The Irish Rising: The Easter Rising Centennial

The Aud

Austin Stack

Sean McDermott

In Dublin, during Holy Week, when Eoin MacNeill got word of the Rising, MacDiarmada with other leaders did their best to persuade MacNeill to agree it it. Late on Holy Saturday night, MacDiarmada got word of MacNeill's Countermanding Order appearing in the "Sunday Independent" (Note*** MacNeill did not agree with the Rising and knew that the practice maneuvers of the Irish Volunteers planned for Easter Sunday was a cover for an uprising. He sent messengers all over Ireland to tell the Volunteers to do nothing on Easter Sunday, and he published a cancellation notice in the Sunday Independent, with this action he effectively doomed the uprising to failure***)

In Holy Week 1916, Murt O'Leary was approached by three men from Tralee - Sheehy, Stack and Cahill - at Spillane's pub in Castlegregory (now Fitzgerald's). They told Murt that they were expecting just a handful of guns to come into Fenit on the Aud and asked him to pilot the boat into Fenit.

On Holy Thursday evening, Murt saw the Aud coming up from the west. She seemed to be weighted down but wasn't flying a flag for a pilot to pilot her into Fenit, so he didn't take much notice of her.

On Good Friday morning, he saw a British patrol boat boarding her. The Captain of the Aud had false papers showing she was a Norwegian commercial ship, so the British went off feeling all was in order. A British destroyer came up from the west on Saturday morning and fired a shot across the bow of the ship and gave orders to follow her down to Queenstown harbour. All that happened before anyone in Tralee became aware of events. They read about it in the newspapers two days later.

The boat would come in to the north of Inishtooskert on Holy Saturday night. Security was so tight on that day that they said they would bring a lamp and a green jersey later though these items never arrived. If the Aud appeared during the day, he would wear a green jersey and if by night he would flash the lamp.

In the early hours of 21 April 1916, Good Friday - three days before the rising began, a German U-boat landed on Banna Strand dropping off Roger Casement, Daniel Julian Bailey, and Robert Monteith. Roger Caement was discovered and arrested on charges of treason, sabotage, and espionage against the Crown. He was taken straight to the Tower of London where he was imprisoned, but not before he was able to send word to Dublin about the inadequate German assistance.

Michael Collins had sent a car to pick up the "Casement Brigade". However, on the way they drove off the road into the River Laune, where they drowned.

Austin Stack will not go into a Police station and ask. (Probably due to the fact that the police were an arm of the British Administration.)

The Military Council

Michael Collins

Roger Casement

The loss of the arms was a huge blow to the Council as was the news that Sir Roger Casement, an Englishman who had been instrumental in securing the arms, had been captured at Banna Strand. MacNeill ordered the Volunteers not to 'move' on Sunday and the Council's plans were thrown into disarray. A conference between Pearse, Plunkett, and Dermot Lynch was called, but Connolly, Clarke and Ceannt, couldn't be reached so the meeting was adjourned, and they all met at Liberty Hall at 8 a.m. They met on the morning of Easter Sunday, at Liberty Hall in Dublin, to discuss their next step. The mood of that meeting was somber - with the loss of the arms all chance of victory seemed to have vanished.

All members of the Military Council were at the 2nd meeting, it lasted till 1 am Easter Sunday. Despite the huge setback the Council leaders decided to carry on. The Rising was now given the 'go-ahead' for the next day - Easter Monday, but could only feasibly (due to the lack of weapons) take place in Dublin. Smaller Risings were still scheduled for Galway and Wexford, however. Pearse ordered the troops for action at noon.

On Easter Sunday, Mrs. Pearse asked her son Padraig to write a poem for her as if she was speaking. Padraig Pearse wrote the poem just hours before his death and it is about the "Brothers Pearse".

MOTHER

I do not grudge them;

Lord, I do not grudge

My two strong sons that I have seen go out

To break their strength and die, they and a few,

In bloody protest for a glorious thing,

They shall be spoken of amoung their people,

The generation shall remember them,

And call them Blessed:

But I will speak their names to my own heart

In the long nights;

The little names that were familiar once

Round my dead hearth.

Lord, thou art hard on mothers;

We suffer in their coming and their going;

And tho' I grudge them not, I weary, weary

Of the long sorrow - And yet I have my joy;

My sons were faithful, and they fought.

The military plans for the rising remain vague but it was beset by misfortune from the start. A gunboat carrying the German-supplied weapons necessary for success was scuttled after its interception by the British navy. John (Eoin) MacNeill, the leader of the Irish Volunteers whom the military council relied on to provide the soldiers for the rising, countermanded Pearse's orders for mobilization on Easter Sunday, 23 April.

The military council pressed ahead, nonetheless, and around 1,600 rebels turned out to fight for the ‘provisional government’ of the ‘Irish Republic’ on Easter Monday. The rebels occupied a number of prominent buildings forming a ring around central Dublin and awaited the British army's assault. Little attempt had been made to mobilize separatists outside Dublin or take the offensive, suggesting that the rebellion was a bloody protest aimed at reviving sympathy for separatist objectives rather than a genuine attempt to overthrow British rule.

Chief among the Volunteers who opposed the rising was its chief of staff, Eoin MacNeil. In the end, Pearse and the others in the Irish Republican Brotherhood, along with James Connolly and his Citizen Army, planned a rising for April 23, Easter Sunday, using the Volunteers' scheduled maneuvers in Dublin as a cover. These plans were made without MacNeil's knowledge. MacNeil found out on Thursday and at first, after being told of the shipment of German arms that Roger Casement was bringing to the southwest, he agreed to support it.

However, when MacNeil found out that Casement had been captured and the weapons lost, he canceled the maneuvers and got word to the countryside that the rising was off. In military terms, there was nothing for Pearse and his cohorts to do but call off the rising, but Pearse was not a military man, he was a visionary. He saw a destiny for himself and his country.

Six years earlier he had written in a poem:

"I have turned my face to the road before me, to the deed that I see and the death I shall die."

