pillow. Someone had shut his wife's squinny eyes and laid pennies on the lids; her arms, her toil-worn hands were lying stiffly either side of her. Her lips were drawn up showing the wolf-like fangs.

"Me darlin', me Darlin'," the old man was murmuring, "Me lovely one ... whatever'll happen me widout ye?". he looked up and saw me, "Here's the ladyship come to see us" he said to the white thing on the bed, getting up. Poor Dinny! Poor dazed Dinny! He squeezed along the wall and stood beside me at the foot of the bed; we looked at her together. "An" she  to be tuk from me that have the great need of her ... 'tis a quare thng," he said. "An' what will I do ... och! what will I do alone in the house wid meself?"

One of his neighbours has come in to make his tea; there is minced beef in a jar which James McCarthy brought from the well of his car, to be spread on his bread, or to be heated in the embers. Katie will comfort Dinny with her homely words better than I can. He comes out to the car with me, a dirty dishevelled old man, with fine manner for his race. "you'll forgive me for me being a bit moidhered , " he said as he put the rug over my knees. Then he looked up to the angry sky. "Get ye home, James McCarthy,", he said "For there is a great rain a comin' on the dark wind of night, a dark wind an' a great rain, an gloom all over the world. 

The above is practically a short story, but it is just one page from the diary of an Anglo/Irish country lady, published in 1998. It was edited by her grandson, the writer Jeremy Sandford. 'Mary Carberry's West Cork Journal 1898-1901' is a well respected book in Irish studies. It describes rural life, the ease with which pietism combines with wealth as easily as it works with poverty, and describes the gilded life of the landed classes with a gentleness that half makes the reader think we could go back there, and it would not be so bad for everyone, even though that life was for the few. It has compassion as it's underlying narrative even when oprobium might seem apt in describing certain characters.