SINN FEIN ROMANCE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 1566, 20 June 1916, Page 3

SINN FEIN ROMANCE.

MARRIED BEFORE EXECUTION. THE FLUX NET FAMILY. The complicity of the family of Count George Noble Plunkett in the Sinn Fein rising in Ireland is perhaps the sensation of a rather sensational episode of Irish history, writes (he Wellington Post’s London correspondent. Joseph Plunked, the eldest son, was a wellknown chief of the rebellion, and signed the proclamation of the Irish republic with seven other leading' conspirators. A young, rather de-licate-looking and aesthetic' dreamer, he was up to the neck in the plot, and his death, should he be taken alive, was a foregone conclusion. Professor Mae Neill having now been taken, tic whole of the signatories of the document have been accounted for. Connolly is still in hospital and has not yet hern tried.

Joseph Plunkett seems to have been captured when the garrison of llie Post Oftice surrendered, and lie was tried and sentenced by courtmartial on the second day of the clearing up. The following morning tin* sentence was carried out by a living parly of soldiers. At midnight before his execution, Joseph Plunk'df was married in prison lo his fiancee, Miss Grace Gifford, of Dublin, a handsome young arfisl, and the daughter of a Dublin solicitor. On (he previous afternoon Miss Gifford went into a jeweller’s shop in Ora ft on-street to purchase a ring. She was evidently much affected, and on the jeweller enquiring what was wrong, she a-’mined she was to lie married to the condemned rebel. She went jo the eel! at midnight with a priest, and was there married to her lover. Husband and wife were allowed to remain together for a few hours, and then he was led out into the barrack yard and shot. Mrs Plunkett’s sister was married some time ago to Thomas M’Donagh, another of the .rebels who have paid the penally. M’Donagh, hy the way, was a school acquaintance of Chaplain-Capl. P. Do re (hilq parish priest of Foxton), of the Auckland Mounted Lilies, who is now in London, recovering from a severe l wound received in Gallipoli. M’Donagh was, in fact, Father Dove’s dormitory prefect, and they accordingly know a good deal of each other. Immediately following the trial of young i’lnnkeil it was announced that Fount Phinkell himself and his wife had been arrested. This caused another sensation, for they were very well known in literary, arlisfic, and social circles in Dublin. Count Plunkett, whose title is a papal one, was director of the National 'Museum of Science and Art at Dublin, and was a distinguished scholar ami art connoisenr. Delias written and lectured much on Botticelli. I first met him in London some years ago at the consecration of the Roman Catholic Cathedral at Westminster. He was a member of the Royal Societies Chib and a keen enthusiast on Irish art and history. I knew him as a strong Home Ruler, but not as a Sinn Feiner, a recent development.

Mrs Plunkett was a lady of considerable means, well-known in Dublin society, and had given large sums in charity in and around the eitv.