Part 2

"Nothing. Tell me quick."

"Did you not hear that we had a brush with the soldiers; and that some were shot and some were killed?"

"No--no. Begin at the beginning and tell us the whole story."

"Well, during the week we were told to report at a certain place to-day--that there was important work to be done. This morning we {11} met as we were told, and we were shown these clubs. They were to be all the arms we were to have. We started out to march with the Volunteers to Howth. We knew, somehow or other, that we were going to get rifles but none of us knew for a fact how we were going to get them. As we marched we made all sorts of guesses as to how the rifles were coming. Of course, we did not carry the clubs in our hands; we brought them with us in the trek cart. But for a few others we were the only ones who knew what was in the cart. And do you know, Madame," he said with a veteran's pride, "we marched better than the Volunteers."

"When we came near Howth," said another boy as he took up the story, "two chaps came running towards us and told us to come on at the double. The Volunteers were rather tired but when they heard the word 'rifles' they simply raced. When we arrived at the harbor we saw the rifles being unloaded from a yacht. You ought to have heard the cheers when we saw them! Then it was that the clubs were distributed. They were given to a picked body of men and they were formed across the entrance to the pier. They were to use the clubs {12} if the police attempted to interfere with them. The rifles were handed out to the men, but there were more rifles than men so some had to be sent into the city in automobiles. Most of the ammunition was sent into the city in automobiles but quite a lot was put into the trek cart. But none was served out to the men."

"That was a nice thing to do," said the first boy, "to give rifles and no ammunition. And when we were attacked we couldn't shoot back. We had a fight with the soldiers and the police near the city. And when the soldiers and the police attacked us and might have taken the trek cart from us, we had only the butts of our rifles to defend it with. But we beat them off. Later on, though, they took their revenge when they shot down defenseless women and children. They just knelt down in the middle of Bachelor's Walk and fired into the crowd. I don't know how many were killed--some say five, some say more."

"But you brought the rifles safe," said Madame.

"The whole city is excited. The people are walking up and down the streets, they don't seem to think that they have any homes to go to."

{13}

When we heard that we wanted to dress and go down to Dublin. We wanted a share of the excitement, if we had not had any share in the fight. But Madame vetoed that suggestion almost as soon as it was mooted. We had to go to bed. But we had so much to talk about that we scarcely noticed the sogging wet tent when we were inside.

The next morning was gloriously fine. We breakfasted and were making plans to go into the city to hear some more about yesterday's exploit. Madame had already cycled in, and we were left to our own devices. We had not quite finished our work around the camp when we saw a taxi-cab stopping near the gate that was used as an entrance to the field. As we ran towards it we wondered what had brought it there. Before we reached it, however, one of the Fianna captains had jumped out of the taxi and was coming towards us.

"I have about twenty rifles in the car, and I want to get them to Madame's cottage," he said. "Will you help?"

We were glad of the opportunity. We jumped over the hedge into the next field where there were no houses, and had the rifles handed to us. We could only carry two at a time. The {14} captain stood at the car on the lookout, and also handed the rifles to us. We carried the rifles down to the window back of Madame's cottage, and when we had them all there one of us went inside to open the window to take the rifles from the other girls as they handed them through. We were delighted to handle the arms.

Later on one of the neighbors said that it was wrong to leave the rifles there. "There is a retired sergeant of the police who lives a little way up the road and he wouldn't be above telling about them."

This rather frightened us. If the police came and took them from us, what could we do? I decided to go in to Dublin and go to the Volunteer office and tell them about the rifles. When I had told about the rifles two of the men present accompanied me back to the camp to take the rifles from there.

We set off in another taxi and arrived at the camp before there was any sign of the police becoming active. All the rifles were carried out again and put in the taxi. When they were all in it, it was suggested that we should get into the taxi and sit on top of the rifles. The police would be less suspicious of a taxi {15} with girls in it. It was not a very comfortable seat that we had on that trip to Dublin. But the rifles were saved. When we got back to the office I offered to sit in any taxi with the rifles if they thought it would divert attention. I sat on quite a number of rifles that day. And at the end of the day I had a rifle of my own.

In the meantime, the bodies of those who had been shot by the soldiers were laid out and brought to the Cathedral. Preparations were made for a public funeral to honor the victims of English soldiery in Ireland. All the Volunteers were to march in honor of the dead, and the local trades unions, the Irish Citizen Army, the Cumami na mBan, the Fianna, and as many of the citizens of Dublin as desired to do so. The Fintan Lalor Pipe Band, connected with the Irish Transport and General Workers Union, were to play the Dead March. And there was to be a firing party of the Irish Volunteers who were to use the rifles that had so soon been the cause of bloodshed.

