plans of the United Irishmen. Mr. Gerald Campbell describes her as “just
Lord Edward dressed in woman’s clothes. She was to the full as patriotic
as her brother, perhaps even more so—for she loved the cause because he
loved it, whom she loved above all things: she was possessed like him of
a strong sense of humour, so that she shared with him the family epithet
‘comical,’ she had a warm, loving susceptible Irish heart, and, in
short, both in character and aims, was as like him as possible.”
She spent much time with Lord Edward and Pamela at Kildare Lodge, and
her Journal, from which Mr. Campbell has published some extracts, gives
us vivid glimpses of the habitués of that hospitable home. Among these,
Arthur O’Connor figures prominently, and one cannot help feeling that
Lady Lucy had a romantic interest in that most aristocratic of all
“democrats.” The winter days were devoted to long walks on the Curragh,
or if the weather prevented out-door excursions, to sticking
pocket-books with emblems, or hearing Arthur O’Connor read “Julius
Cæsar,” or Volney’s “Ruins”; the winter evenings were delightfully
divided between dancing and singing patriotic songs. Once she records “a
large patriotic dinner,” at which were present, “Dr. MacNevin, Connolly,
Mr. Hughes (a Northern, and Edward says a very sensible man), a Mr.
Jackson, an iron manufacturer, a Mr. Bond, a great merchant, one of the
handsomest and most delightful men to all appearance that ever was, and
a Presbyterian clergyman, called Barber, a venerable old man who had
been forced by persecution to fly his Diocese where he had lived 30
years.”
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.
Some letters of Lady Lucy published by Mr. Campbell will give a more
vivid idea of her ardent and impulsive nature than any elaborate
description of her. The first is addressed to “The Irish Nation,” and
the occasion seems to have been the threatening advent of the Union:
“Irishmen, Countrymen, it is Edward Fitzgerald’s sister who
addresses you: it is a woman, but that woman is his sister: she
would therefore die for you as he did. I don’t mean to remind
you of what he did for you. ’Twas no more than his duty. Without
ambition he resigned every blessing this world could afford, to
be of use to you, his countrymen whom he loved better than
himself, but in this he did no more than his _duty_; he was _a
Paddy and no more_; he desired no other title than this. He
never deserted you—will you desert yourselves? This was his only
ambition, and will you ever forget yourselves? Will _you_ forget
this title, which it is still in your power to ennoble? Will you
disgrace it? Will you make it the scoff of your triumphant
Enemies, while ’tis in your power to raise it beyond all other
glory to immortality? Yes, this is the moment, the precious
moment which must either stamp with Infamy the name of Irishmen
and denote you for ever wretched, enslaved to the power of
England, or raise the Paddies to the consequence which they
deserve and which England shall no longer withhold, to
_happiness_, _freedom_, _glory_. These are but names as yet to
you, my Countrymen. As yet you are strangers to the _reality_
with the power in your hands to realise them. One noble
struggle, and you will gain, you will enjoy them for ever.—Your
devoted Country-woman—L. F.”
A second to Lady Bute, deals largely with Moore’s “Life of Lord Edward”:
“Did you read Mr. Moore’s Memoir of my loved Edward? If you did,
you will have thought it strange perhaps to see it dedicated to
Mrs. Beauclerck.[92] It was all _her_ plan, arranged with Mr.
Moore. They let me know of it when partly completed in case I
had anything to communicate. Dear Lady Bute, _you_ who know the
depth of affection with which his memory is engraven on my
heart! you can best judge how such a message must have struck
me. I returned for answer I had nothing to say. A thousand
motives made this intended publication by Mr. Moore appear to me
utterly improper. I will own to you that the one which
displeased me was the trifling ... with his memory, which so
long has lain enshrined and sacred in the grateful breasts of
the Irish people! to have it brought out from thence and his
glorious name made the subject of English investigation—to serve
Party purposes—for when were Englishmen ever just judges of
Irish character?... Mr. Moore was in complete ignorance of my
Brother’s views, and of his opinions, plans, and actions
_beyond_ what the newspapers of the day could furnish him with;
and thus the delineation of his character as enlightened
Statesman and Heroic Patriot is entirely _missing_ in the
publication....
Footnote 92:
Mrs. Beauclerck was Lord Edward’s half-sister, “Mimi” (Emily
Charlotte) Ogilvie, daughter of the Duchess of Leinster and
Mr. Ogilvie.
“There _are_ men in Ireland, men only Irish, to whom it belonged
to tell his story if ever Ireland should be what my Brother
meant it to be.... At the time when he was self-elected to free
his country or die for Her, he met a soul, ‘twin to his own,’
because each breathed and loved alike and their object Ireland!
Ireland, where each had first drawn breath—Ireland more great in
her misfortunes, in her wrongs than the most favoured Country of
the Earth,—Ireland, so true to God, to the early unchanged faith
of the Gospel,—Ireland whom neither falsehood could entice nor
interest bribe to apostacy, suffering through successive ages
from the oppression of a Nation inferior to Herself in all but
in one of the adventitious circumstances of fortune. It was the
heart that felt all this as he himself did, and would have
preferred death with the chance of redeeming these wrongs to a
life of ease and security without that hope—it was that person
who could have told how Edward once loved.”
