Suddenly, sweeping down the road came a black line of priests, all arm in arm, pushing the looters off the street. But as soon as they passed, the looters scurried back to the shops. I saw a man fire a rock and shatter the window of Lemon’s Sweetshop. Within seconds a horde was barrelling in.
“Free sweets, free sweets! Up the Republic!” roared one little urchin, clutching a lollipop the size of his head. He was soon joined by a swarm of little boys all gorging on buttercreams, pineapple rocks, sherbet fizz and bonbons. I must admit I was sorely tempted to join them. Until I saw the hammer – used to break up the block of toffee – come whizzing out the window and nearly take out someone’s eye!
A team of rebels flung chairs, desks and tables to build a blockade across North Earl Street at the Pillar Café. But no sooner had they finished than a gang of shawlies – the poor women of Dublin who wear shawls – came running, screaming with joy.
“They’re givin’ away free furniture! God Save Ireland!”
“They will discredit us!” I heard a rebel say.
Shots were fired overhead and the shawlies were forced to bring back their pickings. But one woman made off with a piano from Cramer’s on a truck!
A dirty-faced little boy wearing golfing plus fours much too large for him drove a golf ball up the street, then watched it with shaded eyes.
“By Jove!” he cried out, playing the swell.
Then fireworks really did start. A group of kids brought them out from Lawrence’s. Catherine Wheels and Roman candles exploded and mixed with the sound of gunfire. Things were getting out of hand.
I noticed a line strung up overhead on a diagonal between the GPO and Reis’s wireless shop on the corner of Lower Abbey Street. Messages went back and forth on a tin can. So I figured my father and his colleagues had so far failed to restore communication to the GPO. Our phone line was also dead when I’d checked earlier.
Rebels darted in and out like shadows, taking possession of buildings. I clambered up the metal ladder from our roof and moved along the expanse of roof over the Imperial and Clerys. I had to keep a keen eye out, as I saw snipers posted on some neighbouring roofs. Then I shimmied down a drainpipe and crossed over Abbey Street. I went up the next terrace by the fire escape ladder at the back yard of Wynn’s Hotel on Abbey Street. Peering through a skylight over the stairwell at the back of Reis’s I heard the rebels talking.
“We proclaim the Irish Republic,” one of them intoned.
They were trying to get a message out over the radio transmitters.
I figured it out. The rebels were tunneling between the buildings in the street. I reckoned by lunchtime they would have the run of the houses between Lower Abbey Street and Sackville Place. I bet they were doing the same on the opposite side.
But why were they doing this? It could not be good. Maybe they expected British soldiers to come down the street and this was their escape route.
My watch on the GPO for my brother was exhausting. Vans and dispatch riders were coming and going in a steady stream. But no sign of Jack.
The mayhem of the street made me nervous. Booty lay strewn on the ground . . . a silk scarf, a cardboard shoebox, a patchwork of photographs trodden underfoot.
I had to get back inside the GPO. That was the nerve centre of the rebellion. If I found out where they were sending dispatches that day, I might be able to track my brother. I was desperate to see him. Even though he had thrown me the soldier, the last time I spoke to him there was discord. I must make peace, settle things between us. To never again . . . I cannot bear the thought.
But how? If I ventured out onto the street they might take me for one of the looters. And the idea of going back inside the GPO filled me with terror.
It was starting to get dangerous up on the roof. When a bullet whizzed past my ears, I realized that with my extended spyglass I’d been taken for a sniper. My survival instinct took over and in a flurry of skirts I got back down the nearest drainpipe.
Middle of the night, Tuesday 25th April.
Merrion Square Field Hospital.
About an hour later, sick with worry about Jack, as looters still milled about, I crept under the barbed wire and walked up to the GPO. The windows were lined with thousands of Post Office leather ledgers that detailed all the stamps bought and all the parcels and letters sent.
“I need to find my brother, Jack O’Donovan,” I said in a shaking voice to the large, hulking sentry at the Prince’s Street entrance.
