1916

by Morgan Llywelyn

  “Ask away.”

  “Ned Halloran. How is he?”

  “He’s still alive—so far,” Henry said guardedly. “Can I ask you something in return?”

  “So long as it’s not a pass to the court-martial.”

  “Just tell me who’s being tried this morning.”

  Neville Grantham picked up a sheet of paper from his desk. “The first three are P. H. Pearse, Thomas Clarke, and Thomas MacDonagh.”

  PEARSE was brought from Arbour Hill on Tuesday morning. The night before, he had written a letter to his mother and composed a tender poem for his brother. Poetry was his solace during long hours of solitary confinement.

  WITH the exception of James Connolly, the rest of the leaders had spent the time in Richmond Barracks. They were crammed into a small room with other republicans awaiting court-martial. Seán MacDermott—affectionate, warmhearted, handsome Seán MacDermott—was trying to keep up everyone’s spirits with jokes and banter. Joe Plunkett lay gasping for breath on a quilt another prisoner had brought all the way from the College of Surgeons. Tom Clarke sat in a corner with a faint smile on his lips. Perhaps he was thinking of Katty, and his garden.

  On Monday night Seán MacDermott fell into a restless sleep with his head pillowed on Tom Clarke’s shoulder. Near them Willie Pearse tossed in his own troubled dreams, mumbling, “The fire! Oh, get the men out, the fire, the fire!”

  ON Tuesday morning Pádraic Pearse was the first to face court-martial. The presiding officer, General Blackadder, listened gravely to the evidence presented, then allowed the accused to make a statement.

  Pearse told the court, “My object in agreeing to an unconditional surrender was to prevent the further slaughter of the civilian population of Dublin and to save the lives of our gallant fellows who, having made for six days a stand unparalleled in military history, were now surrounded and without food. I fully understand now, as then, that my own life is forfeit to British law, and I shall die very cheerfully if I can think that the British government, as it has already shown itself strong, will now show itself magnanimous enough to accept my single life in forfeiture and to give a general amnesty to the brave men and boys who have fought at my bidding.

  “When I was a child of ten I went down on my bare knees by my bedside one night and promised God that I should devote my life to an effort to free my country. I have kept that promise.

  “I assume that I am speaking to Englishmen who value their own freedom and who profess to be fighting for the freedom of Belgium and Serbia. Believe that we too love freedom and desire it. If you strike us down now we shall rise again and renew the fight. You cannot conquer Ireland; you cannot extinguish the Irish passion for freedom. If our deed has not been sufficient to win freedom, then our children will win it by a better deed.”7

  His statement was not taken down or made public.

  He wrote it down himself, however, and put it with his letters and poems for delivery to his mother.

  Pádraic Pearse was taken from Richmond Barracks to a dark, dank cell in the old wing of Kilmainham Jail. There he would await the verdict of the court. He still hoped that his request for amnesty for the others might be granted; that Willie and the rest would be spared.

  He had no idea that his brother was also being court-martialed and would soon be in the same prison.

  FATHER Paul O’Shaughnessy stood in the narrow passageway and peered through the peephole into the cell. It was so dark inside he could hardly make out the man leaning against the wall. “Can I bring you anything?”

  “Enough light to write by would be welcome, Father,” Pádraic Pearse replied. The priest brought a lamp, then lingered outside, offering the small comfort of his presence.

  “Do you like poetry, Father?” Pearse eventually asked.

  “I suppose so.”

  “Shall I read you what I’ve written?”

  “Please do.”

  The beauty of the world hath made me sad,

  This beauty that will pass;

  Sometimes my heart hath shaken with great joy

  To see a leaping squirrel in a tree,

  Or a red lady-bird upon a stalk,

  Or little rabbits in a field at evening,

  Lit by a slanting sun,

  Or some green hill where shadows drifted by

  Some quiet hill where mountainy man hath sown

  And soon would reap; near to the gate of Heaven;

  Or children with bare feet upon the sands

  Of some ebbed sea, or playing on the streets

  Of little towns in Connacht,

  Things young and happy.