JULIA SHEARES
Julia Sheares was another devoted “Sister of ’Ninety-Eight.” All that
she was to her brothers is best told by the letter which John addressed
to her from his prison cell on the eve of his trial:
“The troublesome scene of life, my ever dear Julia, is nearly
closed, and the hand that now traces these lines will, in a day
or two, be no longer capable of communicating, to a beloved and
affectionate family, the sentiments of his heart. A painful task
yet awaits me—I do not allude to my trial, nor to my execution.
These, were it not for the consciousness I feel of the misery
you will all suffer on my account, would be trivial in
comparison with the pain I endure at addressing you for the last
time. You have been kind to me, Julia, beyond example. Your
solicitude for my welfare has been unremitting; nor did it leave
you a moment’s happiness, as a wayward fate seems from the
earliest moment of my life to have presided over my days. I will
not now recapitulate the instances of a perverse destiny that
seems to have marked me out as the instrument of destruction to
all I loved.
“Robert and Christopher! I shall shortly join you, and learn for
what wise purpose heaven thought fit to select me as your
destroyer.[93] My mother, too! O God! my tender, my revered
mother! I see her torn locks—her broken heart—her corpse!
Heavenly Author of the universe, what have I done to deserve
this misery?
Footnote 93:
Mrs. Smith (Miss Maria Steele) told Dr. Madden that she had
often heard John Sheares say with great emotion “that he had
caused the death of two of his brothers—Robert, who was
drowned in saving him when a boy, and Christopher, who, being
reluctant to go to the West Indies, he persuaded to go there,
“only to perish of yellow fever.”
“I must forbear these thoughts as much as possible or I must
forbear to write. My time comes on the day after to-morrow, and
the event is unequivocal. You must summon up all the resolution
of your soul, my dear, dear Julia. If there be a chance of
snatching my afflicted mother from the grave, that chance must
arise from your exertions. My darling Sally,[94] too will aid
you; she will for a while suspend her joy at the restoration of
her husband to her arms—for of his escape I have no more doubt
than I have of my own conviction and its consequences. All, all
of you forget your individual griefs and joys, and unite to save
that best of parents from the grave. Stand between her and
despair. If she will speak of me, soothe her with every
assurance calculated to carry conviction to her heart. Tell her
that my death, though nominally ignominious, should not light up
a blush in her face; that she knew me incapable of a
dishonourable action or thought; that I died in full possession
of the esteem of all those who knew me intimately; that justice
will yet be done to my memory, and my fate be mentioned rather
with pride than shame by my friends and relations. Yes, my dear
sister, if I did not expect the arrival of this justice to my
memory, I should be indeed afflicted at the nominal ignominy of
my death, lest it may injure your welfare and wound the feelings
of my family. But, above all things, tell her that at my own
request I was attended in my latest moments by that excellent
and pious man, Dr. Dobbin, and that my last prayer was offered
up for her. While I feared for Harry’s life, hell itself could
have no tortures for the guilty beyond what I endured.
Footnote 94:
Sarah, the wife of Henry Sheares. When John wrote he had no
suspicion that his brother’s fate was sealed as well as his
own.
“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....
Footnote 95:
His daughter.
“Good night, Julia; I am going to rest with a heart, thank God,
free from the consciousness of intentional offence, and from any
wish tainted with personal resentment. I seek my bed with
pleasure, because in it I often fancy myself in the full
possession of that domestic happiness which I always regarded as
the first of human enjoyments. Pray heaven I dream of you all
night....
“Adieu, Julia, my light is just out; the approach of darkness is
like that of death, since both alike require I should say
farewell for ever. Oh, my dear family, farewell for ever!”
MISS BYRNE
Miles Byrne in his _Memoirs_ makes frequent mention of a brave sister of
his, and incidentally throws much light on the way the women of Wexford
helped their men during these soul-testing times. When the atrocities of
the Orange magistrates and the Ancient Britons had forced the men to the
hills, the women undertook to act as intelligence officers and keep them
informed of the progress of the preparations for the Rising. Miss Byrne
was one of the most active of these fearless girls. On one occasion
Miles returned to his mother’s house and found his sister alone in it,
for their mother had gone to Gorey to try and get their step-brother
Hugh, out of prison. “We arrived a little before daybreak. I approached
the house with great precaution (lest there should be soldiers placed
there), and I must add overwhelmed with anxiety, fearing to learn
everything for the worst. However, finding all silent, I went at once
and knocked. My poor sister came to the window, trembling and alarmed,
until she saw it was I.... Before I had time to answer any questions my
sister told me she hoped to have good news to tell me in the morning;
that it was certain the people were rising in every direction, and had
already defeated the troops. She could not then give me the details, but
in an hour or two she was sure to be able to satisfy me in every
particular.”
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.
“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.”
MISS TEELING
Charles Teeling in his “Personal Narrative” pays tribute to “the heroic
courage” of one of his own sisters. “She was my junior”—he was only in
his eighteenth year himself—“and with the gentlest possessed the noblest
soul; she has been the solace of her family in all subsequent
afflictions, and seemed to have been given as a blessing by Heaven, to
counterpoise the ills we were doomed to suffer.” When the first letters
“from home” were delivered to the poor prisoners in Kilmainham he
records the sensation he experienced on getting one from his father
“which also bore the signature of the sister whom I loved.”
MISS HAZLETT
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.”
* * * * *
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.
“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:
The Teelings conspicuously. Her own father, Mr. Walsh, of the
Naul, though like Mr. Teeling he had taken no part in the
Rising, was ruined by the pillaging and burning tactics of the
Orangemen and the Yeomanry.
“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.”