by Anne Clare
The illness and a ring and a bracelet were valid observations, but they were looking at a half-full vessel and seeing it half-empty. Quite different are the observations of those who were actually in the GPO. To start with, the Army Council of the Volunteers had replaced Eoin MacNeill with Plunkett as Chief of Staff of the Volunteers. He had already done a man’s part in the movement by his theatre work, his journalism, his journeys to the USA and Germany, and his plan of the city’s garrisons in his capacity as Director of Operations, as approved by Connolly. Now, despite post-operational fatigue, in that blazing, smoke-filled building, he played his part as leader, as those who were there have recorded. Desmond FitzGerald remembered his cheerfulness and that, despite his fatigue, he reassured, smilingly, those who were concerned for him as they set out initially from Liberty Hall for the GPO.[6]
In the GPO, when the shelling was at its worst, it is recorded that no one was more assiduous than Plunkett in keeping up morale, and, walking past the men at the windows, he called out when an enemy barricade was on fire. Within that barricaded building, as the fighting progressed, he is reported as redirecting Fergus O’Kelly and his men back to the premises of the Dublin Bread Company, a building strategically important because of its position between Abbey Street and Eden Quay. O’Kelly had received an order from Connolly to evacuate the tower of the building (vulnerable to snipers), and there had been a misunderstanding that the whole of the building was to be evacuated. O’Kelly explained this to Plunkett, who looked up from what he was doing and said, ‘I know. Collect your men and go back.’ O’Kelly did so. Then Plunkett sent his younger Volunteer brother, George, across Sackville Street to stop the looting in the shops.[7]George, revolver in hand, gave a ‘stop looting or else’ ultimatum to the looters. Finally, as the shelling intensified and the possibility of the sandbagged windows catching fire increased, Commandant Plunkett gave orders to douse the sandbags with water.
In between all this, he was writing a sort of war diary. Enough has been preserved to show he was very much au fait with what was going on – not ‘laying down his maps and thinking of Grace’. He has recorded in the diary the taking over of the post office and the reading of the Proclamation, also the repulse of an attack by the Lancers. Obviously dispatches were coming in, and he records the attempt to take Dublin Castle. Entries for Easter Tuesday are on missing pages but, as Director of Operations, Plunkett was also interested in another dispatch relating to the extraordinary success of Commandant Ashe in Garristown in defeating the police, and also the movement of 200 IRA men from Navan to Dublin. Recorded also are the injuries to James Connolly’s arm and leg, especially the fractured shinbone. The burning of Linenhall Barracks, in possession of the enemy, is noted, as are the boring through of buildings. There is a copy also of the ‘unconditional surrender’ notice sent by Brigadier General Lowe. Other entries refer to practicalities about food, signals and barricades.
Desmond Ryan, who was there, tells us of Plunkett, ‘During the worst stages of the shelling no one was more assiduous in keeping up the spirits of the defenders. He walked past a long line of men at the front windows, smiling.’[8]He is there, up to the end, rallying his men as they make a dash from the GPO inferno through a hail of machine-gun fire and rifle bullets: ‘Plunkett orders a van to be dragged across one of the lanes down which the machine-guns rattled, a feeble screen enough but it served its turn while Plunkett stood there shouting: “Don’t be afraid … On! On! On!”’[9]
He was with the Pearse brothers, the wounded Connolly, Clarke and Mac Diarmada in the precarious security of 16 Moore Street when it was decided to hand in their guns. Nurse O’Farrell brought them Brigadier General Lowe’s orders for surrender, and Ryan describes Willie Pearse, Plunkett and Seán MacLochlainn heading the surrendered garrison, ‘waving white flags as if they were banners of victory’.[10]
It is difficult to conceive what inner physical and psychological reserves this young leader called on to carry him through those nightmare days and nights. Back from Germany, illness in Spain and a trip to America, he was supposed to be resting when he returned to Ireland. Instead, he had worked on munitions and on other preparations for the big day. He had meetings with the Military Council at midnight on Holy Saturday, lasting till 2.30 a.m. The next morning at 8 a.m., the Military Council met again. Later that day, Joseph wrote the letter to Grace commiserating with her on her ‘old cold’ and declaring that he was ‘keeping as well as anything’ but had to go into the nursing home to rest that night – in preparation for the next day. On Easter Monday morning, his aides-de-camp, Michael Collins and Commandant W. J. Brennan-Whitmore, called for him. Clarke and Mac Diarmada were advised to reach the GPO at their own pace, owing to Clarke’s general health and Mac Diarmada’s polio limp. But Plunkett, the man ‘dying of consumption’, marched from Liberty Hall with Pearse and Connolly at the head of the men, some of whom had trained at his family home at Larkfield.