  And then my heart told me: These will pass,

  Will pass and change, will die and be no more,

  Things bright and green, things young and happy,

  And I have gone upon my way

  Sorrowful.8

  General Blackadder, President of the Courts-Martial, dined that evening with the countess of Fingal. He had no appetite and was unable to take part in the usual lively dinner table conversation. Eventually he confided to his hostess, “I have just done one of the hardest tasks I have ever had to do. I have had to condemn to death one of the finest characters I have ever come across. There must be something very wrong in the state of things that makes a man like Patrick Pearse a rebel. I do not wonder that his pupils adored him.”9

  LATE on Tuesday, Pearse asked for a Capuchin priest, Father Aloysius, to hear his confession and give him Holy Communion. That night he wrote two final letters. One was for “Dear old Willie,” and said, “No one can ever have had so true a brother as you.”

  The other was addressed to “My Dearest Mother.” In it Pearse wrote, “I hope and I believe that Willie and the St. Enda’s boys are safe.”

  The letter went on:

  “I have just received Holy Communion. I am happy, except for the great grief of parting from you. This is the death I should have asked for if God had given me the choice of all deaths.

  May God bless you for your great love for me and for your great faith, and may He remember all that you have so bravely suffered. I hope soon to see Papa, and in a little while we shall all be together again.

  Wow-wow, Willie, Mary Brigid, and Mother, good-bye. I have not words to tell of my love of you, and how my heart yearns to you all. I will call to you in my heart at the last moment.

  Your son, Pat10

  At 3:30 A.M. on the third of May, 1916, Pádraic Pearse was taken from his cell in Kilmainham Jail. The last thing he did before leaving the cell was to tuck his pince-nez carefully into his pocket.

  In the Stonebreakers’ Yard the chill of night was trapped within stone walls so high no escape was possible. Neither was any glimpse of the Ireland that lay beyond.

  Electric light illumined the scene, casting harsh shadows.

  The firing squad was waiting.

  Just before the bandage was tied across his eyes, Pádraic Pearse threw back his head and looked up.

  The starry sky was free.

  Chapter Fifty-eight

  THE chaplain tried to arrange for Willie Pearse to see his brother before Pádraic’s execution.1 Under heavy guard, Willie was halfway to his brother’s cell when they heard the rifle volley.

  His guards looked at one another. “Too late,” one said.

  PEARSE was followed to the Stonebreakers’ Yard by Tom Clarke, who had been allowed a brief visit with his wife in his cell the night before. “I’m glad it’s a soldier’s death I’m getting,” he told Katty. “I’ve had enough of imprisonment.”2

  She would not let him see her cry.

  THOMAS MacDonagh had also had a visitor that last night. He was not told until midnight that he would be shot at dawn, and shortly thereafter his sister, a nun, was shown into his cell. She brought him their mother’s rosary to put around his neck. “I hope they will give me this when it’s over,” she said.

  “Ah no, they will shoot it to bits,” her brother replied.

  He met the bullets with
his head high.

  “They all died well, but MacDonagh died like a prince,” said a British officer who witnessed the executions.3

  MR. Stoker was relieved that his jewelry shop in Grafton Street had escaped damage during the rebellion.4 By Tuesday he felt it was safe to open for business again. That night, as he was about to lock up, a motor cab stopped outside and a slender young woman came into the shop. A heavy veil hid her features, but he could see her trembling as if she was fighting back tears.

  “What’s wrong, my dear? Can I offer you a glass of brandy?”

  She shook her head and held up one hand. “Just give me a moment. It’s my nerves, that’s all. I would like to look at a selection of wedding rings, please. The best that money can buy. You see, I’m about to be married to a remarkable man.”

  While the jeweler watched solicitously, she selected a heavy gold ring and asked to have it engraved. “I shall call for it tomorrow.” She gave him her calling card and left the shop. Mr. Stoker held the card up to the light. The name on it was Miss Grace Gifford.

