Letter from George Yeats to Thomas MacGreevy. [2] August 1923.
[p.1 recto]Thoor Ballylee (This means Ballylee Tower)
Gort
Co Galway
Thursday sometime early in August.
Dear Mr. Mcgreevy
= Many thanks for your letter.
Damn Blast Hell.
No. One cannot write surrounded by all the beastly amplitudes of nature. Millions of unnecessary blades of grass trees, stones, a most damnable quantity of water through & in the ground, and a vast deal more being hurled upon one out of the Heavens, borne down in a 120 mile an hour gale. A jackdaws nest in every chimney & no young moorhens. I often like the monotonous profligacy of nature but at this moment no.
We are still — at 7 oclock new time — 1 ½ feet out of the flood.
There is no sign of Willy coming.
The gale tears down the winding staircase of the Tower so that when I go out of my room my hair is rushed inside out like one's umbrella in a storm!
However I have painted the entire wood ceiling red & blue & now I want some gold paint.George Yeats was painting the wooden ceiling of the bedroom on the second floor of the renovated tower note On your way to lunch at the Club you pass an art [p.1 verso] shop — perhaps in Baggot St or possibly Merrion Row — Do ask them to send me 4 boxes of gold paint. I think they are 1/- each. I enclose a cheque for 10/- keep the change lest I ask you to do another message.
Jack & Cottie are at Coole WB Yeats's brother, the artist Jack B. Yeats and his wife Mary Cottenham Yeats ("Cottie") regularly visited Lady Gregory's home at nearby Coole Park note. They were sent over here on Tuesday. They arrived at Coole on Monday 12.30. At 9 Cottie was sent to bed & Lady G. had a heart to heart talk with Jack!! I am sure she told him that she was a republican at heart & then tried to draw him. ——
Time this Jeremiad ended
Yours sincerely
Georgie Yeats
A Dublin girl I brought here for a holiday — she stays with the mother of my maidThe parents of George Yeats's maid Delia Molloy lived on the Gort road near Coole and were occasional caretakers of Ballyleenote — looked at our riverCoole river, a small streamnote & said "Is that the Liffey or the Shannon?" She thought there were just two rivers in Ireland!