Letter from James Finn to May Fay, 13 April 1916

Foo, Bar; Bar, Foo

Letter from James Finn to May Fay, 13 April 1916

1 13th April, 1916.
My dearest May,
I was delighted to have your
letter this morning not that you had very
much news in it but I was glad to
get it as showing that you had been
thinking of me yesterday. I was telling
the news about Louis at home and
my mother was of course delighted to
hear that he is getting fixed up at
last. It seems to be quite the rage at
present to get married. I had a letter
from George Clitheroe last night from England 2 to say that he is going off on Saturday
next with Miss Willette. I suppose some
English girl. I don’t know whether you
ever met him but Mrs Seery did and she
will be interested to hear that he also as
well as myself is losing the “freedom of the city”
so soon. He is at present on night work, he
tells me, from 8 at night till 9 next morning
and won’t be able to get off even for a day
for his wedding so he is earning his bit as
well as doing it for his country. I
am afraid you were all disappointed yesterday
about Nora & Moll turning up as promised.
Moll only went down to the country on
Tuesday evening, goodness knows what kept
her till then, and of course she wouldn’t have
been able to get out of Mrs Shiels on Wednesday
and after that I suppose she had to go to
Lisavra to Moran’s for a few hours anyhow.
I hope they both turned up today for I know
very well if they disappoint that Mrs Seery will
be very mad over it. About Easter of
course I’m looking forward to it already and
of course I must see you on Good Friday as
well as every other day whether you like it or
not. You’ll have to be promising to love honour
and obey in a month or so now so you
might as well be starting to get accustomed to
it. Anyhow as regards Good Friday I promise to
be very good and not to annoy you but I
must see you. I’ll go round the stations with 3 you or anything you like that way but I
will not be put on the solitary confinement
punishment. I was amused to hear that
Corbett thinks he has better taste than I have.
I suppose it is always invidious to make comparisons
and besides I should like to live on good terms
with my sisters-in-law but I must say that I’m
quite satisfied that I got the pick of the
bunch. We talked over the question of the best
man yesterday evening and I’m afraid
I can’t get over Pat Moran . I will break the
news to Mrs Seery when I go down and I hope
she will take it all right. Anyhow I can’t
please everyone and I suppose someone is
bound to be vexed. We hear today that the
eight hour day in the Civil Service is knocked on
the head so that is so much to the good.
No other news. I send you my warmest and most
heartfelt love. From your loving James.

This is from a series of letters written between James Finn and his fiancée Mary (May) Fay. They became engaged in January 1916 and married in June. He lived in Dublin, she in Westmeath; he was 20 years older than her at 39 and had become acquainted with her during his regular visits to his relative Mrs Mary Seery, her neighbour. Throughout the series their relationship develops from the first somewhat tentative letters. They were not to be married long: in 1919 he fell ill with the great flu epidemic, it led to heart damage and he died in 1922 as she was expecting their fourth child. She held on to his letters as her reminder of him. Despite many offers and her difficult finances she never married again. She took in lodgers and trained (and practised) as a midwife, chiropodist, and public health nurse while raising her children. She proved to be an excellent entrepreneur, charmed bank managers into giving her loans (against the norm of the time) and bought properties one after another, many of which were broken up into flats. James Finn was a civil servant, working in the National Health Service Commission on Mount Street. Family history says that he was advising on the restructuring of the civil service as part of setting up the new government in 1922 and that eminent figures in that project were visiting him in his sick bed so that they could consult with him. Neither May nor James were politically active, although like many in the Civil Service, learned Irish. One can sense their shifting sympathies in the letters. In this letter James speaks of some family matters, he has decided that his cousin Pat Moran is to be his best man.The proosed 8 hour day for civil servants has been cancelled

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How to cite

Letters 1916, published by the Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities, Vienna, 2026 (https://letters1916static.github.io/letters1916-static/item__5732.html)