According to a recent article in Irishcentral.com: On the eve of the 1916 Rising, Michael Mallin played the flute in the four-piece Workers’ Orchestra during a recital for the Irish Citizen Army in Dublin’s Liberty Hall. The next morning, Easter Monday, the planned rebellion began and Mallin commanded a garrison in St Stephen’s Green and, later, the College of Surgeons. As he prepared to lead out his men, Mallin, father to four young children and husband to a pregnant wife, turned to James O’Shea and, foreseeing his end, said: “We will be dead in a short time.”

Many of the 1916 leaders, including James Connolly, Patrick Pearse and Eamon de Valera, are seen as founding fathers of the Irish State. But Mallin, who became Chief-of-Staff – and second-in-command to James Connolly – of the Irish Citizen Army and was executed by firing squad for his role in the Rising, has been relegated to a footnote.

In a new biography – the first in a projected 16 Lives series by the O’Brien Press to publish biographies, between now and the centenary, of all 16 men executed after the Rising – historian Brian Hughes offers a vivid insight into a forgotten figure.

Short and dapper, Michael Mallin was a music teacher, devout Catholic and teetotaler who spoke in a gentle voice. He loved reading the history of South American and ancient Europe as well as the novels of Joseph Conrad. But he was also strict, impatient and frustrated by those whose commitment and discipline fell short of the high standards he set for himself. He had a strong sense of right and wrong, disliked swearing and his political and religious beliefs were easily offended.

Mallin was born in a tenement in the Liberties area of Dublin in 1874 at a time when whole families frequently lived in a single room. At 14, he joined the British army. While serving in India, his political beliefs changed dramatically. He began to sympathise with the rebels the British army were fighting and, in parallel, he believed that British rule in Ireland could only be removed by physical force.

Back in Dublin at the turn of the century, Mallin worked in various jobs – including setting up a chicken farm and opening a cinema – but his time as a silk weaver proved most significant. As secretary of the Silk Weavers’ Trade Union, he helped them strike for four months until their demands were met.

Shortly after, James Connolly appointed Mallin as Chief-of-Staff of the Irish Citizen Army, set up to defend striking workers against the Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP).

Mallin’s exclusion to the margins of the Rising’s history partly stems from two factors. The first relates to his failure as a garrison leader. Occupying St Stephen’s Green, an open park with almost no shelter, was militarily questionable but ordering his men to dig trenches – possibly influenced by newsreel from the first World War – was pure folly.

Worse, Mallin didn’t attempt to take the nearby Shelbourne Hotel. When the British occupied this building, they pounded the rebels in the Green and Mallin retreated to the College of Surgeons. But, barely one week after the start of the Rising and subdued by the British onslaught, Mallin surrendered – breaking down as he read the order.

Like most of the other garrisons, as Mallin’s men were marched to Dublin Castle by British soldiers they were jeered by Dublin citizens outraged by this attack on their city in what was seen as a cowardly betrayal of Irish men fighting on the Western Front. (By 1918, over 200,000 Irish men would fight and almost 30,000 would lose their lives in the first World War.) On Grafton Street, an angry mob attacked Mallin’s garrison and a British officer threatened to shoot the protesters before they finally withdrew.

On May 5 1916, Michael Mallin’s field general court martial took place. His conduct during this is the second reason the Dubliner has been largely written out of Irish history. During his defence, Mallin claimed that he had no prior knowledge of the Rising; that, when he arrived at the Green, Countess Markievicz ordered him to take charge of the garrison.

This was a blatant fabrication: Markievicz was, in fact, Mallin’s deputy in the Green (she actually wore an old Citizen Army tunic of Mallin’s). In a desperate attempt to avoid the death sentence, Mallin probably reasoned that the British would not, because of her gender, shoot Markievicz but it was a very risky gamble and, as Hughes suggests, “particularly dishonourable”.

In September 1916, under the headline “Destitution Killing Irish”, the New York American newspaper published a letter written by Mallin, on the evening before his execution, to Alderman Thomas Kelly.

The article aimed to raise funds in the US for the dependants of those killed during the Rising and the letter places Mallin’s treacherous behavior during his court martial in context.

“I have left my wife and children absolutely destitute,” he writes inconsolably, and Hughes argues that this was Mallin’s primary motivation in seeking to mislead the jury. While the letters of more celebrated 1916 leaders, written as they awaited the firing squad, emphasize their commitment to die for Ireland, Mallin’s reek of a humanity and awareness informed by the burden of his imminent death on his family.

Before his execution at Kilmainham Gaol in the early morning of May 8th, Mallin wrote to his wife that “this is the end of all things earthly” and touchingly enclosed the buttons of his tunic. The letter profoundly shaped the lives of his young son and daughter. Mallin asked his wife to dedicate Joseph and Una to the church and they subsequently joined the Jesuit and Loreto order, respectively.

If you take a train through south Dublin, you’ll pass Dun Laoghaire railway station. The station is officially called ‘Mallin Station’ but, tellingly, this title is almost never used. In a compassionate biography, Brian Hughes helps bring an unfairly neglected figure of Irish history alive on the page.

‘Michael Mallin’ is available from the O’Brien Press website: http://www.obrien.ie/

Padraig Pearse

Pearse at the GPO

The Proclamation

The Tri-Colour over the GPO

At four minutes past noon on Easter Monday, April 24th, 1916, a sudden hush fell over the O’Connell Street. From the steps of the General Post Office Patrick Pearse read the Proclamation of the Republic.

When Pearse finished, the beaming Connolly took his hand and shook it vigorously. A few ragged cheers hung in the air, but the poet, Stephen McKenna, who listened to Pearse read these words, recorded later that he felt sad for him, for the response from the crowd was chilling. There were no wild hurrahs, no scenes reminiscent of the excitement which had gripped the French mob before they stormed the Bastille. The Irish simply listened and shrugged their shoulders, or sniggered a little, and then glanced round to see if the police were coming.

Nearby young insurgents were posting copies of the Proclamation, or handing them round among the crowd. One copy, weighted down with stones, was placed on the ground at the foot of Nelson Pillar so that everybody could read it.

Slowly the crowd broke up. Some strolled across to the Pillar, where they idly read the Proclamation; others just stood and stared up at the unfamiliar flags (the green flag on the left at the corner of Princes Street and the Tricolor on the right at the corner of Henry Street) from the roof of the G.P.O. Quite a few, bored with the whole affair, simply turned and wandered away.

