Rebel Sisters by Marita Conlon-Mckenna Read Free Book Online Page A

annoyance, Mother deemed her too young to attend the Abbey and its programme of what she considered Irish nationalist-type plays.
    Grace decided to attend the college’s evening classes in sculpture. It was an area she knew little about: she loved sculptures but had no experience with working in clay and plaster and was curious to discover the process from model to mould to bronze or from stone to statue.
    The students who attended the evening classes often worked and used the opportunity to study after their day’s labours. She was full of admiration for them. The age group was generally older and the students more serious.
    â€˜Tonight we all make a horse,’ announced their teacher, sculptor Oliver Sheppard. ‘Take your clay in your hands and begin to model.’
    â€˜Here, better put this on,’ advised the student sitting next to Grace, passing her an apron. ‘You don’t want to destroy your clothes.’
    Grace was about to protest that she was fine, but already she could see the table was spattered with clay, so she pulled on the protective apron and tied it.
    She watched enviously as the young man with the floppy dark hair beside her worked easily and soon had a perfect horse standing on the table in front of him. Its ears, head, fetlocks, back were all perfect, she thought, as she clumsily tried to shape her own strange equine creature.
    â€˜Too small, and the clay is difficult to work with,’ advised her neighbour. She tried to make it bigger. ‘And now too big, and those long legs will fall off.’
    Aware of his scrutiny, she took a deep breath and concentrated on letting her fingers work as finally a small, stocky horse took shape.
    â€˜Your beautiful horse is a racehorse and mine, I suppose, is a carthorse,’ she suggested.
    They both burst out laughing, and the young man politely introduced himself as Willie Pearse.
    â€˜My father is a stonemason so I usually work with marble and stone,’ he explained, ‘but it’s tempting to try bronze and using the foundry. There is much to learn from someone like Mr Sheppard.’
    Willie was very involved with the Gaelic League and he taught Gaelic language classes in the art school which were becoming very popular. Grace and her friends immediately signed up to attend them. Grace found it difficult to learn this new language, which they had never studied in school, but over time she managed to learn new words and sentences which she tried to use. Mr Willis himself sometimes joined them.
    She far preferred going to the ceili dances that Willie Pearse and his friends helped to organize. They were lively affairs, with everyone joining in and being swung around the room to traditional fiddle music. Mother and Father objected at first, saying she was too young to attend college socials and the famous Nine Arts Ball, but thankfully her brothers and sisters interfered on her behalf and they relented, giving her permission to go along with the other young ladies in her class.
    Grace was happier than she had ever been before, studying and drawing during the day and in the evening attending a constant round of concerts, exhibitions, lectures and dances with Hilda and Florence and her friends.
    Returning for her second year the following September, Grace felt more confident and assured as she re-entered the milieu where she felt most comfortable and at ease. But like all the other students she was shocked and saddened to discover that the head of the art school, Mr Willis, had died only a few days previously. A born teacher, he had transformed the college and would be sorely missed at their ceilis and classes. Old Mr Luke, appointed to take over his position, was by all accounts set in the old traditional ways of teaching art. However, both students and lecturers were determined that the new spirit of Gaelic culture that Mr Willis had introduced would never disappear from Dublin’s Metropolitan School of