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2 Dartmouth Sq March 13th 16 Dear Mrs Sheehy Skeffington Thanks for your nice letter & it is
with regrets I must say —at present any way I
could not knock up a price of a paper or speech.
I feel so deadly dull & uninteresting & have no
time to sit down to any thing intellectual — if you
would let me off for the next couple of months — after
that I might get time to try — but you have so
many good speakers & I think really willing
helpers — I could make only a very poor show.
Would Mrs Rciahrdson do something in thay way
for you? She made a very good after noon for the
Reform League on Miss Martin's Man may
be she would help you — only don't say I put
you on to her. And another person who might do something
would be Miss Josephine Webb — in suffrage
on Reconciliation — she does short papers etc.
very nicely & broad mindedly. It makes me feel bad to refuse but dear
needs must — good wishes
Jane Gibson
In this letter to Hanna Sheehy Skeffington (1877-1946) Mrs Gibson expresses her regrets
but states that she is not up to any intellectual task at the moment and asks to be
excused from speaking for the next few months. As a compromise she offers some alternative
ideas and speakers.
Hanna Sheehy Skeffington suffragette, nationalist, language teacher, was the founder
of the Irish Women’s Franchise League and a founding member of the Irish Women Workers’
Union. She was the widow of Francis Sheehy-Skeffington who was summarily executed
on 26 April 1916. She was active during the Rising, bringing food to the Volunteers
in the G.P.O. and the College of Surgeons. Four days passed before she found out what
had happened to her husband, Francis (1878-1916), and it wasn't until almost two weeks
later that the full details of his execution emerged.