Apart altogether from the recent vindication of Plunkett by the unearthing of the documents from the German archives, he developed the innovative idea of broadcasting the birth of the Republic to the world by wireless telegraphy. He ordered the closing of the official station at Ventry in County Kerry and the setting up of their own. The disaster of the Aud, a vessel which incidentally did not have a radio, put an end to that imaginative idea.
An article on Plunkett by Lieutenant P. B. Brennan features one soldier evaluating another: ‘He followed orders, made his own and thought in broad sweeps … he was prepared to die for his beliefs.’[11]
On the matter of his choice of garrisons, as director of military operations, the buildings chosen were well spaced out and strong, even the thick-walled stone buildings of the outpost distilleries and Jacob’s, a biscuit factory, with towers commanding a panoramic view of the city.
Survivors of the GPO garrison have left several records of the special relationship between Connolly and Plunkett, men from two very different rungs of the social ladder. It has been recorded that some of the garrison, including Winnie Carney, Connolly’s redoubtable secretary, at first looked askance at this young director of military operations who wore ‘geegaws’, a Dublin flippancy for accessories or jewellery. But Connolly assured her that in military matters none equalled Plunkett. She soon forgot her prejudice because he displayed such virtues of command in that extraordinary siege. He was pragmatic, commanding, decisive and encouraging, even if he did have to rest a little.
To set the antique-ring record straight, on the day Grace was received into the Catholic Church by Fr Sherwin, 7 April 1916, her fiancé presented her with a poem: ‘For Grace on the Morning of her Christening.’ One of her gifts to him was an antique emerald ring, a family heirloom, when they became engaged.
Muriel MacDonagh played her quiet part in the drama of Easter week. She had the two children to think of, but her home at Oakley Road, Ranelagh, became a rendezvous for the anxious wives of the rebel commandants. In the early part of the week she is said to have reached the GPO and to have spoken to Plunkett, who gave her a message for Grace. The route to Jacob’s, where her husband served, was more inaccessible. Even Brigadier General Lowe had to meet MacDonagh quite a distance from that garrison. When the surrender came, MacDonagh wished that he might see his wife ‘one last time’, but when he was asked by Nurse O’Farrell if she would try to get Muriel to come to see him, he looked around dejectedly at the process of evacuation and surrender and said simply, ‘Not like this.’[12]
Nellie Gifford worked hard at the Royal College of Surgeons garrison, under Commandant Michael Mallin and Countess Markievicz. Her later account of her stewardship there, published in An Phoblacht, misprinted her name as ‘Mary Donnelly’.[13]Her description shows an innocence of things martial and a certain insouciance from this daughter of a comfortable unionist household who had once more publicly and gladly cast her lot not only with republicans but with the working-class members of the movement.
