IV

A FIANNA BOY

But the whole truth was that we had been out to test dynamite. We were looking for some old wall to blow up, and found one on the side of a hill. After the hunters had disappeared, two of us were posted with field-glasses while Madam set off the explosive. Itwas a lonely place, so we were not disturbed. The great stones flew into the air with dust and thunder. Indeed, the country people round about, when they heard that rumble and saw the cloud of smoke, must have wondered at the sudden thunder-storm on the hill.

An Irishman told me once that, although he had hoped for a revolution and worked for it, he had never felt it would be a reality until one night when he and some friends, out cross-country walking in the moonlight, came upon Madam and her Fianna boys bivouacked in the open. They had come out for a drill. She was in uniform, with kneebreeches, puttees, and officer's coat, and the whole scene was martial and intense.

The Fianna were proud of the fact that they were the first military organization in Ireland, four years older than either the Irish Citizen Army or theIrish Volunteers. It was in 1909 that the countess heard of Baden-Powell coming to Ireland to organize his British Boy Scouts, where they might be useful later on to the empire. She tried to get people interested in organizing the same way for Ireland, and finally made this her own task, though she knew nothing of military tactics and as little of boys. There was virtually no money or equipment like that in Baden-Powell's organization, and naturally many blunders were made at the outset. But she studied both boys and tactics, and finally came to believe that to succeed, the spirit of old Ireland must be invoked. So the organization was given the historic Gaelic name, Fianna, with its flavor of romance and patriotic tradition. The boys saved up their money for uniforms and equipment, and from the beginning were aware ofthemselves as an independent, self-respecting body. They have stood well the test of the revolution.

One of the most popular actresses at the Abbey Theater in Dublin was Helen Maloney. Through her energy Mr. Connolly returned from America to organize the working-men of Ireland, and thus met the countess. From the friendship and coöperation of these three persons, you can judge how all class distinction had gone down before the love of Ireland and the determination to free her.

James Connolly was a very quiet man at the time I met him, quiet and tense. He was short and thick-set, with a shrewd eye and determined speech. He proved a genius at organization, and this was lucky, for in Dublin there are no great factories, except Guinness's, to employ large numbers of men, and thismakes organization difficult. To have managed such a strike as the Transport Workers' in 1913, after only half a dozen years of organization, is proof of his great ability. And then to organize a Citizen's Army!

Connolly is the answer to those who think the rising was the work of dreamers and idealists. No one who knew him could doubt that when he led his army of working-men into battle for the Irish Republic, he believed there was a good fighting chance to establish such a republic. He was practical, and had no wish to spill blood for the mere glory of it; there was nothing melodramatic about him. A north of Ireland man,—he originally came from the only part of Ireland I know well, County Monaghan,—he had many times given proof of sound judgment and courage. He was often at the house of the countess whileI was visiting her, and one evening, just before I left, Madam called my attention to the fact that he was in better spirits than for a long time past. Word had come to him from America that on or near Easter Sunday a shipful of arms and ammunition would arrive in Ireland. This news determined the date of the rising, for it was all that was needed from without to insure success. We believed this then, and do still.

We were collecting and hiding what arms and ammunition we could. In proportion to the amount of courage of those in the secret, so the dynamite that they hid against the day soon to come grew and accumulated. Though the house in Leinster Road was always watched, the countess had it stocked like an arsenal. Bombs and rifles were hidden in absurd places, for she had the skill to do it and escape detection. AFrench journalist who visited Dublin shortly before the insurrection possibly came upon some of this evidence, or perhaps it was only the Fianna uniforms which impressed him, for he wrote:

"The salon of the Countess Markiewicz is not a salon. It is a military headquarters."

Despite this martial ardor, Madam found time to write poetry and "seditious" songs. This poetry would be in print now had not the house of Mrs. Wise-Power, where she left it for safekeeping, been blown to pieces by English gunners when they tried to find the range of the post-office. Their marksmanship would not have been so poor, perhaps, had they had the countess to teach them.

Many of the singers of our old and new lays are in prison, sentenced for their part in stirring up insurrection,even though they had nothing to do with the rising itself. The authorities seemed to take no notice of these patriotic concerts while they were being given, but afterward they paid this modern minstrelsy the tribute it deserved. For these concerts were full of inspiration to every one who attended. Though all were in the open, they were, as a matter of fact, "seditious," if that word means stirring up rebellion against those who rule you against your will.

One of the many things I recall gives a clear idea of the untiring and never-ending enthusiasm of the countess. She realized one day that the Christmas-cards usually sold in Ireland were "made in Germany," and since the war was on, had been supplanted by cards "made in England." She sat down at once to design Irish Christmas-cards for the holiday season of 1916. Butwhen that Christmas came around she was in prison, and the cards were—no one can say where.

When I left Dublin to return to my teaching in Glasgow, they made me promise that I would come back whenever they sent for me, probably just before Easter.

When I told my mother on my return of the plans for Easter, she shook her head.

"There never was an Irish rising that some one didn't betray it," she said. "It was so in '67, and before that in 1798."

But she did not appreciate the spirit I had found in Dublin. I told her that all were united, rich and poor, dock-workers, school-teachers, poets, and bar-tenders. They were working together; I believed they would stand and fight together. And I was right.

It was not easy to go quietly back to teaching mathematics and hear only now and then what was going on inDublin. Fortunately, Glasgow is two fifths Irish. Indeed, there are as many Irish there as in Dublin itself, and the spirit among the younger generation is perhaps more intense because we are a little to one side and thus afraid of becoming outsiders.

