Women of 'Ninety-Eight

Each story keeps the passage it was read from. Open one to read the passage as the book has it, and, where the companion has written its own telling, that too.

1. French fleet arrives in Bantry Bay

   near Bantry Bay · bay · Cork · 1796–1797

   Two months after Lord Edward's return to Ireland from Hamburg, the French fleet appeared in Bantry Bay, part of the aborted French intervention plan negotiated by the United Irishmen.

   Read the passage

   Was his father clearing the decks for action? It would seem so. Two months after his return to Ireland the French were in Bantry Bay.

   In February of 1797, Arthur O’Connor was arrested for his address to the Electors of Antrim, and was lodged in Newgate. From this time Lord Edward was indefatigable in his activities. He was one of those who believed—as did the greater number of the Northern leaders—that the time had come “to rise,” without waiting any longer for the French aid, which had been such a rotten crutch to them. But the Dublin leaders, influenced by the more cautious counsel of men like John Keogh and MacCormick, were dead against the attempt. The moment passed—and affairs hastened to their tragic end.

   Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

2. Hiding near Cave Hill after the Battle of Antrim

   near Cavehill · population centre · Antrim · 1798

   Fugitives from the failed rising, including Henry Joy McCracken, took shelter in houses near Cave Hill, where Mary McCracken found lodging with sympathisers such as John Brier before reuniting with her brother.

   Read the passage

   “Some days after the battle of Antrim, not having received any intelligence of my brother, I set out in pursuit of him, accompanied by Mrs. M.——, sister of John Shaw, of Belfast, who wished to get some information respecting her husband and also a brother of Mrs. Shaw. We went towards the White House and made some enquiries in the neighbourhood. In the evening we joined J. McG. at the country residence of Mr. John Brown, a banker, then in England, whose gardener, Cunningham, had given shelter occasionally to the wanderers. At nightfall this man took us to a house near the Cave Hill, belonging to John Brier, whom I knew a little, where we got a bed that night. In the morning I urged Mrs. M. to return home, which she generously refused, although she had gained the information she required. She insisted on accompanying me. Her husband had got safe into Belfast, disguised as a countryman with a basket of eggs, and was then safe in Mr. Shaw’s house; he had been at the battle of Antrim also. The next day we continued our search, and at last met with Gawin Watt and another person, who promised to take us in the evening to a place where we would get intelligence. The latter took us to a smith’s house, on the lime-stone road to Antrim....

   Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 6

3. Pamela and Lord Edward cheered through College Green

   near College Green · street · Dublin · 1793

   Pamela and Lord Edward drove in a high phaeton through College Green and Dame Street to enthusiastic cheers from the populace, drawn by her beauty and his conspicuous green neck-cloth.

   Read the passage

   Her sisters-in-law, and specially Lady Sophia, were quick to see that it was jealousy of Pamela’s beauty and charm, her exquisite dancing, her French toilettes, her husband’s undisguised admiration—far more than their hatred of her and Lord Edward’s politics which made Dublin society so hostile to her. Other sections of Irish society worshipped her. We have a pretty picture of Lord Edward and her driving in a very high phaeton one day through College Green and Dame Street, amid the enthusiastic cheers of the multitude, who were raised to congenial heights of enthusiasm as much by her beauty as Lord Edward’s conspicuous green neck-cloth. Lord Edward’s boyish delight at the reception accorded them, and the impression produced by his bride’s beauty, was very delightful to witness.

   Nor was it the populace alone whom Pamela won by her beauty. Lord Charlemont, whose authority in all matters of taste was regarded as second to none in Europe, was charmed by her. Jepham was with him one day in 1793 in Charlemont house, when Pamela and Lord Edward came to view its treasures, and he wrote to his uncle describing the visit. “She is elegant and engaging in the highest degree, and showed the most judicious taste in her remarks about the library and curiosities. The Dublin ladies wish to put her down. She promised Lord Charlemont with great good humour to assist him in keeping her husband in order.... She was dressed in a plain riding habit, and they came to the door in a curricle.”[82]

   Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

   As the companion tells it

   Somewhere about College Green, in 1793, Pamela and Lord Edward drove through in a very high phaeton, and the crowd here gave them enthusiastic cheers. The people were stirred as much by her beauty as by Lord Edward's conspicuous green neck-cloth, and his boyish delight at the reception was a sight in itself. Dublin society was hostile to her, jealous of her beauty, her charm, her French dresses, and her husband's undisguised admiration. But the populace worshipped her. Lord Charlemont, whose taste was regarded as second to none in Europe, was charmed by her too. Jepham was with him in Charlemont House when Pamela and Lord Edward came to view its treasures, and wrote that she was elegant and engaging in the highest degree, showing the most judicious taste in her remarks about the library and curiosities. She promised Lord Charlemont, with great good humour, to assist him in keeping her husband in order. She was dressed in a plain riding habit, and they came to the door in a curricle.

4. Peacemaking Mission to Rathfriland

   near Rathfriland · town · Down · 1792

   In July 1792, Neilson and his wife accompanied John Keogh and other Catholic delegates from Belfast to Rathfriland to meet local gentlemen with a view to restoring peace between rival religious parties.

   Read the passage

   It was not alone through the medium of the _Northern Star_ that Neilson served the cause of the Catholics. He was active in his efforts to compose the differences between the Catholics and the Presbyterians, and to lay the feuds of the Peep o’ Day Boys and the Defenders. We learn from Tone’s diary that both Neilson and his wife were of the party which accompanied John Keogh and the other Catholic delegates, on their return from Belfast in July, 1732, to Rathfriland in order to meet some gentlemen of the neighbourhood with a view to restoring peace between the rival religious parties. He took part, with Tone and Keogh, in a similar expedition a month later. He was intensely interested in the work of the Catholic Committee and the plans for the Catholic Convention.

   It was probably in this connection that he became so intimate with Luke Teeling, of Lisburn, and his family, though their relations dated from a still earlier period when both men were working heart and soul to return to Parliament, as representative of the Co. Down, that ardent Reform candidate, the Hon. Robert Stewart—better known to history as Lord Castlereagh.

   Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

5. Persecution of Catholics in County Armagh

   near Armagh · town · Armagh · 1795

   In 1795 Catholics in County Armagh suffered barbarous persecution at the hands of the Peep o' Day Boys without protection from the authorities, driving the Defenders toward open resistance.

   Read the passage

   In 1795 the terrible condition of affairs in the County Armagh, where the Catholics had been subjected to a barbarous persecution at the hands of the Peep o’ Day Boys without the slightest attempt on the part of the authorities, either to protect them or to restrain their savage aggressors, was rapidly reaching a tragic climax. Young Charles Teeling, then a lad of seventeen, got information that the Catholics, convinced that they could not be worse off than they were, were preparing to take the field openly against their intolerant foes. Relying on the influence which his family, from its standing, enjoyed among the Catholics of Armagh, he set off from Lisburn, without informing any one, in the hope of inducing the Defenders to desist from their disastrous purpose.

   He had not gone far, however, when he felt the need of some more mature and experienced head than that which sat on his own seventeen-year-old shoulders. His mind could suggest “none more desirable for the purpose than Samuel Neilson. He was the ardent patriot, the decided enemy to oppression in every shape and in every form; and the strenuous advocate, at all times and seasons, for the unqualified admission of his excluded fellow-countrymen, to their full participation in the blessings of civil and religious liberty. He was at the head of the, then, only liberal Press in Ulster; and his political influence however extended, was not more than commensurate with his labours in the public cause.”

   Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

6. Posting Emmet's proclamation around Carnmoney

   Carnmoney · townland · Antrim · 1803

   A young man and companion undertook the dangerous task of posting up Robert Emmet's proclamation around Carnmoney, a few miles north of Belfast, for which they were later executed.

   Read the passage

   One of these tells of a sister, whose brother, with another lad, had undertaken the dangerous office of posting up Robert Emmet’s proclamation around Carnmoney, a few miles to the north of Belfast. For this they were subsequently hanged, drawn and quartered on the Gallow’s Green at Carrickfergus. At dead of night the sister, who had walked all the way from Carnmoney, was led by pitying friends to the spot where the poor mangled bodies lay. “She knelt down and with stifled sobs and much difficulty removed the clay that had been hastily piled above them. Her hand first came upon a head which by the feel of the features she thought was that of her brother. She wrapped it in her apron and carried it back to her home, so absorbed in her grief that she felt not the miles her speeding feet covered. When she arrived home, she discovered that the head she had borne on that sorrowful journey was not her brother’s, but that of the other poor lad. She retraced her steps, running between the hedgerows in her anxiety to reach the Gallow’s Green before the people should be afoot, stumbling on the uneven stones, and praying with all her tortured heart that her strength might last until her purpose should be accomplished.... She arrived at the grave, reverentially deposited the head back in its place, and taking up the one she had come to seek departed again for Carnmoney.”

   It is to Mary McCracken that we owe our knowledge of the story of young Willie Neilson, of Ballycarry, and his poor mother. Willie, who was only fifteen years of age, had on the eve of the Antrim Rising formed one of a party which made a prisoner of a Carrickfergus pensioner called Cuthbert, and conveyed him to the Insurgent’s place of muster at Donegore Hill. For this he was arrested, court-martialled and sent to prison, where his two elder brothers were already lodged. But on account of his extreme youth neither he nor his friends anticipated any danger to his life.

   Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 17

7. Rathfarnham villa: meeting place of Tone, Emmet and Russell

   Rathfarnham · townland · Dublin · 1795

   Emmet's villa at Rathfarnham, with its elliptical study and nearby triangular field, became one of the 'holy places' of Irish history where Emmet, Russell and Tone met and pledged themselves to the scheme of seeking French aid for Irish independence before Tone's departure for America in 1795.

   Read the passage

   We have already learned from Tone how fully Emmet entered into the scheme for enlisting French aid towards Irish independence, which Tone carried with him on his departure for America in the early summer of 1795. The “charming villa” which Emmet occupied then at Rathfarnham and “the little study of an elliptical form” which he was building at the bottom of his lawn, and the “little triangular field” on the way between Rathfarnham and Dublin became, from the meeting of the three friends, Emmet and Russell and Tone, and the solemn pledge wherewith they bound themselves to each other, among the “holy places” of Irish history.

   On March 12th, 1798, Government which had already been long in complete possession of the plans of the United Irishmen, through the treachery of Thomas Reynolds and others, and had allowed them to develop as suited its own purposes, suddenly swooped down on the leaders. The arrest of the country deputies at the house of Oliver Bond was followed the same day by the apprehension of Emmet, Dr. MacNevin, Jackson (Bond’s father-in-law) and John Sweetman at their several abodes.

   Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

8. Rebel hanged at Naul by his own brother-in-law-to-be

   Naul · town · Dublin · 1798

   A young man connected with the insurgents fled to his intended brother-in-law's house near the Naul, but was tracked, and hanged from a post in a village near Dublin by the very yeoman he had sought refuge with.

   Read the passage

   “In the family of a near neighbour at Naul, a circumstance occurred equally characteristic of the time. A young lady was engaged to be married to a gentleman, who having been connected with the insurgents in ’98, was obliged to fly from his home. He took refuge in the house of his intended brother-in-law, who had been forced to join a corps of yeomanry. The fugitive’s track was discovered, the yeomanry were called out, and he, having again taken to flight, was overtaken at a village near Dublin, and hanged from a post in the street by the young man from whose house he had just escaped and who dared not shirk the duty. The poor rebel’s mother never learned the fate that had befallen her son. She was persuaded that he had gone abroad; and up to her death she continued making shirts and knitting stockings, which were sent, as she supposed, in parcels to the refugee in a distant land.”

   Mary Aikenhead, herself, was, perhaps, too young—only eleven—to have any very active share in the charities the Cork ladies exercised towards the sufferers of ’98—but her father was an ardent sympathiser with “the Cause,” and Lord Edward Fitzgerald was concealed, on one occasion, at their house. Perhaps it was in memory of this—or perhaps it was because she felt what I have tried to express: that the Sisterhood Mary Aikenhead founded, proceeded so largely from ’Ninety-Eight and all it stood for—that Lady Lucy Fitzgerald (or as she then was, Lady Lucy Foley) left at her death, a generous legacy to the Sisters of Charity. One cannot help thinking that the list of the first companions of Mary Aikenhead must have sounded to Lady Lucy like a roll-call of names made immortal in the ranks of the United Irishmen. There were Teelings, Sweetmans, Clinches, O’Reillys, Bellews, and many others.

   Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 12

9. Samuel Turner of Lurgan Identified as Government Spy

   near Lurgan · town · Armagh · 1798

   The mysterious informer who reported to Lord Downshire on the United Irishmen's correspondence with Hamburg was finally identified by Fitzpatrick as Samuel Turner of Lurgan, a spy who monitored Lady Lucy's letters.

