Uncommon Valour

by Paul O'Brien

  Dr McNamara, the resident medical practitioner, approached the Volunteers to protest about their actions. Having received no satisfaction from them, he then entered an office building and picked up the telephone receiver in order to alert the authorities to their actions. Volunteer James Coughlan confronted the doctor and ordered him to put down the telephone. He refused and Coughlan then prodded him with the bayonet on his rifle. McNamara turned to Coughlan and threatened: ‘I’ll get your name and give it to the …’ He left the sentence unfinished as other Volunteers arrived in the office and began to dismantle the phone while Coughlan kept him under guard.4

  A series of garden huts located within the compound near the main gate had been earmarked to be Ceannt’s command post. However, it soon became evident that the small force of Volunteers available would be unable to defend the entire entrance area from this position. Lieutenant Cosgrave noted that the Nurses’ Home (10) would be a suitable alternative defensive position. Situated at a right angle to James’s Street, this granite, three-storey structure had a dominating view of James’s Street and the Union’s entrance courtyard. From the rear of the building one could look out across the entire Union complex. The officers decided that this position would make a better battalion headquarters and it was soon occupied – windows were smashed and barricades were erected. Brugha detailed a number of men to take up positions at the windows that looked out across McCaffrey’s Estate at the rear and beyond to the Rialto gate. At the front of the building other Volunteers looked out onto the main entrance courtyard and stood ready.5

  Within the Union, officials and hospital staff remained at their posts and nurses removed the patients to safer quarters. Red Cross flags were draped from the windows of the buildings that still held staff and patients. Throughout the week the work of the institution continued, despite the chaos.

  In order to prevent his position within the South Dublin Union from being outflanked, Ceannt ordered two parties of Volunteers to occupy sections of McCaffrey’s Estate, a large green area of eight to ten acres within the Union grounds. Lieutenant William O’Brien, Section Commander John Joyce and three other Volunteers took up an advance position at the junction of Mount Brown and Brookfield Road (4). McCaffrey’s Estate was a series of irregular elevations that tapered steeply down to Mount Brown. The Volunteers’ post dominated the road leading from Old Kilmainham to James’s Street and they concealed themselves behind a low wall. Another officer and eight Volunteers took up position behind a hedgerow at the upper end of the field, nearer the rear wall of the Nurses’ Home.

  Ceannt also sent one officer and five men to defend the canal wall at the rear of the Union. High walls made the east, or city side, of the Union immune to attack, and because of this Ceannt decided not to post Volunteers on this side of the complex.

  About 250 yards from the Rialto entrance was Hospital 2–3 (5), a building that was occupied by eight Volunteers, two on the ground floor and six on the upper floor. Volunteers Dan McCarthy and Jim Kenny took up positions on the ground floor at the front. They had been told not to worry about the rear of the building, as the Volunteers in the Marrowbone Lane Distillery would have this covered. Captain Douglas fFrench Mullen began organising the rest of the group on the second floor. McCarthy later recalled an amusing incident in which Captain fFrench Mullen asked, ‘Where are the trenching tools?’ A little shovel was produced. When fFrench Mullen saw it he said, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ He knew they would not be able to break through the eighteen-inch thick walls with such an implement.6

  When Volunteer Peadar Doyle entered the convent building (8), a surprised nun enquired if he had come to read the gas meters. He politely replied, ‘No, sister, but we are in a hurry.’7

  As Ceannt organised his defences he could hear the sound of military music reverberating through the air from Richmond barracks in Inchicore. ‘They don’t know yet,’ remarked Ceannt. Suddenly the music stopped, as the barracks was notified of the Rising. The men in the South Dublin Union braced themselves for an imminent attack.

