XV
We went to Dublin Castle that morning to ask for his body. It was refused to us. The authorities were not permitting even a coffin, we were told. But a kind nurse had cut off a lock of Papa's hair and this she gave to Mamma.
That was all there was left of him for us.
We saw Father Aloyisus who had attended my father to Kilmainham jail where he had been shot.
"How did they shoot him—how could they shoot him? He couldn't sit up in his bed. He couldn't stand up to be shot," I cried. "How was he shot?"
"It was a terrible shock to me," said Father Aloyisus. "I had been with him that evening and I promised to come to him this afternoon. I felt sure there would be no more executions—at least that is how I read the words of Mr. Asquith. And your father was so much easier than he had been. I was sure that he would get his first night's real rest."
"But, how did they shoot him, Father?"
"The ambulance that brought you home from him came for me. I was astonished. I had felt so sure that I would not be needed that for the first time since the rising I locked the doors. And some time after two, I was knocked up. The ambulance brought me to your father. He was a wonderful man. I am sorry to say that of all men who have been executed, he was the only one I did not know personally. Though I knew of him and admired his work. I will always thank God as long as I live that He permitted me to be with your father till he was dead. Such a wonderful man he was. Such concentration of mind."
"Yes, Father, but they shot him—how?"
"They carried him from his bed in an ambulance stretcher down to a waiting ambulance and drove him to Kilmainham Jail. They carried him from the ambulance to the Jail yard and put him on a chair.... He was very brave and cool.... I said to him, 'Will you pray for the men who are about to shoot you,' and he said, 'I will say a prayer for all brave men who do their duty.' ... His prayer was, 'Forgive them for they know not what they do.' ... And then they shot him...."
"What did they do with him, then?" whispered my mother.
"They took the body to Arbor Hill Barracks. All the men who were executed are there."
Papa had told mother to ask for his personal effects. And mother had asked for them. We only received some of his underclothes and the night clothes he wore in bed while he was wounded. Papa had said that the authorities had his watch, his pocketbook, and his uniform. But the officer in charge knew nothing about them.
Mother made many inquiries. But it was not until she went in person to General Maxwell that she succeeded in having the pocket book returned to her. Major Price, Chief Intelligence Officer in Ireland, had told her that they were keeping it for evidence.
Evidence—what more evidence did they require against a man they had executed?
Some time afterwards we recovered his watch; but we never found his uniform. And since I came to America I have been shown that a copy of the paper my father edited with his last corrections upon it, was put upon the market by a careful British officer who had figured out its value as a souvenir.
And then the whispered warnings came again to awaken my mother's fear. Some messages reached her that the police were again looking for me. Nor could I convince her otherwise. She begged and pleaded with me to go away from Dublin so that I would not be arrested. So that she might feel more at ease in her mind, I went to Belfast.
Even then she did not feel that I was safe. She came to Belfast and asked me to try to get to America alone. In accordance with my father's last wish she had applied for passports to take us all to America, or to take the girls. But the British authorities felt that the arrival of Mrs. Connolly and her five daughters in America would be prejudicial to the interests of the Realm; and refused her the passports. She had gone again and again to the authorities, only to be sent hither and thither on a fool's errand. And as she despaired of ever getting them she asked me to make any attempt I could and to use whatever means I could to get to America.
"Let them see that your comings and goings are not dependent on their goodwill."
And I to please her left Ireland and crossed to England. There I applied for a passport; and was given one. Not as the daughter of James Connolly, however.
It was the last week of June that we received the final refusal of our request for passports, and on the third week of July I sailed from Liverpool. I arrived in New York the first day of August, nineteen hundred and sixteen.