easy nymph. It is not my intention to idealise any of the men who were
concerned in this rebellion. Their country will, some few years hence,
do that as adequately as she has done it for those who went before them.

Those of the leaders whom I knew were not great men, nor brilliant--that
is they were more scholars than thinkers, and more thinkers than men of
action; and I believe that in no capacity could they have attained to
what is called eminence, nor do I consider they coveted any such public
distinction as is noted in that word.

But in my definition they were good men--men, that is, who willed no
evil, and whose movements of body or brain were unselfish and healthy.
No person living is the worse off for having known Thomas MacDonagh, and
I, at least, have never heard MacDonagh speak unkindly or even harshly
of anything that lived. It has been said of him that his lyrics were
epical; in a measure it is true, and it is true in the same measure that
his death was epical. He was the first of the leaders who was tried and
shot. It was not easy for him to die leaving behind two young children
and a young wife, and the thought that his last moment must have been
tormented by their memory is very painful. We are all fatalists when we
strike against power, and I hope he put care from him as the soldiers
marched him out.

The O'Rahilly also I knew, but not intimately, and I can only speak of a
good humour, a courtesy, and an energy that never failed. He was a man
of unceasing ideas and unceasing speech, and laughter accompanied every
sound made by his lips.

Plunkett and Pearse I knew also, but not intimately. Young Plunkett, as
he was always called, would never strike one as a militant person. He,