“Go home to your mother, little girl. If your brother is here, I’ll pass on your message.”
He gazed at me so sternly under his beetle brows that I ran away at once, and stood at the corner of Abbey Street, quaking. Sentries were posted everywhere.
Barricades made of large paper rolls, filled with type from the newspaper offices that they’d seized on Abbey Street, blocked the road.
I was frozen, unsure what to do, too frightened to go back to the GPO. Then the arresting figure of Cesca Trench came down from O’Connell Bridge, cutting through the crowd on her bicycle. I knew her from the First Aid training. She looked so beautiful and glamorous in her emerald cloak fastened with a Celtic brooch. Even though she is a Protestant born in Kent, to an Anglo-Irish family, and trained as an artist in Paris, she is a passionate Irish nationalist and has changed her name to Sive (pronounced to rhyme with “hive”).
“Sive, Sive!” I called.
She cycled up to me and dismounted from her bike.
“Is Pearse really leading the rebellion in the GPO?” she asked.
“Yes, he’s one of the leaders. I saw him.”
“Many nationalists think it is an act of criminal lunacy,” she said. “I have brought my First Aid things. Everyone thinks I am mad, but I have to see for myself.”
As we zigzagged across, Sive pushing her bike, a shot suddenly rang out from Trinity College and pinged off the tin can carrying messages from one side to another. We bolted to safety.
“Wow, what a great shot!” I declared as we ducked down Princes Street. “I bet it’s that Australian soldier, McHugh, who I met on Monday. He’s the best shot in the army.” I gabbled to cover my nerves but Sive seemed very cool-headed.
“You should see some of the barricades!” Sive said. “I’ve seen one of grandfather and carriage clocks from a jeweller’s and look at that one of Keating’s finest cycles!” She pointed back in the direction of a barricade further down across Abbey Street. “But I am very annoyed about this rebellion. I am going to give Mr Pearse a piece of my mind!”
We crossed under the barbed wire surrounding the entrance.
“Let us through,” Sive said in a commanding voice as we got to the door. “I have come to deliver vital First Aid equipment.”
The sentry was so busy staring at the beautiful Sive, he barely noticed me shrinking at her side.
It was a very strange sensation walking into the GPO under armed occupation. The telegraph wires were no longer buzzing. There was an uneasy calm and the men were busy and distracted. Curiously, I began to relax, now that I was at the eye of the storm.
I saw two British soldiers happily washing up and in the dining room upstairs a man was eating a full salmon. I asked after Officer Chalmers who had been trussed up in the phone box yesterday and was told that he was now in the basement – and also that Miss Gordon had returned with the sergeant who was shot in the arm. She had gone home. The sergeant’s wound was superficial and he too was quite comfortable in the basement. I breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn’t killed my first patient!
Sive saw Pearse among a cluster of men. We joined the queue of women who were cross with Pearse. The O’Rahilly’s sister Margaret even pinched him on the arm.
“This is all your fault,” she said fiercely. “And now you’ve taken my motor car!”
“It is for the freedom of Ireland,” he said.
She just harrumphed and left.
Another member of Cumann na mBan, the women’s part of the Volunteers, called Lou
ise Gavan Duffy, who is a teacher, told him the rebellion was wrong and it would fail. She would help but wouldn’t do any active service. Pearse dispatched her to the kitchen.
Then it was Sive’s turn. “You don’t seriously think you’ll succeed, do you?” she asked.
“We would have if it had been on Sunday. Eoin Mac Neill spoiled it with the cancellation.”
“It’s madness any day of the week!” she cried.
“When we are all wiped out, people will blame us,” Pearse said with a glow in his voice, “but in a few years they will see the meaning of what we tried to do for Irish freedom.”
The words felt like a chill in my heart. They mean to fight unto the death, God save us all, I thought. I had to find Jack as soon as I could and drag him away if necessary.
