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. Mrs. Coleman (Mother Mary de Chantal) was born amid the troubles that preceded ’98. “Her father, a gentleman farmer in Meath or Louth, ... was suspected of disaffection. On the very night his little daughter was to come into the world, the house was surrounded by a troop of armed men, whose heavy footsteps, presently heard on the stairs, gave the alarm to the inmates, who hurried away ‘the poor mistress’ under cover of the darkness to an uninhabited hut sometimes used by the herd. She gave up all for lost, and resigned herself to die, knowing well that no human assistance awaited her in the hour of her utmost need. Her piety was sincere, her faith was strong, and she had an ardent devotion to the Blessed Virgin. As her husband forced open the door and led her into the dark hut, she heard a voice distinctly say: ‘Do not fear, Mary, I will protect you and your child’; while at the same time a bright light filled the place. Then and there under its influence the child was born.” So, too, we may say, in the darkness of Ireland’s Agony in ’Ninety-Eight, illumined miraculously by the Faith and Hope and Charity of Ireland’s womanhood, there was born the great Congregation to which that little child was destined to belong. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SARAH CURRAN AND ANNE DEVLIN ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sarah Curran and Anne Devlin “The rose left her cheek, the brave eyes grew dim, She drained the bitter cup of sorrow to the brim— When that sad September noon saw your young heart low, And the dawn of Ireland shrouded in a bleak cloud of woe. “I had died for you gladly, my courage never quailed, When their swords pierced my bosom, their wild threats assailed; Nor did their prison torture win from me a single tear— _That_ memory of grief and pain would die if you were here.” —Ethna Carbery: _Anne Devlin’s Lament for Emmet_.