"I care not if my life has only the span of a night and a day if my deeds be spoken of by the men of Ireland!"
It was in this spirit of devotion to Ireland that the Fianna boys were drilled. The house in Leinster Road was always running over with them, some as young as ten years. You would find them studying hard or, just as likely, sliding down the fine old banisters. Madam never went anywhere that they did not follow as a bodyguard. They loved her and trusted her, a high compliment, since I have always found that boys are keen judges of sincerity. If her work had been either pose or mere hysterical enthusiasm, as some English "friends" in Dublin have sought to make the world believe, these boys would have discovered it quickly enough. As it was, they remained her friends, and two of the younger men, executed after Easter Week, were volunteer officers who received their first training under Madam in the Fianna.
The countess was one of the best shots in Ireland, and taught the boys how to shoot. After the rising, when we all had surrendered, there still was one house from which constant and effective firing went on for three days. At last a considerable force of British took it by storm. Imagine the surprise of the officer in command when he found that its only occupants were three boys, all under sixteen!
"Who taught you to shoot like that?" he asked them.
"The Countess Markievicz," came the answer.
"And these great lumps of mine," exclaimed the officer in disgust, "are drilled twice a day and don't yet know their left foot from their right!"
Madam also took real interest in the personal problems of her boys. While I was staying with her at Christmas, she was teaching a boy to sing. He was slowly growing blind, and nothing could be done to save his sight; but she determined that he should have a livelihood, and spent hours of her crowded days in teaching him the words and music of all the best patriotic songs and ballads. If she heard that any of the boys were sick, she would have them brought over to Surrey House where she herself could nurse and cheer them. Between times she would rouse their love of country to a desire to study its history.
When I told Madam I could pass as a boy, even if it came to wrestling or whistling, she tried me out by putting me into a boy's suit, a Fianna uniform. She placed me under the care of one of her boys to whom she explained I was a girl, but that, since it might be necessary some day to disguise me as a boy, she wanted to find whether I could escape detection. I was supposed to be one of the Glasgow Fianna. We went out, joined the other Fianna, and walked about the streets whistling rebel tunes. Whenever we passed a British soldier we made him take to the gutter, telling him the streets of Dublin were no place "for the likes of him."