The fact that Ethna Carbery died young could have been due to a number of items, but one which springs to mind is Tuberculosis or as it was once known "Consumption." It was a curse at one time and many thousands succumbed to it before the days of the discovery of the drugs which controlled it. For those interested the poem "The Dying Girl" by Richard Dalton Williams (1821 - 1862) gives a poignant description of the death of one young person. Williams himself was born in Dublin, trained as a doctor and emigrated to the USA where he practised medicine in New Orleans where he died by a dreadful irony of Tuberculosis. Below is verse one of seven.

From a Munster vale they brought her,
From the pure and balmy air;
An Ormond peasant's daughter,
With blue eyes and golden hair -
They brought her to the city,
And she faded slowly there.
Consumption has no pity
For blue eyes and golden hair.

Regarding Ethna Carbery, MacManus himself wrote beautifully about her and what better way to end than in his words - "And thus, when she was elatedly congratulating herself that her work for Ireland was begun in earnest, she suddenly found the Noiseless One, leaning on her shoulder, take the pen from her eager hand and across the well-begun page write - FINIS."