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The letter is from James (Jim) MacDonagh to Muriel MacDonagh expressing condolences on the death of her husband, Thomas MacDonagh. Jim MacDonagh (1881-1931) was a younger brother of Thomas and became an accomplished musician with the British Symphony Orchestra. In the letter he offers his condolences on Thomas's death and asks for news, mentioning that 'Eva' was unable to write as she was 'so fond of Tom'. He also asks for the address of his brother 'Jack' (John, 1880-1961). Muriel Gifford (1884-1917) married Thomas MacDonagh in 1912 and they had one son. She tragically drowned on a family holiday in 1917. Thomas MacDonagh (1878-1916) was a poet and teacher. A leading member of the Dublin Brigade of the Irish Volunteers, he was one of the principle organisers of the Easter Rising and one of the seven signatories of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. He was executed on 3 May 1916 in Kilmainham Gaol (the letter is dated 4.3.1916 but should probably read 4 May 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).