Letter from James Finn to May Fay, 15 April 1916

Foo, Bar; Bar, Foo

Letter from James Finn to May Fay, 15 April 1916

1 15 April, 1916. My Dearest Love, I was delighted to get your
letter today but you needn't have apologised
for writing on Thursday. I hadn't the last
hope of a letter yesterday morning so I wasn't
disappointed (blessed are they that expect nothing)
as I know very well that the chances were
very much against you being able either
to write or to post even if you cared
with. I'm sorry to hear that Mrs Seery
was nasty to my little girl the other evening.
I’m sure she was a bit worrying all right and 2 I know very well that her jokes cut pretty deeply
at times if you mind her but I hope you
won’t pay too much attention to what she says
as her bark is always worse than her bite. I
must face her whatever happens when I go
down about the best man as I can’t put it
off any longer. I hope she will take it reasonable
anyway. I was sorry to see that you take
me so seriously to heart although of course it
flatters me very much. I thought I had enough
on my conscience when I diddled you into
agreeing to marry me but if I have in
addition the load on my conscience of
making you give up all your prayers and
other good works I don’t know what will
become of me. I hope it won’t be quite so
bad as that and that you will be content
to go and do the stations with me on Good
Friday and be good and loving and sweet
afterwards as you always otherwise are. Sometimes
I don’t know when you talk that way whether
you are joking or not or whether you really do
scruple being fond of me or kissing me with
the freedom and frankness which is only reasonable
in the case of us two. I don’t see what harm
you do even if you did think of me and
love me on Good Friday as well as on any other
day. So far as I am concerned my conscience
is not only quite clear in loving and thinking
about you but I know and am convinced as 3 never was of anything before that my only
hope of salvation lies in loving you and thinking
of you always. I am always a better and a
cleaner man when I think of you and I
intend to cling to that last straw like the
drowning man. In view of what I say, I
imagine it will be easy enough for you
to boss me even without the poker but I hope
you will not be too severe although I’d
certainly advise you to be firm. Moll & Nora
got back all right but they didn’t have much
news for us. Things here are very quiet
and nothing at all interesting happening. Give
my regards to all and with my warmest
and deepest love to my dear and darling. Always your loving & devoted
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. This letter is some banter between the couple

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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__5747.html)