Letter from May Fay to James Finn 1 June 1916

Foo, Bar; Bar, Foo

Letter from May Fay to James Finn 1 June 1916

1 Togherstown
Ballinea
Mullingar
1st June 1916
My dearest James I got your letter this morn also card to fit ring
and a paper I think addressed by your Mother we were very
glad to get it and see Dr Dwyer s letters to Maxwell
I wonder they got on papers at all that were very good
We are having awful weather hear at present quiet cold
as well as wet I hope they are trying to spit up all the
bad weather before we go off Christy is gone to M. Gar to day & will take home
all my dress etc neatly, so they wont be late at that
rate. Mrs. was called over to Balrath last night
the boy there was at deaths door with drink but is slowly
recovering Mrs Kiernan had got word from Gertie Duffy
saying if she went to Dublin with her to see the Doctor
she would pay her expenses for one day I believe she is
very delicate (Gertie) but does not think it, like every one
of her said complant people all pity John the take in
he got but I think one is as much to be pitied as the other
I am returning the ring card Size T is my size.
About your present I will look at somethings in 2 Mullingar if I dont get something I think you would
like I will wait till we go to Cork wont that be
all right— Well Christy has not gone to Mulingar at all
there were arrangements made to drive the filly
& Mrs S— pressed her car & son also when Christy
went down he asked the loan of the bit from Tom
he got it and threw it on the ground to him
& they were all giving him short answers he that
so seldom goes near them so he did not go, with the
going on they had he'd be late for Mass there.
The whole cause of the general bad humour was a letter
Johnnie had got saying that firm was not going
to be opened at all for the present & they therefore did not require
him — it was hard of course after such a long
wait for both parties. but I cant understand them
showing temper to Christy that would give them the
house from over his head. I am sure tho' like ourselves she will be disappointed
for Johnnies job. I have more news now dearest James. I hope you
will get to make out this, I would not be half as mad as if it were
to myself it was done because I have the gift of the gab
Warmest love from your loving
May

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.

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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__5801.html)