Mr Carberry McCarthy | Strand Road, Cork | for John Tyndall | Leighlin Bridge | April 20th, 1842.
My dear John
I received your letter1 this morning and in it a lecture on my niggardly method of writing now I think you dont act fair with me in this particular, and that for the best of all reasons the first is I am not half nor quarter as good a pensman as you are and therefore not so well inclined to sit down to write, and secondly my diction is a century behind yours. Now couple these reasons with the fact that I had nothing that I considered worth your notice to communicate and then I think if you are not very unreasonable you will acquit me of any seeming neglect in writing to you. I read that portion of your letter to Anne Moony2 about her sons illness and sent her to Mrs Steuart with it. Mrs Steuart desired her to let me know that she would keep your letter till she’d see me herself and in the mean time prepare the medicine for John Moony which will not be ready for a couple of days and then will have it sent by post for him to Cork.
Your description of Madlin Brook3 was very handsome and I think it will be a long time till you catch any more pinkeens4 in its straim.5 Mr Bredin was here this day and I let him know I received a letter from you this morning I told him you were listening to Bishop Tonson6 in Christ Church7 Cork on Sunday last and the way you described his eloquence. He shook his head and said that John, meaning you, would be a great man yet. I told him that if such an event took place it should be by your own exertions. He said there would be exertions made for you but at present the Whigs had every situation filled by their own creatures.8 We buried Robert McDonnell9 on Monday evening last in Nurney10 after a long and painful illness and left a large and helpless family in great distress. You have not told me the mode of travelling you intend to adopt, if you take my advice you’ll come on the Mail11 it will be here at half past 12 or one o’clock.
Send me word has your feet changed much since you left home that I may have a pair of shoes made for you. We are all well
I am your affectionate father | John Tyndall
Write soon that I may have the shoes for you.
RI MS JT 1/10/3272
LT Transcript Only
your letter: letter missing.
Anne Moony: mother of John Mooney.
Madlin Brook: The River Madlin runs next to the town of Farranatreney in County Carlow.
Pinkeens: minnows (OED).
straim: variant spelling of stream.
Bishop Tonson: Ludlow Tonson (1784–1861), 3rd Baron Riversdale and, from 1839, Bishop of Killaloe and Clonfert.
Christ Church: Protestant Church on South Main Street in Cork, built in 1725.
at present the Whigs had every situation filled by their own creatures: From 1835 Ireland was administered by the Whig triumvirate of the Earl of Mulgrave (Lord Lieutenant), Viscount Morpeth (Chief Secretary) and Thomas Drummond (Undersecretary), and ‘By 1840–1 it has been estimated that one-third of the key legal and executive positions in Ireland were held by “anti-Tories”’ (A. Jackson, Ireland 1798–1998: War, Peace and Beyond, 2nd edn (Chichester: Wiley Blackwell, 2010), p. 45). Tyndall’s father had exulted when the ‘bloody whigs’ were ‘kicked out of office’ in August 1841, and assured his son that now he could ‘use all my exertions to get you a situation’ (see letter 0090), although clearly it took much longer for Whig influence to wane in Ireland.
Robert McDonnell: not identified.
Nurney: see letter 0056, n. 14.
the Mail: see letter 0125, n. 4.
Please cite as “Tyndall0141,” in Ɛpsilon: The John Tyndall Collection accessed on 4 May 2024, https://epsilon.ac.uk/view/tyndall/letters/Tyndall0141