In February, when conscription came to Scotland, there was nothing for members of the Irish Volunteers in Glasgow to do but to disappear. I knew one lad of seventeen whose parents, though Irish, wanted him to volunteer in the service of the empire. He refused, telling them his life belonged to Ireland. He went over to fight at the time of the rising, and served a year in prison afterward.

Whenever an Irish Volunteer was notified to report for service in the Glasgow contingent of the British army, he would slip across the same night toIreland, and go to Kimmage, where a camp was maintained for these boys. While the British military authorities were hunting for them in Scotland and calling them "slackers," they were drilling and practising at the target, or making ammunition for a cause they believed in and for which they were ready to die.

Presently news came from Dublin that James Connolly had written a play entitled, "Under which Flag?" We heard also that when it was produced, it had a great effect upon the public. In this play the hero, during the last act, chooses the flag of the republic and the final curtain falls. Some one told Mr. Connolly he ought to write another act to show what happened afterward. His reply was that another act would have to be written by "all of us together."

I know that many people in this country have seen the Irish Players and felt their work was a great contribution to the drama, but I doubt if any one here can realize what it means to see upon the stage a play dealing with your hopes and fears just at a time when one or the other are about to be realized. For ten years the world has watched with interest as these plays were staged, as poetry appeared which seemed to have a new note in it. The world called it a "Celtic Revival." England, too, was interested, for these Irish playwrights, poets, and painters served to stimulate her own artists. What if some of the sagas, revived by archæologists,didpicture Irish heroism? What if the theme of play or poemwasa free Ireland? What if school-boys under a Gaelic namedidplay at soldiering?

"Dangerous?" some one asked.

"Nonsense!" retorted mighty England. "Would poets, pedagogues, and dreamers dare to lead the Irish people against the imperial power that had dominated them for centuries? Unthinkable!"

England has never understood us so little as in these last ten years. Our pride was growing tremendously—pride not in what wehave, but in what weare. The Celtic Revival was only an expression of this new pride.

It was on the eighteenth of April that a member of the Dublin town council discovered that the British meant to seize all arms and ammunition of the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army. History was repeating itself. It was on an eighteenth of April that American colonists discovered the British intention of seizingtheirarms and ammunition at Concord. In both casesrevolt was made inevitable by this action.

What the reason was that led immediately to such an order being given to the British military authorities in Dublin, I do not know. It had to do with conscription, of course, and it may have been quickened by the resistance of the Irish Citizen Army to the police. Madam told me that, a short time before, the police had attempted one noon to raid Liberty Hall while they supposed the place was empty. By the merest accident, she and Mr. Connolly, with one or two others, were still there. The object of the raid was to get possession of the press on which was printed "The Workers' Republic," a paper published at the hall by Mr. Connolly.

When the first members of the police force entered, Connolly asked them if they had a warrant. They had none.He told them they could not come in without one. At the same time the countess quietly drew her revolver and as quietly pointed it in their direction in a playful manner. They understood her, however, and quickly withdrew to get their warrant.

Immediately Connolly sent an order for the Citizen Army to mobilize. How they came! On the run, slipping into uniform coats as they ran; several from the tops of buildings where they were at work, others from underground. More than one, thinking this an occasion of some seriousness, instantly threw up their jobs.

By the time the police returned with their warrant, the Irish Citizen Army was drawn up around Liberty Hall, ready to defend it. It was not raided.

Mr. Connolly showed me a copy ofthe secret order when I arrived on Holy Thursday. It read:

The following precautionary measures have been sanctioned by the Irish Office on recommendation of the General Officer commanding the forces in Ireland. All preparations will be made to put these measures in force immediately on receipt of an order issued from the Chief Secretary's Office, Dublin Castle, and signed by the Under Secretary and the General Officer commanding the forces in Ireland.First, the following persons will be put under arrest: All members of the Sinn Fein National Council, the Central Executive Irish Sinn Fein Volunteer County Board, Irish Sinn Fein Volunteers, Executive Committee National Volunteers, Coisda Gnotha Committee, Gaelic League. See list A3 and 4, and supplementary list A2.

First, the following persons will be put under arrest: All members of the Sinn Fein National Council, the Central Executive Irish Sinn Fein Volunteer County Board, Irish Sinn Fein Volunteers, Executive Committee National Volunteers, Coisda Gnotha Committee, Gaelic League. See list A3 and 4, and supplementary list A2.

I interrupt the order to emphasize the fact that we were all listed, and that the "Sinn Fein" organization seemed to attract most attention from the authorities. Indeed, after it was all over, therising was often called the "Sinn Fein Revolt." The Sinn Fein was an organization which had become a menace to Great Britain because of its tactics ofpassive resistance. The words Sinn Fein, as already stated, mean "ourselves alone," and the whole movement was for an Irish Ireland.

The Sinn Feiners are likened to the "Black Hand" or other anarchistic groups by those who read of them as leaders of a "revolt." As a matter of fact, they were, from the first, the literary, artistic, and economic personalities who started the Celtic Revival. Arthur Griffiths, who is not given enough credit for the passion with which he conceived the idea of working for Ireland as Hungarians worked for Hungary, published a little weekly magazine in which the first of the new poetry appeared. It appealed to the deepestinstincts in us; it was a revolt of the spirit, clothing itself in practical deed.

But it was not a negative program. The refusal to do or say or think in the Anglicized way, as was expected of us, held in it loyalty to something fine and free, the existence of which we believed in because we had read of it in the history of Ireland in our sagas. We were not a people struggling up into an untried experience, but a people regaining our kingdom, which at one time in the history of mankind had been called "great" wherever it was known of or rumored.

This was the feeling that animated the groups listed by British military men as the "Sinn Fein National Council" and "Central Executive and Coisda Gnotha Committee of the Gaelic League," but which to an outsider cannot, without explanation, give any ideaof the fire and fervor implanted in committee and council.

