Hurley Family Emigrant Letters (Ref. U170)

U170/

3 March 1913 Letter from Denis Hurley, Carson City, Nevada to his brother John. Mentions an execution at the prison where he works. Remarks that ‘our countries are fortunate…in being spared the horrors of wars that are raging in Mexico and Turkey at the present time. People should be grateful to God for casting their lot in peaceful countries and under stable governments’. He is glad to see Home Rule making good headway with the election in Derry, which ‘took the boast and the brag from the Unionists’. Notes ‘Your suffragettes are more warlike than their sisters here’. 2pp 18 June 1913 Letter from Denis Hurley, Carson City, Nevada to his brother John, Tawnies, Clonakilty. Mentions the very dry weather in California. On a 2 week vacation he visited a new mining camp, Rochester, ‘nearer to Ireland than what I have been in 40 years’. If he is successful in his venture he ‘may see the old land ere I die’. Mentions the suffragettes ‘still keeping up a hard fight’, and the 2 nd reading of the Home Rule Bill. He recently acted as sponsor for the boys’ confirmation. 2pp 11 December 1913 Letter from Denis Hurley, Carson City, Nevada to his brother John. He was not able to advance John £2000 as the ‘condition of my estate does not enable me to do so. I may some day possibly see the land of my birth, but I doubt it as the world has been treating me’. Intends his remains to lie beside his wife in Carson City. 1p 16 March 1914 Letter from Denis Hurley, Carson City, Nevada to his brother John. Thanks John for the card and shamrocks (for Saint Patrick’s day). Mentions their cousins who ‘are great in acquiring landed property…They have more means by industry at home than if they emigrated abroad’. Hopes ‘that St. Patrick’s day 1915 will find Ireland thriving under Home Rule and enjoying peace and prosperity’. 2pp