Part 3

"There never was an Irish rising that some one didn't betray it," she said. "It was so in '67, and before that in 1798."

But she did not appreciate the spirit I had found in Dublin. I told her that all were united, rich and poor, dock-workers, school-teachers, poets, and bar-tenders. They were working together; I believed they would stand and fight together. And I was right.

It was not easy to go quietly back to teaching mathematics and hear only now and then what was going on in Dublin. Fortunately, Glasgow is two fifths Irish. Indeed, there are as many Irish there as in Dublin itself, and the spirit among the younger generation is perhaps more intense because we are a little to one side and thus afraid of becoming outsiders.

In February, when conscription came to Scotland, there was nothing for members of the Irish Volunteers in Glasgow to do but to disappear. I knew one lad of seventeen whose parents, though Irish, wanted him to volunteer in the service of the empire. He refused, telling them his life belonged to Ireland. He went over to fight at the time of the rising, and served a year in prison afterward.

Whenever an Irish Volunteer was notified to report for service in the Glasgow contingent of the British army, he would slip across the same night to Ireland, and go to Kimmage, where a camp was maintained for these boys. While the British military authorities were hunting for them in Scotland and calling them "slackers," they were drilling and practising at the target, or making ammunition for a cause they believed in and for which they were ready to die.

Presently news came from Dublin that James Connolly had written a play entitled, "Under which Flag?" We heard also that when it was produced, it had a great effect upon the public. In this play the hero, during the last act, chooses the flag of the republic and the final curtain falls. Some one told Mr. Connolly he ought to write another act to show what happened afterward. His reply was that another act would have to be written by "all of us together."

I know that many people in this country have seen the Irish Players and felt their work was a great contribution to the drama, but I doubt if any one here can realize what it means to see upon the stage a play dealing with your hopes and fears just at a time when one or the other are about to be realized. For ten years the world has watched with interest as these plays were staged, as poetry appeared which seemed to have a new note in it. The world called it a "Celtic Revival." England, too, was interested, for these Irish playwrights, poets, and painters served to stimulate her own artists. What if some of the sagas, revived by archæologists, _did_ picture Irish heroism? What if the theme of play or poem _was_ a free Ireland? What if school-boys under a Gaelic name _did_ play at soldiering?

"Dangerous?" some one asked.

"Nonsense!" retorted mighty England. "Would poets, pedagogues, and dreamers dare to lead the Irish people against the imperial power that had dominated them for centuries? Unthinkable!"

England has never understood us so little as in these last ten years. Our pride was growing tremendously--pride not in what we _have_, but in what we _are_. The Celtic Revival was only an expression of this new pride.

It was on the eighteenth of April that a member of the Dublin town council discovered that the British meant to seize all arms and ammunition of the Irish Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army. History was repeating itself. It was on an eighteenth of April that American colonists discovered the British intention of seizing _their_ arms and ammunition at Concord. In both cases revolt was made inevitable by this action.

What the reason was that led immediately to such an order being given to the British military authorities in Dublin, I do not know. It had to do with conscription, of course, and it may have been quickened by the resistance of the Irish Citizen Army to the police. Madam told me that, a short time before, the police had attempted one noon to raid Liberty Hall while they supposed the place was empty. By the merest accident, she and Mr. Connolly, with one or two others, were still there. The object of the raid was to get possession of the press on which was printed "The Workers' Republic," a paper published at the hall by Mr. Connolly.

When the first members of the police force entered, Connolly asked them if they had a warrant. They had none. He told them they could not come in without one. At the same time the countess quietly drew her revolver and as quietly pointed it in their direction in a playful manner. They understood her, however, and quickly withdrew to get their warrant.

Immediately Connolly sent an order for the Citizen Army to mobilize. How they came! On the run, slipping into uniform coats as they ran; several from the tops of buildings where they were at work, others from underground. More than one, thinking this an occasion of some seriousness, instantly threw up their jobs.

By the time the police returned with their warrant, the Irish Citizen Army was drawn up around Liberty Hall, ready to defend it. It was not raided.

Mr. Connolly showed me a copy of the secret order when I arrived on Holy Thursday. It read:

The following precautionary measures have been sanctioned by the Irish Office on recommendation of the General Officer commanding the forces in Ireland. All preparations will be made to put these measures in force immediately on receipt of an order issued from the Chief Secretary's Office, Dublin Castle, and signed by the Under Secretary and the General Officer commanding the forces in Ireland.

First, the following persons will be put under arrest: All members of the Sinn Fein National Council, the Central Executive Irish Sinn Fein Volunteer County Board, Irish Sinn Fein Volunteers, Executive Committee National Volunteers, Coisda Gnotha Committee, Gaelic League. See list A3 and 4, and supplementary list A2.