  Chapter 2

  Easter Monday, 24 April 1916

  Noon

  At noon on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, the British detachment at Richmond barracks in Inchicore received an urgent communiqué from garrison headquarters at Dublin Castle. It ordered all troops in barracks to proceed to the Castle fully armed. The 3rd Battalion of the Royal Irish Regiment was stationed at Richmond barracks under the command of Lieutenant Colonel R.L. Owens. At this time the regiment consisted of eighteen officers and 385 other ranks. This reserve battalion was used to supply reinforcements to the battalions on active service and consisted of men drawn from newly trained recruits, as well as officers and men returning from sick leave. As the regiment was being mustered, a picket of 100 men who were kept in constant readiness, prepared to leave the barracks. Troops made ready and were issued with a supply of ammunition. A telephone message was received informing the regiment that ‘Sinn Féiners’ had occupied the General Post Office in Sackville Street. Major Holmes, the officer in command of the picket, was ordered to proceed towards the Castle with caution.8

  At approximately 12.40 a.m., Major Holmes halted his column at the Kilmainham crossroads. In the distance he could clearly see a group of Irish Volunteers leaning over the wall of McCaffrey’s Estate at the junction of Mount Brown and Brookfield Road (4). His advance guard, consisting of one sergeant and five soldiers who were 150 yards ahead of the column, was allowed to pass the Volunteer’s position unchallenged and continue onwards to the city.

  Major Holmes then ordered Lieutenant George Malone with a company of twenty men to follow the route of the advance guard and proceed towards Dublin Castle. Their rifles were unloaded as this was the proper procedure when operating in the city. They marched off in columns of four down the middle of the road. Some of the soldiers were recent recruits from County Tipperary, while others were veterans, having already seen action on the Western Front. Lieutenant Malone ordered his men to load their weapons. Clips were inserted into their rifles and slapped in tight with the palms of their hands. They then pulled back the bolt to slide a round into the chamber and checked the safety catch. When they were within five yards of the junction, a volley of shots rang out from the Volunteers’ position. Three of Lieutenant Malone’s men collapsed as they were hit. Some of the soldiers stood their ground and attempted to return fire, while others made for cover.

  From his position behind the wall in McCaffrey’s Estate (4), Volunteer Section Commander John Joyce took aim and squeezed the trigger of his rifle. His target was the figure of a sergeant who was directing his men to cover. He fired and missed. The sergeant stood his ground. Joyce reloaded and fired again, but the bullet struck a brick wall above the sergeant’s head. The sergeant used the butt of his rifle to break open a door into a tan-yard and the men fell through the entrance into relative safety. As Lieutenant Malone rushed towards the open door, the soldier in front of him was hit and fell to the ground. Malone grabbed at the man’s collar and attempted to pull him through the doorway, but while doing so he was himself hit. Malone staggered through the doorway and into the yard. He shouted orders to his men while reloading his revolver. He heard a voice stating, ‘the officer is hit’, before he collapsed.9 When he regained consciousness, two women were bandaging his wound. Lieutenant Malone surveyed the yard and saw Private Moulton with his jaw shattered. His men looked shaken, but had taken up positions at the windows and door, and were returning a steady rate of fire.

  In the return of fire by the British, Volunteer John Owens was mortally wounded. He came from the Coombe area of Dublin city. He worked as an artificial limb maker and was twenty-four years old. Two other Volunteers were also wounded in this exchange of fire.

  As suddenly as the skirmish began it came to a stop. There was an uneasy lull in the fighting for almost fifteen minutes as British troops manoeuvred into position in preparation for an attack.

  At the junction of Old Kilmainham and O’Con
nell Road, Lieutenant Colonel R.L. Owens witnessed the assault on his men. He immediately called up the remainder of the battalion from Richmond barracks, planning to attack the South Dublin Union in force. Assisted by his adjutant, Captain Roche Kelly, Lieutenant Colonel Owens sent a company to the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham, the residence of the commander-in-chief of the British armed forces in Ireland. The south range of this three-storey building dominated the grounds of the South Dublin Union. His men ran up the oak staircases and took up firing positions in the many dormer windows that overlooked McCaffrey’s Estate. A Lewis machine-gun was deployed on the roof in order to lay down covering fire in the forthcoming attack. The automatic machine-gun was fed from a drum magazine that held forty-seven rounds. Operated by a two-man team, the cyclic rate of fire could be 550 rounds per minute. Using this weapon the British army had evolved a ‘rushing tactic’ – covered by the Lewis gun – a section or platoon could move forward a short distance and then provide covering fire for the original unit. This tactic was continuously used during the battle for the South Dublin Union.

