麻豆约拍

As part of her attempts to bring about reconciliation, Rosamond Stephen regularly attempted to engage with Belfast Catholics, arousing suspicion in both communities.

She felt that being in Belfast isolated her from wider events in Ireland and on the front during World War One.

The distance that news had to travel and the time it took to get to Belfast frustrated her as she found it difficult to separate facts from mere rumours.

"Easter Sunday ... all goes well. Thirty five babes in church this morning all with little bunches of flowers."

"No letters came and no paper, and I felt a sort of creeping uneasiness. It was hateful ... shops buzzing with the wildest rumours. 'The Sinn Feiners have blown up the Boyne Bridge. There has been a riot in Dublin - ever so many people are shot - the Dublin mob has looted the Post Office - There was a Cruiser and a submarine’.

"There is very little news, as all has been censored ... I am sceptical about the looting of the post office. Why should a mob loot a post office? ... Here the streets are full of men who are hanging around, and inventing the details they cannot find out."

"The evening paper has arrived and it appears that Dublin is isolated, you cannot communicate with it by train, telegram, telephone or possibly by road. Soldiers and business men are here, who came to spend Easter, and they cannot get away. You can go no further than Drogheda.

"I suppose at long last they are taking Sinn Fein seriously, and I suppose they are dealing with a conspiracy. That is all one can imagine, but I cannot tell you how awful it feels ... To upset the capital upsets everything in the queerest way ... Oh dear I wish I knew what is going on."

"At twelve came the fearful news that the disturbances were spreading, particularly in the West.

"Martial Law was proclaimed all over Ireland, I think yesterday evening, but all this news comes via London. We hear today that Redmond and Carson have both very tremendously cursed the agitation and agitators."

"Murrid came to tea. She was dressed very fine to pay farewell calls ... Her call was as dull as ditchwater. Again we avoided all reference to public affairs, and there kept coming awful pauses in the conversation. Everyone’s head full of Dublin, and no one daring to mention it."

"Some of the people seem fearful of an outbreak of bigotry in Belfast. I trust we shall be spared that, but really it is all so wild one does not know what is going on, or what to look for next. One feels sort of bewildered by knowing so little."

"I think now the disturbances are over, but I have as yet no comment to make on them. My mind is all a blank ... the shock is overwhelming.

"I had no idea that things had been allowed to reach such a pitch. Of course I knew there were no limits to Sinn Fein folly, or to the incapacity of the Government, and yet I did think there were limits to both."

"I am feeling very ill again as you may imagine. Redmond is utterly mad I think. If he had gone in for compulsion now he might have quieted the country, Poor old thing. He has no idea how to rule men ... I feel to have lost all interest in life.

"I heard about exclusion yesterday at 5 and it just seemed to snuff out the wish to live. Interest in the war I feel none. Let the Germans win; I care not whether it is they or we. I feel an utter blank."

After continuing to serve as secretary and librarian of the Guild of Witness, Rosamond Stephen retired to Carlingford, County Louth in 1932.

She finally returned to England to live with her sister in 1950 and died in February 1951.