   Read the passage

   Lady Lucy little suspected that the Northern Mr. Hughes, whom Edward considered so “sensible,” was a Government spy—any more than she suspected that all her own correspondence after her return to London was carefully watched by Government. The mysterious “friend” of her cousin, Lord Downshire (whom Fitzpatrick finally succeeded in identifying with Samuel Turner, of Lurgan), told his patron that the communications of the Irish in Hamburg (who were negotiating there for French aid), with their friends at home were established through the medium of Mme. Matthiesen (Pamela’s cousin, Henriette de Sercey), Lady Sarah and Pamela. The letters were sent by Madame Matthiesen from Hamburg, to Lady Lucy in London—and by Lady Lucy conveyed to Pamela. “All letters to or from Lady Lucy Fitzgerald,” wrote the spy to Lord Downshire, “ought to be inspected.” No doubt this advice was acted upon, and poor unsuspecting Lady Lucy’s correspondence received due attention.

   One of the items of “Lucia’s” diary, quoted by Mr. Campbell, makes brief reference to “Two Northern gentlemen who dined with us.” One wonders if one of these could be Bartle Teeling. We know from his nephew’s memoir that in Lady Lucy that gallant and knightly heart had found its ideal. Once she gave him a ring with the words, “_Erin go Bragh_” inscribed on it, and this ring is still treasured in the Teeling family.

   Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 9

10. Sarah Curran sings in disguise at a masked ball in Cork

    Cork · city · Cork

    While staying with the Penrose family at Woodhill, Cork, Sarah Curran was persuaded to attend a masked ball in Cork disguised as a wandering ballad-singer, where she sang plaintive Irish airs and captivated Captain Sturgeon.

    Read the passage

    As soon as his daughter was able to travel, Curran drove her from his house. She first found shelter with her kind friends the Crawfords, of Lismore, and subsequently with a Quaker family called Penrose at Woodhill, Cork, whose kindness to the broken-hearted, homeless girl helped to restore her to some degree of strength. On one occasion, during her stay with them, they persuaded her to go to a masked ball in Cork. The “mask” selected for her was that of a wandering ballad-singer, and in this character she sang, in the exquisite voice, which had so often charmed her dead young lover, some of the beautiful, plaintive Irish airs of Owenson.

    A romantic young officer, Captain Sturgeon, lost his heart to the singer—and when he heard her story his affections were but the more deeply engaged. Himself, the offspring of a most romantic marriage,[101] he found in the halo of poetry, with which Sarah’s sad love-story invested her, but an added attraction. He, therefore, proposed for her hand; and the Penroses who saw in this marriage, the one hope of their friend’s future settlement, urged his suit with much ardour. At this time consumption had declared itself in her fragile form, and the doctors stated that residence in a warm climate was necessary to save her life. Captain Sturgeon was ordered to Sicily in the winter of 1805, and this fact seemed to Miss Curran’s friends, the Penroses, an additional reason for urging her to accept his proposal.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 13

    As the companion tells it

    As you pass through Cork, you are moving through a city where Sarah Curran once stayed with a Quaker family called Penrose at Woodhill. Her father had driven her from his house, and she came here broken-hearted, sheltering first with the Crawfords at Lismore and then with the Penroses, whose kindness helped restore some of her strength. During her stay they persuaded her to go to a masked ball in the city. The mask chosen for her was that of a wandering ballad-singer, and in that disguise she sang the plaintive Irish airs of Owenson, in the same exquisite voice that had charmed her dead young lover. A romantic young officer named Captain Sturgeon lost his heart to the singer, and when he learned her story his feelings only deepened. He proposed for her hand, and the Penroses urged her to accept, seeing in the marriage the one hope of her future settlement. By then consumption had declared itself in her fragile form, and doctors said a warm climate was needed to save her life. Captain Sturgeon was ordered to Sicily in the winter of 1805, which seemed to her friends yet another reason she should accept him.

11. The Thirteen-Hour Trial at Green Street

    Green Street · street · Dublin · 1803

    Robert Emmet's trial at Green Street courthouse lasted from 9.30am to 10.30pm without any interval of rest or refreshment for the prisoner.

    Read the passage

    The trial of Robert Emmet lasted from 9.30 _a.m._ until 10.30 _p.m._ During “these thirteen hours of mortal anxiety, of exertion, of attention, constantly engaged, he had no interval of repose, no refreshment.”

    * * * * *

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 2

    As the companion tells it

    Coming up along here on Green Street, in 1803, Robert Emmet's trial ran from 9.30am until 10.30pm. He sat thirteen hours of mortal anxiety with no interval of repose, no refreshment.

12. Tone and Matilda Witherington fall in love at first sight

    Grafton Street · street · Dublin · 1785

    Young Wolfe Tone, a Trinity College student, first saw sixteen-year-old Matilda Witherington leaning from a window near Byrne's bookseller's in Grafton Street. Their mutual love led to a secret courtship and eventual elopement.

    Read the passage

    On a certain day, early in the year 1785, young Tone, then in his twenty-second year, and a scholar of the University of Dublin, went out, as his custom was after commons, with a fellow student for a stroll in Grafton Street. They were on the way to Byrne’s, the bookseller’s—a favourite _rendezvous_ of intellectual and political Dublin—when, happening to glance up, they saw leaning from the window of a house near Byrne’s, as once “the Blessed Damozel leaned out from the gold bar of Heaven”—an exquisite young girl.

    It was a case of mutual love “at first sight.” The passionate adoration which the romantic young student of Trinity—with his head full of love poetry from his rehearsals for private theatricals, and dreams of military glory from his constant attendances at parades and field days in Phoenix Park—brought to the young loveliness of sixteen-year-old Matilda Witherington, was fully returned. Every day he passed her window and every day he found her there watching for his coming; and so it fell out that these two, who were to endure so much together, whose love-story was to be remembered, as long as Ireland keeps a place in her faithful heart for the constancy, and heroism and gallantry of her sons and daughters, had given their hearts irrevocably to each other before ever they knew the sound of each other’s voices.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 4

    As the companion tells it

    Along this street in Dublin, early in 1785, a young Trinity student named Wolfe Tone took a stroll with a fellow scholar after commons, heading for Byrne's bookseller's, a favourite meeting place for the intellectual and political crowd of the city. He glanced up and saw a girl leaning from a window of a house near Byrne's. She was sixteen-year-old Matilda Witherington, and it was mutual love at first sight. Tone was twenty-two, his head full of love poetry from rehearsing for private theatricals and dreams of military glory from attending parades and field days in Phoenix Park. Every day he passed her window, and every day she was there watching for his coming. These two, who were to endure so much together, gave their hearts to each other before they ever knew the sound of each other's voices. Their courtship was kept secret, and it ended in elopement.

13. Yeoman threatens Miss Byrne with sabre

    Monaseed · townland · Wexford · 1798

    A yeoman named Wheatley threatened to cut Miss Byrne's throat with his sabre at her family's home if she did not reveal her brother Miles's hiding place, on the day her step-brother Hugh was arrested.

    Read the passage

    “It was only now I heard for the first time of all the barbarous murders that had been committed whilst I was away; the massacre of Carnew, the murder of poor Garrett Fennell, Darcy, and a list of others who had shared the same fate. My dear sister thought she could never tell me enough about all that had happened during my absence; how our horses were taken, and that three men mounted my mare and sprained her back, etc. But if I had not remarked a long scar on her neck she would not have mentioned anything about herself. A yeoman of the name of Wheatley, on the day that poor Hugh was arrested, threatened to cut her throat with his sabre if she did not instantly tell the place where I was hiding; the cowardly villain no doubt would have put his threat into execution had not some of his comrades interfered to prevent him.

    “Being joined by a few of our former workmen and tenants’ sons, who heard I had returned, I prepared again to take leave of my sister, knowing that my dear mother would soon be home to keep her company. This time she saw me depart with joy and delight, for she had set her heart and soul on the success of our undertaking; her courage and spirit was surprising under such circumstances for a girl of her age, and she never despaired. I bid her farewell, and marched off with my faithful friends on the road to Camolin.”

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 11

14. Arrest of Russell and Neilson in Belfast, 1796

    near Belfast · city · Antrim · 1796

    Government forces arrested Thomas Russell and Samuel Neilson in Belfast in September 1796 as part of a wider suppression of United Irish activity, followed a month later by the arrest of Henry Joy McCracken.

    Read the passage

    In September, 1796, Government, which had already marked with intense displeasure the efforts made by young Protestant patriots like H. J. McCracken, Lowry and Tennant, on the one hand, and Young Catholic patriots like C. H. Teeling and his brother-in-law, John Magennis, on the other, to allay the religious feuds then devastating Ulster, swooped down on the most active agents of this policy of reconciliation. On the same day as C. H. Teeling was arrested in Lisburn, Russell and Neilson were arrested in Belfast. A month later Henry Joy McCracken was taken up; and in the spring of the following year, his brother, William.

    As soon as the prisoners received (through the efforts of Lord O’Neill) permission to see their relatives, the McCracken girls, accompanied by William’s wife, paid a visit to Dublin, to be near the brothers. We find them again in Dublin the following year, when their influence, combined with that of Mrs. Neilson, brought about a reconciliation between Harry and Samuel Neilson, both whose tempers had suffered considerably from the wear and tear of prison _régime_ and close confinement.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 6

15. Emmet committed to Kilmainham Gaol on charge of High Treason

    Kilmainham · townland · Dublin · 1803

    After his capture at Harold's Cross, Robert Emmet was brought handcuffed to Dublin Castle and then committed to Kilmainham Gaol on the charge of High Treason.

    Read the passage

    A few days later, Government received information that Emmet was at Mrs. Palmer’s. On August 25, Major Sirr rode out there and captured him, bringing him back handcuffed, to Dublin Castle, whence he was committed to Kilmainham Gaol on the charge of High Treason.

    When he was arrested, two letters[98] in a lady’s hand-writing were found in his possession. As these letters clearly showed that their writer was fully acquainted with Emmet’s plans, the authorities were most anxious to discover from whom they came. They half suspected that they had been written by his sister, Mrs. Holmes, and that the language of a love affair was adopted as a means of averting suspicion. Emmet, in an agony of mind, lest the writer should be discovered, offered at his Examination before the Privy Council to accept any consequences for himself if the lady’s name should not appear.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 13

16. Lord Edward's concealment at Thomas Street and Aungier Street

    Thomas Street · street · Dublin · 1798

    After the arrests at Bond's, Lord Edward Fitzgerald was left at large for several weeks and was visited in his places of concealment by informers Hughes and Reynolds, at Cormick's in Thomas Street and Dr. Kennedy's in Aungier Street.

    Read the passage

    With Sir Jonah Barrington and other “honourable” gentlemen of his class drawing up “for their own amusement,” lists of those among their fellow guests at friendly dinner parties “whom they considered likely to fall victims” to the coming disaster, and these lists finding themselves wafted by some marvellous agency from Wexford Bridge to the office of Mr. Secretary Cooke in Dublin Castle—it is not to be supposed that Government was in ignorance of the movements and designs of the Sheareses. They were carefully watched and “set,” but they were left at large for some time, according to Madden, “to allow the premature explosion of the rebellion to take place, for the same reason that Lord Edward was left at large after the arrests at Bond’s for several weeks, during which time Messrs. Hughes and Reynolds (the informers) visited him in his places of concealment, at Cormick’s in Thomas Street, and at Dr. Kennedy’s in Aungier Street.”

    At length the time was ripe for their destruction. Government had found the proper tool.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 3

    As the companion tells it

    Along here on Thomas Street in 1798, Lord Edward Fitzgerald hid after the arrests at Bond's. The government left him at large for several weeks, according to Madden, to allow the premature explosion of the rebellion to take place. During those weeks, the informers Hughes and Reynolds visited him in his places of concealment, at Cormick's in Thomas Street, and at Dr. Kennedy's in Aungier Street. The government was not in ignorance of the movements and designs of the Sheareses either. They were carefully watched and set, but left at large for some time. Sir Jonah Barrington and other gentlemen of his class drew up lists, for their own amusement, of those among their fellow guests at friendly dinner parties whom they considered likely to fall victims to the coming disaster. These lists found their way to the office of Mr. Secretary Cooke in Dublin Castle. At length the time was ripe for their destruction. Government had found the proper tool.

17. Miss Hazlett's ministrations at Kilmainham prison

    Kilmainham · townland · Dublin · 1798

    Miss Hazlett came to Dublin with her brother's little son to visit her brother Henry Hazlett in prison; her presence dispelled gloom among the prisoners at Kilmainham, who all learned to love her before her death from a disease caught nursing the boy.