  Lieutenant Colonel Owens directed Major E.F. Milner to take two companies and make a flank attack by way of the Rialto entrance (1) and the Grand Canal. Two experienced officers, Captain Alfred Ernest Warmington and Lieutenant Alan Livingston Ramsay, both of the Royal Irish Rifles, assisted him. Captain Warmington was the son of Alfred Warmington, the manager of the Munster and Leinster Bank in Naas, County Kildare. A veteran of the Boer War in South Africa, he had also served in France during the early months of the Great War. Lieutenant Ramsay was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Irish Rifles on 15 August 1914. His family conducted a successful nursery business from their home in Ballsbridge supplying plants and flowers throughout the city. At twenty-six years of age, Ramsay was a veteran of the Western Front and had been wounded in action there.

  Their detachment proceeded down O’Connell Road and onto the South Circular Road. The Volunteers’ position at the Rialto gate of the Union could be seen ahead. In order to cover the attack, Major Milner deployed a number of men into positions on the upper floors of the houses that stood opposite the Rialto gate (1). He also directed fifteen men to take up firing positions at the windows in the Rialto buildings on the other side of the canal as these structures overlooked the southern area of the Union. The remainder of his men took up positions on the road opposite the Rialto gate and prepared for the order to storm the Union. Word went down the line and the men moved rapidly into their firing positions without making any noise.

  At 12.55 p.m. the assault began. The uneasy silence was shattered as British troops opened fire. The Lewis machine-gun located in the Royal Hospital enfiladed the Volunteers located in McCaffrey’s Estate. The crash of rifle fire and the staccato rattle of the machine-gun warned Volunteer Lieutenant William O’Brien of how vulnerable his position in McCaffrey’s Estate was. Realising the danger, O’Brien ordered his men to retreat. He shouted ‘spread out, spread out’ as they ran back towards the hospital buildings across the open field, devoid of any cover. The only way to return to the command area or the nearest auxiliary hospital building, the Catholic Women’s Hospital (11) was to move rapidly and try to use the dips and slight ridges in the field as cover. As the Volunteers withdrew from their position, John Joyce could hear men cry out as they were hit. Richard O’Reilly was shot and killed as he crossed the field. Each Volunteer ran in short rushes from one point to another, hoping the bullets would miss. Occasionally they turned and fired wildly at an unseen enemy. As Joyce crawled forward looking for cover, the dirt ahead of him jumped, spat and then exploded in geysers of earth as bullets kicked up the soil. After almost an hour and a half of crawling through the field, Joyce and the surviving Volunteers reached the relative safety of the Women’s Hospital. They were also near the convent that lay just fifty yards from Hospital 2–3 (5).

  The Volunteers at the Rialto gate (1) heard the noise of rapid gunfire in the distance. Suddenly a barrage of covering fire was laid down on their corrugated hut. Within seconds the hut resembled a sieve, as the bullets entered and ricocheted around the inside of the building. The patients in dormitory 6 cowered on the ground as the bullets ripped through the structure. The ward-master’s coat was pierced as he tried to protect the patients. Volunteer John Traynor was mortally wounded and fell to the floor. Traynor had been employed as a messenger boy in the nearby Guinness Brewery and, at seventeen years of age, he was the crack shot of the company. The others moved to his side and for a brief moment, prayed for the repose of his soul.

  Captain Irvine sent a messenger to Ceannt at headquarters requesting further orders. The messenger returned to Irvine with a written dispatch that stated he should retire his force further into the Union grounds. This order was impractical as the British assault was growing more intense and Irvine sent the Volunteer messenger back to Ceannt to relay this message to him. The messenger succeeded in reaching Ceannt, but as the fighting then intensified he was unable to return to Irvine. The unit at Rialto was now cut off from the central command in the Union.

  In the meantime, Captain Warmington ordered fifty men to use the wall of the Union as cover and move towards the rear of the site, along the route of the Royal Canal, and attempt to gain entry to the grounds via the rear entrance (7). They moved across the road on the double and set off.

