DeValera piece - opinion please

buiscuit2168

Hi all, in light of the year ahead, the writing I have recently joined asked us to write a piece on Eamon DeValera. Any thoughts and opinions would be greatly appreciated. I find in the group we are all so nice to each other sometimes we don't give our honest truthful critique. There is more to this story and if you want to read more I will add it but I don't know if it is written well and carries the reader forward.

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Mary had not planned to go out that afternoon, but she wanted to please her father knowing he had been against her going to Dublin to learn to type and he had asked her to go to the docks. A few weeks earlier she had started a new piece of embroidery which she hoped she would have finished in time for Christmas as a present for her mother. She had decided to stay away from the centre that day as it was going to be crowded with celebrations. The people of the city were celebrating Eamon Devalara becoming the leader of Sinn Fein. He was offering people hope, a hero who had escaped execution for his part in the 1916 rising only because he held an American passport. Since the rising, he had only gone from strength to strength, rumours were everywhere how strong the Volunteers were becoming. Pockets of men forming rebel groups everywhere. Memories surfaced of her fathers gun. She had heard of too many deaths, deaths of young men, for a cause, she herself would eventually become embroiled in. She set off on her journey to the docks, a journey that would change her future.

The shipyard was not as she remembered. She had left it late to leave Thomas St. and the autumn evening drawing in earlier with darkness was descending at an alarming rate, she would have to hurry to deliver the package. She wanted to return home before the promised fog immersed the night. As she walked along the docks, darkness was smothering the outline of the ships like an unwelcome visitor. The docks were in contrast to the clean white building of The Customs House on the opposite side of the river, the dark buildings carried a threatening presence. Previously, her visit to the docks had been during the day with her father collecting merchandise, then there had been the comforting activity of men loading and unloading barges, but now it was dead and dark.

She pulled the scarf tight around her neck keeping the chill out of her body, it also offered her some sense of security knowing she was probably the only woman on the docks. A few outlines of men scattered the docks, their faces as dirty as their clothes. She knew that this was a different world than the security of the buildings on the streets where she was staying. The tenements near her uncles house may have frightened her, but she knew where to avoid the danger. Here, it was different. There were no screaming children, no smells of life except the familiar smell of the Liffey.

femur61

Maybe start with DeValera. Interesting story would be interested in hearing the rest of it.

echo beach

The story is interesting and I would like to know more but to keep me reading it would need a rewrite.
The first sentence is trying to fit in too much information, most of which could emerge later. Only put in what we need to know - Mary is at the docks with a message from her father. Almost all of the first paragraph can wait.

Think about what tense you are going to use. There are a lot of things that 'had happened'. Simple past tense, 'it happened', is easier to read and clearer.

Don't abandon this. It has a lot of potential and the descriptions are very good but explore a few different ways of telling the actions and filling in the background.