1916

by Morgan Llywelyn

  Whatever the cause, the result was the same. The army upon which so much depended was decimated.

  A dusty De Dion Bouton turned into Beresford Place and The O’Rahilly emerged to loud cheers. Through the open car door a load of additional rifles was plainly visible.

  He’s given up on MacNeill, Ned thought. It seemed a good omen. “Perhaps more will still come,” he remarked to Con Colbert.

  The O’Rahilly ran up the steps to shake hands with Pearse and Plunkett. For the first time that day Pádraic Pearse smiled. “I’m glad to see you, Michael. I was afraid we’d lost you.”

  “I’ve helped to wind up the clock,” came the jaunty reply. “I might as well hear it strike!”10

  The officers were holding a last-minute strategy conference when Mary Brigid Pearse came running up with her hair flying and her face flushed. She flung herself at Pádraic Pearse and to his intense embarrassment cried, “I’ve just heard! No one ever tells me anything. Come home, Pat, and leave all this foolishness!”11

  He patted her awkwardly and whispered something. She took half a step backward, looking around as if disoriented. “Will Cumann na mBan see that my sister gets home safely?” Pearse requested. “I must tend to the business of the day.”

  PROMPTLY at noon a bugle blew. James Connolly bellowed a command to form ranks, and Pearse and Plunkett joined him at the head of the combined force destined for the G.P.O. The commander-in-chief took the center position. Any trace of the gentle schoolmaster had vanished; in that penultimate moment Pádraic Pearse looked both stern and noble.

  James Connolly, Commandant-General of the Dublin forces, was on his right, with Joseph Plunkett, Chief of Staff, on his left—a triumph of willpower over mortality. As he marched forward, Joe Plunkett unsheathed his saber and held it up to catch the sun.12

  The rest followed, Irish Volunteers and Citizen Army mingling together. They were scarcely a hundred and fifty in total but one body now, the advance guard of a new republic.

  Perhaps more will come.

  Tom Clarke, President of the Provisional Government, walked to one side of the column with Seán MacDermott, who was limping badly and leaning on a cane. Seán O’Kelly, Michael Collins, and The O’Rahilly stayed close to the leaders. Farther back was Winifred Carney, James Connolly’s devoted secretary and the only woman in the company. She was armed with a large Webley pistol. Beside her was Connolly’s fifteen-year-old son, Roderic, better known as Rory.

  The parade included the loaded drays, The O’Rahilly’s De Dion Bouton with its cargo of rifles, the closed cab, two motorcyclists, and the company from Kimmage guarding the rear13—followed by several grubby street urchins and a yapping dog.

  The column stepped out briskly, moving with certainty of purpose as they proceeded from Liberty Hall down Lower Abbey Street. There were no soldiers in evidence. A few civilians stopped to watch the march go by, but most were as indifferent as always. It did not matter. Nothing mattered now but the doing of it.

  In the middle of the column, Ned walked with his shoulders back and his chin held high. Marching in the company of men, with the golden sunshine pouring over them like a blessing.

  After the Great Famine the political theoretician James Fintan Lalor had written, “Somewhere and somehow, and by someone, a beginning must be made, and the first act of armed resistance is always premature, imprudent, and foolish.”14

  Sometimes you have to make things come right or die trying!

  Chapter Forty-nine

  THE column reached Sackville Street. People stepped back from the curb to give them room and one or two, recognizing the uniforms, even cheered. Traffic halted enough to allow the parade out into the boulevard. They swung right and marched in the direction of Nelson’s Pillar.

  Revving the motor of his cycle, Jack Plunkett called, “I hope we see some action today, lads!”

  Several of the older men smiled.

  The classical facade of the General Post Office was serene in the brilliant sunshine. In spite of the bank holiday the post office was doing a brisk business. Upstairs was the telegraph office, where soldiers were posted to guard the switchboard for the duration of the war.

  The column halted at the G.P.O. George Plunkett began issuing commands to the men from Kimmage.1 “Into line—turn left.” They drew up in two lines facing the front entrance. “A Section—right wheel!” A section trotted off toward Henry Street. “D Section—left wheel!” D Section set off toward O’Connell Bridge, and B and C Sections stood firm, waiting.

