In the House of Commons shortly after the rising, the cabinet was questioned if it were true that the body of a boy in the uniform of the Irish Volunteers had been unearthed in the grounds of Trinity College, with the marks of twenty bayonet wounds upon him.
"No," was the response, "there were not twenty; there were only nineteen"!
The body in question was that of Gerald Keogh, one of a family passionately devoted to the cause of Irish freedom. He had been sent to Kimmage to bring back fifty men. He went scouting ahead of them, just as I had done when I brought in the men from the Leeson Street bridge. As he was passing Trinity College, held by the British, he was shot down and swiftly captured. It is generally understood he was asked for information, and that, upon his refusing to answer, the soldiers tried to force it from him by prodding him with their bayonets. I might add that the fifty men with him were not attacked as they went by.
This boy's brother was also captured by British soldiers, who decided to hang him then and there. He begged them to shoot him, but they fastened a noose around his neck and led him to a lamp-post. Fortunately an officer came along at that moment and rescued him. Even children were not safe from being terrorized by the soldiers, as Mr. Dillon later brought out in the House of Commons.
There also were murders in North King Street. Fourteen men who had nothing to do with the rising, were killed in their homes by British soldiers who buried them in their cellars, while others looted the houses. The house in Leinster Road was pillaged, and the soldiers had the effrontery to sell the books, fine furniture, and paintings on the street in front of the dwelling.
I had been in the hospital now about five weeks, and had been told I might go in a few days to visit friends in the city if I would promise to return every day to have my wounds dressed. Then one morning I was informed there was a "G-man," as we call government detectives, waiting down-stairs to see me. He had been coming every day to the hospital, it seems, to learn if I was yet strong enough to go to jail. Evidently he had decided that I was, for he told me I must accompany him to Bridewell Prison.
When I went up to the ward to say good-by and get my things, I found the nurses terribly upset. You see, it brought the Irish question right home to that hospital. They went to him in a body and tried to beg me off, but he insisted on his rights, and away I went despite tears and protestations.
This was the first time I had been out, so naturally I felt queer and weak. Nor was I pleased with my companion. He had a fat, self-satisfied face; in fact, was not at all the handsome, keen-looking detective you see on the cover of a dime novel. Besides, he was too polite. He thought, I suppose, that this would be the best way to get me to answer the hundred and one questions he began to ask me. I told him I might answer questions about myself, but I certainly should not answer any concerning the countess or my other friends.