I could now go into the city and walk among the ruins. This became my favourite occupation for a long time. I walked amongst them with a feeling of sadness, and at the same time of holiness and exultation. The streets were now so changed in appearance that to visualize what they were like before the Rising I had to look at the photographs labelled ‘Before’ in the souvenir albums. I made mental pictures of what the fight must have been like when it was in progress. I reconstructed the whole of the Rising, with loud rifle fire from the Post Office, and the English falling killed and wounded in the street. I searched the lanes and alleys in the area of the fighting, thinking how the Volunteers might have used them to make their escape. In Moore Lane, I looked for a long time at the spot where The O’Rahilly fell. He had been killed by British machine-gun fire while retreating from the burning General Post Office. It was in this building that the Volunteers had had their headquarters, and from which the Republican declaration was issued and Pádraig Pearse had given his order to his followers to lay down their arms.
I felt now that I would like to meet some fellow sympathizers, who would share my feelings, but I did not know where to find them. Then, one day, some weeks, or maybe a month or two after, I read in the paper that a Mass was to be offered for the dead patriots in Church Street Church at 11 o’clock on the following Sunday.
When I arrived I found the church filled with people. After Mass, I waited outside, and the congregation, mainly women, gathered round a young, red-haired man who began to sing ‘Rebel’ songs, in which the crowd joined whenever they knew the words. I recognized the young man as a senior schoolfellow of mine, whose sympathies I had not suspected until that moment. He was Ernie O’Malley, who afterwards played a great part in the fight in the country.
When the songs were finished, someone produced a tricolour flag. This was the signal for cheers. The crowd then formed up behind the flag-bearer and we marched in processional order through the city by College Green. That was a day of great happiness for me. I had a wonderful, proud feeling, walking in the procession. There were only a few hundred of us, and nobody seemed to mind us or take any notice of us; only a young lady who passed by linking a British officer in uniform gave us a scornful look.
These Masses were held frequently and enabled me to become one of the crowd who attended them, though I knew no one but O’Malley.
Chapter III
Besides the sixteen leaders who were executed after the Rising, thousands had been shipped to England, some to serve sentences of penal servitude, others for imprisonment in internment camps.
When it became known in December 1916 that an amnesty had been declared, there was great excitement in Dublin. The prisoners were to be released and were to be sent home at once.
Though no civic or public welcome was arranged, a great crowd of people assembled at Westland Row railway station to see the homecoming. I left home that day, not to go to school as I pretended, but to see for myself the men I so much admired and whom I hoped to join some day soon.
I waited outside Fleming’s Hotel in Gardiner Place. I heard that the prisoners would come there, and others must have heard it too, because there were hundreds waiting in the road and on the pavements.
Suddenly a voice shouted: ‘Here they are!’
Immediately several brakes filled with laughing, hatless men came rattling up the street. Some of them were waving their convict caps and shouting madly and singing ‘The Soldier’s Song’, which is now our National Anthem.
They went into the hotel. We were cheering ourselves hoarse, and I never thought I could have made my voice shout so loud.
Then a tall, dark, spectacled man appeared at one of the hotel windows. When we saw him, the shouting increased. I thought he would make a speech and I was disappointed when he moved back from the window without taking any notice of our cries.
He was de Valera.
I knew that he was one of the leaders of Easter Week, and the last commandant to surrender. That was a proud moment for me when, at last, I saw face-to-face one of the heroes who filled all my dreams.
Chapter IV
After the prisoners had come home, having my ears always open for news, I heard that the Volunteers were reorganizing and were holding recruiting meetings.
I had a schoolmate named O’Neill, and he and I decided that we would join the Volunteers. After some trouble, we discovered that a company held their meeting each week in the Painters’ Hall in Gloucester Street.
On the next meeting night we presented ourselves at the hall, and asked for the captain, a man named Colbert. We had found out his name in the course of our enquiries. We were rather troubled about our school clothes and short breeches.
‘Why do you want to join the Volunteers?’ he asked, looking us over in a way we did not like.
‘To fight for Ireland,’ we both answered.
Then he took our names and addresses and asked us our ages.
This was the question we were both dreading. I said I was eighteen and O’Neill gave his age as eighteen also. But we could not convince him that we were old enough.
‘I will pass your names on to the Fianna,’ (Irish Scouts) he said.
We were disgusted to hear such a proposal.
‘I will not join the Fianna,’ said I, ‘I want to become a Volunteer.’
‘My decision is final,’ he replied, rather pompously, and he was just going to dismiss us when he said suddenly: ‘How did you find out where to come?’
I thought this was our chance. Since we know the meeting place he will take us into his company, if only to keep us quiet, flashed through my mind.
But he thought otherwise. ‘My decision is final,’ he said again, as if he liked the sound of those words.
I told my troubles to a man named Hugh Casey, who had fought in the Rising. He promised to do his best for me. Casey kept his word, and though I had to face the same difficulties again, Casey’s influence prevailed. I became a Volunteer. I was now fourteen years of age.