  People passing in and out beneath the portico were unaware that anything was amiss until suddenly James Connolly’s strident voice rang out, ordering the entire column, “Left turn, the G.P.O.—Charge!”

  A wild cheer burst from the throats of the little army. Seventy men ran for the main entrance while the rest raced off to take up positions nearby.

  The O’Rahilly led the charge into the building with his drawn pistol in his hand, safety catch off.2 A young female customer gave a shriek as if she had seen a mouse and Con Colbert paused to apologize to her.

  At the sight of an armed mob invading the post office the staff behind the counters froze. The customers milled around in confusion until the voice of James Connolly rose above the clamor, ordering them to leave peacefully. A lieutenant in the uniform of the Royal Fusiliers who was interrupted in the act of writing out a telegram to his wife in England protested. Michael Collins promptly yanked the telephone cord out of the post office call box, heaved the startled lieutenant onto one of the large glass-topped tables in the center of the room, trussed him with the phone cord, then laughingly dumped him for safekeeping into the same call box.

  There were several other British officers in the post office. The O’Rahilly informed them they were political prisoners of the new Irish Republic and would be treated with all due courtesy. Considering the fate of their fellow in the phone box, however, they looked dubious.

  A policeman who had been waiting his turn to send a telegram found himself facing an insurgent holding a leveled rifle. “Don’t shoot me,” he pleaded in a northside Dublin accent. “I’ve done ye no harm.”

  “We don’t shoot prisoners,” Collins assured him.3

  “I’m not leaving until I have my stamps!” an indignant matron cried. But there was no one to sell them to her. After a few moments of bewildered disbelief the post office staff had decided to abandon ship. Some even vaulted over the counters in their hurry to get outside. They joined the gathering spectators in the street in spite of a jocular invitation from Seán MacDermott: “Stay and accept our hospitality. This is going to be the safest place in Dublin soon!”

  While the ground floor was being secured, a squad of men was sent in search of the telegraph office on the floor above. Ned joined the party that ran up the wide stairs, only to be met on the landing by seven soldiers holding rifles. Someone nervously snapped off a pistol shot that grazed the forehead of one of the soldiers. The sound echoed alarmingly in the marble interior. Blood pouring, the wounded man staggered backward.

  The others immediately dropped their weapons and threw up their hands. “Our guns aren’t loaded!”

  Within minutes the squad located the telegraph office. When they burst through the door shouting for everyone to put up their hands, they found only the female supervisor on duty. The other telegraphists had already fled, but the sturdy middle-aged Scot refused to abandon her post. “I have to send out yesterday’s death notices,” she insisted. “The next of kin must always be informed when—”

  “We can do that for you.”

  “Ye wouldn’t know how to—”

  “I assure you we have someone who does. Halloran, take her downstairs and see her safely out of the building, will you?”

  There was a crash of glass below. James Connolly was ordering the men to smash the windows in the lobby and barricade them.

  The Rising had begun.

  BY the time Ned returned to the main hall it was chaotic. Writing desks and hea
vy glass-topped display tables had been pushed against the walls. Men were standing on them to knock out the upper panes of the windows with their rifle butts. Others were busy stuffing the emptied window frames with everything they could lay their hands on, including the post office files. Some men were already bleeding from broken glass.

  A detail had been assigned to carry the arms in from outside, and everything was being piled together on the floor of the post office. Rifles, pickaxes, grenades, pikes, oak batons, and cases of gelignite—which the men handled with a fine disregard for its potential until Tom Clarke shouted at them, “Blow your heads off if you want to, but wait until we’ve won!”

  Joe Plunkett unfolded a map and spread it out on the parcel counter. “The element of surprise made all the difference,” he jubilantly declared. His strength was spent, though; he had to lean on the counter for support.

  Seán MacDermott bent over the map. “Here are our positions,” he said, pointing. “If everything’s gone as well elsewhere as it has here, we have a ring around the city by now. We’ll know as soon as dispatches start coming in.”