In an (unpublished) account, Nellie sta
rts off by describing how she had breakfasted on the Easter Monday with Grace, the only sibling left in the Gifford household.[14]There were also, as well as her parents, a resident nurse required for Frederick, now bedridden following a stroke, and one resident maid. Fortunately, Isabella did not breakfast with her daughters that morning and so did not see the parting of the girls when Grace ran down the steps and insisted that a reluctant Nellie take, for protection, the small gun Joseph had sent to her through Michael Collins. Nellie was not at all sure, any more than many of the Volunteers, what ‘reporting for manoeuvres’ meant, especially in view of the apparent initial shilly-shallying. The Dublin Brigade mobilisation order, for instance, simply instructed that an overcoat, haversack, water bottle and canteen be brought, with rations for eight hours. Arms and ammunition should be carried, and everyone with a cycle or motorcycle should bring it. Those who were to serve under Commandant Éamonn Ceannt in the South Dublin Union got the strongest clue: they were asked to bring, in writing, the name of their next of kin. The first real hint of war that Nellie Gifford received was when she left her home – from a Rathmines neighbour who said there was shooting in the city.[15]
On reaching St Stephen’s Green, Nellie met Margaret Skinnider, a Scot who had aligned herself with the movement and who was later badly wounded. ‘You’re late’ was her greeting, though indeed punctuality was not an outstanding feature of this insurrection, with men drifting in to their various posts as they heard that the countermanding order of MacNeill had itself been countermanded.[16]
Nellie found St Stephen’s Green occupied by the Citizen Army, with armed men behind the railings, trenches being dug and a tent erected by Countess Markievicz opposite the Royal College of Surgeons. The fine day became a kind of picnic, and Nellie’s duties began to take shape: bringing required medicine, providing tea and scones, and carrying dispatches. She asked Andy Dunne to sing a rebel song that Countess Markievicz had written, but he baulked, in case it might seem like gloating and offend a prisoner who had been taken. A laden bread van trundled by, and its contents were commandeered, with a precise receipt for the bread handed to the astonished driver. Somewhere a rebel was ticked off for a breach of duty. ‘Aw give us a chance,’ he said, ‘it’s me first revolution.’[17]
Night fell, and things were not so cosy. It turned chilly, and the British had mounted a machine gun at the Shelbourne Hotel, overlooking the Green. Nellie and her mates slept on the hard benches of the summerhouse, normally used to shelter performing bands. It was decided to evacuate the Green on the Tuesday and to occupy the adjacent College of Surgeons, emptied of students for the Easter break. The lone watchman would not open the door to them, so he was warned to step aside while they blasted it in. In twos and threes, as instructed, they made their way from the Green under heavy fire. Once inside, they knelt down and said the rosary. When they settled down for the night, they were glad to be under a roof. The women in the garrison were given pieces of carpet to keep them warm, less lucky than their sister rebels in the Four Courts garrison, who wrapped themselves in the ermine-trimmed robes of the judiciary.
Years later, Countess Markievicz was asked when she had decided to become a Catholic. She had no problem identifying the time: it was when she knelt down with the rebels saying the rosary in the College of Surgeons in 1916.[18]
Tuesday brought with it several tasks. Between the College and Grafton Street was a row of shops, the overhead apartments of which were rented. Their occupants had fled, and Commandant Mallin’s men broke through the walls of these adjoining buildings, stationing men on guard in each. One of Nellie’s jobs was to reach them with food – not an easy task because, as she explained, the floor levels differed and often there was quite a drop into the next house, especially difficult when carrying food. In the heat of attack, one young rebel was found, white-faced and red-eyed from lack of sleep and very hungry from a twenty-four-hour lack of food. When they fed him, he collapsed into sleep on the spot. Two country boys had subsisted on nothing but plum jam for two days until Nellie reached them. There were mouth-watering accounts of a French pastry shop nearby which was never reached, and there are glimpses, here and there, in various accounts of the siege, of Nellie Gifford not only supplying tea, scones and porridge, but also furnishing with spirits the First Aid post run by Nora O’Daly of Cumann na mBan. Acquiring food was a problem. The wives of two Citizen Army men called to see if their husbands were there or at the GPO. The Countess gave them money to buy food and they returned later, laden with a very welcome variety.
