The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1892-08-06
MISS MAIJDE CONNIE.

MISS MAuDE CONNIE.
Picturesque Advocate Of Home Rule Born
Near the Gap of Dunloe
Miss Maud Come, q beautiful Irish
Home Ruler, is now making q tour OF
France. Her purpose is topour into the
ear Of France recital of Ireland
wrongs. She has made beginning with
the French, and she means to 60 through
every country on the Continent. She is
an accomplished linqnist She is young
and fervidly earnest and her views on
the Irish question are so strong and
thorough that they have won for her a
high place in the favor of the Irish Ma
tionalists.
The picturesque advocate of the Irish
cause is the daughter of an officer in the
British army, who is now dead. Her
father belonged to an old Irish family,
and he was known, in quiet way, to be
in sympathy with Irish aspirations for
autonomy. Miss Come was born in
| 1860 she is now only twenty six
years old-near the Gap of Dunloe.
Under the influence of the lovely
scenery in which her girlhood passed
Miss Come became passionately at
tached to Ireland, She was fond of lis
tening to the stories of the peasantry
about daring rebels who, in struggle
after struggle against the oppressor, we're
often forced to seek shelter in the fast
nesses of the Kerry mountains. There
was not an outlaws hiding place within
miles that she did not know, and all these
she regarded as sacred spots.
She was sent to high school in Eng:
land when she was IN her tenth year.
There she received a thorough education.
It was during visit to Ireland in 1890,
on one of her vacations, that she wit
messed an incident which caused her to
take the course she is now following.
! The newspaper accounts of Champaign
Incidents in rural districts in Ireland
during the fierce fighting days of the
Land League movement, before it's
power became recognized as factor in
British polit cs, contained of necessity
but little of the details of numerous
tragic scenes.
Within easy reach Of the Come House
is the beautiful region of Glengarriff.
Here on little farm, close to the shore
of Bantry Bay, lived Michael McGrath,
his wife, sister and four children in 1880.
The lord of the soil, Lord Bantry, wanted
cGrath's little patch to let to higher
bidder. The rent was FAB. To get rid
of McGrath Lord Bantry raised the rent
to 9105. McGrath could not pay and
the result was his eviction.
McGrath had built the dwelling house
himself. Parnell's new watchword had
spread through Ireland-"Keep firm
grip on your homesteads." McGrath
barricaded the doors and made brave
effort to put in practice Parnell's advice.
He stood in siege for five days, throwing
boiling water on the evicting force when
ever 1t approached the. house. On the
sixth day his supplies gave out and he
was forced by famine to capitulate.
But the struggle was not vet over.
McGrath went back to his farm. For
this he was scot to Jail. Then his wife
took possession and she, too, was SEN
fenced to imprisonment. Next his sister
and his eldest daughter, for returning to
the old homestead we're put in prison
Three times was this Representatives,
times the four McGraths we're jncarcer-
ated. At length Lord Bantry levelled
! the McGrath home.
McGrath was not to be beaten. BE
was half farmer and half fisherman. he
owned a fsEing-boat, which his neigh.
bors helped him to bring from the Ban
try Bay to the roadside near the spot
where his home had been. The boat was
turned bottom up, the sails we're used az
walls, and in this queer shelter McGratE
and his family "kept a firm grip of biz
holding" The Land League made 6
hero of McGrath, and gave him fnancla
support in his fight against Lord Ban
try. But poor McGrath, at the end of {
month after he made house of his boat
caught typhus fever and died. On
der the boat he was walked.
| It was when returning home from
Glengariff, on bleak October evening
l. in 1880, that Miss Maude Come came
across the wake. She saw McGrath'f
shivering family, and she saw his dead
face, wet with the rain that the vino
blew in. She learned the whole sac
story. The ghastliness Of the sight sick
ened the young girl-she was then only
fourteen and for several weeks she was
unable to leave her room. When she got
we'll she told her father that she had
made VOW to 'do something for ireland
yet..'
In 1886 Miss Comes father died--he1