Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/140

 112 NOTES AND QUERIES. [io» s. iv. AUG. 5,1905. incapable of " gloating with satisfaction at seeing her father hung from a tree in his own orchard." I may add, on the testimony of the late Sir John Grey, that the Rev. D'Arcy Sin- had a fixed belief that all Irish malcontents were favourable to assassination, even O'Con- nell and the Repealers (Fitzpatrick'a 'Sham Squire,' pp. 273-6). Also J. D. S. was not much judge of character, for he has left on record his opinion that Jemmy O'Brien, the in- former and murderer, was a "calumniated, honest, brave man " (Madden's' United Irish- men,' vol. iii. p. 315). To return to my original quest (9th S. iii. 349), for MR. MAcDoNAGH's book does not clear up the mystery of the sealed box once in Dublin Castle, according to Mr. O'Harte (not O'Hara), Sir Bernard Burke, and Dr. T. A. Emmet. The "papers of 1803. most secret and confidential," used by MR. MACDONAGH to supplement the Hardwicke MSS., were not in a box, but in three volumes in the Home Office. Perhaps MR. MACDONAGU can un- ravel this mystery, and add to the great services he has already rendered to Irish history. FRANCESCA. MR. MACDONAGH calls attention at 10th S. iii. 470 to Major Sirr's graphic and dramatic report to the Chief Secretary of the incidents of his visit to Curran's house to arrest Miss Curran, which shows Major Sirr was deeply moved by the most painful nature of the scene. Perhaps MR. MACDOXAOH will kindly supply a copy of the report. It is of interest, because the letter from the Right Hon. W. Wickham, addressed to Major Sirr, of which I furnished a copy, is evidently the reply ; and Major Sirr's report is fresh evidence, disposing of the suggestion of truculence, which popular authors have alleged without foundation. Mr. Wickham's letter should also prove the veracity of the Rev. Dr. Sirr, who explicitly refers to the tenderness shown to Miss Curran. MR. MACDONAGH speaks of his book as containing the report, but I fancy he will find he is mistaken. H. SIRR. The object of my communication at 10th S. iii. 470 was to show that the correspondence between Robert Emmet and Sarah Curran, which is said to have been seized by Major Sirr, find which is described by the Rev. J. D'Arcy Sirr (the major's son) to have been of so atrocious a character that, in mercy to the feelings of the girl's family, it was destroyed by the authorities, never, in fact, existed. The letters that passed between the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and the Home Secretary at the time, to be found in my book 'The> Viceroy's Post-Bag,' make it clear that the* only correspondence between Robert Emmet- ana Sarah Curran that fell into the hands of the authorities consisted of the letters found on Emmet when he was apprehended and the? letters that passed surreptitiously between the lovers while Emmet lay in Kilmainham Jail awaiting trial, which are also fully set out in ' The Viceroy's Post-Bag.' The 'Post-Bag' contains the most interest- ing report which Major Sirr sent to Dublin Castle on his visit early one morning to the Priory, Kilmainharn, the residence of John Philpot Curran, to arrest Sarah Curran and seize her papers (the authorities having dis- covered the night before, for the first time, that she was Emmet's mysterious corre- spondent), in which he states that during the- confusion caused by the hysterics of Sarah Curran, into which she was thrown by his sudden appearance in her bedroom, her brother and sister succeeded in burning, in the breakfast - room downstairs, whatever compromising documents were in the house, and that therefore no papers fell into his. hands. Neither in the Hardwicke papers nor in the Home Office papers, upon both of which. ' The Viceroy's Post-Bag' is based, is there to- be found a single word in reference to the- cartloads of correspondence between Robert- Emmet and Sarah Curran which, according to the Rev. J. D'Arcy Sirr, were seized by Major Sirr and destroyed. It is unusual, by the way, to destroy papers seized by order of the Government. Surely, therefore, I am justified in assuming that no such corre- spondence ever existed, and that the state- ment of the Rev. J. D'Arcy Sirr that Sarah- Curran, in this imaginary correspondence, gloated over the prospect of seeing her father hanged from a tree in his own garden by the revolutionaries, is a cruel aspersion on the- unhappy girl's memory. MICHAEL MACDONAGH. I certainly do not think that Maxwell's ' History of the Irish Rebellion' can be regarded as a work of much authority, for it is a compilation of scissors and paste, and perhaps the best portion of the matter is comprised in the notes. These are drawn, from the works of Madden, Sir Richard Musgrave, and Sir Jonah Barrington, and it is the only work I ever saw in which the illustrations are derived from the appended notes. Yet it must be admitted that some of Cruikshank's best etchings may be found in the book, published in 1845, and it is one of