Kinsale, Thursday evening, Aug. 3rd, 1841.1
My dear Father
I believe I made a promise some time ago to write to you every week.2 Well to prevent a breach of promise, and not to pay a debt, I now write. Evans arrived here last night. I met him outside the town. He came through Youghal and stopped there in our old quarters all day on Sunday. He appears to have been tired of Carlow before he left it; the calm succeeded the turbulence of the election was so strikingly contrasted with the previous excitement that the poor fellow was near sinking into lowness of spirits it will take at least a week’s thumping to bring him to his natural feelings. He brought me Swift’s ‘Tale of a Tub’3 he tells me I must bring it back to you again – well this I will most assuredly do. I was just glancing over it yesterday evening and I find that it has passed through your hands, for all the choice portions are marked. The moment Evans entered Kinsale he sent up a long petition to all the Saints in the calender4 to send him a safe deliverance out of it. The rattling of cars over the rough pavements, the cry of the fishwoman, the bawling of children, and the chattering of the World’s End Irish, all rung very discordant on an ear that was accustomed to the sounds of human voices for upwards of a month. Poor fellow, when he’s as long on his own hands as I have been he’ll learn to deem such things mere trifles. An acquaintance with the world is a fine thing. He has a great many very interesting anecdotes respecting the election; he found it impossible to transmit them to me by letter. He tells me that he saw you sharing a chicken with my uncle Caleb. This gave me great pleasure as I concluded from it that old sores are healed and the breach made up.5 I was greatly surprised to find that you were about removing to my uncle Bill’s house.6 You never told me a word of this. This was rather uncourteous as in the event of a missing you from your old domicile when I had arrived in Leighlin I might likely go astray in the town and so lose both myself and you. – But, jokes apart, I think the movement will be for the better. It will be in a far better thoroughfare, but I suppose this wont be of much advantage to you in these perilous times; exclusive dealing7 I hear it is carried on to a great extent there, and if this be the case surely the name of Tyndall will trebly strengthen the determination of the propagaters of the system.8 Let me know how you are situated at present. Who have you got in Walsh’s place?9 I’m promising myself a great job at your accounts when I go home. I’ll be looking out for a nice account book, if I can possibly get one I’ll but it. Have you e’er a heavy hide10 for me to cut up? I’m the boy that could dissect a 50 pounder.11 You have not told me every thing about Mr McGee12 this long time how is he? how did my uncle Ned get over his arrears in the loan Bank?13 Was the payment enforced? I wish when you go to Carlow that you would call to Jos Wright and enquire did he get any word from Wm14 since he went to America and if he did to send me his address. Wm promised to write to me the moment he’d land, but I would not wonder if his letter was missent on account of my removing from Youghal.
I have no more to say | Your affectionate son | John Tyndall
RI MS JT/1/10/3234
LT Transcript Only
Thursday evening, Aug. 3rd, 1841: 3 August 1841 was a Tuesday, so either the day or the date is incorrect.
I believe … every week: letter 0062.
Swift’s ‘Tale of a Tub’: Jonathan Swift’s satirical novel A Tale of a Tub, first published in 1704.
long petition to all the Saints in the calendar: Although Roman Catholics and Anglicans subscribe to somewhat different lists of saints’ days, the term is used here to mean that Phillip Evans expressed his profound wish to escape from Kinsale.
old sores are healed and the breach made up: The source of the rift between Tyndall’s father and his uncle Caleb is not clear, but neither Tyndall nor his father was invited to the christening mentioned in letters 0051 and 0053.
my uncle Bill’s house: In Griffith’s Valuation (County Carlow, p. 179) ‘John Tyndall’ is listed as the occupier of 22 Bridge Street in the town of Leighlin Bridge. It is therefore likely that this was the property to which his father moved in 1841, his uncle William Tyndall (who had moved to Carlow) having previously lived there.
exclusive dealing: see letter 0073, n. 10.
propagaters of the system: it is not clear whether Tyndall is referring to exclusive dealing (see letter 0073) or the previous norm in which Protestants and Roman Catholics dealt with each other.
Walsh’s place: The apprentice James Walsh had been sacked by Tyndall’s father for participating in the Repeal agitation during the recent election.
a heavy hide: leather (which his father used in shoe-making) that Tyndall hoped to use in binding the account book.
a 50 pounder: presumably a side of a cow weighing 50 pounds.
every thing about Mr McGee: on John M‘Gee’s bankruptcy, see letter 0004, n. 11. McGee was due to appear before the Court of Bankruptcy, Dublin, on 24 August 1841 in order to discharge a debt of £461 0s. 9d. (Perry’s Bankrupt Gazette, 7 August 1841, p. 8).
uncle Ned … loan Bank: for Edward Styles’ demeanor see letter 0056.
Jos Wright … word from Wm: Joseph Wright was probably the father, or possibly the brother, of William Wright who had departed for America in early March 1841.
Please cite as “Tyndall0083,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on 28 April 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/tyndall/letters/Tyndall0083