January, 1927, Saturday 1

Imit annus novus! [Enter the new year] This year will probably be the most important of my life. ‘The tide, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.’ Let’s hope that I’ll ‘take the current when it serves’ and not lose my ventures. [Julius Caesar IV, 3].

Drove to Mass with Fr. Pat1 to Baile na Carraige, a little village church about five miles out of Dunmanway. Went then to a rehearsal in the Town Hall of ‘Íosagán’2 and other plays for to-morrow’s Gaelic League performance. I will act as stage prompter. After a fine New Year’s Day dinner of turkey and plum-pudding, went again to rehearsal with Tim Leary. The little fellows taking part in ‘Íosagán’ were charming. Was invited by Reggie Milnar, an old collegian, to his house, where I was regaled with raspberry wine and instructed on the Uileann Pipes. Retired very much the worse for wear, having read half ‘The Vicar of Wakefield’.

  1. Father Patrick MacSwiney, M.A. (1885-1940), one of the Fleischmanns´ closest friends. He was a man of much learning with a great love of music, also a man of action who set up social and cultural organisations in the parishes in which he served. He was at this time chaplain to a convent in Dunmanway, having been removed from Cork after a public controversy with the bishop during the civil war. He was to be transferred to Kinsale later in 1927. [↩]
  2. ‘Íosagán’ [Little Jesus], a short story in Irish for children by Patrick Pearse, was published by the Gaelic League in 1907; Pearse rewrote it as a drama in 1910. [↩]