“As you are going out, would you mind taking a note to my mother?” Pearse asked Sive.
Sive nodded assent and we looked at each other, both realizing at the same time that these men in here might not live to tell the tale. The troops were bound to come and annihilate their puny force of a few hundred.
Pearse turned to me. “And you, girl? Have you something to say?”
“I-I’m just looking for my brother Jack O’Donovan,” I said, hoping he didn’t remember me as the ninny in Clarke’s shop.
A few shots rang out – sharp and shrill.
“Go and tell that young fella on the roof to stop shooting at Nelson’s nose,” shouted James Connolly, exasperated. He was running around like a mad thing, issuing orders, shouting instructions.
“I will go to encourage the men and perhaps Jack is among them,” Pearse said to me.
My hope soared.
We passed a row of young men waiting for two priests to hear their confessions. The men seemed cheered when Pearse passed by with a friendly word. He is a strange man. Painfully shy and awkward to meet and yet lit with such strong conviction it inspires others with awe.
“I wish I was up on the roof. They get all the action,” said one soldier who told me his name was Liam Tannam. He was a tall, humorous-looking fellow with a roguish eye and he gave me a wink. “Better than lugging ledger books around.”
Even though there were two other trapdoors in other parts of the building, Pearse went up to the roof through a hole in the ceiling in the Instrument Room that had been created by the rebels by tearing slates off the roof. It was accessed by a makeshift ladder of brooms. My father would have cried to see all the plaster dust on his beautiful machines.
I shimmied up the ladder after Pearse and poked my head up. There were about ten men on the roof and it was utterly terrifying. The parapet, the raised stone lip at the front of the building, offered very little protection. The men had to lie and crouch in a space three or four foot wide between it and the sloping roof behind them. I peeped up and saw there were now British snipers on the roofs of several buildings at the top of Sackville Street.
“You are wiping out the stain of Ireland’s history,” said Pearse encouragingly to the men. It was another sunny day and his hair was ruffled by a gentle breeze.
Some of the men were little older than Jack, still in their teens and early twenties. They smiled as Pearse greeted them familiarly, much more at ease than he usually seemed. One of them said something about their history lessons coming to life and I realized quite a few of them were his pupils from Saint Enda’s.
“Tell them downstairs I’m dying for a cup of tea and a slice of bread,” whispered a man called Mick Boland to me. “They forget about us up here.” He wasn’t one of the Saint Enda’s crowd.
Nobody had seen Jack.
We went back downstairs.
By this stage I was getting really anxious.
To my surprise Mr Pearse turned to me and spoke. “Tom Clarke says it is vital that we make a protest before the end of the Great War, so that the declaration of a Republic can be presented at the Peace Conference. President Wilson of the United States supports the rights of small nations. Our sacrifice will rouse the national spirit of the Irish people.”
As Pearse talked about blood sacrifice, I thought he was like an Old Testament prophet burning with the fires of true belief. As the faces of all the men around me glowed, I could only think of how to apply a tourniquet. If Mr Pearse had learned First Aid and realized how difficult it is to stop blood flowing, he might not be so keen on spilling it.
Suddenly – rat-atat-tat – there was a volley of sniper fire on the street. Connolly ran by us, heading for the main entrance.
I followed him, curious to see what was going on. There was a group of about sixty men, armed with pikes and pistols, crouching down by the barricades and there were some British soldiers in khaki uniforms among them.
“British soldiers coming!” roared a rebel.
“Hold fire! These are our men with prisoners taken!” Connolly shouted, running bravely into the street to stop the rebels firing on their own men. The rebels in the Imperial were shooting at their own troops!
I thought I saw a bullet glance Connolly’s shoulder but he scurried in again so quickly it was impossible to tell.
The new arrivals were the Fairview group! Hope leapt in my heart that Jack had come back with them after delivering his message.
They burst in, full of excitement. I was anxious to see if my brother was among the sixty or so men, but they were all so worked up it was hard not to get trampled over.