  Michael Collins, who claimed he could decode British messages, was sent to the top floor to take charge of the telegraph office.

  One of the Fianna came trotting in to announce, “We have snipers installed in buildings all around the Pillar. There’s riflemen in Kelly’s Gun Shop at the corner of Bachelor’s Walk,4 and three Volunteers with shotguns on O’Connell Bridge.5 Two of the Fianna are helping cover the bridge from Hopkins Jewellers.” He added with a laugh, “The clerks didn’t want to let us in because they thought we’d come to steal watches!”

  James Connolly remarked, “With so many Volunteers not showing up today, it’s a good job we have Con’s Fianna. They’re going to do more than carry dispatches. Some of them are brilliant marksmen.”

  “Some of them are just boys,” Joe Plunkett pointed out disapprovingly.

  “Ah, Joe, a boy from the slums is a man at twelve.”

  From the distance came an ominous crackle of rifle fire.

  Somewhere in Dublin, someone was fighting back.

  Ned heard Pearse say to James Connolly, “Should we not be raising our flag—the one Madame Markievicz made for us?”6

  Connolly stared blankly at him for a moment, then banged his fist against the nearest table. “We went off and left the damned flags at Liberty Hall!”

  Pearse turned to Ned. “Please ask my aide to fetch them.”

  Seán O’Kelly was leaning against a counter with his hands in his pockets, idly watching Winifred Carney, who had located a typewriter and was typing out Connolly’s constant flow of orders. Although he was a captain in the Volunteers, O’Kelly was no more a military man than Pádraic Pearse. He seemed at a loss for something to do and was glad of the assignment. “If Pearse can spare you, do you want to come with me?” he asked Ned. “Everything seems pretty well under control here, and it won’t take us long.”

  When the two left the building they found a rather bewildered crowd still gathered in the street, gazing up at the riflemen who were looking down at them from windows and rooftops. A man complained, “Bloody Volunteers, shutting down the post office so decent folk can’t even buy a stamp. What do they think they’re playing at?”

  “It’s a Rising at last,” countered an old woman with a lilting Cork accent. She clasped her hands together over her bosom. “God be with them.”

  Someone else said, “It’s a bloody freak show! Clatther of idiots spoiling the holiday for their own amusement, if you ask me.”

  A man in a top hat interjected, “The soldiers will put a stop to it as soon as they get here.”

  “Where are the soldiers?” asked an anxious young woman with a baby in her arms. “Aren’t they coming?”

  O’Kelly told her, “They’ll be here soon enough, I expect.”

  A man called Peter Ennis was closing up Liberty Hall. Tall and bony, with a long neck and bad teeth, Ennis had worked there for most of his life and knew every inch of the building. “The Citizen Army’s already evacuated the place and taken out all the arms and supplies,” he told Ned and O’Kelly. “I’m just staying here as caretaker until Mr. Connolly beats the British. We’ll have some good times then!”

  Ennis helped them find the brown paper parcel marked “Flags” and the two men hurried back to the G.P.O.7 Ned was among those who went outside to watch the first flag go up. A few people cheered as the banner was raised to the top of the pole on the Prince’s Street corner of the building. With a lump in his throat, Ned raised one hand in salute.

  Against a green background the words “Irish Republic,” painted in white and gold, stood out brave and true.

  Chapter Fifty

  A tricolor of green, white, and orange—reminding Ned of Katty Clarke’s ribbon badges—was subsequently flown from the flagpole at the Henry Street corner of the G.P.O. Flags were going up all over the city. Another tricolor was raised over Jacob’s Biscuit Factory, where Thomas MacDonagh’s Second Battalion was settling in. At the Four Courts, Edward Daly was flying a professionally made green flag with a plain gold harp, while at the Mendicity Institute Seán Heuston had a tricolor with horizontal bands of color. Eamonn Ceannt had a tricolor for the South Dublin Union; James Connolly flew the Plough and the Stars over the Imperial Hotel as a tribute to Jim Larkin and the working man.