But to return to the document. It went on:

An order will be issued to the inhabitants of the city to remain in their homes until such time as the Competent Military Authority may otherwise direct and permit.Pickets chosen from units of Territorial Forces will be at all points marked on maps 3 and 4. Accompanying mounted patrols will continuously visit all points and report every hour.The following premises will be occupied by adequate forces and all necessary measures used without need of reference to Headquarters:First, premises known as Liberty Hall, Beresford Place;No. 6 Harcourt Street, Sinn Fein Building;No. 2 Dawson Street, Headquarters Volunteers;No. 12 D'Olier Street, Nationality Office;No. 25 Rutland Square, Gaelic League office;No. 41 Rutland Square, Foresters' Hall;Sinn Fein Volunteer premises in city;All National Volunteer premises in city;Trades Council premises, Capel Street;Surrey House, Leinster Road, Rathmines.The following premises will be isolated, all communication to or from them prevented: Premises known as the Archbishop's House, Drumcondra; Mansion House, Dawson Street; No. 40 Herbert Park, Ballyboden; Saint Enda's College, Hermitage, Rathfarnham; and, in addition, premises in list 5 D, see maps 3 and 4.

An order will be issued to the inhabitants of the city to remain in their homes until such time as the Competent Military Authority may otherwise direct and permit.

Pickets chosen from units of Territorial Forces will be at all points marked on maps 3 and 4. Accompanying mounted patrols will continuously visit all points and report every hour.

The following premises will be occupied by adequate forces and all necessary measures used without need of reference to Headquarters:

First, premises known as Liberty Hall, Beresford Place;No. 6 Harcourt Street, Sinn Fein Building;No. 2 Dawson Street, Headquarters Volunteers;No. 12 D'Olier Street, Nationality Office;No. 25 Rutland Square, Gaelic League office;No. 41 Rutland Square, Foresters' Hall;Sinn Fein Volunteer premises in city;All National Volunteer premises in city;Trades Council premises, Capel Street;Surrey House, Leinster Road, Rathmines.

The following premises will be isolated, all communication to or from them prevented: Premises known as the Archbishop's House, Drumcondra; Mansion House, Dawson Street; No. 40 Herbert Park, Ballyboden; Saint Enda's College, Hermitage, Rathfarnham; and, in addition, premises in list 5 D, see maps 3 and 4.

This order should become a classic, because it is such a good list of all meeting-places of those who loved and worked for Ireland in the last few years. Even the home of the countess, Surrey House, was to have been occupied; and Saint Enda's, the school where Padraic Pearse was head master and chief inspiration, was to be "isolated."

Had there been any question about arising, the possession of this secret order to the military authorities in Dublin would have been the signal for it. It was not to be expected that these headquarters of all that was Irish in the city would surrender tamely to "occupation." More than this, the order gave new determination to a secret organization not mentioned in it, the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Not that this was a new organization, or unknown to the British, for, in its several phases, it had been in existence since 1858. Its oath is secret, yet has been published in connection with disclosures about the Fenian movement. This was one of the names it bore, before the rising of 1867 betrayed it to the Government. So at this time Connolly and Padraic Pearse and McDonagh, with all those working to free Ireland, were members of this brotherhood, and the republic seemednearer becoming a reality than ever before in the history of the long struggle.

At Liberty Hall I saw the flag of the republic waiting to be raised. I saw, too, the bombs and ammunition stored there, and was set to work with some other girls making cartridges. This was on the Thursday before Easter. That same evening I was given a despatch to take to Belfast. The address of the man to whom it was to be delivered was at Mr. Connolly's home in the outskirts of the city. I was to go there first and get it from Nora Connolly, then go on to this man.

I had never been in Belfast, and when I reached the city, it was two o'clock in the morning. The streets were dark and deserted. I finally had to ask a policeman which of the few cars running would take me to that part of town where the Connollys lived. I wonderwhat he would have done had he guessed I was bent upon revolutionary business. There is something very weird in knowing that while things are going on as usual in the outer world, great changes are coming unawares.

I rang in vain when I reached the house. Could all the family be somewhere else? Could I have made a mistake? I was beginning to think so when a window opened, and I heard a voice say: "It's all right, Mother. It's only a girl." Presently the door opened. They had been afraid that it was the police, for in these last few days before the time set, suspense was keen. At any moment all plans might be given away to the police and every one arrested. A ring in the middle of the night was terrifying. They had not been to bed; they were making Red Cross bandages and learning details ofequipment and uniform for the first-aid girls. They had slept little for days, now that the time of the rising approached.

We did not dare go out again in the dead of night to hunt up the man for whom I had brought my despatch. This action would create suspicion. So about five o'clock, just when the working-people were beginning to go about their tasks, we took the street car, went into another part of Belfast, and found him.

Mrs. Connolly and the girls went back to Dublin with me. They were to be there during the revolt, and did not know if they would ever see their home again; but they dared not take anything with them except the clothes on their backs. Always no suspicion must be aroused; it must look as if they were starting off for the Easter holidays. This was not an easy leave-taking, forthere was a fair chance of the house being sacked and burned. Mrs. Connolly went about, picking up little things that would go in her trunk but the absence of which would not be noticed if any inquisitive policeman came in to see whether anything suspicious was going on. As we left, none of them looked back or gave any show of feeling. Revolution makes brave actors.

That afternoon I was again at ammunition work. This time my duty was to go about Dublin, taking from hiding-places dynamite and bombs secreted therein. Once, on my way back to Liberty Hall with some dynamite wrapped in a neat bundle on the seat beside me, I heard a queer, buzzing noise. It seemed to come from inside the bundle.

