It is to Mary McCracken that we owe the record of Russell’s most noble and touching “Speech from the Dock.” For she and her sister sent Hughes, a clerk of their brother John’s, to take notes in court of his address. And when the scaffold had done its work, and the gallant form lay mangled in its shadow, it was she who gave it, in the sacred soil of Downpatrick, the tomb, where with the “Three Wonder Working Saints of Erin,” Patrick, Brigid and Columcille, it awaits the Resurrection:

“The grave of Russell.”

Among the witnesses at the Russell trial there figured prominently a certain Patrick Lynch, and the mention of his name will serve as an introduction to our account of some of the various interests with which Mary McCracken filled her life. There still remained the long span of sixty-three years, before she was summoned to join the dear ones, to whose love the years of her youth had been dedicated. These sixty-three years were full of service to the country for which they had given their lives.

We have already mentioned that Edward Bunting was, for some forty years, an inmate of the McCracken household. It was under their roof that his celebrated collections of “Ancient Irish Music” were made, and all the McCrackens, but especially Mary, took the very keenest interest in the work. In 1802, Patrick Lynch, a native Irish speaker (who had given lessons in the language to Russell during the latter’s sojourn in Belfast in the early ’Nineties), was sent by Bunting on a tour to Connacht to collect airs. Of his progress he writes (during Bunting’s absence in London) detailed reports to John McCracken and “Miss Mary”—and it is clear from these letters that they were as much interested in the mission as Bunting himself.[[88]]

[88]. See “Annals of the Irish Harpers,” passim.

In 1803, John McCracken, Senior, died, and in 1814 Mrs. McCracken and her son, William, were both called to their reward. Shortly after their mother’s death the McCracken sisters gave up business and went to live with their brother Frank (who had remained a bachelor) in Donegal Street. The talent of Miss Margaret McCracken for housekeeping left Mary with a great many free hours on her hands—and these she devoted to active works of charity. The picture her grandniece has left us of her avocations is a true one for many years of her life. Her mornings were spent in out-of-door occupations—collecting for some charity, attending meetings, or visiting the poor in their homes, or the poor children in the Lancastrian School. Of the charitable institutions in which she took an active interest her grandniece mentions an industrial school for girls, established in the Famine year; the Belfast Ladies’ Clothing Society; the Destitute Sick Society; an anti-slavery society, and an association to prevent the employment of climbing-boys in chimney sweeping. In the afternoon she rested, and her evenings were largely devoted to letter-writing (for she had a large correspondence) or to that social intercourse in which, even to extreme old age, her genial spirit delighted.

Of her personality her grandniece gives some very attractive glimpses:

“In personal habits she was scrupulously clean, but indifferent about her dress, unwilling to spend money on it, and giving it little thought.

“She liked to read the newspapers, and always spent some time in doing so, but for other reading she had little leisure. When she did read a novel or hear one read, it was to others as great a treat as the book to hear her comments, how she entered into the story, and discussed the characters with such thorough enjoyment, such child-like feeling of reality. In her later years she used to relate anecdotes of family and local incidents, and reminiscences of her youthful days; these told in her lively and pleasant manner, were listened to with pleasure. Sometimes, but more rarely, and usually when she had only one hearer, she would speak of the graver and sadder events in which she had been concerned, but evidently with such sorrowful remembrance that a listener had not the heart to urge her to continue the theme, intensely interesting though it might be.