I have the honour to inform you that on Saturday the 20th inst. my wife was 'at home' for the first time since we went into occupation of the Legation premises. We had sent out 'at home cards' - not R.S.V.P. - to nearly 500 people. I enclose herewith a list of over 320 who came and registered their names on the register kept for the purpose.¹ A certain number did not register, so that I think the actual number who came may be put down at about 350. We would have had a considerably greater number were it not for the facts A) that a number of politicians and officials were at Geneva and B) that a political crisis of the first magnitude - the collapse of the 2nd Laval cabinet - kept a number of political personages away.

As it was, the reception was a great success. Politically, it fell at a very opportune moment. The result of the general election at home was a subject of very general interest, and it gave me the opportunity of reassuring many enquirers that the advent of the Fianna Fáil Party to office was in no way a revolutionary proceeding connoting a new period of unrest in Ireland, but was a perfectly normal result of the interplay of parliamentary institutions.

My principal object in giving this reception at the present moment - the invitations were sent out about February 1st - was to prepare the way for a propaganda drive in favour of the St. Patrick's Day celebration which I am organising for the 17th proximo. The arrangements for these celebrations are proceeding apace and will form the subject of a separate report. En attendant, I enclose herewith list of persons present at the reception, with manuscript comments describing the position and political, or other, complexion of certain among them.