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 Another Random Document on
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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 manœuvers 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.
 JAMES CONNOLLY
I was next detailed as despatch rider for the St. Stephen's Green
Command. Again I went out to scout, this time for Commandant
Michael Mallin. If I did not find the military moving, I was to remain
at the end of the Green until I should see our men coming in to take
possession. There were no soldiers in sight; only a policeman
standing at the far end of the Green doing nothing. He paid no
attention to me; I was only a girl on a bicycle. But I watched him
closely. It was impossible to believe that neither the police nor the
military authorities were on guard. But this chap stood about idly
and was the last policeman I saw until after the rising was over.
They seemed to vanish from the streets of Dublin. Even to-day no
one can tell you where they went.
It was a great moment for me, as I stood there, when, between the
budding branches of trees, I caught sight of men in dark green
uniforms coming along in twos and threes to take up their position in
and about the Green and at the corners of streets leading into it.
There were only thirty-six altogether, whereas the original plan had
been for a hundred. That was one of the first effects of Eoin
McNeill's refusal to join us. But behind them I could see, in the
spring sunlight, those legions of Irish who made their fight against
as heavy or heavier odds and who, though they died, had left us
their dream to make real. Perhaps this time—
At last all the men were standing ready, awaiting the signal. In every
part of Dublin similar small groups were waiting for the hour to
strike. The revolution had begun!
 VI
To the British, I am told, there was something uncanny about the
suddenness with which the important centers of Dublin's life were
quietly seized at noon on Easter Monday by groups of calm,
determined men in green uniforms.
They were not merely surprised; they were frightened. The
superstitious element in their fear was great, too. It had always been
so. When Kitchener was drowned off the Irish coast, a man I know,
an Irishman, spoke of it to an English soldier.
"Yes; you and your damned rosaries!" retorted the soldier, looking
frightened even as he said it.
The British seem to feel we are in league with unearthly powers
against which they have no protection. On Easter Monday they
believed that behind this sudden decision, as it appeared to them,
something dark and sinister was lurking. How else would we dare to
revolt against the British Empire? It was as if our men were not flesh
and blood, but spirits summoned up by their own bad conscience to
take vengeance for many centuries of misrule. It must have been
some such feeling that accounted for the way they lost, at the very
outset, all their usual military calm and ruthlessness.
We recognized this feeling, and it made our men stronger in spirit.
We were convinced of the justice of our cause, convinced that even
dying was a small matter compared with the privilege we now
shared of fighting for that cause. Besides, there was no traitor in our
ranks. No one had whispered a word of our plans to the British
authorities. That is one reason why our memory of Easter Week has
in it something finer than the memory of any other rising in the past.
You must bear in mind that the temptation to betray the rising must
have been just as strong, that it had in it just as much guarantee of
security for the future, as heretofore. Yet no one yielded to this
temptation. Even more amazing was the fact that the authorities had
not paid any heed to those utterances which for months past had
been highly seditious. For instance, here is what Padraic Pearse
stated openly in one of his articles:

I am ready. For years I have waited and prayed for this day. We
have the most glorious opportunity that has ever presented
itself of really asserting ourselves. Such an opportunity will
never come again. We have Ireland's liberty in our hands. Or
are we content to remain as slaves and idly watch the final
extermination of the Gael?

Nothing could be more outspoken or direct. When it is remembered

that England's enemies have always been regarded as Ireland's
allies; that an English war, wherever fought, is a signal for us to rise
once more, no matter how many defeats we have suffered, it might
have been supposed the British, stationed in such numbers in and
around Dublin, would not have been put to sleep by what must have
seemed, to the wary observer, an acute attack of openness and a
vigorous interest in military affairs. There were some, of course,
among the police and officials who made their reports of "highly
seditious" meetings and writings, but I suppose the authorities did
not believe we would strike. From America they learned of aid to
come by ship when Igel's papers were seized by United States
authorities. It may have been this information that put the English
patrol-boats on their guard in Tralee Harbor. It even may have been
thought that when that ship went down the rising was automatically
ended. So it might have been had our revolt been "made in
Germany," but it must be remembered that it was the Irish who
approached the Germans. Thus there was no anxiety in Dublin that
Easter Monday except as to which horse would win the Fairview
races.
As soon as our men were in position in St. Stephen's Green, I rode
off down Leeson Street toward the Grand Canal to learn if the British
soldiers were now leaving Beggar's Bush or the Portobello barracks.