    Read the passage

    Another sister commemorated by Teeling is Miss Hazlett, the sister of Henry Hazlett, of Belfast. She had come to Dublin, with Henry’s little son, to comfort their brother by their visits to his prison. “It was impossible to exclude her visits from the prison, for, from the surly turnkey to the cold and impenetrable man of office, her voice acted as a talisman on the most obdurate heart. Her presence dispelled every gloom, as the cheering messenger of Heaven.” The little boy caught a contagious disease, and his beautiful young aunt, nursing him, contracted it also, and one day to the sorrowing prisoners in Kilmainham, who had all learned to love her, there came the news of her death. Her funeral from Dublin to the North was made a national demonstration. “The daughters of Erin strewed garlands in the way—thousands of youthful patriots surrounded the bier—and in the mournful procession of an hundred miles, every town and hamlet paid homage to the virtues of the dead.”

    * * * * *

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 12

18. Neilson's Release on Bail, February 1798

    Kilmainham · townland · Dublin · 1798

    On February 22nd, 1798, Neilson was liberated on bail on condition that he not belong to any treasonable committee, though his health had been shattered by his long confinement.

    Read the passage

    On February 22nd, 1798, Neilson was liberated on bail on condition “that he should not belong to any treasonable committee.”

    The long confinement, the anxiety about his family, the grief and rage he felt at the news of the ruin of his property, and the suppression of his paper had told heavily on Neilson’s bodily and mental health. He came out of prison a wreck of his former self. His kind friend, Mr. John Sweetman, took him to his country house and lavished on him every care which might restore him. But the times were unpropitious for the “rest cure” which poor Neilson’s shattered nerves demanded.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

19. Three Women Bayonetted in Enniscorthy

    Enniscorthy · townland · Wexford · 1798

    Three women were bayonetted by military forces in Enniscorthy, one of the atrocities recorded by Cloney as perpetrated by the military in County Wexford in 1798.

    Read the passage

    And not with their tears alone did our sisters of ’Ninety-Eight sprinkle the red furrows of that tragic seed-time. In many a forgotten grave, from Antrim to Wexford, lies the dust of the women who died victims of the brutality of the yeomanry and military, let loose on the country to goad its manhood into a rising. Beneath the unmarked site of many a vanished cabin lie the charred bones of countless women who were burnt to death when the drunken soldiery fired their homes. Among the outrages tabulated by Cloney as having been perpetrated by the military in the county of Wexford alone, we find record of seven young women violated and murdered near Ballaghkeene by the Homperg Dragoons, after the retreat from Vinegar Hill; of four women shot after the flight from Wexford; and of three women bayonetted in Enniscorthy; of nine women and six children slain by the yeomanry between Vinegar Hill and Gorey, on the high road; of three women shot by the yeomanry in the village of Aughrim; of four women murdered by “the supplementary yeomen” between Gorey and Arklow.

    Anne Devlin was not the only woman of those times who bore to the day of her death on her tender skin the cicatrized marks of the wounds inflicted by the bayonets of the soldiers in the design of extorting from her information. Some of the atrocities suffered by women had not even the excuse of any purpose—save that of satisfying a monstrous lust of cruelty. A dreadful case is that of Mrs. O’Neill, whose son, a clerical student, had been taken up and confined in New Geneva barracks, preparatory to being shipped off to work in the salt-mines of the King of Prussia. The poor woman had come all the way from Antrim, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, to take a last farewell of him. When she reached her destination she was refused access to him, and only succeeded in seeing him after she had bribed his guards. Unfortunately, she yielded to the violence of her grief when the time to leave him came, and the anguished cries of the poor mother betrayed her forbidden presence in her boy’s cell. She was torn from his arms, hurried into the presence of the colonel, and by him delivered to the tender mercies of the soldiers, who dragged her into the courtyard, and proceeded to toss her in a blanket. When the savage pastime of the soldiers ceased, a few rags were thrown to the unfortunate woman; she crawled to a neighbouring cabin, and there she died.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 1

20. Volunteers form on the Falls Road

    near Falls Road · locality · Antrim · 1779

    Mary McCracken was nine years old when the Volunteers formed their splendid ranks on the Falls Road, the first Volunteers of Ireland, with her brother Frank among them wearing the uniform.

    Read the passage

    Those were stirring times in which Mary McCracken grew to womanhood; and even a duller mind, than that which was housed in the fragile form of this little Belfast girl, must have been stimulated in the atmosphere of great ideas, which was her daily breathing. She was five years old when the Battle of Lexington was fought, and eleven when Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown; and the great battles for liberty that marked the years from 1775 to 1781 were distant in space only from the rising city on the Lagan, which followed their fortunes with an interest so passionate. It was the war of liberation of their own flesh and blood which the Belfast men knew was being waged across the dividing Atlantic. It was the doctrines of civil and political freedom which had been borne in the emigrant ships from Ireland that were vindicated at Bunker’s Hill, at Trenton, at Princeton, at Saratoga. Is it to be wondered at, that, young as she was, Mary McCracken followed the story of the American War with a sympathy and understanding beyond her years? She was nine years old when the “armed men” who had sprung forth on Ireland’s soil from the sowed “dragon’s teeth” of England’s laws, formed in their splendid ranks on the Falls Road—the first Volunteers of Ireland. Her brother Frank was one of those who wore their gallant uniform. She was twelve years old when the Volunteer Convention at Dungannon made certain the granting of Grattan’s demands for the liberty of the Irish Parliament. She was ripe enough to apprehend the lessons contained in the failure of that Parliament and to trace it to its true origin. She was nineteen when the great news came from Paris, and Liberty sprang forth full armed to claim the world, from the mighty ruins of the Bastille.

    “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive— But to be young was very _heaven_!”

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

21. Anne Neilson's grave in Newtownbreda Cemetery

    near Newtownbreda · population centre · Down · 1811

    The author reflects on the sufferings of Anne Neilson, widow of Samuel Neilson, who endured poverty and the slander that her husband had betrayed Lord Edward Fitzgerald. She is remembered standing in spirit at Neilson's grave in Newtownbreda Cemetery.

    Read the passage

    It is with hearts very full, then, that we turn to the appealing and lonely figure of this “dear dead woman,” and standing in spirit by her grave in Newtownbreda Cemetery we frame passionate prayers that she may know her sufferings have not been in vain.

    Anne Bryson was born in Belfast in 1763. Her father, William Bryson, was a wealthy and highly esteemed merchant of that town, and his daughter had all the educational and social advantages which an assured position, a refined home and considerable means could give her. In 1785, when she had reached her twenty-second year, she married Samuel Neilson, the son of a dissenting minister, of Ballyroney in Co. Down. Neilson had been resident in Belfast for some time, having been at an early age apprenticed to his brother John, a woollen-draper—and doubtless the young people had often met at the social functions which enlivened Belfast at this period, and of which Mrs. McTier’s letters to her brother, Dr. Drennan, give us the most delightful glimpses.[77]

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

22. Armstrong's camp at Lehaunstown

    Lehaunstown · street · Dublin · 1798

    Captain John Warneford Armstrong was based at his camp at Lehaunstown, from which he made trips into Dublin to visit Byrne's bookshop and later the Sheares brothers, reporting his findings back to his military superiors.

    Read the passage

    On Thursday, May 10th, Captain John Warneford Armstrong took a little jaunt to town from his camp at Lehaunstown and called—as he was in the habit of doing—at Byrne’s, the bookseller’s, in Grafton Street. Though Captain Armstrong wore the king’s uniform, he was, if his conversation was any indication, by no means a fanatical adherent of a militarist and royalist government. He talked republicanism; and was a diligent reader of republican and deistical books, like Paine’s “Age of Reason” and “Common Sense.”

    During one of his many conversations with Byrne the names of the Sheareses cropped up, and Byrne, completely deceived by the Captain’s specious professions, proposed to make them known to each other. In the afternoon of May the 10th, Captain Armstrong was seated in Byrne’s shop when Henry Sheares came in, and Byrne immediately made the introduction. Henry, however, was unwilling to enter into any conversation with the Captain and shortly afterwards made an excuse to leave him.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 3

23. Catherine Plunkett Founds the Dominican Convent in Drogheda

    Drogheda · town · Louth · 1721

    In 1721 Catherine Plunkett was recalled from Belgium to found a Dominican convent in her native Drogheda, first living in a mud cabin on the Meath side of the Boyne before moving to a house in Dyer Street where a school and boarding establishment were opened.

    Read the passage

    It reads like a chapter of the _Fioretti_—the record of the early days of Catherine Plunkett’s foundation in Drogheda. The first home of the nuns was a little mud cabin on the Meath side of the Boyne. Long before day broke over the shining sands and thin line of Eastern sea, the Dominican Father who ministered to their spiritual wants, used to row himself over in a little boat to say Mass and give them holy Communion. Dressed in secular garb, with their real character known only to a few discreet friends, the ladies from Brussels obtained, without much difficulty, leave from the Protestant Primate to open a school, and the Drogheda merchants were very glad to send their daughters to them. Later, they moved to a house in Dyer Street, and opened a boarding school, and an establishment for lady boarders. All the _noblesse_ of the Pale, the Plunketts, the Bellews, the Balfes, the Dillons, the O’Reillys, the Drakes, the Fortescues, the Taaffes are represented among the first pupils—and it is not at all unlikely that our heroine, Mary Taaffe, received her education in this Dyer Street Convent, which welcomed so many of her kinswomen. The nuns of Sienna very kindly searched their old account books for her name, but unfortunately the books were missing for the years 1762 to 1765, which are the very years when we might expect to find her there—if we are right in assuming that she was born about 1753.[41]

    Footnote 41:

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 3

    As the companion tells it

    As you pass through Drogheda, you are in the town where Catherine Plunkett founded a Dominican convent in 1721. She had been recalled from Belgium to make the foundation in her native place. The first home of the nuns was a mud cabin on the Meath side of the Boyne. Long before day broke over the sands and the thin line of eastern sea, a Dominican Father used to row himself over in a little boat to say Mass and give them Holy Communion. Dressed in secular garb, with their real character known only to a few discreet friends, the ladies from Brussels obtained leave from the Protestant Primate to open a school, and the Drogheda merchants were glad to send their daughters. Later they moved to a house in Dyer Street and opened a boarding school and an establishment for lady boarders. All the noblesse of the Pale are represented among the first pupils: the Plunketts, the Bellews, the Balfes, the Dillons, the O'Reillys, the Drakes, the Fortescues, the Taaffes. It is not unlikely that Mary Taaffe received her education in this Dyer Street convent, which welcomed so many of her kinswomen. The nuns of Sienna searched their old account books for her name, but the books were missing for the years 1762 to 1765, the very years when she might be found there, if she was born about 1753.

24. Farewell gathering at the MacCrackens' home in Belfast

    near Belfast · city · Antrim · 1795

    On their last evening before emigrating, the Tones were feted at the MacCracken family home in Belfast, where Bunting played 'The Parting of Friends' from his collection of Irish airs, causing Matilda Tone to break down in tears for the first time.

    Read the passage

    He chose that called “The Parting of Friends,” and as the poignant grief of the old air sought out all their hearts, Matilda Tone’s fortitude, for the first time, gave way. She burst into tears and left the room.

    The next morning they went aboard the _Cincinnatus_, accompanied by their kind friends who had come to take the last farewell of them. When Matilda Tone went down to see her quarters she found the little state-room her husband had taken for his family full of the good things these friends had provided for their comfort: sea-stores, wine, porter and spirits, fresh provisions, sweetmeats, and so on. The foresight of Dr. MacDonnell had also provided a small medicine chest with written directions. This was to be of the greatest service, not for the Tones alone, but for their unfortunate fellow-passengers during the trying weeks ahead of them.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 4

25. Francis Joy votes at Antrim election in old age

    near Antrim · town · Antrim

    Francis Joy, in old age and confined to his couch by leg disease, had himself conveyed to Antrim to vote for Rowley and O'Neill in an election; he died the day the members were chaired.

    Read the passage

    If the grandmother was stern and forbidding, and inspired more fear than love in the children of the household, their sweet mother was quite the reverse. She was “remarkable for a uniform cheerfulness of temper, and benevolence of mind that endeared her to young people as well as to the aged.” With this sweetness of disposition she passed on to her children as a further portion of their heritage from the Joys, an alert and enterprising habit of mind, keen to see, and seize new opportunities; and that steadfastness of the Joys, which, for all its Gallic urbanity, was at least the equal of the McCracken’s. Anne Joy’s father, in addition to his pioneer work in the newspaper world, was also a pioneer in the linen manufacture. In 1749 he established at Randalstown “a complete new mill for dressing flax ... which will dress 14℔. of flax in an hour, fit for the heckle.” He was keenly interested in politics, and, when an old man, confined to his couch by a disease in his leg, had himself conveyed to Antrim, on the occasion of an election, to vote for Rowley and O’Neill, the popular candidates. His son, Robert, meeting him there, said: “What brought you here, Sir?” “The good of my country,” was the reply. The side for which he voted was triumphant, but the day that the members were chaired he died.

