1 St. Enda's College Rathfarnham 16/7/'16 Dear Mrs. Fitzgerald, In reply to your letter
this morning to my mother.
First I must thank you for your kind words about
my good brother. Life for
us will never again be the
same, & yet it is such a
strange mixture of grief &
pride. May God bless the
boys & all who stood by him.
You have your own great
trial, but it won't be for very long. Time will bring
many changes. About Dartmoor. We saw 2
only our own two personal
for which we had a special
permit from the Home Secretary.
The rule is 4 months must
lapse before a visit, but
we got one much sooner.
I hope to go again in October.
The conditions were better
than I had hoped. I heard
they had 4 months' solitary
confinement. That is not so.
It is one month, which
time in most cases had
expired before the men
left Dublin. There are 69 of ours in
Dartmoor. They are not
allowed to mix with the
ordinary convicts, & that
in itself is a blessing. At recreation they walk
round in some sort of
yard quite away from
the others. At Mass they
(The Irish Prisoners) are all
together, & 3 empty
benches are left between
them & the criminals.
They are employed at
making post bags.
I think the authorities did
not think it wise to put
them at severe work.
The food, as far as I can
judge, is good. We had a
little of the prison bread
when taking lunch with
the priest after our visit.
It was a bit dark, but quite
all right. 3 Our two friends were well
& especially the younger,
in good spirits. Another good thing, they
have lots of books & can
read a good deal. They
can use nothing that is
not prison property, but t
he head warden explained
a little point about books.
He told me if I wished
my young friend to have
any special book treating
of his profession I could
send it, provided the
book becomes prison
property. Needless to say
I have just sent on a 4
valuable book on his
future profession (Architecture)
to Conor, or rather to the
governor as prison property.
Perhaps you would care
to do the same for your
husband. The priest is an Irish
man, from the North.
Not quite 'our way' but
an Irishman. Our men
have confession & H. Communion
every week. The Bishop
of Plymouth paid each
one of them a personal
visit. Rather unusual
for 'convicts', is it not?
The head warden who 5
was on duty during our
visits, & took many notes of
what we said, seems a
decent, good man. He
was quite a formal &
official person when
speaking to us, but
when he spoke to Conor
he was much nicer &
more sympathetic. I
took this as a good sign. It has been explained to
our prisoners that if their
friends cannot visit them
they can write an extra
letter in lieu of the visit.
This would mean an
ordinary letter about Oct.
& another, instead of a visit,
sometime in Dec! However
I'll do my best to go see
my two in October. It is
expensive, over £4-5 return to Princetown. I have just learned that
the younger brother of the
boy I saw in Dartmoor
arrived home last night
from Frongoch, also
another of our past boys.
I think I have told you
the chief particulars. If
you could come see us I
might remember a little
more. But you now have 6
as much as any visitor
could gather. With kind regards from Mother & myself
Yrs. very sincerely Margaret Pearse