"Is it going off?" I asked myself, and sat tight, expecting every moment to beblown to bits. But nothing happened; it was only the car-wheels complaining as we passed over an uneven bit of track.

It was on Saturday morning that I heard the news of our first defeat—a defeat before we had begun. The ship with arms and ammunition that had been promised us while I was in Dublin at Christmas, had come into Tralee Harbor and waited twenty-one hours for the Irish Volunteers of Tralee to come and unload her. But it had attracted no attention except from a British patrol-boat, and so had to turn about and put to sea again. Thereupon, the suspicions of the officials having led them to set out after theAud, she had shown her German colors and, in full sight of the harbor, blew herselfup rather than allow her valuable cargo to fall into the hands of the British.

Besides several machine-guns, twenty thousand rifles and a million rounds of ammunition were aboard that ship. For every one of those rifles we could have won a man to carry it in the rebellion. Thus their loss was an actual loss of fighting strength.

It all was a blunder that now seems like fate. TheAud, as first planned, was to arrive on Good Friday. Then the leaders decided it would be better not to have her arrive until after the rising had begun, or on Easter. Word of this decision was sent to America, to be forwarded to Germany. This was done, but theAudhad just sailed, keeping to her original schedule. She carried no wireless, and so could not be reached at sea.

I often think the heroic determinationof that captain to sink his ship and crew must have been preceded by many hours of bitterest chagrin and anxiety. He could not have had the slightest idea why the plan was not being carried out. It would have been, too, had the Volunteers at Tralee, remembering the uncertainty of all communication, been on watch for fear the countermanding order might have miscarried.

But it was too late now to draw back, even had the leaders so desired. I do not believe that idea ever entered their heads, for their course of action had been long planned. Two men, however, were uncertain of the wisdom of going on with it. One of them, The O'Rahilly, was minister of munitions in the provisional government and felt the loss keenly, because his entire plan of work had been based on this cargo now at the bottom of the ocean. When hefound that the majority believed success was still possible, and that the seizure of arms in the British arsenals in Ireland would compensate for the loss, he gave in and worked as wholeheartedly as the others. The second man to demur was Professor Eoin McNeill, who was at the head of the Irish Volunteers as their commander-in-chief. He did not wish to risk the lives of his men against such heavy odds. Yet, when he left the conference, he had not given one hint of actually opposing plans then under discussion.

As I came out of church on Easter morning, I saw placards everywhere to this effect:

NO VOLUNTEER MANŒUVERSTO-DAY

This was astounding! The manœuvers were to be the beginning of therevolution. To-day they were not to be the usual, simple drill, but the real beginning of military action. All over Ireland the Volunteers were expected to mobilize and stay mobilized until the blow had been struck—until, perhaps, victory had been won. And the Irish Volunteers made up two thirds of our fighting force. "No Volunteer manœuvers to-day"? What could it mean?

I bought a newspaper and read the order of demobilization, signed by Professor McNeill. What could have happened? I hurried to Liberty Hall to find the leaders there as much in the dark as I. They knew McNeill had been depressed and fearful of results, but they had not supposed him capable of actually calling off his men from the movement so late in the day, though this was quite within his technical rights if he wished. They had taken for grantedthat he, like The O'Rahilly, would prefer to cast in his lot with the rest of us. I recalled that at Christmas the countess had been eager to have another head chosen for the Volunteers. Over and over again she had said that, though McNeill had been splendid for purposes of organization, and the presence of so earnest and pacific a man in command of the Volunteers had prevented England from getting nervous, he was not the man for a crisis. She liked him, but her intuition proved right. He could not bear that his Irish Volunteers should risk their lives and gain nothing thereby. He truly believed they had no chance without the help theAudhad promised. As soon as he had published his demobilization order, he went to his home outside Dublin and stayed there during the rising. It was there he was arrested and, though his action so helped theBritish that the royal commission afterward said he "broke the back of the rebellion," he was sentenced for life, and sits to-day in Dartmoor Prison making sacks. This is the man who was one of our greatest authorities on early Irish history.

There never was a hint of suspicion that McNeill's act was other than the result of fear. No one who knew him could doubt his loyalty to Ireland. It was his love for the Volunteers, the love of a man instinctively pacifist, that made him give that order. Oh, the satire of history! By such an order, many of us believe, he delivered to the executioner the flower of Ireland's heart and brain. We believe that if those manœuvers had taken place at the time set, the British arsenals in Ireland would easily have been taken and arms provided for our men. Indeed, we would rather havetaken arms and ammunition from the British than have accepted them as gifts from other people.

The eternal buoyancy with which Irishmen are credited came to their rescue that Sunday morning. Mr. Connolly and others believed that if word was sent into the country districts that the Citizen Army was proceeding with its plans, that the Volunteers of Dublin, consisting of four battalions under Padraic Pearse and Thomas McDonaugh, were going to mobilize, the response would be immediate. At once word was sent out broadcast. Norah Connolly walked eighty miles during the week through the country about Dublin, carrying orders from headquarters. But she, like other messengers, found that the Volunteers were so accustomed to McNeill's signature that they were afraid to act without it.They feared a British trick. We Irish are so schooled in suspicion that it sometimes counts against us. In Galway they had heard that the rising in Dublin was on, and later put up such a fight that, had it been seconded in other counties by even a few groups, the republic would have lived longer than it did. It might even have won the victory in which, only three days before, we all had faith.

The Volunteers numbered men from every class and station; the Citizen Army was made up of working-men who had the advantage of being under a man of decision and quick judgment. At four o'clock the Citizen Army mobilized in front of Liberty Hall to carry out the route march as planned. After this march the men were formed into a hollow square in front of Liberty Hall and Connolly addressed them.

"You are now under arms," he concluded. "You will not lay down your arms until you have struck a blow for Ireland!"