Despite the huge setback the Council leaders decided to carry on. The Rising was now given the 'go-ahead' for the next day - Easter Monday, but could only feasibly (due to the lack of weapons) take place in Dublin. Smaller Risings were still scheduled for Galway and Wexford, however. Pearse ordered the troops for action at noon.

Eamonn De Valera

Thomas McDonagh

Edward "Ned" Daly

Headquarters was the General Post Office (G.P.O.) in the center of Dublin, which Pearse, Connolly and their men held. Commandant Edward Daly held the Four Courts, the Mendicity Institute and various central Dublin streets; Commandant Thomas MacDonagh was stationed at Jacob's biscuit factory; Commandant Eamonn de Valera held Boland's Flour Mill and various streets; Commandant Eamonn Ceantt was stationed at the South Dublin Union and Marrowbone Distillery and, the only woman, Countess Markievicz held, along with Commandant Michael Mallin, St. Stephen's Green and the College of Surgeons. All the rebel armies were now in place. The British were ill prepared and little fighting took place on the first day of the Rising.

At 12.30 on Easter Monday, flags that had been sent for from Liberty Hall, flew over the G.P.O.; one was green with a golden harp bearing the words (in Irish) 'The Irish Republic', and the other was a flag that had never been seen before - a tricolor of green, white and gold (the Tricolor was to later become the national flag of Ireland). Pearse emerged from the G.P.O. into O'Connell street, where he read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic or 'Poblacht na h Eireann' to a bemused and bewildered gathering of Dubliners.

Eoin MacNeil

Richard "Dick" Mulcahy

Michael Mallin

Sean Francis MacEntee

British forces initially put their efforts into securing the approaches to Dublin Castle and isolating the rebel headquarters, which they believed was in Liberty Hall. The British commander, Brigadier-General W. H. M. Lowe, worked slowly, unsure of the size of the force he was up against, and with only 1,269 troops in the city when he arrived from the Curragh Camp in the early hours of Tuesday 25 April. City Hall was taken on Tuesday morning. The rebel position at St Stephen's Green, held by the Citizen Army under Michael Mallin, was made untenable after the British placed snipers and machine guns in the Shelbourne Hotel and surrounding buildings. As a result, Mallin's men retreated to the Royal College of Surgeons building. British firepower was provided by field artillery summoned from their garrison at Athlone which they positioned on the northside of the city at Phibsborough and at Trinity College, and by the patrol vessel Helga, which sailed upriver from Kingstown. Lord Wimborne, the Lord Lieutenant, declared martial law on Tuesday evening.

At Ashbourne, County Meath, the North County Dublin Volunteers (also known as the Fingal Volunteers), led by Thomas Ashe and his second in command Richard Mulcahy, attacked the RIC barracks. Reinforcements came from Slane and after a five-hour battle, the Volunteers captured over 90 prisoners. There were 8–10 RIC deaths and two Volunteer fatalities, John Crennigan and Thomas Rafferty. The action pre-figured the guerrilla tactics of the Irish Republican Army in the Irish War of Independence from 1919 to 1921. Elsewhere in the east, Seán MacEntee and County Louth Volunteers killed a policeman and a prison guard. In County Wexford, the Volunteers took over Enniscorthy from Tuesday until Friday, before symbolically surrendering to the British Army at Vinegar Hill – site of a famous battle during the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

Sean Heuston

Sean Heuston commanded the Volunteers at the Mendicity Institution. On Easter Wednesday morning, April 26, 1916 two Volunteer dispatchers slipped through some very dangerous areas to bring an urgent message to James Connolly from Hueston. He needed immediate backup, because he and 20 men were still holding out against several hundred British troops, who had Hueston's men just about completely surrounded. A major assault was expected at any time and supplies and food were just about gone.

Connolly was quite excited and Pearse said aid would be sent immediately to Heuston and his company. But almost immediately they found that it was impossible and that Hueston had been captured. Connolly had given orders to Heuston to hold up the British that were heading toward the Four Courts for 3-4 hours which would allow allow the garrison there as well as Headquarters to prepare their defenses. Connolly found out later that Heuston not only held his position for the few hours specified, but was still there after nearly 50 hours until he could hold out no longer.

On Wednesday, 26 April, the guns at Trinity College and Helga shelled Liberty Hall, and the Trinity College guns then began firing at rebel positions in O'Connell Street.

Reinforcements were sent to Dublin from England, and disembarked at Kingstown on the morning of 26 April. Heavy fighting occurred at the rebel-held positions around the Grand Canal as these troops advanced towards Dublin. The Sherwood Foresters were repeatedly caught in a cross-fire trying to cross the canal at Mount Street. Seventeen Volunteers were able to severely disrupt the British advance, killing or wounding 240 men. The rebel position at the South Dublin Union (site of the present day St. James's Hospital), further west along the canal, also inflicted heavy losses on British troops trying to advance towards Dublin Castle. Cathal Brugha, a rebel officer, distinguished himself in this action and was badly wounded.

By Thursday morning the cordon around the Four Courts and the GPO continues to tighten further. There is now continuous shelling and much of O Connell Street has either been destroyed or is on fire. The military now outnumber the rebels by an estimated 20 to 1. The GPO in particular is under sustained attack. While supervising the erection of a barricade in a nearby street, James Connolly is wounded in the ankle and has to be helped back to the GPO. At about 10 pm on Thursday evening, an oil depot opposite the GPO explodes sending flames high into the night sky.

The situation in Dublin is now critical. With most shops closed since Monday there is a widespread shortage of basic food items such as bread and milk.With large numbers of British soldiers in the city, the military has commandeered much of the available food. Even relatively wealthy families are forced to go out in search of food supplies.

In County Wexford, about 600 Volunteers took over Enniscorthy on Thursday 27 April. They were led by six men and made Athenaeum Theatre their headquarters. The Volunteers blocked all roads and the railway line, and cut the telephone and telegraph wires. They then besieged the RIC barracks, which was defended by a number of armed constables. Shots were fired and one constable was wounded, although no real attempt was made to seize the barracks. The Volunteers also stopped a train travelling from Wexford to Arklow carrying workers to Kynoch's munitions factory.

