This postcard was sent from St John Ervine (1883-1971) to Thomas Nally (1869-1932). The postcard concerns the naming of the characters in Nally's play, the Spancel of Death.Thomas Nally was an Irish playwright and colleague of WB Yeats. His work, the Spancel of Death, was due to open on Easter Tuesday 1916, the play was cancelled due to the Easter Rising. St John Greer Ervine was an Irish dramatist from Belfast. He served as manager of the Abbey theatre from 1915 to 1916. Despite his revulsion at the executions of Francis Sheehy Skeffington and Sir Roger Casement in 1916, Ervine enlisted with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers in October 1916. Ervine was badly wounded in the Great War, losing a leg in 1918.