A Viceregal Party and the Dublin Horse Show

Josephine McNeill (1895–1969) was appointed in 1950 by Seán MacBride as minister to the Netherlands, Ireland’s first female diplomat. She was appointed minister to Sweden in 1955, and went on to hold the joint appointment to Austria and Switzerland from 1956 to 1960, after which she retired. She was a graduate of UCD, holding a BA and HDipEd in French and German. Before her career as a diplomat, she was a teacher, working at St Louis’ Convent, Kiltimagh, at the Ursuline Convent, Thurles, and at Scoil Íde. McNeill spoke Irish fluently, and had an active interest in literature and music. She was a member of Cumann na mBan.

Following her marriage to James McNeill in 1923, Josephine became a reluctant, but noted hostess, both in London, where her husband was high commissioner (1923–8), and then in Dublin, when James was appointed governor general of the Irish Free State (1928–32). Her Irish Times obituary notes that in her role as wife of the governor general, she ‘suppressed the rebel and produced the public servant.’

Her collection of papers in UCD Archives (deposited by Mr Gerard Hearne in October 2008), is largely made up of correspondence mainly to Josephine, and generally personal in nature, reflecting her interest in the arts. Correspondents include W.B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Kate O’Brien, Elizabeth Bowen, Mícheál MacLiammóir, Lady Augusta Gregory, Seán O’Casey and William Orpen. Other letters, mostly routine in content, reflect her role as a diplomatic spouse particularly during the period 1928–32 while at the Vice Regal Lodge. There are few references to her own diplomatic appointments and no official correspondence concerning her diplomatic career.

Among the correspondence concerning her role as a diplomatic spouse, there is an envelope containing a series of whimsical and light-hearted sketches by architect Edwin Lutyens (1869–1944). Lutyens had many Irish connections and made many contributions to the Irish built environment. His mother, Mary Theresa Gallwey, daughter of an RIC officer, was born in Ballincollig, Cork, in 1833. She married soldier and painter Charles Lutyens in Montreal in 1852. They had 13 children; Edwin was the 10th.

James McNeill spent many years in India as a colonial administrator, serving as a high-ranking member of the Indian Civil Service in Mumbai (then Bombay). In one of his later roles, he was a member of the viceroy’s council in Delhi. It is likely that he and Lutyens got to know each other when Lutyens was working in New Delhi.

The envelope notes that the sketches were ‘drawn by Sir Edwin Lutyens at the Dublin Horse Show, Friday 9th Aug. 1929 when he was a guest at Vice-Regal Lodge’ (his visit that weekend as ‘the guest of the Governor-General of the Free State and Mrs. McNeill at the Viceregal Lodge’ is noted in the Court and Personal column of The Irish Times, 10 August 1929). Our friends at the Belfast Book Fair sent us this cutting from the Northern Whig, 8 August 1929, when we asked online for help deciphering the names of the other guests:

Northern Whig, 8 August 1929

UCDA P234/120 Papers of Josephine McNeill

The report in the Northern Whig, helped us identify all the guests at the Vice Regal Lodge that weekend, as listed on the envelope: artist, model, actress and socialite Hazel Lavery and her daughter, Alice Trudeau; Lucy Phillimore, wife of British liberal politician Robert Charles Phillimore, who commissioned Lutyens to design Tranarossan House, Carrigart, County Donegal as a holiday home; Jai Singh Prabhakar, Maharaja of Alwar;

Raja Kumar; Colonel Amar Singh; Francis Blundell (former MP for Ormskirk); and Sheila & B.J. (Máire) Lynd, daughters of the writers Robert Wilson Lynd and Sylvia Dryhurst. The sketches drawn by Lutyens are reproduced below. The papers of Josephine McNeill are available for consultation by appointment in the UCDA Reading Room.