  The covering rifle fire enabled Lieutenant Ramsay to lead the first assault on the Rialto gate. The gate was heavily barricaded and locked. Ramsay abandoned the idea of forcing open the main gate and his unit moved under the wall of the Union for cover. Here they located a small wooden door that they quickly broke down. As Lieutenant Ramsay charged through the doorway a volley of shots from the Volunteers met him. Ramsay was shot through the head and fell on the roadway near the chapel (2). His men withdrew back out through the gate onto the street. A brief truce followed and the Volunteers permitted a stretcher party to collect the body of the fallen officer.

  On receiving the news about the young lieutenant’s death, Captain Warmington was consumed with rage. He ordered his men to line up and he himself led another charge through the narrow entrance. He was shot dead as he entered the doorway and under intense fire his men broke off their attack and retreated. A second ceasefire was called and another stretcher party collected Warmington’s corpse. His body was laid on the pavement beside that of Lieutenant Ramsay. The fight then continued.

  In the corrugated hut at the Rialto gate the situation was becoming desperate. The British covering fire from the Rialto buildings and the houses opposite the gate was intense and the din was ear-shattering and unnerving. Captain Irvine realised his section was isolated and the position untenable, and in a last desperate attempt to get orders, he decided to send Paddy Morrissey to Volunteer headquarters at the Nurses’ Home. As Morrissey left the hut, their post came under heavy fire. Within minutes he crawled back through the door, blood pouring from a wound in his leg. The Volunteers attempted to return fire, but were under attack from all sides. The superior firepower of the British army had enabled them to move closer. The metal corrugated hut became a hothouse of explosions, smoke, vibrations and the bitter smell of burning gunpowder. The Volunteers now realised they were surrounded. James Burke and Willie Corrigan fired desperately as the khaki-clad enemy moved into range. Corrigan received a wound to the eye as bullets shattered the glass windows of the hut. Both men were covered in blood, but continued to fight on furiously. Soon, with their weapons overheating, the Volunteers had to take turns stopping fire to allow their rifles to cool.10

  The door of the hut was well barricaded. Members of the Royal Irish Regiment prepared to make an assault on the door using a large, iron lawnmower as a makeshift battering ram. Three British soldiers charged the door with the makeshift device and as it crashed open, soldiers poured in through the breach shouting: ‘Put up your hands and surrender.’ Hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned, the Volunteers reluctantly surrendered and were led out of the Union at gunpoint. Capt
ain George Irvine, Jimmy Morrissey, Willie Corrigan, Seán Dowling and James Burke were taken to Kilmainham police station. Paddy Morrissey, whose leg had been shattered, was escorted to hospital.

  With the fall of the Rialto gate, the British crown forces had secured an access point into the Union grounds. However, they still had to cross open terrain in order to attack Ceannt’s other positions within the complex. Commandant Ceannt and his men would ensure that every inch of the South Dublin Union would be contested, a tactic that resulted in no quarter being given by either side.

  Chapter 3

  Easter Monday, 24 April 1916

  Afternoon

  A squad of British troops was moving up along the southern wall of the Union, parallel to the canal. They planned to gain access to the Union grounds via the rear entrance (7) and sweep northwards towards the front entrance, clearing buildings of insurgents as they advanced. However, as they attempted to force open the southern gate, they came under a barrage of fire from the Volunteers in the Marrowbone Lane Distillery.

  From his position on the top floor of the distillery, Volunteer Robert Holland was able to dominate the surrounding area for miles. He fired rapidly into the ranks of the soldiers who had taken up position at the Union’s southern gate. The large number of soldiers had made an easy target for Holland. Armed with a Howth Mauser rifle and a Lee Enfield rifle, he fired continuously into the ranks of the British soldiers. Josie O’Keeffe, a member of Cumann na mBan, the women’s organisation which worked closely with the Irish Volunteers, loaded the weapons and handed them to Holland, who used them with deadly accuracy.11

  Caught in the open, the troops took cover along the bank of the canal and returned fire. Heavy casualties were inflicted on the attacking force and their dead and wounded littered the canal bank. A number of soldiers, pinned down by the accurate fire, attempted to scale the nine-foot wall that surrounded the Union. One soldier who managed to climb the wall, took up position behind a telegraph pole. As he raised his rifle to fire he was hit. His body fell from the wall and bounced off the canal bank before splashing into the water. An officer sitting on the wall, revolver in hand, was shot through the head and died instantly.