Back again! The place is teeming with new fellows, 82 all told. We seniors, of course, felt very superior to them. Most of the college is done up and painted. In our class, Senior Honours, Fannie Cottrell and Finbarr Desmond are gone, but instead we have John Lynch, Dick Horn and Denis Murray (he of the 395/400) all very decent fellows. There are a few splendid changes – Fr. Dalton for English, and Fr. Dinnie Murphy for Latin, so I won’t have poor old Pa any more. Though it’s an ordeal, the fellows are so jolly and witty I don’t mind going back much. Bicycled home at 12, and then did piano, gardening, worked at Latin and read. A terrible catastrophe happened yesterday. In a cinema near Limerick the building caught fire and 50 of the audience were burned to death! Almost the whole village was wiped out – it is appalling. Feeling depressed, Mám and I went to the pictures. We saw Rudolf Valentino, the famous film star who died lately, in ‘A Sainted Devil’. It was neither too bad – nor too good. Then came ‘The Lady?’ the most touching story I ever experienced of the sorrowful life of a poor Cockney girl bred in a music-hall and aged with trouble who showed that even Cockney girls, despite their commonness, can be noble and ladies.
