Internal and External Affairs

THERE IS a lot of fuss being made over Hazel Lavery's fling with Kevin O'Higgins (and if anyone else tells me in fits of uncontrollable mirth that he was after all the Minister for External Affairs, I will shoot from the hip, no warning given).

But I am far more interested in the suggestion made in Terence de Vere White's 1948 biography of O'Higgins, that Lady Lavery inserted romantic passages into letters she received from admirers.

This is not as unusual a practice as it might seem in affairs between ardent admirers, particularly among the crowd of chancers on the remote edge of the Celtic fringe.

I myself (don't confuse me with I) have been using chronographic analysis, carbonating, ink identification, thermo nuclear radiation and advanced pot scouring techniques on various faded manuscripts for a long time now and have identified hundreds of these romantic insert ions.

Willie ("Mad About Maud") Yeats for example was not above such mild self deception:

Dear Willie

Thanks for the note. No, there is no way we can meet at Thoor Ballylee on Thursday, on the Winding Stair next Sunday or at Coole on Monday to count (why?) those disgusting and probably dangerous swans. Is that really your idea of a good time? What is it with you and swans anyway. Leda and all that? As for Byzantium get real. Sorry, but I am just too busy and the scullery needs cleaning. Perhaps some other time.

Best wishes,

Maud.

Here is what the above letter looked like after Willie got to work on it:

Dearest William

Your note pierced my heart. I so much enjoyed our evening with Eva and Con, though I do wish they would close those windows once in a while. The draught is fierce in those big houses. I thought Con was looking a bit gaunt too. I suppose as the fellow says, the innocent and beautiful have no enemy but time.

Anyway. I cannot imagine anything more wonderful than visiting Thoor Ballylee with you, or climbing the winding stair (to the bedroom at tie top!). As for the swans at Coole, the thought of their clamorous wings quite takes my heart away. I wonder where they will be among what rushes will they build when we awake some day to find they have flown away? Unfortunately, the horrible thing is I myself will be "flying away" all week on urgent suffragette business.

Love and kisses,

Your darling Maud.

As a "literary" person, do I object to this sort of thing? I do not. If it made poor Willie feel better I have no objection at all, unrequited passion is a terrible thing, no one knows that better than myself, and a certain party in Kilmainham. The whole thing is fairly harmless and a person could be worse employed.

But Joyce and the missus were nearly as bad. Look at what Nora wrote to Jemser back in 1929 and then take a gawk at how he fiddled about with it:

Dear Jim

Sony to stand you lip (again), but I missed the boat liter all. You have to make do with the memory of the good could court we had under the Moorish wall, God it reminded me of a night in Gibraltar but that wasn't you or was it? Never mind and thanks for the rose, you're a terrible case but not the worst I suppose. I still think it's a shame you gave up the singing.

Love, Nora.

Here is the very same letter after Joyce got to work with his set of rubbers and pencils:

Dear Jim, missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deep down torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used to shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes

Love. Nora.

I suppose I better point out that the above is all "whimsy" (i.e. lies) and would be libellous if the parties were not dead.