Everything remained quiet. That signified to me that our men had
taken possession of the post-office for headquarters and of all other
premises decided on in the revised plan of strategy adapted to a
much smaller army.
The names of these places do not sound martial. Jacob's Biscuit
Factory, Boland's Bakery, Harcourt Street Railway Station, and Four
Courts are common enough, but each had been chosen for the
strategic advantage it would give those defending Dublin with a few
men against a great number. The Dublin & Southeastern Railway
yards, for example, gave control of the approach from Kingstown
where, it was expected, the English coming over to Ireland would
land.
Again I was sent out to learn if the Harcourt Street Station had been
occupied by our men. This had been done, and already telegraph
wires there, as well as elsewhere, had been cut to isolate Dublin.
Telephone wires were cut, too, but one was overlooked. By that wire
word of the rising reached London much sooner than otherwise
would have been the case. But here again, the wonder is not that
something had been overlooked, but that so much was
accomplished. By the original plan, volunteers were told off to do
this wire-cutting and the hundred and one things necessary to a
revolt taking place in a city like Dublin. When this work was
redistributed to one third the original number of men, it was hard to
be certain that those who had never drilled for the kind of task
assigned them could do it at all. This insurrection had been all but
rehearsed, during those months when it was being worked out on
paper, by daily and weekly drills.
Upon my return, I found our men intrenching themselves in St.
Stephen's Green. All carried tools with which to dig themselves in,
and shrubbery was used to protect the trenches. Motorcars and
drays passing the Green were commandeered, too, to form a
barricade. Much to the bewilderment of their occupants, who had no
warning that anything was amiss in Dublin, the men in green
uniforms would signal them to stop. Except in one instance, they did
so quickly enough. Then they were told to get out. An experienced
chauffeur among our men would jump in at once and drive the car
to a position where it was needed. The occupants would stand for a
moment aghast, then take to their heels. One drayman refused his
cart and persisted in his refusal, not believing it when our men told
him this was war. He was shot. Two British officers were taken
prisoners in one of the autos. We could not afford men to stand
guard over them, but we took good care of them. Afterward they
paid us the tribute of saying that we obeyed all the rules of war.
Commandant Mallin gave me my first despatch to carry to
headquarters at the general post-office. As I crossed O'Connell
Street, I had to ride through great crowds of people who had
gathered to hear Padraic Pearse read the proclamation of the
republic at the foot of Nelson's Pillar. They had to scatter when the
Fifth Lancers—the first of the military forces to learn that insurgents
had taken possession of the post-office—rode in among them to
attack the post-office.
THE PROCLAMATION OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC
(All of its signers were executed)
 POBLACHT NA H EIREANN.
THE PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT
OF THE
IRISH REPUBLIC
TO THE PEOPLE OF IRELAND.
IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN In the name of God and of the
dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of
nationhood. Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag
and strikes for her freedom.
Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret
revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and
through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the
Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having
resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now
seizes that moment, and, supported by her exiled children in
America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her
own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.
We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of
Ireland, and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be
sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a
foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor
can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish
people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their
right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past
three hundred years they have asserted it in arms. Standing on that
fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the
world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign
Independent State, and we pledge our lives and the lives of our
comrades-in-arms to the cause of its freedom, or its welfare, and of
its exaltation among the nations.
The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of
every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious
and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its
citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and
prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the
children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences
carefully fostered by an alien government, which have divided a
minority from the majority in the past.
Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the
establishment of a permanent National Government, representative
of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her
men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted,
will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for
the people.
We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the
Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we
pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by
cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish
nation must, by its valour and discipline and by the readiness of its
children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself
worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.
Signed on Behalf of the Provisional Government,
THOMAS J. CLARKE,
SEAN Mac DIARMADA,
THOMAS MacDONAGH,
P. H. PEARSE,
EAMONN CEANNT,
JAMES CONNOLLY,
JOSEPH PLUNKETT.

Nothing can give one a better idea of how demoralized the British
were by the first news of the rising than to learn that they sent
cavalry to attack a fortified building. Men on horseback stood no
chance against rifle-fire from the windows of the post-office. It must
be said in extenuation, however, that it probably was because this
cavalry detachment had just convoyed some ammunition-wagons to
a place not far from O'Connell Street, and so were sent to "scatter"
men who, they supposed, could be put to flight by the mere
appearance of regulars on horseback.