    His two sons, Robert and Henry, were remarkable men. It was they, who, with Captain John McCracken and Thomas MacCabe (“the Irish Slave”) introduced the cotton industry into Belfast—and with it laid the foundations of the present prosperity of that city. Young Henry Joy McCracken, who had an extraordinary gift for mechanics and was as clever with his hands as any prestidigitator, was sent to England and Scotland to ferret out the carefully guarded mechanical secrets of the British cotton manufacturers—and accomplished his mission in a manner which will furnish an exciting chapter in Irish industrial history—when it comes to be written. Belfast of to-day has little thought to spare for the “United Men”—but it should not forget what it owes to Henry Joy McCracken—to him who died for the cause which so many in Belfast to-day are sworn to destroy: “a brotherhood of affection, an identity of interests, a communion of rights, and a union of power among Irishmen of all religious persuasions.”

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

26. Gertrude Curran buried in the Priory grounds, Rathfarnham

    Rathfarnham · townland · Dublin

    Sarah Curran's sister Gertrude, a musical prodigy who died at twelve, was buried at John Philpot Curran's insistence under a large tree on the lawn of the Priory, opposite the children's nursery window.

    Read the passage

    This hereditary sadness, fostered by an unhappy home-life, was further strengthened by two events which darkened her childhood. The one was the death of her favourite sister, Gertrude, who died at the age of twelve, when Sarah herself was a girl of eleven. Gertrude was a musical prodigy, and the whole family, and especially Sarah and her father, who were passionately fond of music, worshipped her. Curran insisted on the dead girl being buried in the Priory grounds, and she was laid to rest under a large tree on the lawn, directly opposite the window of the children’s nursery. “Under its shade they [_i.e._ Gertrude and Sarah] had often sat together, pulled the first primroses at its roots, and watched in its leaves the earliest verdure of the spring. Many an hour, for many a year, did the sorrowful survivor take her silent stand at the melancholy window, gazing on the well-known spot, which constituted all her little world of joys and sorrows. To this circumstance she attributed the tendency to melancholy which formed so marked a feature of her character through life.”[97]

    Footnote 97:

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 13

27. McCrackens released from Kilmainham, 1797

    Kilmainham · townland · Dublin · 1797

    After a period of imprisonment, the McCracken family members were released from Kilmainham Gaol in the autumn of 1797, though Harry's health had been severely damaged by his confinement.

    Read the passage

    In the autumn of 1797 the McCrackens were released from Kilmainham. Harry’s health was so much shaken by what he had undergone during his imprisonment, that for some time his life was despaired of. But early in the fatal year ’98, we find him as active as ever in organising the Union. In February he went to Dublin on business connected with it, and he remained there until the eve of the Rising in May.

    It is a matter of history now that Henry Joy McCracken became Commander-in-Chief of the Insurgent forces in the north only three or four days before the outbreak, and only in consequence of the arrest of Dickson, the original commander-in-chief, and the cowardice of the gentleman appointed to replace him. All that one man could do to make the most of a situation, even then desperate, was done by McCracken. But it was of no avail. On June the 7th the battle of Antrim was fought and lost; and Harry McCracken, and Jamie Hope and the faithful few who had refused to lower the Banner of Green were on the hills “on their keeping.”

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 6

28. Miss Byrne brings news of the Wexford Rising to her brother

    Gorey · town · Wexford · 1798

    Miles Byrne returned to his mother's house near Gorey and found his sister alone, who reported that the people were rising and had defeated the troops, later confirming the Insurgent army was strong near Camolin and Ferns.

    Read the passage

    Miles and his companions concealed themselves in the fields until his sister could procure the tidings she expected. “When it was broad daylight we saw my sister running to look for us to give us the cheerful tidings with all the joyful enthusiasm so characteristic of a young Irish girl of eighteen. She told us that the troops had run away from Gorey, and that all the prisoners were at liberty to go where they pleased; but still the people, or the Insurgent army, as we must now call them, did not march that way, but were in great force in the neighbourhood of Camolin and Ferns. We instantly prepared to go and join them....

    “It was only now I heard for the first time of all the barbarous murders that had been committed whilst I was away; the massacre of Carnew, the murder of poor Garrett Fennell, Darcy, and a list of others who had shared the same fate. My dear sister thought she could never tell me enough about all that had happened during my absence; how our horses were taken, and that three men mounted my mare and sprained her back, etc. But if I had not remarked a long scar on her neck she would not have mentioned anything about herself. A yeoman of the name of Wheatley, on the day that poor Hugh was arrested, threatened to cut her throat with his sabre if she did not instantly tell the place where I was hiding; the cowardly villain no doubt would have put his threat into execution had not some of his comrades interfered to prevent him.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 11

    As the companion tells it

    As you pass through Gorey, you are in the town that Miles Byrne hurried back to in 1798, when the rising had begun. He returned to his mother's house near here and found his sister alone. She came running across the fields at daylight to tell him the news: the troops had run away from Gorey, the prisoners were free, and the Insurgent army was strong near Camolin and Ferns. Miles and his companions set off at once to join them. It was from his sister that he first heard of the massacre of Carnew and the murders of Garrett Fennell, Darcy, and others while he had been away. She told him their horses had been taken and three men had ridden his mare and sprained her back. Only when Miles noticed a long scar on her neck did she speak of what had happened to herself. A yeoman named Wheatley, the day poor Hugh was arrested, had threatened to cut her throat with his sabre if she did not say where Miles was hiding. His comrades stopped him, or he would have done it.

29. Neilson's Journey to Portadown and the Battle of the Diamond

    near Portadown · town · Armagh · 1795

    Charles Teeling asked Neilson to meet him at Portadown to help avert conflict between Defenders and Peep o' Day Boys, but before Neilson arrived he learned the Battle of the Diamond had already been fought.

    Read the passage

    Teeling wrote to Neilson begging him to meet him in Portadown and thence to accompany him to the scene of the disturbances. Neilson complied without delay, but before he reached Portadown he was met by Teeling with the news that the Battle of Diamond had been fought, and that their intervention was too late.

    In September, 1796, both Teeling and Neilson with Russell and others were arrested, conveyed to Dublin and lodged in Newgate and Kilmainham. A few weeks afterwards the two McCrackens were added to the company of Northern prisoners.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

30. Pamela's dancing dazzles Dublin society

    Dublin · city · Dublin · 1793

    Lord Edward wrote to his mother describing Pamela's popularity and passion for dancing in Dublin's social season of 1793, despite hostility from some Ascendancy women.

    Read the passage

    That letter of Lady Sarah’s is dated from Celbridge, February, 1793, and showed that by that time Pamela and her husband had arrived in Ireland. Into the gay social round of the Irish capital, the beautiful French girl entered _con brio_. “Dublin has been very gay,” Lord Edward writes to his mother in April, 1793, “a great number of balls, of which the lady misses none. Dancing is a great passion with her; I wish you could see her dance, you would delight in it, she dances so with all her heart and soul. Everybody seems to like her, and behave civilly and kindly to her. There was a kind of something about visiting with Lady Leitrim, but it is all over now. We dined there on Sunday, and she was quite pleasant, and Pamela likes her very much.”

    Unfortunately for Pamela’s happiness, her husband was wrong in thinking everybody seemed to like her. The ladies of the Ascendancy party hated her with all their hearts, and behaved with inconceivable rudeness to her. Her husband, ever since his return from Paris (whence the stories of his “revolutionary” doings had preceded him), had been a marked man for the “Old Gang,” and his bride’s supposed relationship to Egalité (who had recently been guilty of the infamy of voting for Louis XVI’s death) was not calculated to re-establish him with them. The vilest stories were set in circulation about poor Pamela. One lady is supposed to have seen her in the streets of Dublin “with a handkerchief on her neck spotted with Louis XVI’s blood; that some of her friends had sent from Paris.” When everybody else was in mourning for Louis, she is said to have worn red ribbons “which she said were _couleur du sang des Aristocrats_.”

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

    As the companion tells it

    Dublin in 1793 was very gay, as Lord Edward himself wrote to his mother that April. He and his wife Pamela had arrived in Ireland by February, and the beautiful French girl threw herself into the capital's social round with enormous energy. A great number of balls were held that season, and Pamela missed none of them. Dancing was her great passion. Lord Edward wrote, "I wish you could see her dance, you would delight in it, she dances so with all her heart and soul. Everybody seems to like her, and behave civilly and kindly to her." There had been some awkwardness around visiting with Lady Leitrim, but it passed, and they dined there on a Sunday quite pleasantly. But Lord Edward was wrong that everybody liked her. The ladies of the Ascendancy party hated her and behaved with inconceivable rudeness. He had been a marked man for the Old Gang since returning from Paris, where stories of his revolutionary doings had preceded him. Pamela's supposed connection to Egalité, who had recently voted for the death of Louis the sixteenth, did nothing to help. The vilest stories went around. One lady claimed to have seen Pamela in the streets of Dublin wearing a handkerchief spotted with Louis's blood, sent from Paris by friends. When others mourned the king, she was said to wear red ribbons, which she called the colour of the blood of the aristocrats.

31. Reconciliation Among Prisoners at Kilmainham

    Kilmainham · townland · Dublin · 1796–1798

    The nervous strain of imprisonment at Kilmainham caused a serious estrangement between Neilson and Henry Joy McCracken, which was healed through the gentle influence of Margaret and Mary McCracken and Mrs. Neilson.

    Read the passage

    It is sad to relate that the nervous strain to which the prisoners in Kilmainham were subjected told on the temper of most of them, and in the irritation of their spirits they quarrelled with each other. A serious estrangement broke out, in particular, between Neilson and Henry Joy McCracken. But Margaret and Mary McCracken and Mrs. Neilson, using their gentle womanly influence, succeeded in effecting a reconciliation.

    On February 22nd, 1798, Neilson was liberated on bail on condition “that he should not belong to any treasonable committee.”

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

32. Rose Hope's burial at Mallusk

    near Mallusk · population centre · Antrim

    Rose Hope, the courageous ally of her patriot husband James Hope, was buried in Mallusk graveyard, where she had lain for more than fifteen years before Dr. Madden met James Hope in person.

    Read the passage

    Rosie Hope had been lying for more than fifteen years in her last bed in Mallusk graveyard when Dr. Madden first met Jamie Hope in the flesh. And yet he noted that when Hope spoke of his wife it seemed “as if he felt her spirit was hovering over him, and that it was not permitted to him to give expression to the praise which rises to his lips when her name is mentioned. There is something of refinement—rare as it is pleasing to contemplate, in the nature of his attachment—in the ties which bound him to that amiable, exemplary, and enthusiastic creature; for such she is represented to have been by those who knew her, amongst whom was Miss McCracken, of Belfast.”

    The name of Rosie Hope reminds us of her friend, Miss Biddy Palmer, who with Rosie and Anne Devlin, were associated in what we of to-day should call _Cumann na mBan_ work in the Rising of 1803. Madden says of her: “Miss Biddy Palmer, daughter of old John Palmer of Cutpurse Row, was a confidential agent both of Emmet and Russell. She was a sister of young Palmer who took a prominent part in the affairs of 1798. Biddy Palmer was a sort of Irish Madame Roland; she went about when it was dangerous for others to be seen abroad, conveying messages from Emmet, Long, Hevey, Russell, and Fitzgerald to different parties.”

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 17

33. The Old Poorhouse in Belfast founded by Joy brothers

    near Belfast · city · Antrim

    Henry and Robert Joy were responsible for establishing the Old Poorhouse, the first shelter for Belfast's poor; the McCracken and Joy children were active in fundraising for it through dances and concerts.

    Read the passage

    To Henry and Robert Joy, Belfast owed likewise the “Old Poorhouse,” the first shelter devised for Belfast’s poor. The little Joys and McCrackens were early interested in the poor old men and women, and especially in the children; and, as they grew up, they were active workers in their behalf—getting up dances, and concerts and collections for the institution. It was partly in the design of procuring funds for the Poor House (as well as to give employment to the linen weavers during periods of depression in their own trade) that the Joys first turned their attention to the cotton trade. The managers of the Poor House rejected the offer made by Robert Joy to instal the new machinery (which Harry McCracken’s cleverness had made it possible to erect in Ireland), and to carry on the manufacture of cotton as a regular part of their routine, and a means of making the institution self-supporting. They allowed, however, the children to go to work in the mill which the firm of Joy, MacCabe and McCracken presently established.