The men cheered, shots were fired into the air, and that night their barracks was Liberty Hall.

You might think a demonstration of this character, a speech in the open, would attract enough attention from the police to make them send a report to the authorities. None was sent. They had come to feel, I suppose, that while there was so much talk there would be little action. Nor did they remember that Easter is always the anniversary of that fight hundreds of years ago when native Irish came to drive the foreigner from Dublin. This year, in addition, it fell upon the date of the Battle of Clontarf, so there was double reason forsentiment to seize upon the day for a revolt.

During the night, Irishmen from England and Scotland who had been encamped at Kimmage with some others, came into Dublin and joined the men at Liberty Hall. Next morning I saw them while they were drawn up, waiting for orders. Every man carried a rifle and a pike! Those pikes were admission of our loss through the sinking of theAud, for the men who carried them might have been shouldering additional rifles to give to any recruits picked up during the course of the day. Pikes would not appeal to an unarmed man as a fit weapon with which to meet British soldiers in battle. We could have used every one of those twenty thousand lost rifles, for they would have made a tremendous appeal.

I was sent on my bicycle to scout about the city and report if troops from any of the barracks were stirring. They were not. Moreover, I learned that their officers, for the most part, were off to the races at Fairview in the gayest of moods.

When I returned to report to Mr. Connolly, I had my first glimpse of Padraic Pearse, provisional president of the Irish Republic. He was a tall man, over six feet, with broad shoulders slightly stooped from long hours as a student and writer. But he had a soldierly bearing and was very cool and determined, I thought, for a man on whom so much responsibility rested,—at the very moment, too, when his dream was about to take form. Thomas McDonagh was also there. I had not seen him before in uniform, and he, too, gave me the impression that our Irishscholars must be soldiers at bottom, so well did he appear in his green uniform. At Christmas he had given me a fine revolver. It would be one of my proudest possessions if I had it now, but it was confiscated by the British.

JAMES CONNOLLY

I was next detailed as despatch rider for the St. Stephen's Green Command. Again I went out to scout, this time for Commandant Michael Mallin. If I did not find the military moving, I was to remain at the end of the Green until I should see our men coming in to take possession. There were no soldiers in sight; only a policeman standing at the far end of the Green doing nothing. He paid no attention to me; I was only a girl on a bicycle. But I watched him closely. It was impossible to believe that neither the police nor the military authorities were on guard. But this chap stood about idly and was the lastpoliceman I saw until after the rising was over. They seemed to vanish from the streets of Dublin. Even to-day no one can tell you where they went.

It was a great moment for me, as I stood there, when, between the budding branches of trees, I caught sight of men in dark green uniforms coming along in twos and threes to take up their position in and about the Green and at the corners of streets leading into it. There were only thirty-six altogether, whereas the original plan had been for a hundred. That was one of the first effects of Eoin McNeill's refusal to join us. But behind them I could see, in the spring sunlight, those legions of Irish who made their fight against as heavy or heavier odds and who, though they died, had left us their dream to make real. Perhaps this time—

At last all the men were standingready, awaiting the signal. In every part of Dublin similar small groups were waiting for the hour to strike. The revolution had begun!

To the British, I am told, there was something uncanny about the suddenness with which the important centers of Dublin's life were quietly seized at noon on Easter Monday by groups of calm, determined men in green uniforms.

They were not merely surprised; they were frightened. The superstitious element in their fear was great, too. It had always been so. When Kitchener was drowned off the Irish coast, a man I know, an Irishman, spoke of it to an English soldier.

"Yes; you and your damned rosaries!" retorted the soldier, looking frightened even as he said it.

The British seem to feel we are in league with unearthly powers against which they have no protection. On Easter Monday they believed that behind this sudden decision, as it appeared to them, something dark and sinister was lurking. How else would we dare to revolt against the British Empire? It was as if our men were not flesh and blood, but spirits summoned up by their own bad conscience to take vengeance for many centuries of misrule. It must have been some such feeling that accounted for the way they lost, at the very outset, all their usual military calm and ruthlessness.

We recognized this feeling, and it made our men stronger in spirit. We were convinced of the justice of our cause, convinced that even dying was a small matter compared with the privilege we now shared of fighting for thatcause. Besides, there was no traitor in our ranks. No one had whispered a word of our plans to the British authorities. That is one reason why our memory of Easter Week has in it something finer than the memory of any other rising in the past. You must bear in mind that the temptation to betray the rising must have been just as strong, that it had in it just as much guarantee of security for the future, as heretofore. Yet no one yielded to this temptation. Even more amazing was the fact that the authorities had not paid any heed to those utterances which for months past had been highly seditious. For instance, here is what Padraic Pearse stated openly in one of his articles:

I am ready. For years I have waited and prayed for this day. We have the most glorious opportunity that has ever presented itselfof really asserting ourselves. Such an opportunity will never come again. We have Ireland's liberty in our hands. Or are we content to remain as slaves and idly watch the final extermination of the Gael?

Nothing could be more outspoken or direct. When it is remembered that England's enemies have always been regarded as Ireland's allies; that an English war, wherever fought, is a signal for us to rise once more, no matter how many defeats we have suffered, it might have been supposed the British, stationed in such numbers in and around Dublin, would not have been put to sleep by what must have seemed, to the wary observer, an acute attack of openness and a vigorous interest in military affairs. There were some, of course, among the police and officials who made their reports of "highly seditious" meetings and writings, but I suppose theauthorities did not believe we would strike. From America they learned of aid to come by ship when Igel's papers were seized by United States authorities. It may have been this information that put the English patrol-boats on their guard in Tralee Harbor. It even may have been thought that when that ship went down the rising was automatically ended. So it might have been had our revolt been "made in Germany," but it must be remembered that it was the Irish who approached the Germans. Thus there was no anxiety in Dublin that Easter Monday except as to which horse would win the Fairview races.