I interrupt the order to emphasize the fact that we were all listed, and that the "Sinn Fein" organization seemed to attract most attention from the authorities. Indeed, after it was all over, the rising was often called the "Sinn Fein Revolt." The Sinn Fein was an organization which had become a menace to Great Britain because of its tactics of _passive resistance_. The words Sinn Fein, as already stated, mean "ourselves alone," and the whole movement was for an Irish Ireland.

The Sinn Feiners are likened to the "Black Hand" or other anarchistic groups by those who read of them as leaders of a "revolt." As a matter of fact, they were, from the first, the literary, artistic, and economic personalities who started the Celtic Revival. Arthur Griffiths, who is not given enough credit for the passion with which he conceived the idea of working for Ireland as Hungarians worked for Hungary, published a little weekly magazine in which the first of the new poetry appeared. It appealed to the deepest instincts in us; it was a revolt of the spirit, clothing itself in practical deed.

But it was not a negative program. The refusal to do or say or think in the Anglicized way, as was expected of us, held in it loyalty to something fine and free, the existence of which we believed in because we had read of it in the history of Ireland in our sagas. We were not a people struggling up into an untried experience, but a people regaining our kingdom, which at one time in the history of mankind had been called "great" wherever it was known of or rumored.

This was the feeling that animated the groups listed by British military men as the "Sinn Fein National Council" and "Central Executive and Coisda Gnotha Committee of the Gaelic League," but which to an outsider cannot, without explanation, give any idea of the fire and fervor implanted in committee and council.

But to return to the document. It went on:

An order will be issued to the inhabitants of the city to remain in their homes until such time as the Competent Military Authority may otherwise direct and permit.

Pickets chosen from units of Territorial Forces will be at all points marked on maps 3 and 4. Accompanying mounted patrols will continuously visit all points and report every hour.

The following premises will be occupied by adequate forces and all necessary measures used without need of reference to Headquarters:

First, premises known as Liberty Hall, Beresford Place; No. 6 Harcourt Street, Sinn Fein Building; No. 2 Dawson Street, Headquarters Volunteers; No. 12 D'Olier Street, Nationality Office; No. 25 Rutland Square, Gaelic League office; No. 41 Rutland Square, Foresters' Hall; Sinn Fein Volunteer premises in city; All National Volunteer premises in city; Trades Council premises, Capel Street; Surrey House, Leinster Road, Rathmines.

The following premises will be isolated, all communication to or from them prevented: Premises known as the Archbishop's House, Drumcondra; Mansion House, Dawson Street; No. 40 Herbert Park, Ballyboden; Saint Enda's College, Hermitage, Rathfarnham; and, in addition, premises in list 5 D, see maps 3 and 4.

This order should become a classic, because it is such a good list of all meeting-places of those who loved and worked for Ireland in the last few years. Even the home of the countess, Surrey House, was to have been occupied; and Saint Enda's, the school where Padraic Pearse was head master and chief inspiration, was to be "isolated."

Had there been any question about a rising, the possession of this secret order to the military authorities in Dublin would have been the signal for it. It was not to be expected that these headquarters of all that was Irish in the city would surrender tamely to "occupation." More than this, the order gave new determination to a secret organization not mentioned in it, the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Not that this was a new organization, or unknown to the British, for, in its several phases, it had been in existence since 1858. Its oath is secret, yet has been published in connection with disclosures about the Fenian movement. This was one of the names it bore, before the rising of 1867 betrayed it to the Government. So at this time Connolly and Padraic Pearse and McDonagh, with all those working to free Ireland, were members of this brotherhood, and the republic seemed nearer becoming a reality than ever before in the history of the long struggle.

At Liberty Hall I saw the flag of the republic waiting to be raised. I saw, too, the bombs and ammunition stored there, and was set to work with some other girls making cartridges. This was on the Thursday before Easter. That same evening I was given a despatch to take to Belfast. The address of the man to whom it was to be delivered was at Mr. Connolly's home in the outskirts of the city. I was to go there first and get it from Nora Connolly, then go on to this man.

I had never been in Belfast, and when I reached the city, it was two o'clock in the morning. The streets were dark and deserted. I finally had to ask a policeman which of the few cars running would take me to that part of town where the Connollys lived. I wonder what he would have done had he guessed I was bent upon revolutionary business. There is something very weird in knowing that while things are going on as usual in the outer world, great changes are coming unawares.