On the 25th September, just before I was enrolled, we were thrown into mourning by the tragic death of one of our leaders, Tomás Ashe. He had been arrested and sentenced to a year’s imprisonment for a speech. With a number of other prisoners he had gone on hunger strike, and died from the effects of forcible feeding.
I joined the throng which filed past his bier in the Mater Hospital, whither he had been brought a few hours before his death. I was deeply moved at the sight of that splendid Irishman in his death sleep. He was dressed in his green Volunteer uniform. Passing by the bed on which he was laid out, I saw those in front of me stooping reverently to kiss his forehead. But, feeling that such a salute would be unbecoming in one who was about to become a soldier, I just placed my hand for a moment on his brow. I drew back, startled by its coldness. This was my first meeting with death. I was profoundly stirred and, at the same time, frightened.
He was buried in Glasnevin cemetery on the following Sunday. I read in the paper that he was to be given a national funeral, and of the marshalling arrangements of the Volunteers. Wishing to take part, I knew I would have no chance of being admitted to the ranks after my experience with Colbert. So, not to be defeated in my purpose, I turned up at the place allotted to ‘country contingents’. I pretended to the Volunteer steward that I was a country Volunteer, a statement I counted upon him being unable to disprove.
Chapter V
It was on the 6th December 1917 that I was admitted into the Volunteers.
Casey brought me to the meeting place – a disused garage adjoining Clonliffe College, in the suburbs. The captain looked dubious when I said I was eighteen and would have sent me away, but Casey drew him on one side and spoke to him in a whisper.
The captain told me to go to a little room at the end of the garage, where I would find the quartermaster. The QM was a Corporation official. His tousled hair and harassed expression, as he scanned the papers scattered all over the table at which he was sitting, gave the impression that he cou
ld not quite cope with all he had to do. After taking down particulars he gave me a membership card and asked for my subscription.
When he mentioned ‘subscription’, I nearly died. But when he said ‘threepence’ my relief was immense, as I had exactly three coppers in my pocket. It was only good luck that I had any money at all.
He informed me that by paying into the Arms Fund I would get a revolver as soon as any were available. This pleased me immensely, as I felt that once I was armed I would be a real soldier.
My new comrades held a weekly meeting or parade. The company was divided into four sections of about twenty-five men each, grouped according to the localities in which they lived. I was allotted to No. 4 Section.
The men were mainly labourers and unskilled workers, but within the ranks were men of widely different callings and ages. I learned that, with a few exceptions, the men had no arms. But the company possessed a .22 miniature rifle, a weapon on which scores of us afterwards learned the rudiments of musketry.
The first night I paraded, an election of officers was held, as the captain had been promoted to the battalion staff. I did not know the men who were elected, but I was told that they had all fought in the Rising, as indeed had many of the men with whom I was on parade.
I noticed that prompt obedience was made to the orders given from the lance corporal upwards. Everyone seemed anxious to show his willingness.
Though carried out as quietly and secretly as possible, our activities soon came under the notice of the police, which produced the first signs of official activity since the Rising was suppressed.
Chapter VI
When I was on my way home from school one day in April 1918, I met a Volunteer belonging to my company. He told me that he had been mobilized to go to the Corporation Yard of the Cleansing Department in Portland Place.
‘There is a job on there,’ he said, ‘and any NCOs or idle men of the Battalion are required.’
I was overjoyed to hear this good news. A job was on. Here was a chance at last for me to do something.
I turned back and went straight to the yard. Some people and a few policemen were gathered outside. I knocked at the big gates. They were opened only a crack and I was asked what I wanted. I gave the letter of my company and the number of my battalion. At once, as if by magic, the gate was thrown wide open for me to enter. I walked in holding my head very high, feeling the eyes of the people outside watching me with curiosity and envy. Who is that boy who is so privileged?, I fancied they were saying to themselves. He must be somebody of importance.
Inside, there were twenty or thirty Volunteers at work. The yard was strewn with the carcasses of pigs, which had been slaughtered by one of the Volunteers who was a butcher by trade. Two droves of pigs had been seized earlier in the day on their way from the market to the quay. This had been done by order of the Sinn Féin Food Controller, Diarmuid Lynch, to stop the wholesale exportation of pigs while the curing factories at home were practically idle.
Some of the Volunteers were occupied in cleaning the carcasses, and I was given a yard brush and was told to sweep up the blood which was being hosed into the channel. I felt very superior engaged in this work of national importance.
While I was busy in this way, for some reason the gates were opened and the crowd outside could now see what was going on.
‘Ah, isn’t it a terrible shame,’ they exclaimed, ‘to be wasting all that blood which would make such grand black puddings’ (a breakfast sausage which is highly valued in Ireland). That was the first time I heard of the origin of that delicacy.
When our work was done, which had taken some hours, and the yard was cleaned up, the carcasses were loaded on lorries. By now a great crowd had gathered outside, and women handed us in jugs of tea and slices of bread.
