The Irish rebellion of 1916

by Nora Connolly O'Brien

II

During the month of July, 1914, I was camping out on the Dublin mountains. The annual convention of Na Fianna Eireann (Irish National Boy Scouts) had just been held, and I was a delegate to it from the Belfast Girls' Branch, of which I was the president. On the Sunday following the convention we were still camping out; but were suffering all the discomforts of blowy, rainy, stormy weather. Madame (the Countess de Markievicz) had a cottage beside the field where we were encamped, and it was thronged with us all that Sunday. Nothing would tempt us out in the field that night, and we kept putting off the retiring time, hour by hour, till it was nearly twelve o'clock. At that time we had just taken our courage in both hands, and were forcing ourselves to go out to our tents. We were standing near the door with our bedding in our arms when some of the Fianna boys halloed from outside. We gladly opened the door—another excuse for putting off the evil moment—and about half a dozen boys came in to the cottage. They were in great spirits, although they had tramped some miles in the rain, and exhibited strange looking clubs to our curious eyes.

"Guess what we've been doing to-day, Madame," they said, but with an expression on their faces which said, "you'll never guess."

"It's too much trouble to guess," said Madame. "Tell us what it was and we will know all the quicker."

"We've been helping to run in three thousand rifles."

"Rifles—where—quick—tell me all about it. Quick."

"At Howth. But did you hear nothing about it?"

"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 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 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."

COUNTESS MARKIEVIETZ

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 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 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 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 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.