Finally, it is not to be forgotten that to a woman of ’Ninety-Eight we are indebted for the first and, when all is said, perhaps, the best—the most authentic, and vivid and enlightening—story of the Rising which takes its name from that year. Charles Hamilton Teeling’s “Personal Narrative,” published in 1828, three years before Moore’s “Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald,” was dedicated by the author in words, as touching as they are noble, to “My wife and my children at whose request solely, it has been undertaken.... Respected and beloved, they are entitled to this mark of my remembrance, the only inheritance which the enemies of my country have left me to bequeathe.” We are allowed to catch, in the final page of the “Narrative,” a fleeting whisper of the romance of Charles H. Teeling and Catherine Carolan. We know that when the Insurrection was suppressed, young Charles Teeling, for true love’s sake, preferred to take anew the outlaw’s track on the mountain rather than to seek safety beyond the seas. We would fain know a little more of the girl who won her place side by side with “the Little Black Rose” in that most knightly and constant heart. We sense in her story one of the most tender, and sweet, and pure of the romances of ’Ninety-Eight. * * * * * I cannot but feel proud of the fact that, in writing this book, I have received the constant help of two of the grandsons of Charles Teeling, and Catherine Carolan: Charles T. Waters, Esq., B.L., and Charles H. Teeling, Esq., K.C. I wish I could acknowledge adequately, the obligations under which I have been put by their kindness in lending me the precious Teeling letters in their possession, and allowing me to use them as I desired. I have been privileged also to consult Mr. Waters constantly in many doubts and difficulties, to draw on his knowledge of the period, to use his library, and to call on his help in a thousand ways which it would be impossible to enumerate. I am also under an obligation to F. J. Bigger, Esq., Belfast, and Denis Carolan Rushe, Monaghan (another kinsman of Catherine Carolan) for their patient answering of my many questions concerning a period on which they are among the greatest of living authorities. To Mrs. Patrick Semple, LL.D., and her sister, Mrs. MacCarthy, I owe most warm thanks for their help in making extracts from books otherwise inaccessible to me, and to Professor Mrs. Macken for the trouble she took to procure certain books for me. I am also indebted to George Taaffe, Esq., of Smarmore Castle, Ardee, for information furnished me from the Taaffe family papers. HELENA CONCANNON. Lios na Mara, Salthill, Galway, _September, 1918_. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE MOTHERS OF ’NINETY-EIGHT ------------------------------------------------------------------------