“We have eggs, bread and cigars!” they cried excitedly as they came in, as though going to a picnic.
I asked eagerly after Jack, but they looked at me blankly, now transfixed by the sight of the Post Office turned into a fortress.
Pearse handed Sive his note and stood on the table. He was like someone anointed by a special power and I saw then why men would follow him. You could hear a pin drop as he spoke.
“You have wiped out the blackest stain in Irish history,” he said. He must have been rehearsing his speech when he spoke to the men on the roof. “In the course of a few hours we will all be fighting for our freedom in the streets of our city. Victory will be ours, even though it might be that victory will be found in death.”
There was a rousing cheer but my blood ran cold. As Pearse said the terrible word, I tried not to think of poor Seán Connolly on the roof of City Hall or the man shot at Stephen’s Green.
When Pearse finished his fine speech, James Connolly organized the new arrivals into different groups. Some were dispatched to create a new outpost in the Hotel Metropole, others to fortify the positions in Henry Street and the Imperial Hotel. The last group was told to set up barricades on either side of Moore Street, then bore holes in buildings as far as Arnott’s, including Bewley’s and the Coliseum Theatre in Henry Street. I thought they’d be lucky to keep anything in a barricade with the mob on the rampage looking for loot.
I moved among them, questioning about Jack to no avail, showing them the picture in my locket.
Finally I spoke to a nervous lad of about seventeen who knew Jack from the Fianna.
“Jack went on to Richmond Avenue to give a message to Mrs Clarke, the old Fenian’s wife. His message to us was wrapped around this tin soldier.” He showed me a tin soldier painted green, another of Jack’s.
“So how come you have it?” I asked.
“He said to put it through the letter box of Number 9 Sackville Street if I was passing.”
“It’s the other side of the street,” I smiled. “I’m his sister and he meant to give it to me.”
“Yes, right enough. He said his sister Molly might be looking for him and to hand it on if I bumped into you.” The fellow was relieved to pass the soldier over and not have to trouble himself any longer with what must have seemed a foolish errand.
I could have almost kissed it and held it tight. A link with Jack. It was like his signature. But I was still puzzled about what he was up to. I took a close look at the soldier, which was about four inches tall maybe. But apart from the expertly applied green coat of paint, it didn’t se
em any different from the usual. I put it with the other one in my knapsack.
I needed to ask Mr Clarke if Jack had come back with a message from his wife.
All around us people were milling around with supplies, bags of flour, cutlery from the hotels, churns of milk and water. Someone said they had enough provisions for a three-week fight. In the kitchen women, including Louise Gavan Duffy, were carving giant joints of meat. The captured British Tommies were whistling cheerfully, washing up the mounds of plates.
I searched in vain for Mr Clarke.
“Talk to the Big Fella, Michael Collins, upstairs in the Operations Room,” a kind, pretty woman who told me her name was Min Ryan said. “He has a finger on the pulse.”
In the Operations Room the leaders, including Pearse, Connolly, Tom Clarke and Plunkett were deep in discussion. I didn’t dare enter.
“I hope you’re not a spy!”
A hand touched me lightly on the shoulder. I jumped out of my standing as a large presence overshadowed me. I cowered into the door-jamb but my accoster let out a large booming laugh.
I relaxed. It was Michael Collins, the Big Fella, and there was something reassuring about him. He had a leather-bound Post Office ledger tucked under his arm.
“My brother Jack,” I said with urgency. “He was dispatched to Fairview. He was sent to Mrs Clarke there. I need to find him.”
The Big Fella thumbed through the ledger book. “I’ve listed all the names and addresses of combatants.” He tapped Jack’s name and showed me. Then he screwed up his eyes. “Yes. He came back here. He was sent off to the Green to go via Jacob’s. He should have been back here hours ago.”
My heart skipped a beat. “He’s missing!”
The Easter Rising 1916 - Molly's Diary (Hands-on History) Page 10