Cathal Brugha

Eamonn Ceannt

In November 1913, Eamonn Ceannt joined the Irish Volunteers, he quickly rose in their ranks. He led his men of the 4th Dublin Battalion to Howth for the famous gund Running manoeuvre. He was also present a week later when the Volunteers landed a 2nd consignment of guns at Kilcoole, County Wicklow.

During Easter Week he was in charge of the garrison in the South Dublin Union. His second in command was Cathal Brugha. On Thursday of Easter Week, there was some confusion and after many hours of heavy bombardment a mistaken order to retreat was circulated among the troops. Brugha was badly wounded and lay unable to leave. Ceannt was mistakenly told that Brugha was dead. Brugha weak from loss of blood continue to fire upon the enemy and then suddenly the Volunteers heard the voice of Brugha singing "God Save Ireland".

In one of the most dramatic scenes of Easter Week, Eamonn Ceannt"crept on bended knees to the side of this comrade. He found him lying in a pool of his own blood. The two men embraced and Cathal said "Let us sing 'God Save Ireland', Eamonn. Then he collapsed. But he had held up the enemy's advance for 4 hours."

Francis Sheehy-Skeffington

"As the week progressed, the fighting in some areas did become intense, characterized by prolonged, fiercely contested hand to hand street battles. Military casualties were highest at Mount Street Bridge. There, newly arrived troops made successive, tactically inept, frontal attacks on determined and disciplined volunteers occupying several strongly fortified outposts. They lost 234 men, dead or wounded while just 5 rebels died. In some instances, lapses in military discipline occurred. Soldiers were alleged to have killed 15 unarmed men in North King Street near the Four Courts during intense gun battles there on 28th and 29th April. The pacifist Francis Sheehy-Skeffington was the best- known civilian victim of the insurrection. He was arrested in Dublin on 25th April, taken to Portobello Barracks and shot by firing squad next morning without trial.

Overall, the British authorities responded competently to the Rising. Reinforcements were speedily drafted into the capital and by Friday 28th April, the 1,600 rebels (more had joined during the week) were facing 18-20,000 soldiers. From Thursday the GPO was entirely cut off from other rebel garrisons. Next day it came under a ferocious artillery attack which also devastated much of central Dublin. Having learnt the lessons of Mount Street Bridge, the troops did not attempt a mass infantry attack. Their strategy was effective. It compelled the insurgent leaders, based at the Post Office, first to evacuate the building and later to accept the only terms on offer – unconditional surrender. Their decision was then made known to and accepted sometimes reluctantly, by all the rebel garrisons still fighting both in the capital and in the provinces."

The O'Rahilly

The O'Rahilly was born Michael Joseph O'Rahilly (Irish: Mícheál Seosamh Ó Rathaille), (22 April 1875 - 29 April 1916). He was a Irish nationalist and took part in the Rising.

The O'Rahilly was part of the Volunteers that did not want to be part of an armed uprising. He was also left out of the planning for the Rising. However, after it started, he felt he needed to be part of the fray.

During the Rising, he led a force out of the GPO to locate a route to Williams & Woods, a factroy on Great Britian Street (renamed Parnell Street). He and his force met with machine-gun fire from the British force on Great Britian and Monroe Street. He was severely wounded, but ran across Sackville Street to get shelter from the machine-gun; however, he met with more machine-gun fire.

In Gaelic tradition, chief of clans were called by their clan name preceded by the determinate article, for example Robert The Bruce. O'Rahilly's calling himself "The O'Rahilly" was purely his own idea, and not a general recognition that he was the head of the O'Rahilly (or O'Reilly) clan. In 1938, the poet William Butler Yeats defended The O'Rahilly on this point in a well-known poem, which begins:

"Sing of the O'Rahilly,
Do not deny his right;
Sing a 'the' before his name;
Allow that he, despite
All those learned historians,
Established it for good;
He wrote out that word himself,
He christened himself with blood.
How goes the weather?"

Pearse Surrenders

Pearse's Surrender

The headquarters garrison, after days of shelling, were forced to abandon their headquarters when fire caused by the shells spread to the GPO. They tunnelled through the walls of the neighbouring buildings in order to evacuate the Post Office without coming under fire and took up a new position in 16 Moore Street. On Saturday 29 April, from this new headquarters, after realizing that they could not break out of this position without further loss of civilian life, Pearse issued an order for all companies to surrender. Pearce surrendered unconditionally to Brigadier-General Lowe. The surrender document read:

"In order to prevent the further slaughter of Dublin citizens, and in the hope of saving the lives of our followers now surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered, the members of the Provisional Government present at headquarters have agreed to an unconditional surrender, and the commandants of the various districts in the City and County will order their commands to lay down arms."

Statement of Captain Seán Prendergast.

Former Officer Commanding 'C' Company1st Battalion

Dublin Brigade Irish Volunteers and Irish Republican Army

Now of Upton Lodge. 30. Grace Park Terrace.

Drumcondra. Dublin.

Seán Heuston, the "Catholic Bulletin" wrote, was born in Dublin on 21st February, 1871; was educated at the Christian Brothers Schools, Great Strand Street and O'Connell Schools, North Richmond Street. In 1907 he secured an appointment as clerk in the Great Southern and Western Railway Company (now Córas Iompair Éireann) and was sent to Limerick. In 1910 he organised a sluagh of Na Fianna Éireann there. In 1913 he returned to Dublin and early in 1914 became Captain of the North City of the Fianna and in the same year became Captain of "D" Company, 1st Battalion, Dublin Brigade, Irish Volunteers.

On Easter Monday, 1916, at the head of his Company, he seized the Mendicity Institute building on Usher's Island. After the surrender he was tried by courtmartial and executed on May 8th, 1916.

In his last letter, written to his sister, an Irish nun, he wrote:

Kilmainham Prison,

Dublin.

My dearest M,

Before this note reaches you I shall have fallen as a soldier in the cause of Irish freedom. I write to bid you a last farewell in this world and rely on you to pray fervently and get the prayers of the whole community for the repose of my soul. I am quite prepared for the journey; the priest was with me and I received Holy Communion this morning. It was only this evening that the finding of the courtmartial was conveyed to me.