    Come of such strains as has been indicated, both on the paternal and maternal side, is it any wonder that the children of John and Anne McCracken should have been endowed with uncommon gifts both of body and mind and soul? They were a numerous tribe—but, as was so usual with these large eighteenth-century families, only a certain proportion of them survived the ordeals of childhood. Of these, four were boys: Francis, William, Henry Joy, and John; and two were girls: Margaret and Mary Anne. The latter was the youngest but one, of the family, and was ten years the junior of her sister.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

34. Thomas Russell arrives in Belfast, 1790

    near Belfast · city · Antrim · 1790

    Thomas Russell, an officer in the 64th Regiment, arrived in Belfast in 1790 and won the lifelong devotion of Mary McCracken. His arrival set in motion the friendships and political activities that shaped the United Irish movement in the city.

    Read the passage

    In 1790 there came to Belfast, as an officer in the 64th Regiment, a young man who was destined to exercise a memorable influence on the fate of Mary McCracken, and the brother who was so dear to her. She had just completed her teens when Thomas Russell made his appearance in her native city—and won for ever her faithful heart. Alas! that he never suspected the treasure that was his! He himself was eating out his own heart for the beautiful Bess Goddard; and when Miss Goddard married Mr. Kington, Russell fell in love with Miss Simms. When he came to Belfast in 1803 it was Miss Simms of whom he dreamt. Mary McCracken was for him as a sister infinitely dear, a comrade infinitely staunch and true in the great Cause. But she was nothing more; and with an unconscious cruelty which only the blindness caused by his absorption in his own hopeless passion for another can excuse, he made her the _confidante_ of his love for Miss Simms.

    It is through the eyes of Mary McCracken that we of to-day are permitted to see Thomas Russell. So living and breathing is the portrait, for which a woman’s love has mixed the colours, that though Russell has been lying for one hundred and fifteen years in the grave which she made for him in Downpatrick, it seems to us as if we might have passed him in the streets to-day.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 6

35. Three Women Shot in Aughrim

    Aughrim · town · Wicklow · 1798

    Three women were shot by the yeomanry in the village of Aughrim, County Wexford, as part of the military reprisals following the 1798 rebellion.

    Read the passage

    And not with their tears alone did our sisters of ’Ninety-Eight sprinkle the red furrows of that tragic seed-time. In many a forgotten grave, from Antrim to Wexford, lies the dust of the women who died victims of the brutality of the yeomanry and military, let loose on the country to goad its manhood into a rising. Beneath the unmarked site of many a vanished cabin lie the charred bones of countless women who were burnt to death when the drunken soldiery fired their homes. Among the outrages tabulated by Cloney as having been perpetrated by the military in the county of Wexford alone, we find record of seven young women violated and murdered near Ballaghkeene by the Homperg Dragoons, after the retreat from Vinegar Hill; of four women shot after the flight from Wexford; and of three women bayonetted in Enniscorthy; of nine women and six children slain by the yeomanry between Vinegar Hill and Gorey, on the high road; of three women shot by the yeomanry in the village of Aughrim; of four women murdered by “the supplementary yeomen” between Gorey and Arklow.

    Anne Devlin was not the only woman of those times who bore to the day of her death on her tender skin the cicatrized marks of the wounds inflicted by the bayonets of the soldiers in the design of extorting from her information. Some of the atrocities suffered by women had not even the excuse of any purpose—save that of satisfying a monstrous lust of cruelty. A dreadful case is that of Mrs. O’Neill, whose son, a clerical student, had been taken up and confined in New Geneva barracks, preparatory to being shipped off to work in the salt-mines of the King of Prussia. The poor woman had come all the way from Antrim, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, to take a last farewell of him. When she reached her destination she was refused access to him, and only succeeded in seeing him after she had bribed his guards. Unfortunately, she yielded to the violence of her grief when the time to leave him came, and the anguished cries of the poor mother betrayed her forbidden presence in her boy’s cell. She was torn from his arms, hurried into the presence of the colonel, and by him delivered to the tender mercies of the soldiers, who dragged her into the courtyard, and proceeded to toss her in a blanket. When the savage pastime of the soldiers ceased, a few rags were thrown to the unfortunate woman; she crawled to a neighbouring cabin, and there she died.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 1

36. Anne Devlin reburied with honour in Glasnevin

    Glasnevin · townland · Dublin · 1851

    Dr Madden raised Anne Devlin's body from its pauper burial place and had it reinterred in Glasnevin among the noblest of the nation, rescuing her memory from obscurity.

    Read the passage

    We owe it to Dr. Madden that the name means so much to us. Had he not sought her out, and drawn her story from her lips, and raised her body from its pauper burial place to lay it, in its rightful place amid the noblest in Glasnevin, that name might have meant as little to us as it did to the generation, which Dr. Madden’s appeal for her (in the first edition of his “United Irishmen”) left unmoved, and which, during his absence, from Ireland, left her to die of cold and hunger in a tenement house, and be buried in a pauper’s grave.

    * * * * *

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 14

    As the companion tells it

    Somewhere close to Glasnevin, Anne Devlin lies among the noblest of the nation. She died of cold and hunger in a tenement house, and was buried in a pauper's grave. We owe it to Dr Madden that her name means anything to us at all. He sought her out, drew her story from her own lips, and raised her body from that pauper burial place to lay it in its rightful place here in Glasnevin. His appeal for her, in the first edition of his United Irishmen, had left her own generation unmoved, and while he was away from Ireland they let her die neglected. But he rescued her from that obscurity.

37. Arrest of C. H. Teeling at Lisburn, 1796

    near Lisburn · town · Antrim · 1796

    In September 1796, as part of a government crackdown on reconciliation-minded patriots, C. H. Teeling was arrested at Lisburn on the same day Russell and Neilson were taken in Belfast.

    Read the passage

    In September, 1796, Government, which had already marked with intense displeasure the efforts made by young Protestant patriots like H. J. McCracken, Lowry and Tennant, on the one hand, and Young Catholic patriots like C. H. Teeling and his brother-in-law, John Magennis, on the other, to allay the religious feuds then devastating Ulster, swooped down on the most active agents of this policy of reconciliation. On the same day as C. H. Teeling was arrested in Lisburn, Russell and Neilson were arrested in Belfast. A month later Henry Joy McCracken was taken up; and in the spring of the following year, his brother, William.

    As soon as the prisoners received (through the efforts of Lord O’Neill) permission to see their relatives, the McCracken girls, accompanied by William’s wife, paid a visit to Dublin, to be near the brothers. We find them again in Dublin the following year, when their influence, combined with that of Mrs. Neilson, brought about a reconciliation between Harry and Samuel Neilson, both whose tempers had suffered considerably from the wear and tear of prison _régime_ and close confinement.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 6

38. Betsy Grey Fights at Ballynahinch

    near Ballynahinch · town · Down · 1798

    Betsy Grey is recorded as having fought at the Battle of Ballynahinch, one of the Irish 'Joans of Arc' of 1798 who chose to fight rather than be victimised at home.

    Read the passage

    The same motives which urged the priest to become the soldier animated many of the women. Better, it seemed to them, to die fighting side by side with their men in the field than to be violated and butchered in their houses. And so we find among the Women of ’Ninety-Eight more than one Irish Joan of Arc. There was Molly Weston who fought at Tara, Betsy Grey at Ballynahinch, Mary Doyle at New Ross and many a brave woman who died fighting on Vinegar Hill.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 1

39. Billy Morrison's wife sends him off to the Antrim fight from Ballyclare

    near Ballyclare · town · Antrim · 1798

    On the morning of the fight in Antrim, Billy Morrison's wife in the village of Ballyclare fed him a hearty breakfast and packed provisions before he took up his pike and departed for battle, sending him off with a homely, unsentimental farewell.

    Read the passage

    “Ye hae got as guid a brekfust as ony mon in Ballyclare; sae kill naebody till they kill you, and then doe for yerself, Billy Morrison.”

    One fancies that Billy Morrison gave a good account of himself that day in Antrim town, and did credit, with his strong pike arm, to his wife’s good feeding. And so it has not seemed unfitting to evoke, from the past, her homely sturdy form, and set her even by the side of the tragic figure of Willie Neilson’s widowed mother. For from the sturdiness of the one, no less than from the heroism of the other, proceeds the unconquerable spirit of Ireland.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 17

40. Elizabeth Emmet buried at St Peter's, Aungier Street

    Aungier Street · street · Dublin · 1803

    Overwhelmed by anxiety during Robert Emmet's imprisonment following the 1803 rising, Elizabeth Emmet died in her daughter's arms and was buried in the churchyard of St Peter's in Aungier Street, Dublin.

    Read the passage

    Think of what Mary Anne Holmes had to endure during those terrible weeks. One brother was in exile, another in the prison from which the only egress was up the steps to the scaffold; her husband a prisoner with an uncertain fate. Truly “the strong mind” had heavy drains on it when she followed her mother’s coffin to the churchyard of St. Peter’s in Aungier Street, whither Dr. Emmet’s had only a little time preceded it. Small wonder that the end of her sad story came with tragic swiftness, and in tragic circumstances.

    Mr. Holmes was kept for a whole year a prisoner in Dublin Castle, and then suddenly released. He walked directly home. “In response to his ring his wife unfortunately opened the door, only to drop dead into his arms from the suddenness of the shock and the excess of her joy at seeing him. It is said that Mr. Holmes never recovered from the shock he thus received, and to the day of his death he was seldom seen to smile.”[91] He lived to be a very old man—to see the men of ’48 stand in the same dock as the men of ’98 and ’03—and for the same crime. In his eightieth year he acted as counsel for Duffy in the _Nation_ prosecution of 1846; in his eighty-second year he defended John Mitchel. “We thought we heard the blood of Emmet crying aloud from the ground,” said Mitchel, of the great speech made by Holmes on the former occasion. But in the ears of the old man, himself, as he made his immortal indictment of England, there was ringing the voice of his dead love—the woman whom England’s cruelty had murdered in his very arms two-and-forty years before!

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 7

    As the companion tells it

    Along this street is the churchyard of St Peter's, where Elizabeth Emmet was buried. Her daughter, Mary Anne Holmes, followed her mother's coffin there, not long after Dr. Emmet's coffin had preceded it to the same ground. Mary Anne had been under terrible strain. One brother was in exile, another in the prison from which the only way out was up the steps to the scaffold. Her husband was a prisoner too, his fate uncertain. Mr. Holmes was kept in Dublin Castle for a whole year, then released without warning. He walked straight home. His wife opened the door, and dropped dead into his arms from the suddenness of the shock and the excess of her joy at seeing him. It is said that Mr. Holmes never recovered from that moment, and to the day of his death he was seldom seen to smile. He lived to be a very old man. He saw the men of '48 stand in the same dock as the men of '98 and '03, for the same crime. In his eightieth year he acted as counsel for Duffy in the Nation prosecution. In his eighty-second year he defended John Mitchel. Mitchel said of the great speech Holmes made on the first occasion, "We thought we heard the blood of Emmet crying aloud from the ground." But in the old man's own ears, as he made his indictment of England, there was ringing the voice of his dead love, the woman whom England's cruelty had murdered in his very arms two-and-forty years before.

41. Establishment of the cotton industry in Belfast

    near Belfast · city · Antrim

    Robert and Henry Joy, with Captain John McCracken and Thomas MacCabe, introduced the cotton industry into Belfast, laying foundations for the city's prosperity; Henry Joy McCracken helped smuggle in mechanical secrets from British manufacturers.

    Read the passage

    His two sons, Robert and Henry, were remarkable men. It was they, who, with Captain John McCracken and Thomas MacCabe (“the Irish Slave”) introduced the cotton industry into Belfast—and with it laid the foundations of the present prosperity of that city. Young Henry Joy McCracken, who had an extraordinary gift for mechanics and was as clever with his hands as any prestidigitator, was sent to England and Scotland to ferret out the carefully guarded mechanical secrets of the British cotton manufacturers—and accomplished his mission in a manner which will furnish an exciting chapter in Irish industrial history—when it comes to be written. Belfast of to-day has little thought to spare for the “United Men”—but it should not forget what it owes to Henry Joy McCracken—to him who died for the cause which so many in Belfast to-day are sworn to destroy: “a brotherhood of affection, an identity of interests, a communion of rights, and a union of power among Irishmen of all religious persuasions.”

