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9 Montrose Terrace
Ranelagh 16th March.
1916 Dear Mrs Skeffington Even if I
had been able to accept
your very kind invitation
to speak at one of your
meetings, I am afraid
that your formidable
list of speakers would
have quite frightened
me off! I am not in any
sense a public speaker,
though I can manage
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to fill a gap at a
meeting sometimes when
the subject has to do
with education. At present, having
yielded to persuasion
and become a member
of the Secondary Teachers'
as well as the Graduates'
committee, I am
quite unable to under-
take anything further,
particularly an
evening engagement,
as I have two invalids
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on my hands at home
as well as my school
work and private
teaching I am going to take
part in the discussion
at the next Secondary
Teachers' meeting
but I am afraid that
must be my limit. May I ask you
to make a note of
this address? I am
not at Alexandra
School every day, and
I do not think the
Doctor cares to have
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letters for the teachers
addressed to the school
in any case. I very much
appreciate your wide
and liberal programme;
in the past women of strong
views have been too much
inclined to carve them-
selves in opposite camps
crying "Who so is not with
us is against us." You
will do infinite good
by your broad minded
policy. I hear occasionally
from my cousins Dr. Ross C.S.P.
he is doing good work among
the Catholic students of the
University of Texas. Yours sincerely R. Mansfield
In this letter from Roberta Kerr Mansfield (1872-1937) to Hanna Sheehy Skeffington
(1877 - 1946) , Mansfield expresses regret that she cannot act as a speaker at one
of Skeffington's meetings and wile she enjoys speaking about education would have
been put off by Skeffington's impressive line up of other speakers. Mansfield also
praises Skeffington's broad minded and liberal programme.
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.