January, 1927, Wednesday 5

Bought a fine new over-coat, and a long trousers for school-wear for myself. Had lunch at Neesons’,9 who are occupying Miss O’Brien’s10 house in her absence. Went to Betty to compromise about Monday’s invitation, which clashes with Prof. Sullivan’s.11 Read ‘Tam o’ Shanter’ there, a killing poem of Burns, wonderfully illustrated by Cruikshank. The book must be very valuable. Read in ‘Lands and Peoples’ of Sicily and Morocco.

  1. Geraldine Neeson née O´Sullivan (1895-1980), pianist (who had studied with Tilly Fleischmann), actress, singing teacher, music critic; her husband Seán Neeson (1891-1964) a singer who was born in Belfast; he was interned after the rising of 1916 and again during the civil war by the Free State government. He acted as secretary to Carl Hardebeck, was director of the short-lived Cork radio station and succeeded Dr Annie Patterson as lecturer in Irish music at University College Cork. [↩]
  2. Jane (Jennie) O’Brien, or Sinéid Ní Bhríain (1895-1979), daughter of Cork wool millers, had been a talented pupil of Tilly Fleischmann’s who gave recitals and broadcasts. She was one of the Fleischmanns’ best friends. In the 1920s she trained in Manchester as a nursery nurse, graduating from the Princess Christian College there. She studied music in University College Cork under Aloys Fleischmann, graduating in 1943. She then taught in Drishane, and in Scoil Ite, the school founded by Terence MacSwiney’s sisters in 1916, having all her life been a close family friend of theirs. [↩]
  3. Elizabeth M. O´Sullivan, professor of Education at University College Cork 1910-1935 [↩]