The names recalled in this article are not chosen as the greatest in the history of the period, but because in the varied services they rendered, they are representative of the magnificent contribution made by the women of Ireland to the glorious struggle of 1798.
Countless numbers of women, the majority of whose names will forever remain unknown, fought, worked and died with the insurgent forces; after making victory possible and gave to defeat so magnificent a character that it has remained an inspiration for all time.
It is not possible to surpass Mathilda Tone in her devotion to and support for her husband during the difficult years leading up to the Rising of 1798. Theobald Wolfe Tone in his diary wrote:
"My wife especially, whose courage and whose zeal for my honour and interests were not in the least abated by all her past sufferings, supplicated me to let no consideration of her or our children, stand for a moment in the way of my engagement to our friends, and my duty to my country, adding that she would answer for our family, during my absence, and that the same Providence, which had so often as it were miraculously preserved us, would, she was confident, not desert us now."
When Tone’s son, William, had reached manhood, he wrote: "I was brought up by my surviving parent, in all the principles, and in all the feelings of my father." Mathilda Tone was faithful to the trust and, like so many other wives, the unsung heroines of Irish history, she stood by her husband in difficult times.
"When the tyrant’s hand was laid
Upon the true and brave,
In the tender pride of womenhood
They rose to help and save."
By 1798 the wearing of the colour green was forbidden by order of the English government, but this order was defied by the women, especially in Wexford. The women of Wexford had their petticoats, handkerchiefs, cap ribbons and all parts of their dress that exhibited a shade of green, torn off and were subjected to the most vile and indecent language by the Yeomen. Any women who encountered the government troops ran a most terrible risk. In a desperate encounter with a Hessian Captain, Anne Ford of Garrysackle, County Wexford, slew him with a mallet.
Peg Kavanagh was one of many women who conveyed despatches and food to Michael Dwyer and Joseph Hall in their hiding place in the Wicklow Mountains. Susan O’Toole, the blacksmith’s daughter of Annamore, carried ammunition and provisions to the insurgent chiefs for many a long year. Hall used to call Susan O’Toole his "moving magazine".
William Rooney has immortalised the memory of Mary Doyle a fearless Wexford insurgent.
"But a figure rose before us,
Twas a girl’s fragile frame
And among the fallen soldiers
There she walked with eyes aflame,
And her voice rang o’er the sea:
"Who so dares to die for Ireland
Let him come and follow me!"
Mary Doyle, the
heroine of New Ross, County Wexford, so often shouldered her musket and did sentry duty at the insurgent camp. The success of the Irish forces at New Ross was to a large extent due to her, who in one of the turns of the fight, when hesitation might have resulted in rout, leaped out in front of the insurgents, brandishing a scythe, with which she cut the cartouche (ammunition) belts of the fallen enemy, and threw their contents among the Wexfordmen to replenish their stock, calling on them to be resolute and follow.
Her magnificent courage undoubtedly won for them whatever success they attained. The intrepid woman, Mary Doyle, seeing the insurgents about to quit the scene of one of their conflicts and leave behind a gun they had brought with them, seated herself upon it and refused to move unless the gun was taken with them. The weary men were shamed into complying with her request.
It is said that she perished amid the flames, like so many other women, that consumed so much of the town of New Ross.
From the north also came the indomitable spirit of Mary Anne McCracken.
Much has been written of the heroic mothers and wives of our freedom fighters and much more remains to be written. But little is heard of their sisters, who like Mary Anne McCracken, sister of Henry Joy, stood by their brothers in their darkest hours.
Mary grew to womanhood with a passionate love of liberty and followed with enthusiastic interest the progress of the American War of Independence. She joined the United Irishmen and was swept into activism in the Movement of 1798 against English control of Ireland.
After the Rising in Antrim, Henry Joy McCracken and his companions were forced to withdraw to a hide-out in the hills. Mary insisted in finding him, and at last traced him to Brownhill with Jemmy Hope and some other insurgents.
After this their encounters grew more tragic. He was arrested in an escape bid to America and flung into Carrickfergus Jail. His faithful sister followed him and spoke words of comfort through the prison bars. When he was later transferred to Belfast she followed him there too. She was present at his trial, comforted him in his cell as he awaited execution and accompanied him to the scaffold.
Forty years after the execution of her brother, Mary Anne McCracken described her terrible ordeal on the afternoon of his execution:
"At 5pm he was ordered to the place of execution – the old market-house, the ground of which had been given to the town by his great-great-grandfather. I took his arm and we walked together to the place of execution (outside the house in Rosemary Street, Belfast where he was born) where I was told it was the generals orders I should leave him, which I peremptorily refused. Harry begged I would go. Clasping my hands round him I said I could bear anything but leaving him. Three times he kissed me and entreated I would go . . . I suffered to be led away . . . I was told afterwards that poor Harry stood where I left him at the place of execution and watched me until I was out of sight."
Just as she had seen the brother whom she had loved make the supreme sacrifice for liberty, so she had watched Thomas Russell, the man who she had secretly loved for many years, drawn into the governments’ net and pay the same price at Downpatrick Jail. And when the gallows had done their work it was she who committed his remains to the soil of Downpatrick to rest forever under the simple stone inscribed "The Grave of Russell".
Upon the grave of Mary Anne McCracken, near to which is buried her brother, Henry Joy, the stone describes her as "True till death".
Other heroines of ’98 include: Teresa Malone of Carlow, May Loftus and her daughter, Bridget, of Wicklow, Mrs Oliver Bond, Mrs Henry Sheares and Lady Pamela Fitzgerald.