As soon as our men were in position in St. Stephen's Green, I rode off down Leeson Street toward the Grand Canal to learn if the British soldiers were now leaving Beggar's Bush or the Portobello barracks. Everything remained quiet.That signified to me that our men had taken possession of the post-office for headquarters and of all other premises decided on in the revised plan of strategy adapted to a much smaller army.

The names of these places do not sound martial. Jacob's Biscuit Factory, Boland's Bakery, Harcourt Street Railway Station, and Four Courts are common enough, but each had been chosen for the strategic advantage it would give those defending Dublin with a few men against a great number. The Dublin & Southeastern Railway yards, for example, gave control of the approach from Kingstown where, it was expected, the English coming over to Ireland would land.

Again I was sent out to learn if the Harcourt Street Station had been occupied by our men. This had been done, and already telegraph wires there, aswell as elsewhere, had been cut to isolate Dublin. Telephone wires were cut, too, but one was overlooked. By that wire word of the rising reached London much sooner than otherwise would have been the case. But here again, the wonder is not that something had been overlooked, but that so much was accomplished. By the original plan, volunteers were told off to do this wire-cutting and the hundred and one things necessary to a revolt taking place in a city like Dublin. When this work was redistributed to one third the original number of men, it was hard to be certain that those who had neverdrilledfor the kind of task assigned them could do it at all. This insurrection had been all but rehearsed, during those months when it was being worked out on paper, by daily and weekly drills.

Upon my return, I found our menintrenching themselves in St. Stephen's Green. All carried tools with which to dig themselves in, and shrubbery was used to protect the trenches. Motorcars and drays passing the Green were commandeered, too, to form a barricade. Much to the bewilderment of their occupants, who had no warning that anything was amiss in Dublin, the men in green uniforms would signal them to stop. Except in one instance, they did so quickly enough. Then they were told to get out. An experienced chauffeur among our men would jump in at once and drive the car to a position where it was needed. The occupants would stand for a moment aghast, then take to their heels. One drayman refused his cart and persisted in his refusal, not believing it when our men told him this was war. He was shot. Two British officers were takenprisoners in one of the autos. We could not afford men to stand guard over them, but we took good care of them. Afterward they paid us the tribute of saying that we obeyed all the rules of war.

Commandant Mallin gave me my first despatch to carry to headquarters at the general post-office. As I crossed O'Connell Street, I had to ride through great crowds of people who had gathered to hear Padraic Pearse read the proclamation of the republic at the foot of Nelson's Pillar. They had to scatter when the Fifth Lancers—the first of the military forces to learn that insurgents had taken possession of the post-office—rode in among them to attack the post-office.

THE PROCLAMATION OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC

(All of its signers were executed)

POBLACHT NA H EIREANN.THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENTOF THEIRISH REPUBLICTO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND.IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMENIn the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood. Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and, supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom, or its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.Signed on Behalf of the Provisional Government,THOMAS J. CLARKE,SEAN Mac DIARMADA,THOMAS MacDONAGH,P. H. PEARSE,EAMONN CEANNT,JAMES CONNOLLY,JOSEPH PLUNKETT.

POBLACHT NA H EIREANN.

THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENTOF THEIRISH REPUBLICTO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND.

IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMENIn the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood. Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.

Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and, supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.

We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom, or its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.

The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.

Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.

We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.

Signed on Behalf of the Provisional Government,THOMAS J. CLARKE,SEAN Mac DIARMADA,THOMAS MacDONAGH,P. H. PEARSE,EAMONN CEANNT,JAMES CONNOLLY,JOSEPH PLUNKETT.

Nothing can give one a better idea of how demoralized the British were by the first news of the rising than to learn that they sent cavalry to attack afortified building. Men on horseback stood no chance against rifle-fire from the windows of the post-office. It must be said in extenuation, however, that it probably was because this cavalry detachment had just convoyed some ammunition-wagons to a place not far from O'Connell Street, and so were sent to "scatter" men who, they supposed, could be put to flight by the mere appearance of regulars on horseback.

When I reached the open space in front of the post-office, I saw two or three men and horses lying in the street, killed by the first volley from the building. It was several days before these horses were taken away, and there was something in the sight of the dumb beasts that hurt me every time I had to pass them. It may sound harsh when I say that the thought of British soldiers being killed in the same way did notawaken similar feelings. That is because for many centuries we have been harassed by men in British uniform. They have become to us symbols of a power that seems to delight in tyranny.

Even while I was cycling toward the post-office, the crowd had reassembled to watch the raising of the flag of the Irish Republic. As the tricolor—green, white, and orange—appeared above the roof of the post-office, a salute was fired. A few days later, while it was still waving, James Connolly wrote: "For the first time in seven hundred years the flag of a free Ireland floats triumphantly over Dublin City!"

Mr. Connolly and a few of his officers came out to look at it as it waved up there against the sky. I saw an old woman go up to him and, bending her knee, kiss his hand. Indeed, the people loved and trusted him.

Inside the post-office our men were busy putting things to right after the lancers' attack. They were getting ready for prolonged resistance. Window-panes were smashed, and barricades set up to protect men who soon would be shooting from behind them. Provisions were brought over from Liberty Hall, where they had long been stored against this day. But what impressed me most was the way the men went at it, as though this was the usual sort of thing to be doing and all in the day's work. There was no sign of excitement, but there was a tenseness, a sense of expectancy, a kind of exaltation, that was almost more than I could bear.