    To Henry and Robert Joy, Belfast owed likewise the “Old Poorhouse,” the first shelter devised for Belfast’s poor. The little Joys and McCrackens were early interested in the poor old men and women, and especially in the children; and, as they grew up, they were active workers in their behalf—getting up dances, and concerts and collections for the institution. It was partly in the design of procuring funds for the Poor House (as well as to give employment to the linen weavers during periods of depression in their own trade) that the Joys first turned their attention to the cotton trade. The managers of the Poor House rejected the offer made by Robert Joy to instal the new machinery (which Harry McCracken’s cleverness had made it possible to erect in Ireland), and to carry on the manufacture of cotton as a regular part of their routine, and a means of making the institution self-supporting. They allowed, however, the children to go to work in the mill which the firm of Joy, MacCabe and McCracken presently established.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

42. Lord Edward's cottage life in Kildare

    Kildare · town · Kildare · 1794–1798

    The couple settled in a lodge belonging to Mr. Connolly in Kildare, which became the setting for much of their married life; Lord Edward's 1794 letter gives a detailed description of the cottage, garden, and views toward the Curragh, though no trace of it remains.

    Read the passage

    “After going up a little lane, and in at a close gate, you come on a little white house, with a small gravel court before it. You see but three small windows, the court surrounded by large old elms; one side of the house covered with shrubs, on the other side a tolerable large ash; upon the stairs going up to the house, two wicker cages, in which there are at this moment two thrushes, singing _à gorge déployée_. In coming into the house you find a small passage-hall very clean, the floor tiled; upon your left a small room; on the right, the staircase. In front you come into the parlour, a good room, with a bay window looking into the garden, which is a small green plot, surrounded by good trees, and in it three of the finest thorns I ever saw, and all the trees so placed that you may shade yourself from the sun all hours of the day; the bay window covered with honeysuckle, and up to the window some roses.

    “Going upstairs you find another bay-room, the honeysuckle almost up to it, and a little room the same size as that below; this, with a kitchen or servants’ hall below, is the whole house. There is, on the left, in the courtyard another building which makes a kitchen; it is covered by trees, so as to look pretty; at the back of it there is a yard, which looks into a lane. On the side of the house opposite the grass-plot, there is ground enough for a flower-garden, communicating with the front garden by a little walk.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

    As the companion tells it

    As you pass through Kildare town, this is where Lord Edward and his wife lived from 1794 to 1798 in a lodge belonging to Mr. Connolly, which he described in a letter as a little white house up a lane and through a close gate, with a gravel court surrounded by old elms, two thrushes in wicker cages on the stairs singing "à gorge déployée." Inside, a tiled passage-hall led to a parlour with a bay window looking onto a small green plot surrounded by good trees, with three of the finest thorns he had ever seen, placed to give shade at any hour of the day, honeysuckle covering the bay window and roses growing up to it, the views stretching toward the Curragh. Upstairs was another bay-room with honeysuckle almost up to it, and a little room the same size as the one below, the whole house completed by a kitchen and servants' hall below. A separate kitchen building stood in the courtyard under trees, with a yard behind it looking into a lane, and on the side opposite the grass-plot there was ground for a flower-garden, communicating with the front garden by a little walk. No trace of any of it remains today.

43. United Irishmen Conference at Aungier Street Lodgings

    Aungier Street · street · Dublin · 1797

    In Dublin, Bartle Teeling hosted a breakfast conference at his lodgings in Aungier Street with United Irishmen including Magennis, MacCann, Turner, the Byrnes, Colonel Plunkett, Lowry and Dr. MacNevin, to discuss whether the country was ready for an immediate rising.

    Read the passage

    It is from the evidence of the informers, John Hughes and Samuel Turner, that we gather our scanty information as to Bartle’s activities about this period. Hughes, a Belfast bookseller, arrested in October, 1797, turned king’s evidence in order to secure liberation. Being brought before the Lords’ Committee in 1798, he stated amongst other things, that in November, 1796, he had been sent by Bartle Teeling (then settled as a linen merchant in Dundalk) to Dublin to extend the United Irishmen societies there. Hughes seems to have been a sort of organiser for the Society, for again in June, 1797, he was sent for to come to Dublin. Before he left the north, John Magennis (Betty Teeling’s husband) administered an oath to him that he would not communicate the names of those to whom he should be introduced. In Dublin he was present at a breakfast given by Bartle Teeling, at his lodgings in Aungier Street, where the other guests were John Magennis, Anthony MacCann, of Dundalk; Samuel Turner; Messrs. John and Patrick Byrne, of Dundalk; Colonel James Plunkett; A. Lowry; Mr. Cumming, of Galway; and Dr. MacNevin. The object of the conference was to discuss the fitness of the country for an immediate rising. Teeling, Lowry and MacCann were in favour of an immediate effort; the others were afraid the people were not sufficiently prepared for it.

    Shortly afterwards, before the month of June was up, Bartle Teeling, Turner, MacCann, Tennant, Lowry, etc., seeing the “Rising” postponed, fled to Hamburg; and some of the others, including John Magennis, found refuge in Scotland.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 3

    As the companion tells it

    Along here on Aungier Street, in 1797, Bartle Teeling held a breakfast at his lodgings that became a United Irishmen conference. The guests were John Magennis, Anthony MacCann of Dundalk, Samuel Turner, John and Patrick Byrne of Dundalk, Colonel James Plunkett, A. Lowry, a Mr. Cumming of Galway, and Dr. MacNevin. The question on the table was whether the country was ready for an immediate rising. Teeling, Lowry, and MacCann argued for an immediate effort. The others held back, afraid the people were not sufficiently prepared. Most of what we know about this gathering comes from the evidence of two informers, John Hughes and Samuel Turner. Hughes was a Belfast bookseller arrested in October 1797 who turned king's evidence to secure his release. Before this Dublin meeting, he had been sent south by Teeling to extend the United Irishmen societies, and Magennis had administered an oath to him not to reveal the names of those he would be introduced to. The rising was postponed. Before June was out, Bartle Teeling, Turner, MacCann, Tennant, Lowry and others fled to Hamburg. John Magennis found refuge in Scotland.

44. Young man flogged and dragged through Drogheda

    Drogheda · town · Louth · 1798

    A young man of exemplary life was stripped, tied to a cart, and flogged through the streets of Drogheda by soldiers until he fainted, then imprisoned with his back left as one hideous wound.

    Read the passage

    “During the rebellion of 1798, she went from prison to prison at much personal risk, to carry messages from friends, or to console the inmates who were the objects of her deepest sympathy. Some of her nearest and dearest relatives[96] suffered greatly, not only from the confiscation and unjust oppression, but also from barbarous bodily tortures which at that period were commonly inflicted at the will of a licentious soldiery. One of her friends, a young man of exemplary life, was stripped to the waist, tied to a cart, and dragged through the streets of Drogheda, his inhuman executioners flogging him all the way, until at last he fainted under their hands, and was consigned to a prison cell. The first intimation his mother received of the occurrence that had taken place was a demand for old linen to dress her son’s back which was one hideous wound.

    Footnote 96:

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 12

    As the companion tells it

    You're passing through Drogheda now. In 1798, during the rebellion, a young man of exemplary life was stripped to the waist, tied to a cart, and dragged through these streets. Soldiers flogged him all the way until he fainted under their hands, and he was consigned to a prison cell. His mother first learned what had happened when she received a demand for old linen to dress her son's back, which was one hideous wound. A woman who was his friend went from prison to prison at much personal risk that year, carrying messages and consoling those who suffered under the barbarous tortures inflicted at the will of licentious soldiers.

45. Burial of Mrs Neilson at Newtownbreda

    near Newtownbreda · population centre · Down · 1811

    Anne Neilson died in November 1811 in her forty-eighth year, and her remains were interred at Newtownbreda, with an epitaph praising her as an exemplary daughter, wife and mother.

    Read the passage

    “Miss McCracken, speaking of her, says: ‘Mrs. Neilson was a very superior woman, a most exemplary wife and mother, for whom I had the highest esteem, and continued on terms of intimacy and friendship, from 1795, when I first became acquainted with her, until her death. I never saw a family so well regulated, such order and neatness, on such a limited income; and such well-trained children, most amiable and affectionate to each other, and so respectful to their mother, and all so happy together—it was quite a treat to spend an evening with them.’ This excellent woman, esteemed and respected by all who knew her, even by those to whom her husband’s political principles were most obnoxious, struggled for her family during her husband’s imprisonment and exile and subsequently to his death, and died in November, 1811, in her forty-eighth year. Her remains were interred at Newtownbreda. The inscription on her tomb truly describes her to have been, ‘A woman who was an ornament to her sex; who fulfilled in the most exemplary manner, the duties of a daughter, wife and mother.’”

    There remains only to tell, as briefly as may be, the story of her children, for of this woman, in a special degree it is true to say, that she has no history but the history of her husband and family. Poor William, whom we have learned to love as dearly as any of his masters in Fort George, lived long enough to show the fruits of the remarkable education he had received there—but alas! not long enough to confer on his country the benefits which all those who knew him expected from him. After a brilliant course at the Academical Institution, Belfast, he embraced a commercial career, where his splendid talents ensured for him a speedy success. His employers described him as “a young man of the most splendid talents we have ever known; there was no subject in mercantile affairs that he could not make himself master of. In public affairs he soon became conspicuous, and had he lived he would have been an ornament to his country.”

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

46. Cork Society Life Around the Assembly House

    Cork · city · Cork · 1760

    Elizabeth Mason was drawn into the social whirl of Cork, attending concerts and assemblies at the Assembly House near Hamond's Marsh, boating parties, and promenades on the Mall and Bowling Green.

    Read the passage

    With these rare gifts of heart and mind, and in all the freshness, and charm, and beauty of her twenty summers, Miss Elizabeth Mason made something of a sensation when she appeared in Cork society. She had numerous relatives in the pleasant little city by the Lee, and each and every one of them was determined that their beautiful visitor should have “a good time.” So once or twice a week some kindly matron would call at James Mason’s house, and carry off his sister to the concerts and “assemblies” which were regular bi-weekly events in the Assembly House near Hamond’s Marsh. Or a party of young people would beg her to join them for a boating excursion on the river, or “a promenade” on the Mall where the _beau monde_ loved to display its gay silk and satins, its feathers and furbelows; or on the Bowling Green, where it took the air under the quaintly cut trees, and listened to the band discoursing sweet music for its delectation; or in Mr. Edward Webber’s gardens near the Mardyke where it ate strawberries and cream, and all the other delectable fruits of the earth, each in its proper season. In the evenings there were theatre-parties, or “drums” at the Assembly House, or in the hospitable and elegant homes of some of Cork’s merchant princes, whose culture was not surpassed by their wealth. Here while the young folk danced their minuets and country-dances, their elders played cards; but both young and old were ready to leave dancing floor, and card table, to take part in the delightful concerts of “Italic airs,” which made one visitor to Cork imagine “the god of music had taken a large stride from the Continent, over England to this island,” and attribute “the humane and gentle disposition of the inhabitants, in some measure, to the refinement of this divine art.” At supper one heard supremely good conversation, for the men of Cork were, according to the same witness, “well versed in public affairs,” fond of news and politics, and diligent readers of the newest French and English books, and the periodicals of the day—and their pretty partners made a charmingly appreciative audience while the men talked over the foreign and domestic news they had found in the Dublin and London newspapers, which the two coffee-houses near the Exchange supplied for their customers.[7]

    Footnote 7:

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 2

    As the companion tells it

    As you pass through Cork, you are moving through the same pleasant little city by the Lee where Elizabeth Mason caused a sensation in 1760. She was twenty, visiting relatives, and each one was determined she should have a good time. Twice a week a kindly matron would call at James Mason's house and carry his sister off to the concerts and assemblies at the Assembly House near Hamond's Marsh. There were boating excursions on the river, and promenades on the Mall, where the fashionable world displayed its gay silks and satins, its feathers and furbelows. On the Bowling Green they took the air under quaintly cut trees and listened to the band. In Edward Webber's gardens near the Mardyke they ate strawberries and cream and all the fruits of the earth in their proper season. Evenings brought theatre parties or drums at the Assembly House, or gatherings in the elegant homes of Cork's merchant princes, whose culture was not surpassed by their wealth. The young danced minuets and country-dances while their elders played cards, but both would leave floor and table for concerts of Italian airs. One visitor imagined the god of music had taken a large stride from the Continent, over England, to this island, and attributed the humane and gentle disposition of the inhabitants in some measure to the refinement of this divine art. At supper the conversation was remarkably good. The men of Cork were well versed in public affairs, fond of news and politics, diligent readers of the newest French and English books and the periodicals of the day. Their pretty partners made a charmingly appreciative audience while the men talked over the foreign and domestic news from the Dublin and London newspapers, supplied by the two coffee-houses near the Exchange.

47. Francis Joy establishes flax mill at Randalstown

    near Randalstown · town · Antrim · 1749

    In 1749, Francis Joy established a complete new mill for dressing flax at Randalstown, a pioneering step in the linen manufacture that could dress 14 pounds of flax an hour fit for the heckle.