I spent all the day of the funeral making wreaths. The funeral was not to take place till the evening so as to permit all who wished to attend to do so. The Fianna boys went round to the different florists asking for {16} flowers to make wreaths to place on the graves of the dead. And they were richly rewarded. Every florist they went to gave bunches and bunches of their best flowers, and these the boys brought to Madame's house. Madame and I, and two or three other girls, worked continually all during the afternoon turning the flowers into wreaths. When we had finished we had seventeen glorious big wreaths. Just before six we piled into an automobile, some of the boys in Gaelic costume stood on the running board. The saffron and green of the kilts and the many wreaths made quite an artistic dash of color when we arrived at Beresford Place to have our place assigned to us.

The bodies of the five victims were removed from the Cathedral and placed in the hearses. Behind each one walked the chief mourners. Much interest was aroused by the sight of a soldier in the English uniform, who marched, weeping openly, after one of the hearses. He had joined the English Army and had promised to protect the English King, and now the soldiers of that king had shot and killed his innocent defenseless mother.

Dublin was profoundly moved as the funeral cortege passed through the city. Thousands {17} upon thousands marched to the cemetery after the hearses, and thousands more lined the streets. They were attesting their sympathy with the families of the dead, and their realization that England still intended to rule Ireland with the rifle and the bullet.

The firing party, as they marched after the hearses with their rifles reversed, excited much comment. The people contrasted the difference in the treatment accorded the Nationalists when they had a gun-running, with that accorded the Ulster gun-runners. And they knew once more that England would kill and destroy them rather than permit them to have the means to protect their lives and to fight for their liberties.

The authorities were aware of the feeling aroused in the people by the killing of the unarmed women and men, and to prevent any further disturbance they confined the soldiers to their barracks that evening. Still the feeling against "The King's Own Scottish Borderers" (the regiment that had done the shooting) ran so high that the entire regiment was secretly sent away from Dublin.

{18}

III

About one week later, while the people were still incensed at the shooting, England went to war. Almost immediately she issued an appeal to the Irish to join her army. Later she appealed to them to avenge the shooting of the citizens of Catholic Belgium. Because her memory was short, or perhaps because her need was so great she chose to ignore the fact that English soldiers had but shortly shot down and killed the unarmed citizens of Catholic Dublin. But Dublin did not forget.

The Irish Citizen Army distinguished itself when John Redmond and Mr. Asquith, who was then Prime Minister, came over to Dublin shortly after the outbreak of the war. They came to hold a recruiting meeting in the Mansion House. It was supposed to be a public meeting at which the Prime Minister and the Irish Parliamentary Leader would appeal to the citizens of Dublin to enlist in the British Army; yet no one was let in without a card of {19} admission. A cordon of soldiers were drawn across both ends of the street in which the Mansion House was situated, at Nassau Street and at St. Stephen's Green. No one could pass these cordons without presenting the card and being subjected to a close scrutiny by the local detectives. This was to make sure that no objectionable person could get in to the meeting and make a row. But the Nationalists of Dublin had no intention of going to the meeting; there was to be another one that would give them more pleasure.

A monster demonstration had been decided upon by the Irish Citizen Army to prove to Mr. Asquith, and through him to England, that the mass of the Dublin people were against recruiting for the British Army. They mustered outside of Liberty Hall. The speakers, amongst whom was Sean Mac Dermott who was there to represent the Irish Volunteers, were on a lorry guarded by members of the Irish Citizen Army armed with rifles and fixed bayonets; a squad similarly armed guarded the front and the rear. They were determined that there would be no arrest of anti-recruiters that night.

They marched around the city, the crowd {20} swelling as they went, and they stopped at the "Traitors' Arch" (the popular name for the Memorial to the Irish soldiers who fell in the Boer War), at St. Stephen's Green, two blocks away from where the recruiting meeting was being held. As speaker after speaker denounced recruiting, and denounced England, and Redmond, and Asquith, feeling surged higher and higher until it reached a climax when James Connolly called on those present to declare for an Irish Republic. Cheers burst from thousands of throats and a forest of hands appeared in the air as they declared for a Republic. We were told afterwards that the recruiting meeting had to stop till the anti-recruiters stayed their cheering.

The armed men of the Irish Citizen Army resumed the march first to make sure that none would be molested. Down Grafton Street they went and halted again beside the old House of Parliament, where Jim Larkin called on them to raise their right hands and pledge themselves never to join the British Army. Every one present did so. Then, whistling and singing Nationalist marching tunes and anti-recruiting songs, they marched back to Liberty Hall and dispersed. As a result of {21} Asquith's meeting, or because of the Irish Citizen Army meeting, only six men joined the British Army next day.