  FATHER Paul O’Shaughnessy was so tired he did not think he could go on, yet he could not leave Kilmainham. He did not want to leave Kilmainham. His pastoral skills would never be as badly needed as they were in that appalling place.

  The first three executions had taken place in rushed secrecy, but by Wednesday night a crowd of women had gathered outside the prison and begun chanting prayers.

  “They’re Cumann na mBan,” explained the chaplain. “The women’s auxiliary for the Volunteers.”

  “How did they know?”

  “You Americans wouldn’t understand, but Ireland’s a very small country.”

  The women were kneeling in the road, holding up candles. “They won’t change General Maxwell’s mind,” one of the guards remarked. “Nothing would. He’s in total charge now, and he’s determined to crush the rebellion once and for all and make such an example of the leaders that no one will ever try this again.”

  Paul stared out at the candle flames flickering in the twilight. “How brightly they burn,” he said.

  He lay down on a cot in the chaplain’s office to try to get a few hours’ sleep, only to be awakened in the dead of night by Reverend MacCarthy. “Sorry to disturb you, Father.”

  Paul sat up. The room was in darkness; the only illumination came from a candle in the chaplain’s hand. “We’ve had a power failure. Candles are the only light we have tonight; perhaps it’s for the best.”

  Puzzled, Paul followed Reverend MacCarthy to the prison chapel.

  Twenty soldiers with fixed bayonets lined the walls of the chapel. A young woman stood beside the altar with her eyes fixed unwaveringly on the doorway. Reverend MacCarthy went to her and spoke softly, but she did not respond.

  She saw nothing but the man who was being led into the room in handcuffs.

  Joe Plunkett still wore his dashing uniform, though it was filthy and minus its saber. In the candlelight blood glistened on his lips. “White dove of the wild dark eyes,” he greeted her as if no one else could hear.

  For them there were no bayonets, no soldiers. No yesterday and no tomorrow.

  They were not allowed to touch except for the exchange of wedding rings. The ceremony was brief, yet all the more beautiful for its simplicity. Do you promise this woman? Do you promise this man? In sickness and in health. Until death us do part.

  Kathleen. Oh, Kathleen!

  When the ceremony was over, Grace Gifford had to stand and watch while her husband was led away. There was no kiss.

  Shortly before dawn, however, she was allowed ten minutes with him in his cell. Ten minutes, while fifteen soldiers crowded in with them to stand guard, and the time was measured to the second by an officer with a watch.

  Afterward, Paul O’Shaughnessy returned to the prison chapel. For a few brief minutes death and all its terrors had been held at bay by love, and the sweet ghost of that love lingered in the flickering candlelight.

  The priest was profoundly moved.

  If God is Love as we are taught, he thought to himself, then truly I have seen tangible evidence of God tonight.

  Kneeling, Paul bowed his head over his clasped hands and tried to formulate a prayer. The words of Ned Halloran filled his head instead: “If you really care for Kathleen, you’ll go back to her. Don’t leave her to Alexander Campbell. Go back and fight for her yourself.”

  He looked up, startled. The echo of those words seemed to ring in the chapel.

  AT dawn on the fourth of May, Joe Plunkett was shot. With him that morning died Edward Daly, Michael O’Hanrahan, and Willie Pearse. Willie would have escaped the death sentence, as he was neither a commanding officer nor a member of the Military Council, had it not been for the fact that he insisted on stressing his own involvement. During the last confusing days he had signed several orders as “acting chief of staff,” a fact he proudly pointed out to the court. He thus signed his own death warrant.

  Surprised witnesses at his execution reported he seemed almost eager to go, as if someone was waiting for him.

  Major John MacBride, MacDonagh’s second-in-command at Jacob’s, died on May 5. On the same day the death sentence that had been pronounced on Constance, Countess Markievicz, was—to her fury—commuted to life imprisonment because she was a woman.

  As one execution followed another and became known, a feeling of revulsion set in. People began urging clemency for the rebels. George Bernard Shaw was but one of many writing letters to the government. The United States Senate also expressed the hope that Great Britain would show mercy.

