1916

by Morgan Llywelyn

  “Ho there, here’s another rebel trying to run off! They’re all cowards. Come ’ere, you! Get over there with the others where you belong.”

  It felt good to be back with Headquarters Company. Nothing else made any sense.

  They spent twelve hours crowded together on the strip of grass. They were allowed to sit, but not to stretch out their legs far enough to touch the pavement. Their muscles cramped from inactivity.

  Ned wanted to report to Tom Clarke that his mission had been successful; he had told someone…something. But he could not think clearly. He could not get to Clarke anyway; he and the other leaders were too closely guarded. Ned contented himself with sitting on the grass and trying to get comfortable. He thought vaguely of his tunic, which would make a pillow. Where was his tunic?

  Where was his rifle? He leaned toward the man sitting next to him. “Did you see my rifle? I think I left it in Moore Street.”

  “You couldn’t have, we took everything out of there.”

  “Everything?”

  “Just everything that was ours. The commander was very particular about that. If we had picked up anything that didn’t belong to us, even so much as a pin, we had to put it back before we left so we couldn’t be accused of looting.”

  “I’ve lost my rifle,” Ned said sorrowfully.

  “Ah sure, we’ve all lost our rifles, lad.”

  EARLY next morning they were marched down Sackville Street and across O’Connell Bridge, surrounded by soldiers with bayonets at the ready. Dubliners turned out to laugh and jeer. “Serves ye right, ye shitehawks, ye bowsies!” “Them Tommies’ll put some manners on yiz!”

  But one Dublin fireman, hosing down the smoking rubble near the bridge, called out, “God bless you, lads!”

  As they were marched through the city people threw rotten vegetables at them, and they were spat upon by women who cried, “Ye treasonous gobshites! Why aren’t yiz fightin in Flanders like daycent men?” Others shouted, “Bayonet them! Bayonet them!”

  “Don’t take a blind bit of notice,” George Plunkett advised his companions. “Those shawlies are married to men in the British army; as far as they’re concerned we’ve betrayed their husbands.”

  For the weary men, the long walk to Richmond Barracks was an ordeal. At first the sun was a comfort, but it soon became a torture. Twice Ned was overcome by nausea but he was not allowed to stop. He had to trudge along, racked by dry heaves, while the world spun and swooped around him.

  When they finally reached the army barracks they were herded into an open square and made to stand in the sun without water. After almost an hour of this, Joe Plunkett finally collapsed. It was incredible he had made it that far. Two of the soldiers took him by the arms and dragged him into the shade.

  HENRY Mooney blamed himself for Ned’s disappearance. Instead of going back to Mrs. Kearney’s—provided the house was still standing, which he did not know for certain—he set out to find his missing friend. He had a strong suspicion Ned would be with the others from the G.P.O., but when he went to the British post in Parnell Street to inquire about him the officer in charge turned him back. “No one’s allowed to talk to the prisoners.”

  “I don’t want to talk to him; I just want to know if he’s here.”

  “I can’t give you that information.”

  Henry fumbled in his pocket for his press pass. “But I’m a reporter and—”

  “I can’t give you any information! Go on, get away from here. This area’s off-limits to civilians.”

  Frustrated, Henry went home. Number 16 was still there. He dragged himself upstairs and sat down on his bed, staring at the empty bed across the room. With a sigh, he took Thomas MacDonagh’s book out of his pocket and put it back on Ned’s locker.

  Then he opened the notebook Ned had given him and began to read.

  Chapter Fifty-seven

  “WHAT do you mean, they’re not here and you can’t tell me anything?” Henry Mooney gave the duty officer a look like thunder. “I’m not just anybody, you know! I have a pass signed by Neville Grantham at Dublin Castle, giving me permission to enter government facilities. I’ve come to inquire about Edward Halloran. I demand to know if he was brought here yesterday.”

  The duty officer was trying to be polite. Richmond Barracks was usually quiet on Sunday morning; a chap could read the papers and tidy up his kit if he had a mind to. But this particular morning was most hectic. Everyone wanted to know the fate of the rebels, not least of all the angry reporter standing in front of him waving a pass from the Castle.