Poor mother will miss me, but I feel, with God's help, she will manage. You know the Irish proverb: "God's help is nearer than the door". The agony of the last few days has been intense, but I now feel reconciled to God's Holy Will. I might have fallen in action, as many have done, and been less prepared for the journey before me. Do not blame me for the part I have taken as a soldier: I merely carried out the duties of my superiors, who have been in position to know what was best in Ireland's interests.

Let there be no talk of foolish enterprise. I have no vain regrets. Think of the thousands of Irishmen who fell fighting under another flag at the Dardanelles attempting to do what England's experts admit was an absolute impossibility. If you really love me, teach the children the History of their own land and teach them the cause of Caitlín Ní hUallacháin never dies. Ireland shall be free from the centre to the sea as soon as the people of Ireland believe in the necessity of Ireland's freedom and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices to obtain it.

M, pray for me, and get everybody to pray for me.

Your loving brother,

Jack.

Liam Staines, a member of F. Sluagh of the Fianna, serving under Captain Seán Heuston in the Mendicity, was severely wounded.

Cornelius Colbert, note the "Catholic Bulletin" was born at Monalena, Co. Limerick, in 1893, and educated at the Christian Brothers Schools, North Richmond Street, Dublin. He became one of the founder members of Na Fianna Éireann at its inception in 1909 in Dublin, being quickly promoted Captain of a Sluagh in which capacity he worked with incredible energy in imparting instruction to the boys under his charge, in signalling, scouting, etc. Later he became Captain of the Inchicore Company, Irish Volunteers. Pédraig Pearse always spoke of him as "Gallant Captain Colbert".

During the Rising of 1916, he commanded the garrison of Irish Volunteers at Marrowbone Lane area, taken prisoner at the surrender, he was executed on the 8th May, 1916.

On the Christmas previously he had written to a fair friend:

"May sharp swords fall on Ireland

May all her hills be rifle foe lined

May I be there to deal a blow

For Erin, Faith and womankind.

And may the song of battle soon

Be heard from every hill and vale

May I be with the marching men

Who fight to free our Gráinne Mhaol.

Ar son Éireann agus ar son Dé

Dílís bíomar bailighthe."

He concluded a letter written from Kilmainham to his sister on t he eve of his execution:

"Perhaps I'd never again get the chance of knowing when I was to die, and so I'll try and die well. I received this morning and hope to do so again before I die. Pray for me and ask Father Devine, Father Healy and Father O'Brien to say Mass for me, also any priests you know. May God help us - me to die well - you to bear your sorrow. I send you a prayer book as token."

"Con Colbert" said Éamon Ceannt, "abstained from meat all through Lent". Of his last moments, Father Augustine, O.F.M.Cap., wrote:

"While my left arm linked his right and while I was whispering something in his ear, at soldier approached to fix a piece of paper on his breast. While this was being done he looked down and then addressing the soldier in a cool and normal way said, "Wouldn't it be better to put it up higher, nearer the heart?" The soldier said something in reply and then added, "Give me your hand now". The prisoner secured, confused, and extended his left hand. "Not that" said the soldier, "but the right". The right was accordingly extended and having grasped and shaken it warmly, the kindly human-hearted soldier proceeded to gently bind the prisoner's hands and afterwards blind-folded him. Some minutes later my arm still linked to his, and. accompanied by another priest we entered the dark corridor leading to a yard and, his lips moving in prayer, the brave lad went forth to die".

He was second in command of the Marrowbone Lane garrison, taking charge of the surrender. I also include "New York American": In the Leading Article of May 13th, 1916, it wrote: "Thank God for Freedom Martyrs in every age and clime".

Among Irishmen there were up to a few days ago, many who, if not loyal to England, were at least loyal to the cause of the Empire, and wished it to be victorious in its war. To-day we think that the Irishmen in America who are not burning with resentment against the British Empire and praying for its defeat and humiliation are very, very few indeed.

It was evident to any man of sense, the moment the British Government began the bloods work of reprisal upon the Irish prisoners of war, that it was making a blunder as stupid as it was. We hoped then that the outburst of horror in America as well as among humane Englishmen would open the eyes of the British Government and cause the shooting of British prisoners to cease. But the hope was disappointed.

The British Government has its military murderers steadily at work, and each day's cable has brought word of fresh executions, of killings, that would shame savages, of wounded and shot, shattered prisoners being propped up on their broken limbs long enough for their executioners to riddle again with bullets their poor mangled bodies.

No wonder that every Irish heart thirsts for vengeance - no wonder that the British propagandists who have prostituted American journalism and free speech to the unpatriotic abject of dragging their own country into the war to do England's fighting, have been shamed into temporary silence. We should think that even if these bootlickers, to say nothing of decent Englishmen, would blush to pronounce the name of Belgium again, would never open his mouth to talk of 'antracities' or 'humanities' again. With the blackened walls and tumbled ruins of Dublin echoing the volleys of firing squads, shooting down surrendered prisoners whose crime was to love their native land and yearn for its independence and liberty, we hope, for decency's sake, we shall hear no more snivelling in America over broken stained-glass or shattered statues in Rheims or Louvain.

With the blood of Irish prisoners and patriots reddening poor Ireland's soil in streams, we hope, also for decency's sake, that we shall hear no more of England's passionate and heroic sympathy for the rights and liberties of small peoples. With the spectacle of sorely wounded men propped up on their broken and shattered limbs to be shot to death, we hope, again for decency's sake, that there will be a final end of the cant about Britain waging war for humanity's sake.

We trust that from Mr. Wilson down to the "Providence Journal" there will be an end to the snivel and cant and humbug which has been so effectively belied by the governmental and military reprisals and cruelties and murders in unhappy Ireland. We hope that the American people will never again be deluded to the point of willingness to waste American wealth and American blood in the contemptible role of cats-paws to pull England's chestnuts out of the fire and ashes of a selfish and unsuccessful war, fought under the pretence of the independence of little peoples and of the rights of neutrals and of the humanities.

