These formed a considerable portion of the Citizen Army, and were probably the most violent of those elements in the Republic who disgraced the otherwise remarkable "military" combat.
One remark of the Countess's is very typical of both her temper and her temperament, and in a way prophetic.
It was supposed to have been said to a local Dundalk man, and was to the effect that if she could only shoot one British soldier she would die happy—a wish she must certainly have realized, for she was continually seen with a small rifle in her hand, and, according to a rumour, actually did shoot one on Stephen's Green.
Eoin McNeill, the able editor of the Irish Volunteer, is another interesting character, not only in view of the part he had taken to raise the revolutionary army, but also for the way, to use the words of John Dillon, "he broke its back" when he found out that they were to rise on that fatal Easter Monday—though this did not save him from the vengeance of the law.
In striking contrast to the rather vapid sentimentalism and abstract theorizing of many of the periodicals controlled by the Sinn Feiners was his own sheet, the Irish Volunteer. It was the most practical of all the periodicals, and, beyond ordinary editorials and topical articles, always contained "Orders for the Week," which included night classes and lectures and drills, while diagrams of trenches and earthworks appeared which covered the whole of Ireland.
It is only when looking back over past numbers, with their articles on night operations, local guides, reconnoitring, organization of transports, reserves, signalling, and so forth, that one sees how it is that they were able to hold up Dublin for a solid week; but Eoin McNeill owed his inspiration entirely to the men of Ulster.
Some of the men, on the other hand, were of the gentlest disposition. No one, for example, could be more the antithesis of the revolutionary in real life than P. H. Pearse, President and Commander-in-Chief of the Republican Army. Indeed, according to one account he was to have replaced Dr. Mahaffy as Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, in the event of the rising proving successful. Pearse was not even an Irishman, being the son of an English convert to Catholicism who had emigrated to Ireland, but he was an enthusiastic Gaelic scholar, and there was nothing he loved better than wandering among the peasantry of Galway and Connemara, while in his own establishment all the servants spoke Irish fluently.
Though he had at one time intended taking up journalism, and was even called to the Bar, he was both by profession and inclination an educationalist, being especially keen on the study of continental methods of education, such as those of Belgium and Germany.
He conducted a secondary boarding school for boys, where all the walls were decorated with the works of modern Irish artists, such as Jack Yeats and George W. Russell. He later, in order to give vent to his views, developed a gift for oratory, his oration at the grave of O'Donovan Rossa having stirred all Ireland. He was also the author of a charming little volume of short stories entitled "Josagan," or "Little Jesus," while his translations of Irish folk-lore and cradle songs were equally delicate.
Crowds of the victims, in fact, were men of character, talent, and eminence—numerous writers, journalists, poets, authors, professors; but all were classed in the same category of felons.