  It did not matter which flag was used; all proclaimed freedom.

  ONCE the flag of the republic was raised, Pádraic Pearse emerged from Government Headquarters to address the Irish people. James Connolly went with him. Ned, Con Colbert, and Des Ryan proudly formed the escort.

  The postal clerks had either gone home or into their locals. The crowd remaining in Sackville Street was composed mostly of tenement dwellers looking for any sort of free diversion. The seizure of the post office had offered some excitement at first, but nothing much seemed to be happening now.

  They were growing bored.

  Standing under the massive portico, Pádraic Pearse settled his pince-nez on his nose and unrolled the Proclamation. As he began to read aloud, his voice held none of the fire and passion it had contained at Glasnevin. The power was in the words themselves—if anyone cared to listen.

  His audience was amused and hostile by turns. A half-grown boy sniggered and made faces. A man shouted, “Ye louser, why don’t ye go back where ye came from?” Others simply lost interest and walked away. When Pearse finished reading the words meant to set Ireland free there were a few cheers from lads who saw the whole thing as a bit of craic, a bit of fun.

  But Dubliners for the most part did not care.

  For a moment Pádraic Pearse looked old.

  James Connolly impulsively reached out and grasped his hand. “Thanks be to God, Pearse, that we’ve lived to see this day!”1

  Pearse gave him a grateful smile.

  A trickle of new recruits, including members of the Hibernian Rifles, began arriving. They all requested to be given orders. After a brief conference with Connolly over maps of the city, Pearse assigned Con Colbert to lead a squad to Watkins’ Brewery near James’s Gate and establish a post there.2

  “But I’m your bodyguard, Commander!”

  “I am surrounded by my army and perfectly safe,” Pearse assured him. “As an experienced officer you will be a great deal more useful in the field. We are spread too thin; we have to try to cover ourselves.”

  As he left the G.P.O. Colbert threw a rueful glance at Ned.

  A group of almost forty women reported for duty. They were neatly dressed, neatly coiffed, with an air of well-drilled efficiency. “Cumann na mBan is going to run a canteen for us,” Connolly told the men, “so we need to keep them well supplied. They’ll give us hell otherwise.” Foraging parties were organized to go in search of tea, sugar, milk, anything edible that would not spoil, and bedding.

  “Leave chits for whatever you take and be exact about the money due,” Pearse ordered sternly. “We shall settle up with the shopkeepe
rs later. There is to be no stealing and no taking advantage.”

  Ned and Des Ryan joined one of the foraging parties, but just as they were leaving the G.P.O. a company of Lancers on horseback came charging down Sackville Street with their sabers drawn. When they reached the Pillar they were met with a hail of bullets from roofs and windows. Four of the Lancers and two of the horses fell. The rest of the troop wheeled around and galloped back the way they had come.

  Ned ran to the nearest man, who though still alive was groaning and clawing ineffectually at his blood-soaked shoulder. “Help me!” he pleaded. Ned darted into the G.P.O. and returned with stretcher bearers to help carry him inside.

  The other Lancers lay dead at the foot of Nelson’s Pillar. High above them the admiral stood impervious, though his nose was freshly nicked by a rifle bullet.

  Bystanders gawped at the bodies. A shawlie who had had too much to drink seated herself on the shoulder of a dead horse and patted it solicitously, then burst into raucous song.

  Inside the post office the skirmish was hailed as a victory until James Connolly reminded the others, “Those buckos are just the tip of the iceberg.”

  His choice of words sent an involuntary shiver up Ned’s spine.

  Some of Cumann na mBan had begun brewing tea and cooking meals on the first floor, while others who were Red Cross nurses prepared an infirmary in one of the large sorting rooms at the rear of the building. Their first patient was the wounded Lancer.

  The O’Rahilly expressed a concern that someone might help himself to the money the postal clerks had abandoned in their flight.3 He sent his nephew, Dick Humphries, around to all the wickets to collect the cash and postal orders. He then turned them over to one of the captured British officers to count, record, and put into the fireproof safe in the basement. There was almost seven thousand pounds.