Handwritten letter from Timothy A. Smiddy to William T. Cosgrave (Dublin)

My dear President:

I enclose a few cuttings relative to Major Fitzmaurice which may interest you - as also a reference to yourself.

Fitzmaurice's successful flight is doing incalculable good for the Irish Free State. Coming so soon after, and in conjunction with, your visit it is doing much to kill any hostility among the sincere opponents of the Irish Free State. It is bringing home to every body here the fact that we are an independent sovereign country.

In a conversation I had with President Coolidge at lunch last Wednesday (given for the flyers) he said 'Your President impressed me most favourably and I like him very much'.

In a conversation he had aside with Fitzmaurice he said: 'It seems to me Ireland is the logical point of departure and arrival for aviation between Europe and the U.S.A.'