  “Be careful with the press,” the duty officer had been warned. “Keep them on our side.” He was doing his best to comply.

  He told Henry, “The rebels from the post office and those who surrendered from the Four Courts were taken down to the quays last night, sir, and put on the boat.”

  “What boat? Going where?”

  “England, for internment. They’re perfectly all right, I assure you. They were even given food before they left. I expect thousands more will be deported before we have this cleared up.”

  “But you can’t send Ned Halloran to England!” Henry knew he was being illogical; the British could do what they liked. “He’s very ill, I saw him myself yesterday. He may have a bullet in his head.”

  “Why didn’t you say so? Just a tick, I have a list…” The officer riffled through papers on a clipboard. “Yes, here they are. Special category prisoners. Detectives from the DMP were here last night identifying suspects for court-martial. They had files on about a hundred men and went through the prisoners several times, picking out the ones they wanted held back. Anyone too ill to travel was also detained, and will be—”

  Henry snatched the clipboard and ran his eyes down the list. Joseph Plunkett, described as “son of alleged Count Plunkett.” George and Jack Plunkett, ditto. John MacDermott, cripple. Michael Collins. Name after name; some familiar, some not.

  Toward the bottom, Edward Halloran.

  Henry breathed a sigh of relief. “Where is he?”

  “In the infirmary, I suppose. But you can’t see anyone on this list. I’m sorry, sir, but I have my orders.”

  “YOU’RE lucky to find me in the Castle this morning,” Grantham told Henry. “If it were any ordinary Sunday I wouldn’t be here. Did the pass I gave you get you inside any faster?”

  “It did, but I need a different sort of pass now. I need to get a prisoner out of Richmond Barracks.”

  Grantham sat back in his chair and looked at Henry in astonishment. “You must be joking, old fellow.”

  “I assure you I’m not. My friend Ned Halloran—your friend too, I should point out—is in Richmond Barracks this very minute, held with the special category prisoners.”

  “Special category? Are you trying to tell me that young man’s one of the rebel leaders?”

  “I’m trying to tell you just the opposite, damn it!” Henry braced his arms on Grantham’s desk and leaned across, almost into the other man’s face. “His arrest was a mistake! Ned works for the Independent. He must have been after a story last night when he sneaked into that group being held at the Rotunda.” Henry forced a smile he did not feel. “That’s just like Ned, eager as a hound puppy. I don’t know why they mistook him for one of the Volunteers; he certainly wasn’t wearing a uniform. He was in shirtsleeves and a pair of serge trousers.”

  Henry paused, then said reflectively, “Those trousers might be mistaken for part of a uniform, I suppose, since he wore puttees over them to keep them from getting caught in his bicycle chain. That’s what he had on when I last saw him yesterday. He’d been out and about the city writing down his impressions.

  “At some time during the day he got too close to the fighting and took a head wound. When he came back to the newspaper office he was bleeding and badly concussed. We made him lie down until we could get a doctor to look at him. By the time I got back to the office last night he had gone. I figure that’s when he went to the Rotunda and was mistaken fo
r one of the rebels. In his dazed condition he couldn’t explain who he was, or if he could, they didn’t believe him.”

  Neville Grantham was looking very hard at Henry. “Quite an incredible tale,” he said with no inflection in his voice.

  “It’s true and I can prove it. Look here.” Henry held out Ned’s notebook, opened to a selected page. “See? Read that. His impressions of the fighting on the north side. He can write, you see that yourself. And here’s his press pass identifying him as a staff reporter for the Independent. Same as the one I carry, except Ned left his behind the last time he went out. He would not have done that if he was in his right mind. He’s badly hurt, Neville. You have to help me get him out of Richmond Barracks before a dreadful mistake is made.”

  Henry kept his face impassive while Neville Grantham examined the little pasteboard press pass. He turned it over several times in his fingers.

