WHYTE'S in association with CHRISTIE'S - The Ernie O'Malley Collection MONDAY 25 November 2019

62 58 28 June 1939 Dear O’Malley, Many thanks for your cheque for which I enclose the formal receipt. I will get the picture sent off to you in a day or two. You forgot to send the photography of Drumcliffe. 1 These were good conversations you gathered under the shadows of Benbulbin and [Bartholomew] Teeling. 2 I was at the Carricknagat meeting in 1898 when the statue was unveiled. There was an orator there clothed in his special suit for oratory, not of cloth of gold, but cloth of billiard table. You will, I expect, by now have got the rain for your gardens, at your island. I’m sure they must have been the colour of an old fashioned Irish terrier’s back. My play was beautifully done, produced and acted, and when ever I was in the theatre, the first night, the last night and in the middle of the fortnight, the audiences were listening, quietly when they should, and laughing when they should, and I believe were happy and free of care. The notices in the papers were not much use. But drew a protest from a reader in last week’s Leader though I don’t suppose that paper has a large circulation. My wife joins me in kindest remembrances to you both. I am Yours very sincerely, Jack B. Yeats 1 Ernie and Helen O’Malley had taken photographs of Drumcliffe Church and its cemetery in Sligo in 1939 as they travelled around Ireland photographing monastic settings and archaeological sites. 2 At 24 years of age Teeling became chief aide-de-camp to French General Jean Joseph Humbert during the French invasion of Ireland in Killala, Co. Mayo, in 1798, and he was regarded as being responsible for the French victory at Carricknagat, Co. Sligo on 5 September 1798. However, when ultimately the invading army was defeated, Teeling, being a British subject, was court- martialled and executed at Arbour Hill, Dublin. The meeting was held to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Carricknagat, sometimes referred to as the Battle of Colloone Some letters from Jack B. Yeats to Ernie O’Malley, 1939-1949 (Now in The Ernie O’Malley Papers, Archives of Irish America 060, NewYork University Library)