    Read the passage

    If the grandmother was stern and forbidding, and inspired more fear than love in the children of the household, their sweet mother was quite the reverse. She was “remarkable for a uniform cheerfulness of temper, and benevolence of mind that endeared her to young people as well as to the aged.” With this sweetness of disposition she passed on to her children as a further portion of their heritage from the Joys, an alert and enterprising habit of mind, keen to see, and seize new opportunities; and that steadfastness of the Joys, which, for all its Gallic urbanity, was at least the equal of the McCracken’s. Anne Joy’s father, in addition to his pioneer work in the newspaper world, was also a pioneer in the linen manufacture. In 1749 he established at Randalstown “a complete new mill for dressing flax ... which will dress 14℔. of flax in an hour, fit for the heckle.” He was keenly interested in politics, and, when an old man, confined to his couch by a disease in his leg, had himself conveyed to Antrim, on the occasion of an election, to vote for Rowley and O’Neill, the popular candidates. His son, Robert, meeting him there, said: “What brought you here, Sir?” “The good of my country,” was the reply. The side for which he voted was triumphant, but the day that the members were chaired he died.

    His two sons, Robert and Henry, were remarkable men. It was they, who, with Captain John McCracken and Thomas MacCabe (“the Irish Slave”) introduced the cotton industry into Belfast—and with it laid the foundations of the present prosperity of that city. Young Henry Joy McCracken, who had an extraordinary gift for mechanics and was as clever with his hands as any prestidigitator, was sent to England and Scotland to ferret out the carefully guarded mechanical secrets of the British cotton manufacturers—and accomplished his mission in a manner which will furnish an exciting chapter in Irish industrial history—when it comes to be written. Belfast of to-day has little thought to spare for the “United Men”—but it should not forget what it owes to Henry Joy McCracken—to him who died for the cause which so many in Belfast to-day are sworn to destroy: “a brotherhood of affection, an identity of interests, a communion of rights, and a union of power among Irishmen of all religious persuasions.”

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

48. Girls of Newry bring refreshments to prisoners under cavalry horses

    near Newry · town · Down · 1796

    Girls from a hotel in Newry pressed forward under the hooves of cavalry horses to bring refreshments to the carriages carrying the prisoners of 1796, including Charles Teeling, Russell and Neilson.

    Read the passage

    The tender and beautiful Irish usage extends the use of the words _dearbrathair_ (brother), and _deirbhshiur_ (sister) to other bonds than those of blood. And many of the gentle and pitying women who ministered to the sufferers of those times are truly deserving of the lovely title. The girls from the hotel in Newry who pressed forward under the very hoofs of the cavalry horses to bring refreshments to the carriages of the prisoners of ’96, Charles Teeling, Russell, Neilson, etc., were surely worthy of it. The women who forced their way into the prisons “with bread, and comfort, and grace” were worthy of it. The women whom Holt so frequently shows us at their works of mercy were worthy of it. On one occasion he came to a farmhouse whose only occupants were an old woman and her pretty daughter. “They brought me hot water to bathe my feet, and clean stockings and linen, and took my own and washed them. They then gave me oatcakes and butter-milk, which after I had eaten, they shewed me a comfortable bed, where I slept for several hours....” Finding that the news of his death had been reported to them, and caused them overwhelming sorrow, he informed them of his identity. Their joy at his safety, and their pride at having him for their guest was beyond all telling. Presently “twenty-four poor unfortunates came into the house, who were all desired to sit down, and oaten cakes were placed before them, and the young woman was busily employed in baking more cakes on the griddle; she afterwards told me they had been so employed for some days past.”

    And talking of “Sisters” reminds us of the striking fact that it was in the prisons of the United Irishmen, our Irish Sisters of Charity had, in a certain sense, their origin. In the letters of Mr. Luke Teeling to his wife, we find frequent mention of a Miss Alicia Walsh, who came with her aunt, Ally Lynch, of Drogheda (Mrs. Teeling’s sister) to visit him in his prison at Carrickfergus. “Ally Walsh is an uncommonly fine girl,” he notes of her approvingly. Many a tongue was to echo Mr. Teeling’s praise in the after-days when “Ally Walsh,” the first companion of Mary Aikenhead, had become the celebrated Mother Catherine of the Gardiner Street Convent. To learn more of her I must refer my readers to Mrs. Atkinson’s “Mary Aikenhead.” I shall content myself here with borrowing Mrs. Atkinson’s account of her experiences in ’Ninety-Eight.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 12

49. John Sheares' Daughter Boarded at Mrs. Duggan's, Bray

    Bray · town · Wicklow · 1798

    In his final letter, John Sheares mentioned his illegitimate daughter Louisa, who was being cared for at a Mrs. Duggan's school in Bray, and requested his mother pay the outstanding debt owed there.

    Read the passage

    “I picture you all, a helpless, unprotected group of females, left to the miseries of your own feelings and to the insults of a callous, insensible world. Sally, too, stripped of a husband on whom she so tenderly doats, and his children of their father, and all by my cursed intervention, by my residence with them. Yet, he even is my witness how assiduously I sought to keep aloof in any of my political concerns from him, and would have entirely succeeded in doing so if it had not been for the art of that villain, Armstrong, and Harry’s own incaution. My efforts, however, have kept him clear of any of those matters that have involved me in destruction. When Sally has got him back in her arms, and that I, who caused his danger and her unhappiness, shall be no more, she will cease to think of me with reproach. This I trust she will do; she ought—for she herself could never have done more for his salvation than I endeavoured to do. But the scene is changed—I am no longer that frantic thing I was while his danger appeared imminent. A calm sorrow for the sufferings that await you on my account, and a heartfelt regret at being obliged to quit your loved society for ever, has succeeded. Yet, all this will soon have an end; and with comfort I already anticipate the moment when your subsiding grief gives you back to the enjoyment of each other. Still, my dearest Julia, even when I shall be no more, your plagues on my account are not likely to cease. You remember—I am sure you do—your kind promise of protection to my poor, unfortunate little Louisa?[95] I make no doubt but her mother will give her up to your care without reluctance; yet, how to impose this new anxiety on you I know not. But of this I will say nothing; I know your heart, and never could resist the goodness with which it insisted on easing mine by burdening itself. What to recommend relative to her I cannot resolve. Harry did once desire me to take her into his house, but I had a thousand objections to that plan then, some of which still remain; one material one is, that she would soon learn from servants and others how different her situation there was from that of the other children, and her young mind would very early feel that chilling inferiority and degradation, that lead to a debasement of principle, and ultimately to mean and unworthy actions. No; a great many reasons concur to decide me against that measure. She should be put to some school where more care is taken of her health than education, and where the attention to morals consists in good, honest example. Apropos, she was at a Mrs. Duggan’s, at Bray, to whom I yet owe ten guineas for her, and which I request of my dear mother to pay for me, when convenient; I likewise owe a note of hand for about thirteen pounds or guineas to a man in Capel Street whom the Flemings know. I cannot mention the name of these friends without emotions of gratitude and tenderness not to be expressed. Never cease to assure them that I preserve the recollection of their goodness, though the instances of it are so many, and I shall feel it to the last moment. This debt they will be obliged to pay if not discharged by my mother, as they passed their word for it—you will therefore mention it to my poor afflicted mother. Great God! how have I stripped her and you; but I have stripped you of happiness, and should not talk of money....

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 10

    As the companion tells it

    As you pass through Bray, you are in the town where a young girl named Louisa was boarded at a Mrs. Duggan's school. Louisa was the illegitimate daughter of John Sheares, who wrote of her in his final letter, addressed to Julia. He asked Julia to remember her kind promise of protection to the child, and said he could not resolve what to recommend for her, though Harry had once offered to take Louisa into his house. Sheares refused, fearing she would learn from servants how different her situation was from the other children, and that her young mind would feel a chilling inferiority leading to debasement of principle. He said she should be put to some school where more care was taken of her health than education, and where attention to morals consisted in good, honest example. She was at Mrs. Duggan's here in Bray, and he still owed ten guineas for her keeping. He asked his mother to pay it when convenient. He owed about 13 pounds or guineas besides, to a man in Capel Street whom the Flemings knew. He told Julia to mention that debt to his afflicted mother, since friends had passed their word for it. He wrote, "Great God! how have I stripped her and you; but I have stripped you of happiness, and should not talk of money."

50. Mary Doyle Fights at New Ross

    New Ross · townland · Wexford · 1798

    Mary Doyle is named as one of the women who fought at New Ross during the 1798 rebellion, alongside male combatants.

    Read the passage

    The same motives which urged the priest to become the soldier animated many of the women. Better, it seemed to them, to die fighting side by side with their men in the field than to be violated and butchered in their houses. And so we find among the Women of ’Ninety-Eight more than one Irish Joan of Arc. There was Molly Weston who fought at Tara, Betsy Grey at Ballynahinch, Mary Doyle at New Ross and many a brave woman who died fighting on Vinegar Hill.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 1

51. Molly Weston Fights at Tara

    Tara · parish · Meath · 1798

    Molly Weston is named among the women who fought alongside men in the field during the 1798 rebellion, taking part in the fighting at Tara.

    Read the passage

    The same motives which urged the priest to become the soldier animated many of the women. Better, it seemed to them, to die fighting side by side with their men in the field than to be violated and butchered in their houses. And so we find among the Women of ’Ninety-Eight more than one Irish Joan of Arc. There was Molly Weston who fought at Tara, Betsy Grey at Ballynahinch, Mary Doyle at New Ross and many a brave woman who died fighting on Vinegar Hill.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 1

52. News of George Teeling's Death Received at Castlecomer

    Castlecomer · town · Kilkenny · 1822

    In 1822, while visiting Charles's family in Castlecomer, Mary and Luke Teeling received a letter from Natchez, Mississippi announcing the death of their son George, along with a ring once given to Bartle by Hoche. Mary read the letter beside her husband's coffin, as Luke had died around the same time.

    Read the passage

    On a certain day in 1822 a letter arrived, re-directed from Belfast to Castlecomer, where Mr. and Mrs. Teeling and their unmarried daughters, Mary and Milly, had gone on a visit to Charles and his family. It was in an unknown hand-writing, and was signed by an unknown correspondent, William Cullen, from the City of Natchez, State of Mississippi. It contained the sad tidings of the death of George, and enclosed a ring which had been given to Bartle by Hoche, and to George by Bartle on the eve of his execution. It was Mary Teeling’s destiny to read the letter containing the news of her son’s death, by the coffin which contained the mortal remains of her husband. In the bitterness of her grief her wifely devotion could find comfort in the knowledge that this last earthly sorrow had been spared her beloved Luke—and that from the heavenly vantage ground whence he now looked, it was turned for him into a joy.

    The few remaining years of Mary Teeling’s life were spent with Charles and his wife and little ones. And it is to the loving memories of these years, cherished by her grandson Bartholomew, that we owe the vivid portrait of her which I have borrowed to adorn my pages.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 3

53. Pamela and Lord Edward arrive in Ireland

    Celbridge · town · Kildare · 1793

    Pamela and her husband Lord Edward Fitzgerald arrived in Dublin by February 1793, as recorded in a letter from Lady Sarah Napier dated from Celbridge.

    Read the passage

    That letter of Lady Sarah’s is dated from Celbridge, February, 1793, and showed that by that time Pamela and her husband had arrived in Ireland. Into the gay social round of the Irish capital, the beautiful French girl entered _con brio_. “Dublin has been very gay,” Lord Edward writes to his mother in April, 1793, “a great number of balls, of which the lady misses none. Dancing is a great passion with her; I wish you could see her dance, you would delight in it, she dances so with all her heart and soul. Everybody seems to like her, and behave civilly and kindly to her. There was a kind of something about visiting with Lady Leitrim, but it is all over now. We dined there on Sunday, and she was quite pleasant, and Pamela likes her very much.”

    Unfortunately for Pamela’s happiness, her husband was wrong in thinking everybody seemed to like her. The ladies of the Ascendancy party hated her with all their hearts, and behaved with inconceivable rudeness to her. Her husband, ever since his return from Paris (whence the stories of his “revolutionary” doings had preceded him), had been a marked man for the “Old Gang,” and his bride’s supposed relationship to Egalité (who had recently been guilty of the infamy of voting for Louis XVI’s death) was not calculated to re-establish him with them. The vilest stories were set in circulation about poor Pamela. One lady is supposed to have seen her in the streets of Dublin “with a handkerchief on her neck spotted with Louis XVI’s blood; that some of her friends had sent from Paris.” When everybody else was in mourning for Louis, she is said to have worn red ribbons “which she said were _couleur du sang des Aristocrats_.”