I rang in vain when I reached the house. Could all the family be somewhere else? Could I have made a mistake? I was beginning to think so when a window opened, and I heard a voice say: "It's all right, Mother. It's only a girl." Presently the door opened. They had been afraid that it was the police, for in these last few days before the time set, suspense was keen. At any moment all plans might be given away to the police and every one arrested. A ring in the middle of the night was terrifying. They had not been to bed; they were making Red Cross bandages and learning details of equipment and uniform for the first-aid girls. They had slept little for days, now that the time of the rising approached.

We did not dare go out again in the dead of night to hunt up the man for whom I had brought my despatch. This action would create suspicion. So about five o'clock, just when the working-people were beginning to go about their tasks, we took the street car, went into another part of Belfast, and found him.

Mrs. Connolly and the girls went back to Dublin with me. They were to be there during the revolt, and did not know if they would ever see their home again; but they dared not take anything with them except the clothes on their backs. Always no suspicion must be aroused; it must look as if they were starting off for the Easter holidays. This was not an easy leave-taking, for there was a fair chance of the house being sacked and burned. Mrs. Connolly went about, picking up little things that would go in her trunk but the absence of which would not be noticed if any inquisitive policeman came in to see whether anything suspicious was going on. As we left, none of them looked back or gave any show of feeling. Revolution makes brave actors.

That afternoon I was again at ammunition work. This time my duty was to go about Dublin, taking from hiding-places dynamite and bombs secreted therein. Once, on my way back to Liberty Hall with some dynamite wrapped in a neat bundle on the seat beside me, I heard a queer, buzzing noise. It seemed to come from inside the bundle.

"Is it going off?" I asked myself, and sat tight, expecting every moment to be blown to bits. But nothing happened; it was only the car-wheels complaining as we passed over an uneven bit of track.

V

It was on Saturday morning that I heard the news of our first defeat--a defeat before we had begun. The ship with arms and ammunition that had been promised us while I was in Dublin at Christmas, had come into Tralee Harbor and waited twenty-one hours for the Irish Volunteers of Tralee to come and unload her. But it had attracted no attention except from a British patrol-boat, and so had to turn about and put to sea again. Thereupon, the suspicions of the officials having led them to set out after the _Aud_, she had shown her German colors and, in full sight of the harbor, blew herself up rather than allow her valuable cargo to fall into the hands of the British.

Besides several machine-guns, twenty thousand rifles and a million rounds of ammunition were aboard that ship. For every one of those rifles we could have won a man to carry it in the rebellion. Thus their loss was an actual loss of fighting strength.

It all was a blunder that now seems like fate. The _Aud_, as first planned, was to arrive on Good Friday. Then the leaders decided it would be better not to have her arrive until after the rising had begun, or on Easter. Word of this decision was sent to America, to be forwarded to Germany. This was done, but the _Aud_ had just sailed, keeping to her original schedule. She carried no wireless, and so could not be reached at sea.

I often think the heroic determination of that captain to sink his ship and crew must have been preceded by many hours of bitterest chagrin and anxiety. He could not have had the slightest idea why the plan was not being carried out. It would have been, too, had the Volunteers at Tralee, remembering the uncertainty of all communication, been on watch for fear the countermanding order might have miscarried.

But it was too late now to draw back, even had the leaders so desired. I do not believe that idea ever entered their heads, for their course of action had been long planned. Two men, however, were uncertain of the wisdom of going on with it. One of them, The O'Rahilly, was minister of munitions in the provisional government and felt the loss keenly, because his entire plan of work had been based on this cargo now at the bottom of the ocean. When he found that the majority believed success was still possible, and that the seizure of arms in the British arsenals in Ireland would compensate for the loss, he gave in and worked as wholeheartedly as the others. The second man to demur was Professor Eoin McNeill, who was at the head of the Irish Volunteers as their commander-in-chief. He did not wish to risk the lives of his men against such heavy odds. Yet, when he left the conference, he had not given one hint of actually opposing plans then under discussion.

As I came out of church on Easter morning, I saw placards everywhere to this effect:

NO VOLUNTEER MANOEUVERS TO-DAY

This was astounding! The manoeuvers were to be the beginning of the revolution. To-day they were not to be the usual, simple drill, but the real beginning of military action. All over Ireland the Volunteers were expected to mobilize and stay mobilized until the blow had been struck--until, perhaps, victory had been won. And the Irish Volunteers made up two thirds of our fighting force. "No Volunteer manoeuvers to-day"? What could it mean?

