He was very cheerful as he lay in his bed making plans for our future. I know now that he knew what his fate was to be. But he never gave us word or sign that his sentence had been pronounced an hour before we were admitted to him. He gave my mother a message to Sheehy Skeffington asking him to get some of his (Papa's) songs published and to give the proceeds to my mother. It nearly broke my mother's heart to think that she could not tell him that his good friend and comrade had already been murdered by the British. I tried to tell him some things. I told him that the papers had it that Captain Mellowes was still out with his men in the Galway hills. I told him that Laurence Ginnell was fighting for the men in the House of Commons.
"Good man, Larry," he said. "He can always be depended upon."
He was very proud of his men.
"It was a good, clean fight," he said. "The cause cannot die now. The fight will put an end to recruiting. Irishmen now realize the absurdity of fighting for the freedom of another country while their own is still enslaved."
He praised the brave women and girls who had helped in the fight.
"No one can ever say enough to honor or praise them," he said. I mentioned the number of young boys who had been in the fight.
"Rory, you know, was only released on Sunday last along with the other boys of sixteen or under."
"So Rory was in prison," said my father. "How long?"
"Eight days," I answered.
"He fought for his country, and has been imprisoned for his country, and he's not sixteen. He has had a great start in life. Hasn't he, Nora?" he said.