Grace was more than the romantic image portrayed by the song. She helped her widowed sister Muriel (wife of Tomás MacDonagh) after their husbands were executed - Muriel was left with two young children, three-year-old Donagh, the future poet, and one-year-old Barbara - and when Donagh broke his back and became very ill, Grace was a staunch help.

Then when Muriel had a heart attack while swimming the next year, Grace and her sister Nellie (who had been 'out' in the College of Surgeons as a sergeant in the Citizen Army in 1916) took care of the children until family disputes had them snatched from them.

And when Grace discovered the children again some years later, she made sure that they were sent to good schools, and did her best to keep loving contact with them.

She also had interesting literary and artistic contacts - search in various online indices for 'Grace Gifford' and 'Grace Plunkett' and she comes up in surprising contexts.