I delivered my despatch, and was given another to carry back to Commandant Mallin. Crowds were still in O'Connell Street when I left on myerrand. They were always there when bullets were not flying, and always seemed in sympathy with the men in the post-office. I found this same sympathy all over the city wherever I went. Even when men would not take guns and join us, they were friendly.

The soldiers from Portobello barracks were sent out twice on Monday to attack our position in St. Stephen's Green. The first time was at noon, before we were completely intrenched. They had gone only as far as Portobello Bridge, but a few rods from the barracks, when they were fired on from the roof of Davies's public-house just the other side of the bridge. Our rifle-fire was uninterrupted, and a number of the soldiers fell. They probably thought they were dealing with a considerable force, for they did not advance until the firing ceased or until word was broughtto thethree menon the roof that we were securely intrenched. Even then they did not come on to attack us, but went somewhere else in the city.

At six o'clock that evening, just when it was beginning to grow dusk, on my way back from the post-office I noticed that the crowd of curious civilians who had been hanging about the Green all day had quite disappeared. The next thing I saw was two persons hurrying away from the Green. These were Town Councilor Partridge and the countess. They came to a halt in the street just ahead of me. Then I saw the British soldiers coming up Harcourt Street!

The countess stood motionless, waiting for them to come near. She was a lieutenant in the Irish Volunteers and, in her officer's uniform and black hat with great plumes, looked mostimpressive. At length she raised her gun to her shoulder—it was an "automatic" over a foot long, which she had converted into a short rifle by taking out the wooden holster and using it as a stock—and took aim. Neither she nor Partridge noticed me as I came up behind them. I was quite close when they fired. The shots rang out at the same moment, and I saw the two officers leading the column drop to the street. As the countess was taking aim again, the soldiers, without firing a shot, turned and ran in great confusion for their barracks. The whole company fled as fast as they could fromtwopeople, one of them a woman! When you consider, however, that for years these soldiers had been going about Dublin as if they owned it; that now they did not know from what house or street corner they might be fired upon by menin green uniforms, it is not to be wondered at that they were temporarily demoralized.

As we went back to the Green, Madam told me of the attempt made that morning by herself, Sean Connolly, and ten others to enter Dublin Castle and plant the flag of the Irish republic on the roof of that stronghold of British power in Ireland. There always is a considerable military force housed in the castle, but so completely were they taken by surprise that for a few moments it seemed as if the small group would succeed in entering. It was only when their leader, Sean Connolly, was shot dead that the attempt was abandoned. It seemed to me particularly fitting that Madam had been a member of this party, for she belonged by "right of birth" to those who always were invited to social affairs at the castle. Yet shehad long refused to accept these invitations, and had taken the side of those who hoped for the ultimate withdrawal of those Dublin Castle hosts.

Immediately after this gallant attempt, which might have succeeded had it taken place on Sunday with the number of men originally intended, Madam returned to St. Stephen's Green and alone and single-handed took possession of the College of Surgeons. This is a big, square, granite building on the west side of the Green. It was, as we later discovered, impregnable. For all impression they made, the machine-gun bullets with which the British soldiers peppered it for five days might have been dried peas.

The countess, fortunately, had met with no resistance. She walked up the steps, rang the bell, and, when no one answered, fired into the lock andentered. The flag we flew from the roof of the building was a small one I had brought on my bicycle from headquarters.

We were all happy that night as we camped in St. Stephen's Green. Despite the handicap we were under through lack of men, almost everything was going our way. It was a cold, damp night. The first-aid and despatch-girls of our command went into a summer-house for shelter. It had no walls, but there was a floor to lie upon, and a roof. I slept at once and slept heavily.

Madam was not so fortunate. She was too tired and excited to sleep. Instead, she walked about, looking for some sheltered place and, to get out of the wind, tried lying down in one of the trenches. But the ground was muchtoo chilly, so she walked about until she noticed the motor-car of her friend, Dr. Katherine Lynn, seized that morning for the barricade. She climbed in, found a rug, and went to sleep in comparative comfort. When morning came she could not forgive herself for having slept there all night while the rest of us remained outdoors. She had intended to get up after an hour or two of it and make one of us take her place. She did not waken, however, till she heard the hailing of machine-gun bullets on the roof of the car. The girls in the summer-house, with the exception of myself, were awakened at the same moment in the same way, and ran for safety behind one of the embankments. It seems the British had taken possession of a hotel at one side of the Green—the Hotel Shelbourne—and had placed a machine-gun on the roof. At fouro'clock in the morning they began firing.

The chill I was having woke me, but I quickly followed the others to their hiding-place. From the first we were aware that had we taken possession of all buildings around the Green, according to our original plan, this morning salute of the British would have been impossible. As it was, our intrenchments and barricades proved of no avail. We realized at once we should have to evacuate the Green and retire into the College of Surgeons.

Commandant Mallin sent me with a despatch to headquarters. He recognized immediately that a regiment could not hold the Green against a machine-gun on a tall building that could rake our position easily.

As soon as I returned, I was sent away again to bring in sixteen men guardingthe Leeson Street bridge. If we abandoned the Green before they could join us, they would be cut off and in great danger. As I rode along on my bicycle, I had my first taste of the risks of street-fighting. Soldiers on top of the Hotel Shelbourne aimed their machine-gun directly at me. Bullets struck the wooden rim of my bicycle wheels, puncturing it; others rattled on the metal rim or among the spokes. I knew one might strike me at any moment, so I rode as fast as I could. My speed saved my life, and I was soon out of range around a corner. I was not exactly frightened nor did I feel aware of having shown any special courage. My anxiety for the men I was to bring in filled my mind, for though I was out of range, unless we could find a roundabout way to the College of Surgeons seventeen of us would be under fire.To make matters worse, the men were on foot.

