January, 1927, Sunday 2

Drove to the little village of Togler with Fr. Pat for Mass and Benediction. After had breakfast in a little room over the sacristy. Fr. Pat got a few sick calls on the way home, and we passed through the bleakest and stoniest mountain roads. Then drove with Denis, Fr. Pat’s acting chauffeur, to Cork, a distance of over 40 miles. I took the wheel from Bandon to Cork. Called for Mám,3 had dinner, then picked up Mrs. Stockley, Sophia4 and her friend Miss Mac Leod of Dublin (niece of editor of ‘An Phoblacht`5) and we turned about for Dunmanway. I chaffed Sophia en route. Arrived at hotel, and after tea, we all left for Hall and Gaelic League Concert. First there was a charming performance of ‘Red Riding Hood’ in Irish, then ‘Íosagán’ by a band of fresh young fellows, then followed a play ‘Paid in his own Coin’, Anglo-Irish, but exceedingly witty and excellently acted. Between were traditional dancing, singing and violin-playing. The huge audience of country folk were most enthusiastic, and for a Gaelic League concert it was highly successful. I acted as stage-prompter.

  1. Mám: Aloys´ mother, the pianist and teacher Tilly Fleischmann née Swertz (1882-1967), born in Cork to German parents; her father had come to Cork in 1879 from Dachau; he was organist and choirmaster at the cathedral from 1890-1906, when he left for Philadelphia. Tilly studied at the Royal Academy of Music in Munich from 1901-05 under two pupils of Franz Liszt. In the first part of the diary of 1926 Aloys refers to her as ´Mammie’. [↩]
  2. Marie Germaine Stockley née Kolb (1868-1949) was born in Munich, came to Cork in 1908 having married William F. P. Stockley, professor of English at University College Cork. She was a gifted singer who had studied with a pupil of Brahms; she taught in the Cork School of Music. She had one daughter, Sophia. [↩]
  3. An Phoblacht [The Republic] founded in 1906, the newspaper of the Irish republican movement. [↩]