Midnight mobilizations were a feature of the Irish Citizen Army. They served a twofold purpose. They taught the men to be ready whenever called upon, and were a great source of annoyance to the police. At every mobilization of the Irish Citizen Army a squad of police and detectives were detailed by the authorities to follow and report all the movements. One midnight the men mobilized at Liberty Hall; they were divided into two bodies, the attacking and the defending. They marched to the North side of the city, one body going across the canal, and the other remaining behind to prevent the entrance of the attackers. The battle lasted two hours. It was a bitter winter's night and the police were on duty all the time as they did not dare to leave, for there was no telling what the Irish Citizen Army might be up to.

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{23}

After the men had completed their evolutions around the bridge they formed ranks and marched round the city, the police following them. They stopped at Emmet Hall, Inchicore, for refreshments. There they had a song {24} and dance, one chap remarking that the thought of the "peelers" (police) and the "G men" (detectives) outside in the cold added to the enjoyment. They broke up about six o'clock a.m. and marched back to Liberty Hall followed by the disheartened, miserable, frozen police.

There was another midnight mobilization later on. Announcements were made publicly that on this occasion the Irish Citizen Army would attack Dublin Castle, the center of English Government in Ireland for 600 years. The thought of such a deed never fails to fire the imagination of an Irish Nationalist. A favorite phrase of one of the officers of the Irish Citizen Army, Commandant Sean Connolly, was, "One more rush, boys, and the Castle is ours." He was in command of the body that attacked the Castle on Easter Monday. It was while calling on his men to rush the Castle that he received a bullet through his brain, thus achieving his lifelong dream of dying for Ireland while attacking the Castle.

One other mobilization which took place at midnight some time before the Rising was a disappointment, perhaps because it was unofficial. One of the Irish Citizen Army men {25} heard that a number of rifles were stored in a place near Finglass. He knew the whereabouts and whispered the news amongst his comrades. A number of them decided to make a raid on the place and capture the rifles. They started out at midnight, marched twenty miles before morning, but, unfortunately, the rifles had been removed before they arrived. They were disappointed but not downhearted; such things they considered part of the day's work.

They had another disappointment which was more amusing, at least our men could laugh at it when a few days were past. There was in Dublin a body of men called the Home Defense Corps. They wore a greenish gray uniform and on their sleeves an armlet with the letters "G.R." in red--abbreviations for Georgius Rex. They were called the "Gorgeous Wrecks" by the Dubliners. They were mainly men past the military age who had registered their willingness to fight the Germans when they invaded England, Scotland, or Ireland. These men paraded the streets of Dublin making a fine show with their uniforms and rifles, especially the rifles. Some of the Irish Citizen Army thought those rifles too {26} good to be left in the hands of "those old ones" and followed them on a march to find out where the rifles were kept. When our men came back they gathered a number of their friends together; after a short talk away they went for the rifles. It was done in quite a military manner; sentries and pickets were placed, the building surrounded and entered. Several made their way to the room where the rifles were kept and opened the windows to hand the rifles to the eager hands outside. Their plan was to march home with them quite openly as if returning from a route march.

The leader of the band was well known for his lurid and swift flow of language. Suddenly bursting out, he surpassed all his previous efforts and completely staggered the men around him--they beheld him examining one of the rifles. It was complete in every detail, just like an army rifle, but on lifting it it was easy to know that it was a very clever imitation. The men were heartbroken and disgusted, but they brought several of the rifles away with them to show their officers what the "Gorgeous Wrecks" were going to fight the Germans with. During a raid by the Dublin {27} police in a well-known house one of these rifles was taken away by them. How long it took them to realize its uselessness we do not know as it was never returned.

{28}

IV

Towards the end of 1915 the hearts of the Irish Citizen Army beat high, when they were summoned one night for special business. One by one they were called into a room where their Commandant, James Connolly, and his Chief of Staff, Michael Mallin, were seated at a table. They were bound on their word not to reveal anything they should hear until the time came. Something like the following conversation took place:

"Are you willing to fight for Ireland?"

"Yes."

"It might mean your death."

"No matter."

"Are you ready to fight to-morrow if asked?"

"Whenever I'm wanted."

"Do you think we ought to fight with the few arms we've got?"

"Why wait? England can get millions to one."

{29}

"It might mean a massacre."

"In God's name let us fight, we've been waiting long enough."

"The Irish Volunteers might not come out with us. Are you still ready?"

"What matter? We can put up a good fight."

"Then in God's name hold yourself ready. The Day is very near."

To the eternal credit of the Irish Citizen Army be it recorded that only one man shirked that night.

