Went to Kinsale Regatta and saw some yacht racing. Explored the Dún Chionn tSáile, a wonderful fort, probably 300 or 400 years old. It is an immense quadrangle with walls of extraordinary thickness and massive outworks. The interior is disfigured by a town of modern barracks, burnt and ugly, but the outer, older buildings are intact. We got in, though the place is shut and explored some of the dark passages leading to musty cells or roomy halls. A place of mystery and imagination.
On Sunday, while our things were thundering to Cork [in a lorry] we made a pleasant excursion to the Old Head and took photos. Then we motored – home! I could scarcely believe any change had taken place till there I was, dumped amidst the ruins of last year’s work and the plans of the next, with the Doon and boating and bathing and fishing things of the past. For I had been living in a careless dream, thinking of the future, and letting present pleasures slip. Now we are at home to work; the summer is gone, the summer which was to be the consummation of the year’s freeing glory. However, there is satisfaction in solid work, and perhaps some solid pleasure like swimming.
A telegram awaited us at home – poor old grandfather in Philadelphia is dead. What a life was his, full of self-inflicted rigour and sternness, for he was a man of iron will and commanding presence. And to think, as we were told in a letter, that a few days before his death, when he himself knew his end was a matter of hours, he rose and played in his church for a funeral! How those solemn chords must have vibrated and echoed in his heart; he felt he was presiding at his own burial service. The loneliness and terror of it! Poor Mám and Nannie and all the family were terribly upset. ((Aloys had never met his grandfather, Hans Conrad Swertz (1857-1927) who left Cork in 1906 to take up a post as organist in Philadelphia, where he was joined by his sons Franz Xaver (1885-1951) and Ferdinand (1887-1933) some years later. They were both with him when he died, and wrote to the family about his passing. Nannie (in German a term similar to `Granny`) is Hans Conrad´s wife, Walburga Swertz née Rössler (1854-1945), Aloys´ grandmother.))
And to add to the general depression we heard on Friday of poor Fr. Willie O’Brien’s sad death. ((Fr. William O’Brien (1889-1927) was a curate in the Cathedral of St Mary and St Anne in Cork. He was born in Cork, and ordained in the Irish College of Rome in 1912. He was renowned in his parish work for his ability to resolve family strife. (See Cathedral website, section: Priests who served in this parish) His family were Cork wool millers; he was Jane O’Brien’s brother. He died of tuberculosis, aged 38.)) A young fresh priest, a household word for never ending humour, ever glorying in some new tale of Shandon Street, ((Shandon Street leads up from the River Lee to the Cathedral, one of the old streets of Cork, housing many of this impoverished, spirited, highly entertaining community, people celebrated by Fr. Christie O’Flynn, another Cathedral parish curate, in his stage impersonations. )) beloved by whole Blackpool, and by all who came in contact with him, so irresistible was he. And here he pined away for four long weeks and has suddenly vanished. He was brought into the church Sunday evening, and indeed the procession and whole carrying out was shamefully schlampig [sloppy, careless]. But better so; if it had been otherwise the grief would have been too great, too unbearable. To me his person is gone, but his personality lives, untouched in my mind as if he was before me, and the many pleasant hours I spent in his room since childhood and his gaiety I enjoyed so much.
[In large writing at the end, but crossed out:]THINGS TO LEARN
Criticism is an art by which men grow
