Copies of letters from Gavan Duffy and Mary Boyle O'Reilly to Mrs Dryhurst, 6 July 1916 Letters 1916-1923 Gavan Duffy

This work was originally published by Maynooth University in Ireland in 2017. In 2026 this data, stored in a relational database was extracted and converted into this TEI/XML document.

 Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities Vienna, AT 2026

This is an open access work licensed under Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Copy of a reply letter from George Gavan Duffy (1882-1951) to Mrs. Dryhurst, 11 Devonshire Hill, Hampstead. The document contains a further copy of an enclosure that Dryhurst had originally sent to Gavan Duffy, of a letter from Mary Boyle O’Reilly, a journalist, to Mrs. Dryhurst. In this letter, O’Reilly states that an American journalist who was told of the existence of Sir Roger Casement’s (1864–1916) diaries was not actually shown them. Gavan Duffy, in his reply, tells Mrs Dryhurst to ignore the allegations presumably alluded to in the enclosure.George Gavan Duffy was an Irish politician, barrister and judge. He unsuccessfully defended Roger Casement at his trial for high treason after the Easter Rising. Sir Roger Casement was a humanitarian and Irish Nationalist. Casement believed that an Irish insurrection would be crushed unless it received substantial assistance from Germany, and when it became clear that adequate help would not be forthcoming he travelled to Ireland by submarine. Casement landed and was arrested at Banna Strand, County Kerry on Good Friday 1916. He was tried in the Old Bailey for treason and subsequently executed by hanging at Pentonville Prison on 3 August 1916. Casement's so-called 'Black Diaries' contained explicit material about his personal life and were used to undermine his defence.

 University College Dublin Archives George Gavan Duffy Papers, P152/6 https://letters1916.ie/item/518 English Gavan Duffy 1916-07-06 London, UK Mrs Dryhurst Male Easter Rising Ireland 1916

The data in these XML files was generated based on a data dump from the Magellan database (https://github.com/Maynooth-Center-for-Digital-Humanities/Magellan). Each database record has been converted to a JSON file (https://github.com/letters1916static/letters-data/tree/main/json). The element section of the JSON file contains the TEI-encoded contents of the letters. The TEI XML has been cleaned and made well-formed using a Python script (https://github.com/letters1916static/letters-data/tree/main/src).

 From G. Gavan Duffy Mrs. Dryhurst, Devonshire Hill, Hampstead 6 July 1916 Dear Mrs D. Thanks for letter and enclosures. If I were you, I would not pay the smallest attention to this kind of rubbish, and why on earth anyone should try to see the alleged document, I cannot imagine, as the publishers are already discredited, and it has nothing to do with the matter in question. Yrs very sincerely G.G.D. Imperial Hotel London W. C. 6 July 1916 Dear Mrs. Dryhurst, Your note of the 4 th has just reached me in which you ask 'if I could put you in direct touch with any American journalists who saw the alleged diaries! The American journalist who mentioned their existence to me probably by way of friendly warning, said, is I think I told you, that he and others were told of their existence, not shown them He added few details ... Believe me. Faithfully yours Mary Boyle O'Reilly (journalist) Gavan Duffy Copies of letters from Gavan Duffy and Mary Boyle O'Reilly to Mrs Dryhurst, 6 July 1916 London, UK Copies of letters from Gavan Duffy and Mary Boyle O'Reilly to Mrs Dryhurst, 6 July 1916Letter from Roger Casement to Margaret Gavan Duffy, 14 July 1916Letter from Father Edward Murnane to Margaret Gavan Duffy, 31 July 1916Letter from Father E.F. Murnane to Margaret Gavan Duffy, 4 July 1916Letter from Minsie Arkwight to Lady Clonbrock, 22 July 1916