When I reached the open space in front of the post-office, I saw two
or three men and horses lying in the street, killed by the first volley
from the building. It was several days before these horses were
taken away, and there was something in the sight of the dumb
beasts that hurt me every time I had to pass them. It may sound
harsh when I say that the thought of British soldiers being killed in
the same way did not awaken similar feelings. That is because for
many centuries we have been harassed by men in British uniform.
They have become to us symbols of a power that seems to delight in
tyranny.
Even while I was cycling toward the post-office, the crowd had
reassembled to watch the raising of the flag of the Irish Republic. As
the tricolor—green, white, and orange—appeared above the roof of
the post-office, a salute was fired. A few days later, while it was still
waving, James Connolly wrote: "For the first time in seven hundred
years the flag of a free Ireland floats triumphantly over Dublin City!"
Mr. Connolly and a few of his officers came out to look at it as it
waved up there against the sky. I saw an old woman go up to him
and, bending her knee, kiss his hand. Indeed, the people loved and
trusted him.
Inside the post-office our men were busy putting things to right after
the lancers' attack. They were getting ready for prolonged
resistance. Window-panes were smashed, and barricades set up to
protect men who soon would be shooting from behind them.
Provisions were brought over from Liberty Hall, where they had long
been stored against this day. But what impressed me most was the
way the men went at it, as though this was the usual sort of thing to
be doing and all in the day's work. There was no sign of excitement,
but there was a tenseness, a sense of expectancy, a kind of
exaltation, that was almost more than I could bear.
I delivered my despatch, and was given another to carry back to
Commandant Mallin. Crowds were still in O'Connell Street when I left
on my errand. They were always there when bullets were not flying,
and always seemed in sympathy with the men in the post-office. I
found this same sympathy all over the city wherever I went. Even
when men would not take guns and join us, they were friendly.
The soldiers from Portobello barracks were sent out twice on
Monday to attack our position in St. Stephen's Green. The first time
was at noon, before we were completely intrenched. They had gone
only as far as Portobello Bridge, but a few rods from the barracks,
when they were fired on from the roof of Davies's public-house just
the other side of the bridge. Our rifle-fire was uninterrupted, and a
number of the soldiers fell. They probably thought they were dealing
with a considerable force, for they did not advance until the firing
ceased or until word was brought to the three men on the roof that
we were securely intrenched. Even then they did not come on to
attack us, but went somewhere else in the city.
At six o'clock that evening, just when it was beginning to grow dusk,
on my way back from the post-office I noticed that the crowd of
curious civilians who had been hanging about the Green all day had
quite disappeared. The next thing I saw was two persons hurrying
away from the Green. These were Town Councilor Partridge and the
countess. They came to a halt in the street just ahead of me. Then I
saw the British soldiers coming up Harcourt Street!
The countess stood motionless, waiting for them to come near. She
was a lieutenant in the Irish Volunteers and, in her officer's uniform
and black hat with great plumes, looked most impressive. At length
she raised her gun to her shoulder—it was an "automatic" over a
foot long, which she had converted into a short rifle by taking out
the wooden holster and using it as a stock—and took aim. Neither
she nor Partridge noticed me as I came up behind them. I was quite
close when they fired. The shots rang out at the same moment, and
I saw the two officers leading the column drop to the street. As the
countess was taking aim again, the soldiers, without firing a shot,
turned and ran in great confusion for their barracks. The whole
company fled as fast as they could from two people, one of them a
woman! When you consider, however, that for years these soldiers
had been going about Dublin as if they owned it; that now they did
not know from what house or street corner they might be fired upon
by men in green uniforms, it is not to be wondered at that they were
temporarily demoralized.
As we went back to the Green, Madam told me of the attempt made
that morning by herself, Sean Connolly, and ten others to enter
Dublin Castle and plant the flag of the Irish republic on the roof of
that stronghold of British power in Ireland. There always is a
considerable military force housed in the castle, but so completely
were they taken by surprise that for a few moments it seemed as if
the small group would succeed in entering. It was only when their
leader, Sean Connolly, was shot dead that the attempt was
abandoned. It seemed to me particularly fitting that Madam had
been a member of this party, for she belonged by "right of birth" to
those who always were invited to social affairs at the castle. Yet she
had long refused to accept these invitations, and had taken the side
of those who hoped for the ultimate withdrawal of those Dublin
Castle hosts.