After I reached this group and gave the order for their return, I scouted ahead up streets I knew would bring us back safely to the college, unless already guarded by the British. It was while I was riding ahead of them that I had fresh evidence of the friendliness of the people. Two men presently approached me. They stepped out into the street and said quietly:

"All is safe ahead."

I rode back, told the guard, and we moved on more rapidly. At another spot a woman leaned out of her window just as I was passing. "You are losing your revolver," she called to me.

She may have saved my life by that warning, for my revolver had torn its way through the pocket of my raincoat, and, in another moment, would havefallen to the ground. Had it been discharged, the result might have been fatal.

As we came to the College of Surgeons and were going in by a side door, the men were just retiring from the Green. Since every moment counted, I had ridden ahead to report to Commandant Mallin, and while he stood listening to me, a bullet whizzed through his hat. He took it off, looked at it without comment, and put it on again. Evidently the machine-gun was still at work.

One of our boys was killed before we got inside the College of Surgeons. Had the British gunners been better trained for their task, we might have lost more, for we were completely at their mercy from the moment they began to fire at dawn until the big door of the college closed, and we took up thedefense of our new position in the great stone fortress.

Every time I left the college, I was forced to run the gauntlet of this machine-gun. I blessed the enemy's bad marksmanship several times a day. To be sure, they tried hard enough to hit something. Once that day I saw them shooting at our first-aid girls, who made excellent targets in their white dresses, with large red crosses on them. It was a miracle that none of them was wounded. Bullets passed through one girl's skirt, and another girl had the heel of her shoe shot off. If I myself had not seen this happen, I could not have believed that British soldiers would disobey the rules of war concerning the Red Cross.

Mr. Connolly had issued orders that no soldier was to be shot who did not have arms, and he did not consider theside-arms they always carried as "arms." My revolver had been given me for self-defense in case I fell into the hands of any soldiers. I confess that, though I never used it, I often felt tempted when I saw British soldiers going along in twos and threes, bent on shooting any of our men. I was not in uniform, however, and had had orders not to shoot except thus clothed and so a member of the Republican Army.

Some of the streets I had to ride through were as quiet and peaceful as if there was no thought of revolution in Dublin, but in others I could hear now and then scattered shots from around some corner. It was more than likely that snipers were trying to hold up a force of British on their way to attack one of our main positions. Sometimes I would hear the rattle of a machine-gun, and this warned me that I wasapproaching a house where the enemy was raking a position held by our men. Generally, however, it was the complete and death-like emptiness of a street that warned me I was close to a scene of hot fighting. This was not always so, for there were times when the curiosity of the crowd got the better of its caution, and it would push dangerously near the shooting.

Several days elapsed before the people of Dublin became fully aware of the meaning of what was going on. Riots are not rare, and this might well seem to many of them only rioting on a large scale, with some new and interesting features. The poor of Dublin have never been appeased with bread or circuses by the British authorities. They have had to be content with starvation and an occasional street disturbance. But little by little, as I rode along, Icould detect a change in attitude. Some became craven and disappeared; in others, it seemed that at last their souls might come out of hiding and face the day.

The spirit at the post-office was always the same—quiet, cheerful, and energetic. I used to stand at the head of the great central staircase waiting for answers to my despatches and could see the leaders as they went to and fro through the corridor. Padraic Pearse impressed me by his natural air of command. He was serious, but not troubled, not even when he had to ask for men from the Citizen Army to eke out the scant numbers of his Volunteers for some expedition. No one had thought it would be that way, for the Volunteers were originally two to one compared with the Citizen Army. Recruits were coming in every day, but at the mostthere were not fifteen hundred men against twenty thousand British soldiers stationed in or near Dublin.

Whenever there came a lull in business or fighting, the men would begin to sing either rebel songs or those old lays dear to Irishmen the world over. And sometimes they knelt in prayer, Protestants and Catholics side by side. From the very beginning there was a sense of the religious character in what we were doing. This song and prayer at the post-office were all natural, devoid of self-consciousness. A gay song would follow a solemn prayer, and somehow was not out of harmony with it.

One source of inspiration at the post-office was "old Tom Clarke," who had served fifteen years for taking part in the rising of sixty-seven. His pale, worn face showed the havoc wroughtby that long term in an English prison, but his spirit had not been broken.

There was Jo Plunkett, too, pale and weak, having come directly from the hospital where he had just undergone an operation. But he knew what prestige his name would lend to this movement—a name famous for seven hundred years in Irish history. He looked like death, and he met death a few days later at the hands of the English.

I talked about explosives one day with Sean McDermott and we went together to consult a wounded chemist in a rear room to find out what could be done with chemicals we had found at the College of Surgeons. Sean McDermott was like a creature from another planet who had brought his radiance with him to this one. Every one felt this and loved him for the courage and sweetness he put into all he did.

The O'Rahilly was another of the striking figures at the post-office. He was known as one of the handsomest men in Ireland, and, in addition to being head of a famous old clan, had large estates. He had given much property to the cause, and now was risking his life for it. He was killed on the last day of the fighting as he led a sortie into the street at one side of the post-office. His last words were, "Good-by and good luck to you!" He said those words to British prisoners he was setting free because the post-office had caught fire and the game was up. They afterward told of his kindness and care for them at a moment when he himself was in the greatest possible danger.

I can pass anywhere for a Scotch girl,—I have often had to since the rising,—and friends will tell you I am hard-headed and practical, without theleast trace of mysticism. Yet, whenever I was in general headquarters in the post-office, I felt, despite commonplace surroundings and the din of fighting, an exalted calm that can be possible only where men are giving themselves unreservedly and with clear conscience to a great cause.

Back to Index Next