I drank the tea with great satisfaction, recalling the time when I had seen the very same refreshments handed to the British Tommies in my neighbourhood during the Rising. The tide had turned. It was we who were now the heroes of the people.
It was nightfall when we emerged into the street with our cargo. We formed up in processional order with a file of Volunteers on each side of the ‘hearses’. We marched in mournful triumph across the city to the curing factory where the bodies were handed over.
I had wondered why the large force of police, which had waited outside the yard all the afternoon, had made no attempt to interfere with us. In fact, I was disappointed, as we had all armed ourselves with heavy sticks. I heard afterwards that the owners of the droves refused to make a charge as they had been paid the value of the pigs by the Food Controller.
Dramatic accounts of this incident appeared in the newspapers. It gave me a feeling of elation to receive this public recognition of what was my first job.
Chapter VII
On a beautiful morning in 1918 we were mobilized to meet at Artane, a village a couple of miles outside Dublin.
When I got to the rendezvous I was surprised to find a great crowd of men waiting about in small groups. Many of them I had never seen before and I knew that they did not belong to my company. It was only when a whistle was blown and I heard the ‘Fall in’ order shouted that I realized that the whole battalion, some five hundred men, were on parade.
At the words of command we marched off in column of route. Everyone seemed very happy at this display of defiance of the official proclamations forbidding illegal assemblies and drilling.
After marching for about two miles through country lanes, we turned into a big field and our first manoeuvres began. While I was occupied in taking part in them, which I did with great pride and earnestness, I noticed a man with a bicycle talking privately to our brigadier, Dick McKee. I had seen this man earlier in the day posted on the road we had traversed to warn us of the approach of the police.
I thought his appearance must be the forerunner of ill news, and, sure enough, shortly afterwards two RIC entered the field. They watched us with apparent interest, but made no attempt to interfere with us, which, indeed, would have been difficult considering our numbers, and we continued drilling, taking no notice of their presence.
After three or four hours of military exercises, we returned to the road and began our march home. We had not proceeded very far when I caught sight of clouds of dust ahead of us and two large military lorries came into view. When they reached the head of our column they were pulled up and about thirty armed policemen jumped out, barring our way.
Excitement and confusion followed. They were arresting our officers, including the brigadier. They were put in a lorry. One Volunteer, bolder than the rest of us, picked up a stone and threw it at the police. He was immediately seized and put under arrest. The scene then took on an angry appearance and it looked as if there was about to be a fight when the brigadier addressed us from the lorry, bidding us to hold our peace and obey his order to disperse quietly.
This was my first contact with the enemy.
Those arrested were tried and sentenced to six months’ imprisonment for illegal drilling, on the evidence of the two RIC constables.
Chapter VIII
I was promoted to the rank of sergeant of No. 4 Section of the company, while I was still attending school.
Often on my way to school I would meet some Volunteers whom I drilled on the weekly parade night. These meetings caused me great embarrassment and, in order to make myself look older and more important, I decided that I must alter my dress. To do so, I commandeered an old pair of my father’s trousers and a cap. Now I felt I looked a man and I no longer feared to meet my comrades.
At this time my brother, who was serving in France in the commissioned ranks of the British Army, returned home on leave. He brought home with him a German pistol and a rifle as souvenirs. I took possession of the pistol and was overjoyed at my acquisition, which I proudly reported to the quartermaster.
‘Of course you will hand it up,’ he said. ‘We are very short of guns in the company.’
This I refused to do.
If my gun was going to see service, I was determined that I was going to be the man to use it.
Being now one of the few Volunteers who were armed, I was ordered one day by my captain to report to the Battalion QM at 46 Parnell Square for duty. I guessed that there was something on foot and I went to the appointed place full of eager expectation.
I found a score of Volunteers waiting in a large room ordinarily used as a classroom by the Gaelic League. I knew a few of them – Brigadier McKee and Peadar Clancy. In the room were also Jim Slattery, Vincent Byrne and Tom Kehoe, who were to be afterwards my comrades in many a hazardous enterprise. They were subsequently in Michael Collins’ famous Squad and will come frequently into my story. I did not have any conversation with them on this occasion.
Dick McKee was a tall man, over six foot high, of soldierly bearing and fine countenance. He wore a small black moustache which added to his military appearance. He spoke with a soft drawl. And it was that beguiling voice of his, so attractive – like the tune of the Pied Piper – which cast a spell over you, so that you could not but obey him.
He was a printer in the firm of Messrs Gill and Son of O’Connell Street. He knew personally nearly every Volunteer in the brigade, and he never passed by a man he knew without giving him a glance and a smile of recognition.
Peadar Clancy was an outfitter, in partnership with another Volunteer officer, Tom Hunter. Their shop in Talbot Street was known as ‘The Republican Outfitters’. Peadar was a County Clare man. He was young and handsome, with a clear complexion and a beautiful speaking voice. He had a very gentle, engaging manner.
Dick McKee told us that we were about to undertake an important, daylight ‘hold-up’.
Espionage and Assasination with Michael Collins' Intelligence Unit: With the Dublin Brigade Page 4