MACDONAGH WAS APPROACHED about a professorship in English at a university in Switzerland. Eoin MacNeill had recommended him for the position at Fribourg University, which not only offered a good salary but included accommodation for his family.
The idea was certainly tempting, thought Muriel as she read the correspondence on the matter. Switzerland was a neutral country, and they would have a home near the university and perhaps be in a better financial position.
‘I would probably have far more time to devote to my writing,’ he said, excited by the prospect.
Their baby would be born in only a few weeks, however, and Muriel found it hard to imagine raising their children in Switzerland so far from her family and friends. What would happen if she fell ill again? She knew that he was torn about the offer, but was hugely relieved when he declined it.
‘It is far better for the baby and Don to be here in Dublin close to their families,’ he explained. ‘Besides, I have far too many commitments with the Volunteers to consider moving.’
In March their daughter Barbara was born, petite and quite beautiful. Muriel felt well and strong again almost immediately. MacDonagh had composed a poem for their new, golden-haired baby. He called it simply ‘Barbara’ and as he read it to her Muriel felt as if her life could and would never be happier.
Minding the baby and Don was often tiring as MacDonagh was so busy and away so much.
‘How did Mother do it with twelve of us?’ Muriel sighed.
‘Your mother had staff – a nanny, a cook and maids,’ he reminded her, laughing. ‘I’m sure that Isabella rarely bathed, dressed, fed or changed any of you.’
Muriel blushed, realizing the truth of it. Bridget, their nanny, was the one who had raised them and tended to them when they were younger and were practically banished to the upstairs nursery. She remembered that Mother and Father would only dine with one of the children once a week. They had all considered it quite an ordeal sitting at the table with their parents and trying to make conversation. She would never permit such a thing to happen under her roof.
MacDonagh employed a girl from north Dublin to come to help with the children for a few hours three times a week. Mary was friendly, kind and capable, and not only loved the children but helped Muriel with the housekeeping and laundry.
‘How can we possibly afford to pay her?’ Muriel fretted. ‘We will be in debt.’
‘Muriel, I don’t want you to get ill again,’ he insisted. ‘I work hard and what I earn is sufficient to provide for Mary’s wage.’
Muriel hugged him. He was the kindest, most generous-hearted man and they cared deeply for each other and their children, she thought as she watched him leaning over his desk writing, working on revisions to his new play which was rehearsing the next day and due to open soon.
He passed her a few pages to read. She curled up on the couch, surprised by his ability to capture a woman’s thoughts and feelings so well on paper. She began to read the script aloud: two women meeting in a drawing room, a wife and former lover discussing the man they both had loved.
‘Pagans is a very different play from your others. It is modern and feels real, but it is controversial.’
‘Joe felt the same when I gave him the script to read before he went abroad,’ he said, lifting his head. ‘But that is what our theatre is about, taking risks and putting new work on our stage. Jack thinks it is a grand piece of drama and he makes a great husband.’
‘I do wish that I could attend the opening, but I cannot leave the baby yet.’
‘Of course not,’ he sympathized. ‘There will be more plays, and you will be at my side then.’
On the play’s first night Muriel waited up at home for MacDonagh’s return, anxious to hear of the reaction to Pagans. She could tell he was excited and he said his cast had served him well: Una O’Connor was wonderful in the lead role; Elta MacMurrough had played the artist with relish, while his brother was the perfect returning husband. There had been warm applause from the audience, with many of the women telling him that they had been taken aback by the honesty of his writing.
‘Countess Plunkett and Grace and Nellie all liked it. Helena teased me about how I learned to think like a woman. I told them I have a wife, a daughter now, and a rake of sisters and sisters-in-law, which helps!’
MacDonagh was invited to speak at a women’s anti-war meeting and was surprised when his friend the pacifist Frank Sheehy-Skeffington wrote an open letter to him afterwards urging him to remember his humanity and to stop training the Volunteers to kill.
‘Would Frank prefer that they die defending Ireland?’ he sighed, showing Muriel the letter.
‘You know that he and Hanna will not tolerate violence of any kind,’ she reminded him. ‘They are both peacemakers opposed to the war and guns, that is all it is.’
In her own mind she agreed with the Sheehy-Skeffingtons, for peace and an end to this terrible war were desperately needed.
At night their back room was becoming a regular meeting place for MacDonagh and the other leaders of the Volunteers. He was closer than ever to Padraig Pearse, Sean Mac Diarmada and Tom Clarke, the inner group that was at the organization’s secret heart. Muriel worried about her husband, for he seemed even more caught up in things than before and lately had taken to wearing a gun.
‘Why do you need to wear it?’ she had questioned him.
‘I am not a violent man, but Tom Clarke says the DMP and the army may well be watching us and could take us or shoot us whenever they want. This pistol is my protection,’ he said firmly, hiding it inside his jacket.
Muriel could not help but be afraid, not just for MacDonagh but for herself and the children too.