Carrying dispatches, sometimes verbal, sometimes written, was a common job. One such mission involved Nellie and Chris Caffrey being sent to the Jacob’s garrison to get needed ammunition. Their main fear was not the British army but the ‘Allowance women’ who got one shilling per day if their men were at the front and who wanted no noble-minded patriotism to rob them of what was, in some cases, their drink money. On reaching Jacob’s, through heckling groups of these women, they saw Major MacBride, husband of Maud Gonne, at an upper window. This man, who had fought with the Boers in their war with England, had wandered into their Rising but was delighted to stay to oppose a familiar enemy. He pointed humorously to his slouch hat and asked for their approval. The men had just been issued with them. All the doors of the factory were closed so Nellie and Chris were hauled up through a window. Thomas MacDonagh went to get ready the required ammunition, and Nellie also asked for a tin of biscuits as a bribe to ensure their safe return.
Inside [Jacob’s] we rested while awaiting the reply to dispatch [ammunition]. We unloaded our news re our stronghold and heard their story. Máire Ní Shúilaigh [Abbey Theatre actress] was there. It was agony to Commandant MacDonagh, who was the soul of chivalry, to let two girls go out there alone to face those Separation Women [they had attacked a dispatch carrier earlier that night]. Someone engaged his attention and we gave him the slip and stole out of the factory. The Separation Women were waiting for us like a pack of wolves and started to scream ‘Sinn Féiners’ at us and surged up to us in a threatening way. Chris’ coolness made them doubt their judgement for a moment. She saw their hesitation and calmly handed them the biscuits which Commandant MacDonagh had given us, insinuating that that was the object of our midnight visit to Jacob’s. Nevertheless they followed us like some awful tidal wave. We took to the road and I dared not go on the path lest they suspect our destination. My knees wobbled and it was only when we were level with the side door of the College of Surgeons that we dived over and panted through the keyhole the password for the day – ‘Success’.[19]
Incredibly, once inside, Chris Caffrey’s comment on the episode was, ‘Where in the name of fortune did Commandant MacDonagh rustle all those red-haired Cumann na mBan from?’[20]
Most of Nellie’s descriptions of her service in the St Stephen’s Green garrison were light-hearted, the only exception being on the occasion one night when, candle in hand, she found herself in a room that contained embalmed parts of the human body. It was, of course, not so surprising in a building calling itself the Royal College of Surgeons.[21]
Notes
[1]Alfred Dennis, ‘A Memory of P. H. Pearse’, The Capuchin Annual, 1942, p. 260.
[2]Thomas Coffey, Agony at Easter: The 1916 Irish Uprising, London: Harrap, 1969, pp. 5, 6, 12.
[3]Charles Duff, Six Days to Shake an Empire: Events and Factors Behind the Irish Rebellion of 1916, London: J. M. Dent, 1966, p. 177.
[4]Ruth Dudley Edwards, James Connolly, Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1981, p. 138.
[5]Kenneth Griffith and Timothy O’Grady, Curious Journey, Cork: Mercier Press, 1998, p. 49.
[6]Desmond FitzGerald, Memoirs, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968, p. 138; W. J. Brennan-Whitmore, Dublin Burning, Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1966, p. 36.
[7]Conversation with Seoirse Plunkett.
[8]Desmond Ryan, The Rising, Dublin: Golden Eagle Books, 1957, pp. 151–152.
[9]Ibid., pp. 151–152.
[10]Ibid., p. 15
7.
[11]Lieutenant P. B. Brennan, ‘J. M. Plunkett, The Military Tactician’, An Cosantóir.
[12]NGDPs.
[13]Nellie Gifford-Donnelly, An Phoblacht, 18 April 1930.
[14]NGDPs.
[15]Ibid.
[16]Ibid.
[17]Ibid.
[18]Catholic Bulletin, February 1917.
[19]NGDPs.
[20]Ibid.
[21]Ibid.
17 - Surrender
The trim, military uniforms of today’s Irish army bear no resemblance to the scorched, soot-stained, assorted garments of Pearse’s GPO garrison in 1916. For all that, some of the weary, embattled ones making their way out of the doomed GPO in their conglomerate clothing, would be among the first members of the Irish National Army, and the standard cap badge of that army today, embodying a sunburst and a reminder of the legendary Fianna, was the same one introduced by Professor Eoin MacNeill for his Irish Volunteers in 1914, based on his Celtic studies.