  ON the eighth of May, Eamonn Ceannt, Michael Mallin, Seán Heuston, and Con Colbert were shot.

  On the eleventh, the death sentence of Eamon de Valera was commuted to life imprisonment out of deference to his American citizenship.

  Surely, people thought, there would be no more executions.

  Then on Friday, the twelfth of May, Seán MacDermott was shot. MacDermott had fought hard for his life, arguing every point at the court-martial. But the sentence had already been decided.

  He did not die alone. James Connolly, feverish and in great pain, was brought by ambulance to Kilmainham. He was carried into the Stonebreakers’ Yard on a stretcher and tied seated in a chair because he was too ill to meet his fate standing on his feet.

  The last bullet was his.

  Chapter Fifty-nine

  GENERAL Maxwell took his mandate seriously. He had been sent to crush the rebellion and punish the rebels, and crush and punish he would. Ninety-seven other prisoners were also condemned to death. There would have been more, but sympathetic policemen refused to identify some and helped a few others escape.

  As the presses began to roll again Henry was kept busy. “There’s plenty of blame to go around,” his editor told him, “and everyone’s pointing the finger at someone else. See if you can find out what the government’s feeling is about all this.”

  Dublin Castle had been startled by the speed and severity of Maxwell’s actions, but made no official protest. They seemed paralyzed.

  Another for whom indecisiveness was a problem was Eoin MacNeill. During Easter Week he had dithered about joining his old comrades while his family and Bulmer Hobson sought to dissuade him.1 In the end, when it was much too late, he had put on his Volunteer uniform and declared himself—only to be arrested and court-martialed without ever having struck a blow for freedom.

  IN Dublin seven hundred and sixty-three prominent supporters of the union with Britain signed a formal protest against any interference with General Maxwell’s policies on the grounds that it would weaken governmental authority. But in the House of Commons, John Redmond, who initially had expressed abhorrence of the Rising, began exerting pressure on Asquith to stop the executions in spite of unionist objections.

  On the eleventh of May, John Dillon, the nationalist M.P., said in Commons, “I know they were wrong, but they fought a clean fight and they fought with superb bravery and skill. No act of savage
ry or act against the usual customs of war has been charged against any leader or any organized body of insurgents.”2

  In Dublin, Captain Brereton, a British prisoner who had been held by Ned Daly’s men in the Four Courts, told the Irish Times, “The Sinn Féiners observed all the rules of civilized warfare and fought clean. They proved they were men of education, incapable of acts of brutality.”

  Balanced against the King Street massacre, the senseless murder of Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, the secret trials and hasty, unnecessarily cruel executions, the behavior of the Irish Republican Army was exemplary.

  “Our lads did us credit,” people said to one another with slowly surfacing pride. The mood of the country began to shift.

  At first Asquith had merely expressed surprise at Maxwell’s “drastic action,” but as opposition mounted he made it clear to the general that his hard line was losing support at the highest level.

  When Maxwell telegraphed Asquith to notify him that MacDermott and Connolly were going to be executed, he reluctantly added that they would be the last to suffer capital punishment “as far as I can now state.”3 The death sentences of the other ninety-seven—including Eoin MacNeill—were commuted to penal servitude.

  In spite of a strong plea from Mrs. Pearse and the other families to have the bodies of their loved ones returned for burial in consecrated ground, the executed men were buried in quicklime, without coffins, in the grounds of Arbour Hill Prison.4

  HENRY found that last insult particularly cruel. As he climbed the stairs to the quiet room in Sandymount, he tried to imagine them wrapped in sheets of burning lime, the flesh eaten from their bones…

  Ned looked shrunken in the bed. His tall body was reduced to skin and bone, but his eyes were clear at last. “What news, Henry?”

  “It’s over. There aren’t going to be any more executions. A Volunteer officer called Thomas Kent was shot in Cork and poor Roger Casement will probably be put to death in England, but the republicans who’ve survived this far will go on living for a while.”