The Irish rebellion of 1916

by Nora Connolly O'Brien

"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.