  “You claim he’s a reporter?”

  “Like the two journalists Captain Bowen-Colthurst shot down in cold blood in Portobello Barracks,” Henry said.

  Grantham blinked. “How did you hear about that?”

  “You know better than anyone what good sources I have. And I assure you, Neville, the full weight of the press will be brought to bear against any government official misguided enough to allow one of our people to be mistaken for a rebel leader.”

  Grantham was looking at the press pass again. “Incredible,” he repeated.

  FATHER Paul O’Shaughnessy had been following events the way most people were in Dublin that Easter week, by word of mouth. Rumor was as unreliable as ever, but by Sunday evening some facts were beginning to filter through. After receiving orders from Pearse, Edward Daly reluctantly had surrendered the Four Courts garrison on Saturday evening. The surrender was negotiated by two priests, and the rebels were marched off to Richmond Barracks, although pockets of resistance continued to hold out for another day.

  On Sunday morning the leaders of the North Dublin County men and of a company of Volunteers from Wexford had called on Pádraic Pearse in Arbour Hill. Pearse verified their orders to surrender and thanked them for their service.

  Eamon de Valera had begun the fight with only a fifth of the Third Battalion, and seen that number drastically reduced as the week progressed and his men bore the brunt of the attack from the south. The pressures they were under drove one Volunteer to the breaking point; he ran amok and shot a comrade through the heart.1 A sentry shot him in return, leaving the garrison badly shaken. Late on Friday, de Valera had evacuated Boland’s Mills as an untenable position, only to find that all Dublin appeared to be in flames. He had returned his men to the bakery, where they remained until Pearse ordered them to surrender.

  On Thursday the British had undertaken their most concentrated attack on Eamonn Ceannt and the South Dublin Union. Cathal Brugha, with five bullets and several bomb splinters in him, had single-handedly defended a barricaded position for over two hours.2 Thinking him long since dead, his comrades shared a last cigarette and vowed to fight to the end.

  Then they heard someone singing, very weak and far away:

  God save Ireland say we proudly,

  God save Ireland say we all.

  Whether on the scaffold high or the battlefield we die

  Oh, what matter when for Ireland dear we fall.3

  Eamonn Ceannt led the rescue party that found Cathal Brugha still alive, sitting in a pool of his own blood and singing.

  The enemy had withdrawn.

  From Thursday night on, the Fourth Battalion remained surrounded but was left in relative peace until Sunday. When Pearse’s orders were received the garrison surrendered.

  In the well-fortified Jacob’s Factory garrison, Thomas MacDonagh had seen little fighting since Tuesday, though on Wednesday some of his outposts were fiercely attacked and had to be abandoned. On Thursday he had tried to send food and supplies to the hard-pressed Third Battalion at Boland’s Mills, but the relief party could not get through. MacDonagh managed to stay in contact with Michael Mallin and Con Markievicz in the College of Surgeons, however, keeping up the spirits of that beleaguered garrison throughout their ordeal and supplying them with food and ammunition. Then on Sunday afternoon, and only on orders from his commander-in-chief, a weeping Thomas MacDonagh lowered the tricolor.

  There was still gunfire here and there throughout the city, but the Rising was over.

  “I’LL have to go to Kilmainham in the morning,” Paul told Ina Cahill as they were having their tea on Sunday night. “The police and the army are arresting everyone who has any connection with the rebels…or who they think might have. They’re going to be sending prisoners to Richmond Barracks and Kilmainham Jail by the hundreds. God alone knows what will become of them, but they’ll need me.”

  The old woman’s eyes had become much brighter since her husband’s death. She gave Paul a broad wink, laid her forefinger across her lips, and went to the a small chest where she kept her few valuables. Making a great show of turning her back to hide what she was doing, she rummaged in the chest until she found a huge, rusty key.

  “You take this key,” she told Paul, “and when none o’them Britishers is lookin’ you let our lads out, hear me!”

  The priest examined the key with amusement. It would fit no lock he had ever seen. “Where did you get this, Ina?”