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

54. State prisoners sail from Dublin Bay for Fort George

    near Dublin Bay · bay · Dublin · 1799

    On March 19th, 1799, the twenty Irish state prisoners, including Thomas Addis Emmet, sailed from Dublin Bay to an unknown destination, arriving at Fort George in Scotland on April 9th, 1799, where they would remain confined for years.

    Read the passage

    In another place we shall learn something of the adventures of the twenty State prisoners who sailed from Dublin Bay on March the 19th and reached their destination, Fort George, in the extreme north of Scotland, on April 9th, 1799, and of their life in that fortress during the years of their confinement in it.

    As may be expected, Jane Emmet made every effort to obtain permission to join her husband in Fort George, and her hopes of success were stimulated by the fact that others of the State prisoners, especially Roger O’Connor, were allowed to have their families with them. The Irish Government, however—in other words, Lord Castlereagh—put every obstacle in her way, and it was only when she made personal application to the Duke of Portland that she obtained the consent she sought. In August, 1800, escorted by her brother, John Patten, and accompanied by her three elder children, Robert, Margaret and Elizabeth, she arrived in Fort George. She left her three younger children, John Patten, Thomas Addis and baby Christopher, in the charge of their grandfather and grandmother, Dr. and Mrs. Emmet, at Casino, Milltown.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

55. The Irish Woollen Warehouse in Belfast

    near Belfast · city · Antrim · 1785–1792

    After their marriage, Samuel and Anne Neilson set up business in Belfast, establishing the Irish Woollen Warehouse which became highly successful, worth about £8,000 by 1792.

    Read the passage

    After their marriage the young couple set up in business for themselves, and Samuel Neilson’s great ability commanded an immediate success. His establishment, called “The Irish Woollen Warehouse,” became, we are informed, “the most extensive and respectable house in that line in Belfast.” Before he had been seven years in business he had amassed a considerable fortune, being reckoned in 1792 as worth about £8,000—which would be equivalent to nearly £20,000 in our days.

    Not with worldly prosperity alone did a kind Providence bless Anne Neilson and her husband. Five fair children, four girls and a boy, came to grace their fireside. The girls were Anne, Sophia, Jane, and Mary. Very dear were they to their father, and very touching the letters he was to address to them from prison when the “hard service” of the Poor Old Woman was to sever him from them during sorrowful years. Anne and Sophia were old enough to bear their heroic part among the “Women of ’Ninety-Eight,” and many of the most thrilling and interesting incidents which Dr. Madden gathered into his precious books were actually witnessed, and related to him by them. They spent much time during the troubled period with the wife of Oliver Bond in Dublin, and were by that means right in the centre of things, so to speak. Dr. Madden was deeply touched by the passionate devotion they showed to their father’s memory, when about half a century after his death, he sought from them the materials for his memoir.

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

56. The Teeling Vault at Rathkenny Churchyard

    Rathkenny · townland · Meath

    After the Teeling family's broad Meath acreage was lost following the 'Third Breaking' of Aughrim, all that remained to the family was a semi-circular arched vault in the churchyard of Rathkenny.

    Read the passage

    Like the Taaffes, the Teelings had suffered much during the long wars which devastated Ireland in the seventeenth century, and of the broad acres which their forefathers had held in Meath for over five hundred years there remained after the “Third Breaking” of Aughrim, in the pathetic phrase of one of the family’s present-day representatives, little more than “the semi-circular arched vault in the churchyard of Rathkenny.” But even before Father Teeling, who came back from his College on the Continent about the beginning of the eighteenth century, to endure the life of suffering, and labour, and peril of a missionary priest in Ireland under the Penal Régime, was gathered to his fathers in that vault, the fortunes of the family were already in the ascent. In truth there was something in the Teelings which forced them to the front in whatever walk of life they might choose for themselves, whether as soldiers, like the old knightly Teelings of the Middle Ages, whose names survive in many an ancient deed of gift to religious houses; or churchmen, like Father Ignatius Teeling, S. J., or scholars like Theobald Teeling, the correspondent of Justus Lipsius, and that other Teeling, who has been described by Archbishop Peter Talbot as “_urbis et orbis miraculum_.”[43] And this something—call it personality, force of character, or what you will—was peculiarly evident in Bartholomew Teeling whom we find settled in the neighbourhood of Balbriggan about the middle of the eighteenth century.

    Footnote 43:

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 3

57. Widow Downey sells her farm and moves to Monasterevin

    Monasterevin · town · Kildare · 1798

    After her husband's death at the Gibbet Rath massacre and finding their home a wreck, the widowed Mrs. Downey sold her farm and relocated to Monasterevan to rebuild her life.

    Read the passage

    When her father came home with his tidings, Mrs. Downey insisted on getting out one of the carts, and proceeding to the place of the slaughter to search for her husband’s body—for she was quite convinced that her dream was true, and she would find him among the slain. She came at last to the bloody plain, and found it littered with corpses. She turned over two hundred dead bodies before she discovered her husband’s. She laid him in the cart, covered him with straw and a quilt, and proceeded to the house of a relative to wake him. But the word had gone round that wherever a rebel corpse should be found the house sheltering it would be burned by the “yeos.” Without waiting even for a coffin, the broken-hearted young widow had to wrap her man in a sheet, and so see him laid in the hastily made grave. When quieter days came and she was able to return to the home he had made for her, she found it a wreck. She sold her farm and went to live in Monasterevan.

    Her story presents to our imagination the tragedy of the “Widows of the Massacres” in concrete form. But it is the story of only one woman. Think of it as multiplied by the number of all the women who were left desolate on that day—and estimate the sum of woman’s misery caused by that one day alone—if our hearts dare!

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 16

    As the companion tells it

    Up ahead is Monasterevin, the town where a widow named Mrs. Downey came to rebuild her life after 1798. Her husband had been killed in the Gibbet Rath massacre, and when word reached her she took a cart to the bloody plain and searched through the dead. She turned over 200 corpses before she found his. She laid him in the cart, covered him with straw and a quilt, and went to a relative's house to wake him. But word had gone round that any house sheltering a rebel corpse would be burned by the yeos, so without even a coffin she wrapped him in a sheet and saw him buried in a hastily made grave. When quieter days came she returned to the home he had made for her and found it a wreck. She sold her farm and came here to Monasterevin. The book calls her story the tragedy of the Widows of the Massacres in concrete form, one woman among many left desolate on that single day.

58. Francis Joy founds the Belfast Newsletter

    near Belfast · city · Antrim · 1737

    Francis Joy, grandfather of Mary Anne McCracken, was a pioneer in many things, remembered best as founder of the Belfast Newsletter in 1737.

    Read the passage

    The little maid, whose long life of ninety-six years was to witness such strange happenings, was born in High Street, Belfast, on July the 8th, 1770. Her father, John McCracken, was captain and part owner of a vessel trading between Belfast and the West Indies. He was of Scottish descent, his family having settled in Ireland when the Covenanters were fleeing from Claverhouse. They settled at Hill Hall near Lisburn, and here John McCracken was born. At an early age he formed a strong attachment to a charming young girl of Huguenot descent called Anne Joy, only daughter of Francis Joy, a conveyancer, and notary public, who, a pioneer in many things, is perhaps best remembered as the founder of the _Belfast Newsletter_ in 1737. Captain McCracken is described by Madden as “a man of polished manners, whose sincerity of disposition and integrity of principles caused him to be generally respected and esteemed.” It was noted of him by his daughter, as a proof of his integrity, that in the days when smuggling was regarded as a very venial offence, Captain McCracken would not smuggle nor allow his sailors to do so, “as he considered a custom-house oath as binding on conscience as any other.” A still more striking instance of his integrity and his children’s reliance on it, was furnished on the occasion of Harry’s trial when he was offered his son’s life on condition that he induced the latter to disclose the name of the leader, whose place the prisoner had taken in the Rising. He told the tempter, Pollock, that “he would rather his son died than that he should do a dishonourable action.”

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 5

59. Idyllic summer at Irishtown and the birth of political friendship

    Irishtown · street · Dublin · 1790–1791

    The Tones spent a summer at Irishtown for Matilda's health, where Thomas Russell visited daily along with his father and brother. This period of shared meals and discussions cemented the close friendship between Tone, Russell, and Matilda that would shape the United Irishmen movement.

    Read the passage

    A short time after they had made the acquaintance of Russell, the Tones went to spend the summer by the seaside at Irishtown, the doctor having prescribed sea-bathing as a cure for Mrs. Tone’s continued delicacy. Thither came Russell every day to visit them, and thither came also very frequently in his company Russell’s venerable father and his delightful brother, Captain John. Room was found, too, in “the little box of a house” for Mary Tone, and for William whenever he could spare a week from Matthew’s cotton factory at Prosperous. As Tone writes of these happy days he grows lyrical in his praise of them. “I recall with transport the happy days we spent during that period; the delicious dinners, in the preparation of which my wife, Russell and myself were all engaged; the afternoon walks, the discussions we had, as we lay stretched on the grass.... If I may judge we were none of us destitute of the humour indigenous in the soil of Ireland; ... add to this I was the only one who was not a poet, or at least a maker of verses, so that every day produced a ballad, or some poetical squib, which amused us after dinner; and as our conversation turned upon no ribaldry, or indecency, my wife and sister never left the table. These were delicious days. The rich and great, who sit down every day to the monotony of a splendid entertainment, can form no idea of the happiness of our frugal meal, nor of the infinite pleasure we found in taking each his part in the preparation and attendance. My wife was the centre and the soul of all. I scarcely knew which of us loved her best; her courteous manners, her never-failing cheerfulness, her affection for me and for our children, rendered her the object of our common admiration and delight. She loved Russell as well as I did. In short, a more interesting society of individuals, connected by purer motives, and animated by a more ardent attachment and friendship for each other, cannot be imagined.”[57]

    Footnote 57:

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 4

60. Mrs Risk's House in Sandymount and Lord Edward's Planned Refuge

    near Sandymount · townland · Dublin · 1798

    Mrs Risk, a devoted supporter of the United Irish cause after her husband's death, kept a house in Sandymount to which Lord Edward Fitzgerald was to have been removed on the night of his arrest.

    Read the passage

    Another _rôle_ filled by the Women of ’Ninety-Eight was that of inspiring their men to patriotic action, aiding them by their counsels, putting their women’s wit at the service of the patriots as messengers and intelligence officers. Charles H. Teeling informs us that “the enthusiasm of the females exceeded the ardour of the men; in many of the higher circles, and in all the rustic festivities, _that_ youth met a cold and forbidding reception from the partner of his choice, who, either from apathy or timidity, had not yet subscribed to the test of union.” “A green velvet stock, or a silk robe with a shamrock device, were the emblems of national feeling; and the former was not unfrequently presented to the youthful patriot by the fair daughter of Erin, as the pledge of a more tender regard.” We see Pamela and Lady Lucy Fitzgerald shedding the bright influence of their beauty over the circle of patriotic and romantic young Irishmen whom Lord Edward gathered around him in Kildare Lodge. Numerous women were so deep in the secrets of the United Irishmen that it was considered necessary for them to take the oath. Of these, the most notable, Miss Moore, will receive more extended notice in subsequent pages of this book. Among others we find mention of Mrs. Risk, whose husband having fallen a victim to his patriotic principles in ’Ninety-Eight, devoted herself and all she had in the world to the Cause for which he died. It was to her house in Sandymount that Lord Edward was to have been removed the night of the day on which he was arrested. We subsequently find her visiting the prisoners at Fort George and carrying back messages from them to their friends in Ireland. Rose McGladdery, wife of William McCracken, was “a sworn United man,” and did good service to the cause for which her husband was imprisoned and for which her brother-in-law, Harry, died, as she passed out and in of Kilmainham jail to visit her captive husband. It is very probable that Mrs. Oliver Bond was also “a sworn United man.” Her name lives in their records for a clever device by which she enabled the State prisoners of 1796 to keep in touch with the outside world. The story is told by Charles Teeling, who was one of them:

    Project Gutenberg #67720, Chapter 1

    As the companion tells it

    Somewhere around here in Sandymount stood the house of Mrs. Risk, a woman who, after her husband died for his patriotic principles in 1798, gave herself and everything she had to the United Irish cause. On the night Lord Edward Fitzgerald was arrested, this is where he was supposed to have been brought to safety. He never made it. Mrs. Risk was deep enough in the secrets of the United Irishmen that she had taken the oath, one of several women trusted with the movement's confidence. Later, she visited the prisoners held at Fort George and carried their messages back to friends in Ireland. The women around the cause served as messengers and intelligence officers, and Pamela and Lady Lucy Fitzgerald lent their presence to the circle Lord Edward gathered at Kildare Lodge. A green velvet stock or a silk robe with a shamrock were the emblems of national feeling, and as Charles Teeling wrote, the enthusiasm of the females exceeded the ardour of the men.