I bought a newspaper and read the order of demobilization, signed by Professor McNeill. What could have happened? I hurried to Liberty Hall to find the leaders there as much in the dark as I. They knew McNeill had been depressed and fearful of results, but they had not supposed him capable of actually calling off his men from the movement so late in the day, though this was quite within his technical rights if he wished. They had taken for granted that he, like The O'Rahilly, would prefer to cast in his lot with the rest of us. I recalled that at Christmas the countess had been eager to have another head chosen for the Volunteers. Over and over again she had said that, though McNeill had been splendid for purposes of organization, and the presence of so earnest and pacific a man in command of the Volunteers had prevented England from getting nervous, he was not the man for a crisis. She liked him, but her intuition proved right. He could not bear that his Irish Volunteers should risk their lives and gain nothing thereby. He truly believed they had no chance without the help the _Aud_ had promised. As soon as he had published his demobilization order, he went to his home outside Dublin and stayed there during the rising. It was there he was arrested and, though his action so helped the British that the royal commission afterward said he "broke the back of the rebellion," he was sentenced for life, and sits to-day in Dartmoor Prison making sacks. This is the man who was one of our greatest authorities on early Irish history.

There never was a hint of suspicion that McNeill's act was other than the result of fear. No one who knew him could doubt his loyalty to Ireland. It was his love for the Volunteers, the love of a man instinctively pacifist, that made him give that order. Oh, the satire of history! By such an order, many of us believe, he delivered to the executioner the flower of Ireland's heart and brain. We believe that if those manoeuvers had taken place at the time set, the British arsenals in Ireland would easily have been taken and arms provided for our men. Indeed, we would rather have taken arms and ammunition from the British than have accepted them as gifts from other people.

The eternal buoyancy with which Irishmen are credited came to their rescue that Sunday morning. Mr. Connolly and others believed that if word was sent into the country districts that the Citizen Army was proceeding with its plans, that the Volunteers of Dublin, consisting of four battalions under Padraic Pearse and Thomas McDonaugh, were going to mobilize, the response would be immediate. At once word was sent out broadcast. Norah Connolly walked eighty miles during the week through the country about Dublin, carrying orders from headquarters. But she, like other messengers, found that the Volunteers were so accustomed to McNeill's signature that they were afraid to act without it. They feared a British trick. We Irish are so schooled in suspicion that it sometimes counts against us. In Galway they had heard that the rising in Dublin was on, and later put up such a fight that, had it been seconded in other counties by even a few groups, the republic would have lived longer than it did. It might even have won the victory in which, only three days before, we all had faith.

The Volunteers numbered men from every class and station; the Citizen Army was made up of working-men who had the advantage of being under a man of decision and quick judgment. At four o'clock the Citizen Army mobilized in front of Liberty Hall to carry out the route march as planned. After this march the men were formed into a hollow square in front of Liberty Hall and Connolly addressed them.

"You are now under arms," he concluded. "You will not lay down your arms until you have struck a blow for Ireland!"

The men cheered, shots were fired into the air, and that night their barracks was Liberty Hall.

You might think a demonstration of this character, a speech in the open, would attract enough attention from the police to make them send a report to the authorities. None was sent. They had come to feel, I suppose, that while there was so much talk there would be little action. Nor did they remember that Easter is always the anniversary of that fight hundreds of years ago when native Irish came to drive the foreigner from Dublin. This year, in addition, it fell upon the date of the Battle of Clontarf, so there was double reason for sentiment to seize upon the day for a revolt.

During the night, Irishmen from England and Scotland who had been encamped at Kimmage with some others, came into Dublin and joined the men at Liberty Hall. Next morning I saw them while they were drawn up, waiting for orders. Every man carried a rifle and a pike! Those pikes were admission of our loss through the sinking of the _Aud_, for the men who carried them might have been shouldering additional rifles to give to any recruits picked up during the course of the day. Pikes would not appeal to an unarmed man as a fit weapon with which to meet British soldiers in battle. We could have used every one of those twenty thousand lost rifles, for they would have made a tremendous appeal.

I was sent on my bicycle to scout about the city and report if troops from any of the barracks were stirring. They were not. Moreover, I learned that their officers, for the most part, were off to the races at Fairview in the gayest of moods.

When I returned to report to Mr. Connolly, I had my first glimpse of Padraic Pearse, provisional president of the Irish Republic. He was a tall man, over six feet, with broad shoulders slightly stooped from long hours as a student and writer. But he had a soldierly bearing and was very cool and determined, I thought, for a man on whom so much responsibility rested,--at the very moment, too, when his dream was about to take form. Thomas McDonagh was also there. I had not seen him before in uniform, and he, too, gave me the impression that our Irish scholars must be soldiers at bottom, so well did he appear in his green uniform. At Christmas he had given me a fine revolver. It would be one of my proudest possessions if I had it now, but it was confiscated by the British.