The Sligo Trip

Just back from a most enjoyable exhausting few days in Sligo. I attended a lecture on Sunday night at the Ballymote Heritage Weekend Eva Gore Booth, Champion of the worker by Cllr Ruth Illingworth from Mullingar. A most informative talk by an enthusiast. Eva is the gazelle in Yeats' poem In memory of Eva Gore Booth and Constance Markiewicz.

The light of evening, Lissadell,
Great windows open to the south,
Two girls in silk kimonos, both
Beautiful, one a gazelle.

Eva spent most of her life in Manchester working for women's right to vote and the betterment of women workers. Some good touches in the lecture especially contrasts between the attitudes of the two Gore Booth sisters and the difference among suffragettes on questions like attitude to the war and attitude to the female working class. No slides, no illustrations though and I would have liked to see some of those paintings and pictures of Eva. Still enjoyable.

Monday morning I attended two lectures at the Yeats Summer School. Again no slides just academic lectures. More about them later in the week maybe.

And Monday night was my turn. I was worried having seen three lectures none of which had used any slides or display. My lecture relied heavily on pictures and text in a presentation. some great, never before seen in public pictures from the Bedford Archives at that. A good crowd attended and seemed to enjoy the talk. I think it went on for an hour and half - good thing I cut it out ten slides last week!

Lots of people came up afterwards to congratulate me and tell me things they knew, some of which I didn't know. As a result I have got copies of an Sligo IRA battalion account book from 1921-22, an autograph book of IRA prisoners - including some Sligo ones - in Crumlin Road jail Belfast in 1920-21 and some extracts from a diary of 1920 telling what it was like in south Sligo then. Great stuff! More work!

A relief when it was over. A visit to Sligo Library today - some nice photographs - then home. Submissions for Boyne Berries closed, now to start the selection process. And the BOOK, always the BOOK.

The good news is I may have managed to get a ticket for the game on Thursday!! My favourite niece!!