Immediately after this gallant attempt, which might have succeeded
had it taken place on Sunday with the number of men originally
intended, Madam returned to St. Stephen's Green and alone and
single-handed took possession of the College of Surgeons. This is a
big, square, granite building on the west side of the Green. It was,
as we later discovered, impregnable. For all impression they made,
the machine-gun bullets with which the British soldiers peppered it
for five days might have been dried peas.
The countess, fortunately, had met with no resistance. She walked
up the steps, rang the bell, and, when no one answered, fired into
the lock and entered. The flag we flew from the roof of the building
was a small one I had brought on my bicycle from headquarters.
 VII
We were all happy that night as we camped in St. Stephen's Green.
Despite the handicap we were under through lack of men, almost
everything was going our way. It was a cold, damp night. The first-
aid and despatch-girls of our command went into a summer-house
for shelter. It had no walls, but there was a floor to lie upon, and a
roof. I slept at once and slept heavily.
Madam was not so fortunate. She was too tired and excited to sleep.
Instead, she walked about, looking for some sheltered place and, to
get out of the wind, tried lying down in one of the trenches. But the
ground was much too chilly, so she walked about until she noticed
the motor-car of her friend, Dr. Katherine Lynn, seized that morning
for the barricade. She climbed in, found a rug, and went to sleep in
comparative comfort. When morning came she could not forgive
herself for having slept there all night while the rest of us remained
outdoors. She had intended to get up after an hour or two of it and
make one of us take her place. She did not waken, however, till she
heard the hailing of machine-gun bullets on the roof of the car. The
girls in the summer-house, with the exception of myself, were
awakened at the same moment in the same way, and ran for safety
behind one of the embankments. It seems the British had taken
possession of a hotel at one side of the Green—the Hotel Shelbourne
—and had placed a machine-gun on the roof. At four o'clock in the
morning they began firing.
The chill I was having woke me, but I quickly followed the others to
their hiding-place. From the first we were aware that had we taken
possession of all buildings around the Green, according to our
original plan, this morning salute of the British would have been
impossible. As it was, our intrenchments and barricades proved of no
avail. We realized at once we should have to evacuate the Green and
retire into the College of Surgeons.
Commandant Mallin sent me with a despatch to headquarters. He
recognized immediately that a regiment could not hold the Green
against a machine-gun on a tall building that could rake our position
easily.
As soon as I returned, I was sent away again to bring in sixteen men
guarding the Leeson Street bridge. If we abandoned the Green
before they could join us, they would be cut off and in great danger.
As I rode along on my bicycle, I had my first taste of the risks of
street-fighting. Soldiers on top of the Hotel Shelbourne aimed their
machine-gun directly at me. Bullets struck the wooden rim of my
bicycle wheels, puncturing it; others rattled on the metal rim or
among the spokes. I knew one might strike me at any moment, so I
rode as fast as I could. My speed saved my life, and I was soon out
of range around a corner. I was not exactly frightened nor did I feel
aware of having shown any special courage. My anxiety for the men
I was to bring in filled my mind, for though I was out of range,
unless we could find a roundabout way to the College of Surgeons
seventeen of us would be under fire. To make matters worse, the
men were on foot.
After I reached this group and gave the order for their return, I
scouted ahead up streets I knew would bring us back safely to the
college, unless already guarded by the British. It was while I was
riding ahead of them that I had fresh evidence of the friendliness of
the people. Two men presently approached me. They stepped out
into the street and said quietly:
"All is safe ahead."
I rode back, told the guard, and we moved on more rapidly. At
another spot a woman leaned out of her window just as I was
passing. "You are losing your revolver," she called to me.
She may have saved my life by that warning, for my revolver had
torn its way through the pocket of my raincoat, and, in another
moment, would have fallen to the ground. Had it been discharged,
the result might have been fatal.
As we came to the College of Surgeons and were going in by a side
door, the men were just retiring from the Green. Since every
moment counted, I had ridden ahead to report to Commandant
Mallin, and while he stood listening to me, a bullet whizzed through
his hat. He took it off, looked at it without comment, and put it on
again. Evidently the machine-gun was still at work.
One of our boys was killed before we got inside the College of
Surgeons. Had the British gunners been better trained for their task,
we might have lost more, for we were completely at their mercy
from the moment they began to fire at dawn until the big door of
the college closed, and we took up the defense of our new position
in the great stone fortress.
Every time I left the college, I was forced to run the gauntlet of this
machine-gun. I blessed the enemy's bad marksmanship several
times a day. To be sure, they tried hard enough to hit something.