Those Irish scholars, poets, patriots and martyrs for freedom's sake, whose mangled bodies lie in bloody graves in shot, riddled and flame-swept Dublin, are the witnesses who give the lie to all the cant and humbug that England's American tools and propagandists have dinned into American ears to win America to plunge into England's war In that sense these have done a noble service to America, as well as Ireland, by the sacrifice of their lives.

In the very instant of their deaths America drew back from the insidious and unpatriotic propaganda of armed alliance with England. We are confident that from this on, that wicked and morally treasonable propaganda has no further power of mischief. The American people will never permit themselves to be dragged into Europe's war as the ally and saviour of the murders of Ireland's patriots and martyrs. The very stones in the streets would cry out against such an alliance with a government that has shot down men for doing exactly what our own forefathers did when they pledged. Their lives, their fortunes and their honour to the support of the Declaration of American Independence.

The signers of that Declaration would have met the same fate at the hands of the British Government that the signers of Ireland's Declaration of Independence have just met, had the British armies been able to overpower our forefathers in America. One could almost believe that those fathers of ours would rise from their graves to rebuke their degenerate sons who would ally themselves to the slayers of men who were brave enough and devoted enough to risk their lives and stake fortunes and their sacred honour in the great cause of human liberty.

The American who applauds the butcheries, the American who has no sympathy for these victims, the American whose heart does not go out in compassion for Ireland, and whose heart does not burn with indignation against those who have again trampled her liberties under foot, and poured out the blood of her children as a sacrifice to subjection and oppression is not fit to enjoy the liberties and to wear the bright badge of free citizenship which our forefathers gained for us with arms in their manly arms.

Thank God that such men are not many amongst us, that the degenerate crew is far more confident of its noise than its numbers.

Thank God, that the real heart of America beats true to the cause of human liberty everywhere, that it sympathises and applauds above the graves of Irish martyrs for freedom's dear and holy sake as warmly and as gratefully as it remembers and applauds above the graves of all those who on many fields of battle and through many years of agony and endurance bought with their blood their children's heritage of American freedom.

Thank God for freedom's soldiers and freedom's martyrs in every age and clime for Washington, for Tone, for Emmet, for Bolivar, for Lincoln, for Pearse and those who died with him.

And shame befall the false American who cannot repeat the Invocation to Freedom and to freedoms soldiers and martyrs with all his heart and with all his soul."

We compared notes with our confréres on the several aspects of the fight during Easter Week, and interesting ourselves in the individual narratives of the several participants of various commands and posts, kept ourselves from brooding too much over our then fate. That was easy with men of common interest and among those of identical points of view and outlook in life.

Of the many units of the Dublin Brigade our own First Battalion and "C" Company were very well represented in the two camps:

Our Company Adjutant John E. Lyons, his son, Charlie;

Sergeant M. Wilson;

Sergeant P. Byrne;

Frank McNally;

Seán Kennedy;

Seán Hynes;

Patrick O'Neill;

John Ellis;

Andy and John Birmingham;

Tom Cassidy;

Patrick Hughes;

Tommy Munroe;

Jack Richmond;

John Lynch;

Charlie Purcell;

Paddy Swan;

Seán Flood;

Joe Musgrave;

Joseph Bevan;

Seán Farrelly;

Mick and Frank O'Flanagan;

Mick Howlett;

Seumas Byrne;

Joe Kelly;

Jimmy McArdle

Patrick Byrne;

Frank Pollard;

Stephen Pollard;

P. Nevin;

Seán Quinn;

George Whelan;

Bob Lagget;

Joe Sweeney;

John Madden;

Joe McDonough.

All those had participated in the fight, most of them in the Four Courts, excepting Andy and John Birmingham, Patrick Hughes,J. Lynch, H. Manning, Charlie Purcell, John Madden.

Charlie Molphy, who served in the G.P.O. area. Very likely there were others of our Company who were prisoners, there, but the foregoing were men whom I was well acquainted with.

"C" Company, 1st Battalion, Dublin Brigade. Irish Volunteers.

List of Men who served in Easter Week. 1916: Four Courts Area.

1. Allen, Thomas, Sergeant; promoted Lieutenant.Killed in action.

2. Byrne, Patrick J.

3. Byrne, Patrick, Sergeant.

4. Byrne, Séamus

5. Bevan, Joseph, and his two sons

6. Bevan, Thomas

7. Bevan, Charles

8. Brabazon, Joseph wounded in action.

9. Bridgeman, Edward

10. Cassidy, Thomas

11. Clancy, Peadar, Lieutenant.

12. Cooling, Joseph

13. Cusack, John

14. Coyle, William

15. Dowling, Thomas

16. Derham, Michael

17. Ellis, John

18. Fahy, Frank, Captain.

19. Farrell, Michael

20. Farrelly, John

21. Fisher, John

22. Flood, Seán

23. Grimley, Michael

24. Hynes, John

25. Howlett, Michael

26. Holmes, Denis part of week.

27. Hendrick, Edward

28. Kennedy, Seán

29. Kavanagh, James

30. Kelly, Joseph

31. Kenny, John

32. Ledwith, Peter

33. Leggett, Robert

34 Lyons, John E., and his son, Adjutant.

35. Lyons, Charles

36. Macken, Patrick

37. Musgrave Joseph

38. Munroe, Thomas

39. McGuinness, Joseph, 1st Lieutenant.

40. McNally, Francis

41. McDonough, Joseph

42. McArdle, James, add his brother

43. McArdle, Patrick

44. McKeown, William

45. McDonnell, Thomas

46. Nevin, Patrick

47. O'Neill, Patrick

48. 0'Flanagan, Patrick killed in action

and his two brothers,

49. O'Flanagan, Michael

50. O'Flanagan, Frank

51. O'Brien, Patrick

52. 0'Brien, Jack

53. Pollard, Francis, and his brother

54. Pollard, Stephen

55. Plunkett, James wounded in action.

56. Prendergast, Seán

57. Quinn, Seán

58. Richmond, John

59. Reid, John, Sergeant.

60. Swan, Patrick

61. Scully, Micheál

62. Smart, Thomas

63. Sweeney, Joseph

64. Tobin, Liam

65. Walsh, Thomas

66. Wilson, Mark, Sergeant.

69. Whelan , George

70. Yourell, Thomas

Men of "C" Company in Other Posts.

