30 APRIL 1942, Page 13

" KITTY O'SHEA "

SIR, Why should Mr. MacDonagh suppose that Mr. Harold Nicolson, or anybody else, thought he heard his grandmother say : " That's Kitty O'Shea who killed Home Rule " if what she really said was: " That's Maud Gonne, she's known as the Irish Joan of Arc "? These two sentences are not in the least alike, and childhood memories, as a rule, are very accurate.

I do not know when the Parnells appeared on the front at Brighton for the first time, but in 1892 they were frequently seen on the beach at Hove by my father and mother, who lived there at that date.—Yours faithfully, E. M. DELAFIELD. University Women's Club, 2 Audley Square, South Audley Street, W. .r.