Hurley Family Emigrant Letters (Ref. U170)

U170/

happy unless they are making trouble with police, soldiers or bailiffs. Unemployment is a hard problem…the world over’. He is fortunate to have a position that does mot require much strength in his old age. Hopes the harvest will be good ‘even if prices are not high’. 2pp

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24 [October/November] 1930 Letter from Denis Hurley, Carson City, Nevada to his niece, Mary Deasy, Ahafore, Timoleague, County Cork. His has three letters to the three sisters in Ahafore, Tawnies and New York. Hopes the blight did not visit their potatoes. He enjoyed his trip to San Francisco where he was very kindly treated by his friends. Mentions visit to a hospital in Reno. He is ‘dreaming and visioning’ about attending the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin (in 1932). This will depend on health and finances. ‘I would be like a ghost from the tomb in a locality that was so familiar to me nearly 60 years ago and as to seeing it in the flesh – I had put it out of my mind.’ Notes ‘strange situations’ in America with ‘millions out of work…The markets loaded with food stuff and raw materials; billions of idle money…’. 2pp 1 December 1930 Letter from Denis Hurley, Carson City, Nevada to his niece, Catherine Hurley, Tawnies, Clonakilty, County Cork. He is glad the family are well and is sorry about the potatoes blackening. Says ‘Our trouble here in growing the tuber is water shortage and frosts..’. Observes that many places in the U.S. suffered from drought and there are many appeals for government aid. Unemployment is a serious problem, but many government and public works are refusing to employ persons of foreign birth who are not citizens. This ‘does not look much Christian or humane’. Laments that his papers do not give much Irish news, unlike the times of Black and Tan atrocities or earlier days of Parliamentary news ‘when Parnell, Biggar, Tim Healy and Michael Davitt helped to keep the House of Commons awake’. Mentions a ‘shocking’ aeroplane disaster. Hopes the Dublin Eucharistic Conference will be ‘a grand affair’ and ‘stimulate the old time fervour in the hearts of the people’. He may come to the Congress depending on his finances and health. 2pp

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17 February 1931 Letter from Denis Hurley, Carson City, Nevada to his niece, Mary Deasy, Ahafore, Timoleague, County Cork. Wishes health and contentment to her family and says ‘wealth