  “Never you mind now, just do as I say.”

  Paul had no difficulty reaching Kilmainham the following morning. The military patrols that had kept civilians penned in their own districts were being withdrawn; traffic was beginning to move again.

  At Kilmainham the priest was greeted with relief by Reverend MacCarthy. “We shall need all the clergy we can get, I’m afraid.”

  The anticipated flow of prisoners was already arriving. Some were civilians who seemed genuinely baffled as to why they had been arrested. The actual rebels were tired, dirty, grumbling with the complaints of fighting men everywhere. But most of them had a look in their eyes Paul had never seen before. He could not think of a name for that look; it was just a certain expression he would remember all his life.

  When he had the chance he surreptitiously tried the key in the locks of several cells, but found, as he had expected, that it would open none of them.

  “HOW many times do you expect me to put my head on the block for you?” Neville Grantham asked Henry on Tuesday.

  “This isn’t a big favor, just a pass to cover the courts-martial whenever they begin. Today’s the second of May, so I should think that will be within a week or so, am I right?”

  Grantham sighed. “I’ve been very patient, Henry, and I’ve done all I possibly could. Grant me that. But you must remember, I represent His Majesty’s government. It is General Maxwell’s opinion that British interests would not be served by allowing civilian spectators to observe what is essentially a military matter.”

  “Are you saying no reporters?”

  “I’m afraid so. The trials are being held in Richmond Barracks and facilities there are limited. The accused, the witnesses against them, the various detectives whose evidence is required, the guards, the three officers of the courts-martial and the prosecutor will all be in the same room. There’s no space for nonessential personnel.”

  “Nonessential horseshite!” Henry exploded. “You’re going to try those men in secret!”

  “The trials are closed, yes. For security reasons.”

  “And the verdicts—are they going to be secret, too?”

  “I understand the men will be told of the verdicts shortly after the court-martial, but the public at large won’t be informed until later. After…it’s all over,” he added meaningfully.

  Henry sank back in his chair and wiped his hand across his forehead. “Good God Almighty. That’s barbaric. But wait a minute. Didn’t you just say ‘The trials are being held in Richmond Barracks?’”

  “I did.”

  “They’re going on right now? I don’t believe it! Tell me what’s happening, Nevi
lle.”

  “You can’t print it yet. You do understand that, don’t you?”

  “Of course I do, I’m no fool. Have I ever printed anything you asked me to hold back? Just tell me.”

  “Yesterday all the accused received written copies of the charges against them. They are the same in every instance, I believe: ‘Rebellion with the intent of assisting the enemy.’”4

  “You think Pearse and the others staged the Rising for the benefit of Germany?” Henry asked incredulously.

  “Whether or not that was their intent, it could have had that effect by weakening Britain. Consider how many soldiers we’ve had to reroute to Ireland, men we desperately needed at the front.”

  “Oh yes, you certainly needed twenty thousand soldiers to beat twelve hundred Irishmen!”

  “There’s no need to be sarcastic, Henry. Besides, who gave you those figures?”

  “Are you denying them?”

  Grantham said stiffly, “I am not officially confirming them.”

  “I understand that the number of people who’ve been arrested already exceeds the total number of men who fought in the Rising.5 I also know that the chief secretary came hurrying back to Ireland last week to confer with Maxwell and report to Asquith. Now both Birrell and Nathan are resigning, isn’t that true?”6

  It was Neville Grantham’s turn to slump in his chair. “My, you have been busy.”

  “Just doing my job.”

  “Then get out of here and let me do mine, will you? I have to clean out my desk.”

  “What?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve been recalled.”

  “Oh. Oh, I am sorry, Neville. I hope it wasn’t anything I—”

  “No, no, I brought this on myself. It’s probably time I went home anyway; one should never serve on a foreign posting for too long. There’s always the temptation to go native.”

  “Foreign posting?”

  Grantham gave a sardonic smile. “It is, isn’t it? Ireland isn’t England and never will be. But before I go I would like to know something, Henry.”