Ireland -- History -- Rebellion of 1798; Women -- Ireland -- Biography
Poor Tennant’s romance had been of a less happy character than his
friend’s. In the early days of the _United Irishmen_ he had become
devotedly attached to the beautiful Miss Hazlett, the story of whose
early death has been already narrated in the chapter on the Sisters of
’Ninety-Eight. Writing of her thirty years after, Charles Teeling feels
the tears starting to his eyes at the memory of the “youth, innocence,
beauty” consigned thus untimely to the tomb.... Never shall I forget the
impression which this mournful event [_i.e._ the death of Miss Hazlett]
caused in the circle of our little commonwealth. The lovely subject of
our distress had been endeared to us all, not less by the sweetness of
her disposition than the fascinating powers of a cultivated mind. Her
brother’s happiness was the object of her most anxious concern, but the
benevolent feelings of her heart extended to every soul in distress.”
Charles Teeling, with a delicate reticence which is characteristic, has
merely hinted at his own romance, and said nothing of his brother’s. The
object of Charles’s devotion was Miss Catherine Carolan, daughter of Dr.
James Carolan, of Carrickmacross. The glimpses we get of the Carolans
are interesting, and make us long to know more of them. The celebrated
harper, Arthur O’Neill, tells us of a visit he paid to Dr. Carolan’s
hospitable house in Carrickmacross, when he was on his bardic rounds;
and Mr. Denis Carolan Rushe, the doctor’s descendant, has in his
possession a copy of a religious rule of life, drawn up for her own
observance by another daughter of the Doctor’s, a sister of Catherine’s.
These two facts indicate a household where all the best characteristics
of true Irish Catholic gentlefolk—their hospitality, their love for, and
generous patronage of art, their deep sense of religion—were carefully
cultivated.
Of Bartle Teeling’s devotion to Lady Lucy Fitzgerald, and of the ring
she gave him, we have already spoken elsewhere.
Mary Anne McCracken’s unreturned love for Thomas Russell is among the
most pathetic romances of ’Ninety-Eight. He may have loved another
better; but it is her name we join with his, when we stand in
Downpatrick, beside the tomb she made for him; and perhaps it is because
her love has written itself in them that the words she has chosen for
the inscription move us so strangely, in their austere simplicity:
“The Grave of Russell.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOME OBSCURE HEROINES OF ’NINETY-EIGHT
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some Obscure Heroines of ’Ninety-Eight
“All Ulster over, the weemen cried
For the stanin’ crops in the lan’.
Many a sweetheart an’ many a bride
Wud liefer ha’ gone till where _he_ died,
An’ murned her lone by her man.”—FLORENCE WILSON.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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