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Show BETSY GREY. An Irish Heroine of '98. When Harry Monro, the brave and gentle Lisburn man too gentle and too ' honorable to be successful against re- forseless and .unscrupulous foes led his : little band of Xorthern United Irishman Irish-man to Windmill Hill, above the vil-' vil-' lage of Ballinahinch, County Down, he . was joined by many who had not been i members of the organization.' but who i nad boen driven to take the field by the ruthless barbarism of the "wreck- Iers" and the Yeos. M.ys the Irish Week- ly of Belfast, Ireland. But the major-j major-j Jty of the doomed Irish army had long been sworn into the ranks of the great organisation. Most of them were. rigid i Presbyterians. I ! Vmong the young and ardent Prot- j estaats who rallied to Munro at the I outset were two men who were biund I together by the closet ties of friend-1 I J hhip. George Grey and WillUm Boal. I j Grey was the son of a w ealthv Down I farmer, whose only other childv.was I lhe Jieroevrh.ose name Is remembered J i and wfiose story is told by tho jioas-ants jioas-ants of her native county today with as much pride and reverenoe as the French feel in the memory o; their own immortal heroine. Xo history ol j Ireland can be looked upoji us complete which- does not include tin.' tal-j of the bravery and sacrifices and s.xd fate of Betsy Grey. The Down farmer's daughter was eighteen when the "Rising" took place. All tre contemporary records agree with the traditions of tlio peasantry in describing her as beautiful, accomplished, accom-plished, warm hearteJ and chaiitable. That she was brave as tvr woman was. and true as tempered steel, the terrible events of her la.st days- proved full well. Long before the call to arms her sympathy with the popular cause had endeared her to the tortured tor-tured and persecuted - peasants of the countryside. Her brave young brother was. as I have said, .an active leading lead-ing member of the local United Irirn-men. Irirn-men. and she was the bethrothed bride of his bosom friend and fellow-patriot, William Boal. One evening: the word came , to the quiet homestead at Granshaw that "the day" had arrived at last. Grey and Boal at once set out for Saintfield. , The heroine pleaded for permission to accompany them, but her brother sternly forbade her. However, she was not to be coerced into inaction, and when the peasant soldiers fought and struggled against invincible odds at Ballinahinch, foremost in the charge was Betsy Grey, mounted on a gallant steed, and wielding in that deadly strife with the skill and resolution reso-lution of a veteran soldier, the steel blade that had been forged for deferent work by Saxon artificers. The rebels were beaten: their defeat de-feat became a rout; and Betsy Gre3 her lover and her brother were forced to fly. On the road from he battlefield battle-field to Hillsborough the girl thrust her sword into the thatched roof of a wayside way-side cabin. A little further on the fugitives fu-gitives were overtaken by a small troop of cavalry. The brutes killed the two young men, and then turned on the defenceless girl. One demon cut off her hand with a single blow of Ills sword: another, more merciful, sent a bullet to her brain. This is an episode of Irish history which is little known outside th district dis-trict in which Betsy Grey lived and fought and died. But in Down the peasants will ever cherish the memory of her valor and her devotion. The three graves wherein were placed the mangled bodies of the heroine, hero-ine, her lover and her brother lie in a field off the public road near Hills borough, w'aither they were rever- . ently conveyed by some of the survivors survi-vors of the battle. A generous admirer ' of the patriots erected a modest monu- merit over the spot. A few years ago ', a band of ruffian1' stole thither in the . silence of the night and broke that humble memorial to the three young , martyrs who died for Ireland. |