Once that day I saw them shooting at our first-aid girls, who made
excellent targets in their white dresses, with large red crosses on
them. It was a miracle that none of them was wounded. Bullets
passed through one girl's skirt, and another girl had the heel of her
shoe shot off. If I myself had not seen this happen, I could not have
believed that British soldiers would disobey the rules of war
concerning the Red Cross.
Mr. Connolly had issued orders that no soldier was to be shot who
did not have arms, and he did not consider the side-arms they
always carried as "arms." My revolver had been given me for self-
defense in case I fell into the hands of any soldiers. I confess that,
though I never used it, I often felt tempted when I saw British
soldiers going along in twos and threes, bent on shooting any of our
men. I was not in uniform, however, and had had orders not to
shoot except thus clothed and so a member of the Republican Army.
Some of the streets I had to ride through were as quiet and peaceful
as if there was no thought of revolution in Dublin, but in others I
could hear now and then scattered shots from around some corner.
It was more than likely that snipers were trying to hold up a force of
British on their way to attack one of our main positions. Sometimes I
would hear the rattle of a machine-gun, and this warned me that I
was approaching a house where the enemy was raking a position
held by our men. Generally, however, it was the complete and death-
like emptiness of a street that warned me I was close to a scene of
hot fighting. This was not always so, for there were times when the
curiosity of the crowd got the better of its caution, and it would push
dangerously near the shooting.
Several days elapsed before the people of Dublin became fully aware
of the meaning of what was going on. Riots are not rare, and this
might well seem to many of them only rioting on a large scale, with
some new and interesting features. The poor of Dublin have never
been appeased with bread or circuses by the British authorities.
They have had to be content with starvation and an occasional
street disturbance. But little by little, as I rode along, I could detect
a change in attitude. Some became craven and disappeared; in
others, it seemed that at last their souls might come out of hiding
and face the day.
The spirit at the post-office was always the same—quiet, cheerful,
and energetic. I used to stand at the head of the great central
staircase waiting for answers to my despatches and could see the
leaders as they went to and fro through the corridor. Padraic Pearse
impressed me by his natural air of command. He was serious, but
not troubled, not even when he had to ask for men from the Citizen
Army to eke out the scant numbers of his Volunteers for some
expedition. No one had thought it would be that way, for the
Volunteers were originally two to one compared with the Citizen
Army. Recruits were coming in every day, but at the most there were
not fifteen hundred men against twenty thousand British soldiers
stationed in or near Dublin.
Whenever there came a lull in business or fighting, the men would
begin to sing either rebel songs or those old lays dear to Irishmen
the world over. And sometimes they knelt in prayer, Protestants and
Catholics side by side. From the very beginning there was a sense of
the religious character in what we were doing. This song and prayer
at the post-office were all natural, devoid of self-consciousness. A
gay song would follow a solemn prayer, and somehow was not out of
harmony with it.
One source of inspiration at the post-office was "old Tom Clarke,"
who had served fifteen years for taking part in the rising of sixty-
seven. His pale, worn face showed the havoc wrought by that long
term in an English prison, but his spirit had not been broken.
There was Jo Plunkett, too, pale and weak, having come directly
from the hospital where he had just undergone an operation. But he
knew what prestige his name would lend to this movement—a name
famous for seven hundred years in Irish history. He looked like
death, and he met death a few days later at the hands of the
English.
I talked about explosives one day with Sean McDermott and we
went together to consult a wounded chemist in a rear room to find
out what could be done with chemicals we had found at the College
of Surgeons. Sean McDermott was like a creature from another
planet who had brought his radiance with him to this one. Every one
felt this and loved him for the courage and sweetness he put into all
he did.
The O'Rahilly was another of the striking figures at the post-office.
He was known as one of the handsomest men in Ireland, and, in
addition to being head of a famous old clan, had large estates. He
had given much property to the cause, and now was risking his life
for it. He was killed on the last day of the fighting as he led a sortie
into the street at one side of the post-office. His last words were,
"Good-by and good luck to you!" He said those words to British
prisoners he was setting free because the post-office had caught fire
and the game was up. They afterward told of his kindness and care
for them at a moment when he himself was in the greatest possible
danger.
I can pass anywhere for a Scotch girl,—I have often had to since the
rising,—and friends will tell you I am hard-headed and practical,
without the least trace of mysticism. Yet, whenever I was in general
headquarters in the post-office, I felt, despite commonplace
surroundings and the din of fighting, an exalted calm that can be
possible only where men are giving themselves unreservedly and
with clear conscience to a great cause.
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