71. Brooks, Fred Mendicity.

72. Birmingham, Andy, G.P.O.

and his brother

73. Birmingham, John G.P.O.

74. Hughes, Patrick G.P.O.

75. Keating, Con G.P.O.

76. Lynch, John G.P.O.

77. Molphy, Charles, G.P.O.

78. Manning, Henry (wounded) G.P.O.

79. Madden, John G.P.O.

80. McCrane, Thomas Jacobs.

81. Moore, Edward G.P.O.

82. Purcell, Charles G.P.O.

83. White, Michael G.P.O.

Men from Other Units included the following:

Operated in the Four Courts.

George O'Flanagan, 2nd Battalion (brother of Patrick, Michael and Frank).

Seán O'Carroll, of "D" Company, 1st Battalion.

Redmon4 Cox, of "A" Company, 1st Battalion.

Seán Farrell, Na Fianna Éireann.

Patrick Daly, Na Fianna Éireann.

Barney Mellows, Na Fianna Éireann,

Jack Murphy, of the 2nd Battalion.

Con O'Donovan sentenced to death, commuted to 8 years.

Edward Reyner, Fianna.

Patrick Mooney, 4th Battalion.

Arthur Merlan, 4th Battalion.

Ambrose Byrne, 4th Battalion.

Doyle 4th Battalion.

Larry Murtagh, Andy Dowling, 4th Battalion,

also civilians:

Mr. O'Neill, Shoemaker of Merchant's Quay.

John O'Brien, sentenced to death, commuted to 7 years.

Members of Cumann na mBan in the Four Courts.

(This list is incomplete)

Miss Molly Ennis.

Miss May Carron

Mrs. F. Faby (wife of Captain Frank Fahy)

(The foregoing list was compiled in later

years from, say 1934).

A lot of other information was gleaned concerning a number of our Company officers and men who had been court-martialled and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.

Captain Frank Fahy, sentenced to death, commuted to penal servitude for 10 years.

Lieutenant Joseph McGuinness, sentenced to death, commuted to 10 years.

Sergeant-Major Jack Reid, sentenced to death, commuted to 10 years.

Lt. Peadar Clancy, 10 years, sentenced to death.

Liam Tobin, 10 years, sentenced to death.

Tommy Bevan, 10 years, sentenced to death.

Charlie Bevan (brother of Tommy), sentenced to death, commuted to years.

Tom Walsh, sentenced to death, 10 years.

Michael Scully, sentenced to 10 years.

Fred Brooks (who had fought in the Mendicity under Seán Heuston), sentenced to death, commuted to years.

Dr. Paddy McArdle.

Mention must be made here of some of our company casualties - two killed in action: Sergeant Tom Allen and Volunteer Patrick O'Flanagan; and wounded - Joe Brabazon, Jim Plunkett and Henry Manning.

There were a number of men of whose participation in the Rising it was impossible at the time to ascertain, but according to the list then available, our Company had furnished a very large percentage of the effective strength of the Battalion.

(A manuscript found in the Capuchin Archives in Church Street in Dublin offers a new perspective on events during the Easter Rising of April 1916, writes Benedict Cullen.)

Between April 30th and May 4th, 1916, Father Columbus Murphy, a Capuchin priest, was called on to help and administer to the prisoners in Kilmainham Gaol prior to their execution. The following is based on a portion of Father Columbus's manuscript between these dates.

The day after the surrender of the Four Courts on April 29th, there was still confusion in North King Street about whether this was a truce or a surrender. To clarify, Father Columbus went to the Four Courts in an effort to retrieve Pádraic Pearse's note, which had led to the surrender there of Comdt Ned Daly. Failing in this effort, Father Columbus crossed the river to Dublin Castle to see if someone there had the note.

Rev Coughlin & Pearse's Crucifix

This is the same crucifix which is seen held by Father Leonard on the top right of this page. This was the crucifix which Father Aloysius had brought with him to the jail and which he had left with Patrick Pearse earlier. Pearse scratched his initials; ‘P.M.P.’ for the Irish form of his name, on the back of the crucifix as a memento for Father Aloysius.

The crucifix has since been preserved in the Church Street Friary and Father Leonard says that it was used by Father Aloysius at missions.

The cross is of wood and the figures of Our Lord, Our Lady and the skull and crossbones of brass. Father Aloysius and Father Augustine were not permitted on May 3, 1916 to stay with the condemned men, Pearse, Clarke and MacDonagh until their execution but had to leave Kilmainham jail between 2 and 3 a.m.

James Connolly

When the Easter Rising occurred on April 24, 1916, Connolly was Commandant of the Dublin Brigade, and as the Dublin Brigade had the most substantial role in the rising, he was de facto Commander in Chief. Following the surrender, he said to other prisoners: 'Don't worry. Those of us that signed the proclamation will be shot. But the rest of you will be set free.' Connolly was not actually held in jail, but at Dublin Castle - the British centre of Administration in Ireland at the time. He was taken to Royal Hospital Kilmainham, across the road from the jail and then taken to the jail to be executed by the British. Visited by his wife, and asking about public opinion, he commented 'They all forget that I am an Irishman'. He confessed his sins, said to be his first religious act since marriage.

He was so badly injured from the fighting (a doctor had already said he had no more than a day or two to live, but the execution order was still given) that he was unable to stand before the firing squad. His absolution and last rites were administered by a Capuchin, Father Aloysius. Asked to pray for the soldiers about to shoot him, he said: 'I will say a prayer for all men who do their duty according to their lights'.

Instead of being marched to the same spot where the others had been executed, at the far end of the execution yard, he was tied to a chair and then shot. The executions were not well received, even throughout Britain, and were drawing unwanted attention from the United States, which the British Government were trying to lure into the war in Europe. There was uproar on both sides of the Atlantic when it became known that a dying man had been tied to a chair and killed. Asquith, the British PM, then ordered that no more executions were to take place; an exception being that of Roger Casement as he had not yet been tried.

James Connolly was survived by his wife and several children, one of whom - Nora Connolly O'Brien - became an influential writer and campaigner within the Republican movement as an adult.

Countess Markiewicz

They were taken to Dublin Castle and the Countess was then transported to Kilmainham jail. There she was the only one of 70 women prisoners who was put into solitary confinement. No doubt, she fully expected to be executed.