Then on top of this glorious happening came the attempted raid on Liberty Hall by the police. That morning I was in the office with my father when a man came from the printer's shop and said, "Mr. Connolly, you're wanted downstairs." My father went downstairs. About five minutes later he came into the office again, took down a carbine, loaded it and filled his pockets with cartridges.

"What is it?" I asked. "Can I do anything?"

"Stay here, I'll need you," said my father and he left the office again. He was gone about five minutes when the door was banged {30} open and the Countess de Markievicz burst into the office.

"Where's Mr. Connolly?" she demanded excitedly. "Where's Mr. Connolly? They're raiding the Gaelic press--the place is surrounded with soldiers."

"He left here five minutes ago," I said. "He took his carbine with him and told me to remain here as he would need me."

She ran out again. In a few minutes I heard her and my father coming back along the corridor. She was talking excitedly and my father was laughing.

They came into the office--he took down a sheaf of papers and commenced signing them. They called for instant mobilization of the Irish Citizen Army. They were to report at Liberty Hall with full equipment at once.

"Well, Nora," said my father. "It looks as if we were in for it and as if they were going to force our hands. Fill up these orders as I sign them. I want two hundred and fifty."

I busied myself filling in these orders. The Countess began to help me--suddenly she stopped and cried out, "But, Mr. Connolly, I haven't my pistol on me."

{31}

"Never mind, Madame," said my father. "We'll give you one."

"Give it to me now," she said. "So my mind will be easy."

She was given a large Mauser pistol. Just then a picket came running in. He saluted and said, "They've left the barracks, sir." He was referring to the police. A line of our pickets had been stationed reaching from the barracks to Liberty Hall; their duty was to report any move they might see made by the police. In that way no sooner had a body of police left the barracks than word was sent along the line and in less than three minutes Liberty Hall was aware of it.

"Now, Madame," said my father when the picket had gone. "Come along, we'll be ready for them. Finish those, Nora, and come down to me with them."

I finished them and went down to the Co-operative shop. Behind the counter stood my father with his carbine laid along it; beside him Madame, and outside the counter was Miss Moloney taking the safety catch from off her automatic. I gave the batch of orders to my father; he called one of the men who stood in the doorway, and said, "Get these around at {32} once." The man saluted and went away. Just then another picket came in and said, "They will be here in a minute, sir, they've just crossed the bridge."

"Very well," said my father, and the men went away.

Miss Moloney then told me that some policemen had come in and had attempted to search the store, and that she had sent word to Mr. Connolly through the men in the printing shop, which was back of the Coöperative shop; and then busied herself resisting the search. One policeman had a batch of papers in his hands when my father came in. He saw at once what was going forward, drew his automatic pistol, pointed it at the policeman and said:

"Drop them or I'll drop you."

The policeman dropped them. My father then asked what he wanted. He said they had come to confiscate any copies of _The Gael_, _The Gaelic Athlete_, _Honesty_ or _The Spark_ that might be on the premises.

"Have you a search warrant?" asked my father. This was a bluff, because under the Defense of the Realm Act any house may be searched on suspicion; but it worked; the policeman said he had none.

{33}

"Go and get one," said my father, "or you'll not search here."

The police went away; and it was then that my father had come back to the office to sign the mobilization papers.

Shortly afterwards there came into the shop an Inspector of the police, four plain-clothes men and two policemen in uniform. I was behind the counter at this time.

"I am Inspector Banning," said the Inspector.

"What do you want?" asked my father.

"We have come to search for, and confiscate any, of the suppressed papers we may find here."

"Where's your warrant?" asked my father.

"I have it here," said the Inspector.

"Read it," said my father.

The Inspector read the warrant--it was to the effect that all shops and newsvendors were to be searched, and all copies of the suppressed newspapers confiscated.

"Well," said my father when the Inspector had finished reading. "This is the shop up to this door,"--pointing to one behind him,--"beyond this door is Liberty Hall, and through {34} this door you will not go. Go ahead and search."

"We have no desire to enter Liberty Hall," said the Inspector.

"I don't doubt you," said my father, whereat we all grinned.

At an order from the Inspector one of the policemen began to search around the place where the papers were kept. He looked at my father standing in the doorway with his carbine, and for a moment we thought he was going to rush him. Perhaps visions of stripes danced before him; but, at an order from his superior he went on with his work. It was a good thing for him that he did so, as there were the best of shots present, with less than ten paces between him and them.

"There is nothing here," he said at last to the Inspector. (We had made sure there would not be.) And then they all left the shop.

In the meantime, a series of strange sights were to be seen all over the city. The mobilization orders had gone forth and the men were answering them. Women in the fashionable shopping districts were startled by the sight of men, with their faces still grimed with the dust of their work, tearing along at a breakneck {35} speed, a rifle in one hand and a bandolier in the other.