Love, lust and mystery in Victorian Dublin: Fascinating diary sheds light on obscure woman caught in illicit affair

Around 2010, I came across the diary of James Christopher Kenney in the archives of Trinity College Dublin.

At first, the diary, written in 1840 and 1841, was not very interesting. James led a privileged but ordinary life: riding, hunting, reading, and occasionally studying. But then he met Mary Louisa McMahon and I was glued to the page.

Mary was James’ grandmother’s companion when he fell in love with her. He carefully and meticulously recorded her desires, their encounters and his attempts to win her affections. He even drew maps of the parks they met in, marking the places where he tried to kiss her or where he declared his love.

On a page after his hand-drawn map of St Stephen’s Green he wrote that on “bench 2…we had some sort of argument and I let her out of gate F but came back a few moments later late “. ​

Their courtship consisted of an elaborate dance in semi-public spaces: St Stephen’s Green, Merrion Square and the Monkstown Botanic Gardens. They even hung out in a cemetery. They cuddled – Mary sat on James’ lap, James rested his head on her chest, James “pressed her loving heart”, he kissed her hand, her lips. Sometimes, he thought, she kissed him back.

Sometimes they had an audience. At Monkstown, James recorded that “some kids annoyed us and shouted, after seeing me kiss him, ‘give him another one'”. Jacques defended Mary by throwing stones at the children.

When she left Dublin to become a governess, they exchanged letters, many of which James transcribed in his diary. The quarrels continued, each accusing the other of writing too rarely, of being cold or of loving someone else.

The meetings also continued. Mary might visit her sister in Dublin or travel with the family she worked for and slip away to meet James.

But almost inevitably, the deal collapsed. James’ family did not approve. Mary, although educated, was not in the right class. I made a few half-hearted attempts to find Mary, but found nothing other than what James said about her.

I didn’t really know what to do with the journal but it stuck in my brain. Years later, I teamed up with historian Ciaran O’Neill and we wrote an article about their love story. Ciaran’s in-depth knowledge of Irish elites allowed us to flesh out James, his family and his concerns. But Mary was a mystery and we were both a little unsatisfied.

James provided cryptic clues as to what had happened. A careful editor of his own work, he wrote in his diary in 1848: “What an imbecile I was at that time! However, no man has ever had such a triumphant triumph over this ‘angel’ of my first love which lasted about 4 years.

We can only speculate about the nature of this triumph. In the article, Ciaran and I give some weight to a scandalous night James and Mary spent in a Blessington hotel. This event, and its consequences, seemed to allude to the scent of scandal that clung to Marie.

The couple met at the hotel for a meal and each was to continue their journey. Heavy snowfall encouraged them to stay put. They slept in separate rooms, but this was nonetheless very irregular behavior and they were both punished for it.

James’ father invaded his room, went through his personal papers and demanded that he end the relationship. He accused Mary of sexual misconduct with a number of men. James made the right noises but continued his encounters with Mary for several more years.

Mary’s reputation, perhaps already tarnished, was now in tatters with the man she loved. She took extreme measures.

She hired two doctors to examine her and declare that she had never been pregnant. James wasn’t convinced – he was disgusted. Nevertheless, the affair continued and Ciaran and I were unable to discover what the final “triumph” was or why James referred to Mary as “an angel”.

Mary has disappeared. Perhaps she married (although we have found no record of this in Ireland) or emigrated. We found a promising death certificate, but we couldn’t be sure it was his. We will probably never know.

This kind of material is like gold dust in archives, especially in the 19th century. I spent weeks of my life reading diaries and letters that consisted mostly of lists of boring commitments, books read, clothes bought, complaints about the weather, clichéd comments on political affairs. People often express their love for their parents, their children, their siblings, and sometimes their pets, but most often for God. ​

James’s diary was overflowing with his desires, sometimes to the point of absurdity. “I told her she was a pure, shiny but cold ice cube,” he complained. “I couldn’t get him to say what I wanted. She asked me what it was and I said she could easily guess the three words (I love you were the words I wanted to say). Yes, James, we guessed it.

But the newspaper also made me angry. James wrote hundreds of pages about Mary and then, around 1844, he gave up on her and she disappeared. In 1870 he trotted to Mayo where he married an heiress nearly 30 years younger than him.

Then he died and left her to raise five children. One of his sons, James FitzGerald-Kenney, became Fine Gael Minister of Justice in 1927.

Mary likely wrote the letters that James transcribed in his journal and much more. She might even have kept a diary herself. To our knowledge, these materials have not survived.

Historians often attempt to fill these gaps in the archives, piecing together stories from as many scraps as they can find.

Many 19th-century women, outside of a charmed circle of elites, are seen from the sidelines, from the perspective of their fathers, husbands, or siblings. The poorest women, like the poorest men, are only visible from the point of view of the institutions which came to welcome them when they were abandoned by one or other of the latter.

Did Mary really have sex with men outside of marriage? Did she get pregnant? Was she in love with James or just a gold digger? Why was no one taking care of her, leaving her to fend for herself in irregular employment and at the mercy of the men who roamed around? She once reported to James that she had been assaulted by her uncle.

Ciaran and I couldn’t answer these questions. We have done our best in this article. I decided to speculate in the form of fiction. Mary made her place in my novel, Grateful watertransformed into one of its central characters – Anne.

In the novel, Anne’s situation is remarkably similar to Mary’s. She, too, has a mother who married a dance master and reduced their family situation. Her mother also dies, and when her father remarries, Anne becomes the companion of a lady like Mary.

Bored and alone, she too finds herself drawn into a risky adventure. I explained her side of the story, made her a person with her own thoughts, desires and motivations.

I am not the first historian driven to speculation and fictionalization because of frustration with what recorded history has left us. I said that historians are curious, but that’s just a flippant way of saying that we are deeply curious about human beings. We want to know how people thought and felt in the past because we always ask ourselves: how different are we really?

History is a way of telling stories about ourselves as well as the past. I have no problem with the fact that the story seeks understanding rather than being a quest for truth. And in this trial and error, historical fiction has its place.

From Benjamin Black to Nuala O’Connor, from Lucy Caldwell to Adrian Duncan, from Leeanne O’Donnell to Martina Devlin, historical fiction thrives in Ireland.

At the heart of this success is our curiosity for the unknown story, the invisible figure, the unheard voice. This can only be good for history and for historians too.​

“The Grateful Water” by Juliana Adelman is published by New Island Books