On May 3rd she sat in her cell and heard the three volleys of the first executions, each followed by a single pistol shot as the commander of the firing squad put one bullet in their heads. Thomas Clarke, Thomas MacDonagh, and Patrick Pearse were dead, though she had no idea whom the victims might have been. As prepared as she may have been to die, alone there in her cell, the sounds must have been chilling.

At her court martial she told the court, "I did what was right and I stand by it." Her conviction was assured, only her sentence was in doubt. She was sentenced to death, but General Maxwell commuted this to life in prison on "account of the prisoner's sex." Given a choice she would probably have been added to the list of those dying for the cause. She told the officer who brought her the news , ".... I do wish your lot had the decency to shoot me."

There is a pargraph in the "Rebels: The Irish Rising of 1916" on page 324. It is under Tuesday (of the Rising). It tells of Countess Markiewicz, who is on the roof of the Shelbourne Hotel, when she sees a man holding a brown bag above his head and she stops the shooting. It is James Kearney, the parks keeper, who feeds the ducks. They did this twice each day of the Rising. It is a little levity during a time of war.

The surname intrigues me, as I have Kearneys in my ancestry. Long live the ducks!

Elizabeth O'Farrell

Elizabeth O'Farrell (Irish: Éilís Ní Fhearghail; 1884 - 25 June 1957) was an Irish nurse and member of Cumann na mBan, best known for delivering the surrender in the Easter Rising of 1916.

Elizabeth O'Farrell was born in City Quay, Dublin in 1884. She worked as a mid-wife in Holles Street Hospital in Dublin.

O'Farrell acted as a dispatcher before and during the Rising, delivering bulletins and instructions to the rebel outposts around Dublin. She was one of three women, including Winifred Carney, who remained in the G.P.O. until the end of the Rising. Along with her lifelong friend and fellow nurse, Julia Grenan, she cared for the wounded including James Connolly. At 12.45 pm on Saturday 29 April O'Farrell was handed a Red Cross insignia and a white flag and asked to deliver the surrender to the British military. She emerged into heavy fire on Moore Street which abated when her white flag was recognised.

O'Farrell was taken to Brigadier General W. H. M. Lowe who sent her back to Pearse at number 16 Moore Street with a demand for unconditional surrender. Pearse agreed and, accompanied by O'Farrell, surrendered in person to General Lowe. Though partly obscured by Pearse, she may be seen in a press photograph taken at the moment of the surrender. The apparent removal of her figure in many subsequent versions of the photograph has given rise to much speculation.

Accompanied by a priest and three soldiers she brought the order to surrender to the insurgent positions throughout the city.

O’Farrell spent several months in prison after the Rising. General Lowe petitioned that clemency be shown towards her for "great assistance" she had given in managing the final hours of the Rising.
She died in Fatima House in Bray, Co. Wicklow on 25 June 1957. She remained active in Republican politics until her death and she is buried in the Republican Plot in Glasnevin Cemetery alongside Julia Grenan.^[4]

In 1967 the Nurse Elizabeth O'Farrell Foundation was established resulting in the unveiling of a memorial plaque in Holles Street Hospital and a foundation to support postgraduate studies in the field of nursing. In 2003 a further plaque was unveiled in City Quay Park.

She has been depicted in several plays and TV dramas, including RTE's Insurrection. She was, however, omitted from Neil Jordan's Michael Collins where the surrender is delivered by a man.

Headstone of Winifred Carney

Close to the entrance of Milltown Cemetery is a neat limestone monument which marks the grave of a remarkable woman by the name of Winifred Carney. She, along with Charlie Monaghan, are Belfast’s direct link with the Easter Rising of 1916. Born in Bangor, Co. Down, on the 4th of December 1887 into a fairly comfortable family, she was one of six children. Her mother, who was left to rear the family, had a small sweet shop for a time at No.5 Falls Road, where the Twin Spires complex stands today. By the early part of the 20th century as Winifred was in her early twenties, she and her mother were living at 2a Carlisle Circus. By this time in her life with a good education behind her and two secretarial jobs, she became involved with the Suffragette’s and then the socialist movement, meeting James Connolly for the first time while working in a small trade union office at No.50 York Street.

Through a national progression of socialist trade union activity, she moved into republicanism, joining Belfast No.1 branch of Cumann Na mBan in 1914. As one of the few outside the republican leadership, she knew well of the forthcoming rising due to her close working relationship with James Connolly. He kept her informed of events during her visits to Belfast, and on April 14th 1916 he telegrammed her to travel to Dublin immediately.

There, she found herself in Liberty Hall typing dispatches and mobilisation orders. Known as the Typist with the Webley, during the fighting she was the last of the women to leave the G.P.O.

After the rising she was interned in Mountjoy Prison along with Helena Moloney and Countess Markievicz. But as the leaders including Connolly were executed by the British, Winifred was released in December 1916.

She became involved in Sinn Fein, and even stood as a candidate for Central East Belfast in the elections of December 1918. But this was a period when the Irish Parliamentary Party in Belfast under Joe Devlin had the backing of the majority of Belfast Catholics. When the ‘troubles’ broke out in July 1920 in Belfast, she was once again active in Cumann Na mBan working within the 1st Battalion of the Belfast Brigade, 3rd Northern Division (Her service number was 56077).

Following the Civil War, Winifred became disillusioned with politics in the new Free State, and was critical of subsequent governments including DeValera’s. She returned to her roots of socialism and labour politics. She even found time to marry a Protestant from the Shankill Road, George McBride from Crimea Street in the Shankill Road, while still remaining herself a Catholic, although critical of the church hierarchy. They set up home at No.3 Whitewell Parade on the outskirts of North Belfast. She slowly drifted from politics in the late thirties through a combination of health problems, and her friends moving to Dublin.

Winifred Carney died on November 21st, 1943 a Socialist to the end. Her brother Ernest refused to have her grave marked so that the name McBride would not appear, a final protest at marrying a Protestant. However, many years later when the Belfast National Graves discovered the final resting place of this fine woman, a headstone was erected, and an oration by Belfast Republician Liam Rice.