Read Ebook: Doing My Bit For Ireland by Skinnider Margaret

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The Sinn Feiners are likened to the "Black Hand" or other anarchistic groups by those who read of them as leaders of a "revolt." As a matter of fact, they were, from the first, the literary, artistic, and economic personalities who started the Celtic Revival. Arthur Griffiths, who is not given enough credit for the passion with which he conceived the idea of working for Ireland as Hungarians worked for Hungary, published a little weekly magazine in which the first of the new poetry appeared. It appealed to the deepest instincts in us; it was a revolt of the spirit, clothing itself in practical deed.

But it was not a negative program. The refusal to do or say or think in the Anglicized way, as was expected of us, held in it loyalty to something fine and free, the existence of which we believed in because we had read of it in the history of Ireland in our sagas. We were not a people struggling up into an untried experience, but a people regaining our kingdom, which at one time in the history of mankind had been called "great" wherever it was known of or rumored.

This was the feeling that animated the groups listed by British military men as the "Sinn Fein National Council" and "Central Executive and Coisda Gnotha Committee of the Gaelic League," but which to an outsider cannot, without explanation, give any idea of the fire and fervor implanted in committee and council.

But to return to the document. It went on:

An order will be issued to the inhabitants of the city to remain in their homes until such time as the Competent Military Authority may otherwise direct and permit.

Pickets chosen from units of Territorial Forces will be at all points marked on maps 3 and 4. Accompanying mounted patrols will continuously visit all points and report every hour.

The following premises will be occupied by adequate forces and all necessary measures used without need of reference to Headquarters:

First, premises known as Liberty Hall, Beresford Place; No. 6 Harcourt Street, Sinn Fein Building; No. 2 Dawson Street, Headquarters Volunteers; No. 12 D'Olier Street, Nationality Office; No. 25 Rutland Square, Gaelic League office; No. 41 Rutland Square, Foresters' Hall; Sinn Fein Volunteer premises in city; All National Volunteer premises in city; Trades Council premises, Capel Street; Surrey House, Leinster Road, Rathmines.

The following premises will be isolated, all communication to or from them prevented: Premises known as the Archbishop's House, Drumcondra; Mansion House, Dawson Street; No. 40 Herbert Park, Ballyboden; Saint Enda's College, Hermitage, Rathfarnham; and, in addition, premises in list 5 D, see maps 3 and 4.

This order should become a classic, because it is such a good list of all meeting-places of those who loved and worked for Ireland in the last few years. Even the home of the countess, Surrey House, was to have been occupied; and Saint Enda's, the school where Padraic Pearse was head master and chief inspiration, was to be "isolated."

Had there been any question about a rising, the possession of this secret order to the military authorities in Dublin would have been the signal for it. It was not to be expected that these headquarters of all that was Irish in the city would surrender tamely to "occupation." More than this, the order gave new determination to a secret organization not mentioned in it, the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Not that this was a new organization, or unknown to the British, for, in its several phases, it had been in existence since 1858. Its oath is secret, yet has been published in connection with disclosures about the Fenian movement. This was one of the names it bore, before the rising of 1867 betrayed it to the Government. So at this time Connolly and Padraic Pearse and McDonagh, with all those working to free Ireland, were members of this brotherhood, and the republic seemed nearer becoming a reality than ever before in the history of the long struggle.

At Liberty Hall I saw the flag of the republic waiting to be raised. I saw, too, the bombs and ammunition stored there, and was set to work with some other girls making cartridges. This was on the Thursday before Easter. That same evening I was given a despatch to take to Belfast. The address of the man to whom it was to be delivered was at Mr. Connolly's home in the outskirts of the city. I was to go there first and get it from Nora Connolly, then go on to this man.

I had never been in Belfast, and when I reached the city, it was two o'clock in the morning. The streets were dark and deserted. I finally had to ask a policeman which of the few cars running would take me to that part of town where the Connollys lived. I wonder what he would have done had he guessed I was bent upon revolutionary business. There is something very weird in knowing that while things are going on as usual in the outer world, great changes are coming unawares.

I rang in vain when I reached the house. Could all the family be somewhere else? Could I have made a mistake? I was beginning to think so when a window opened, and I heard a voice say: "It's all right, Mother. It's only a girl." Presently the door opened. They had been afraid that it was the police, for in these last few days before the time set, suspense was keen. At any moment all plans might be given away to the police and every one arrested. A ring in the middle of the night was terrifying. They had not been to bed; they were making Red Cross bandages and learning details of equipment and uniform for the first-aid girls. They had slept little for days, now that the time of the rising approached.

We did not dare go out again in the dead of night to hunt up the man for whom I had brought my despatch. This action would create suspicion. So about five o'clock, just when the working-people were beginning to go about their tasks, we took the street car, went into another part of Belfast, and found him.

Mrs. Connolly and the girls went back to Dublin with me. They were to be there during the revolt, and did not know if they would ever see their home again; but they dared not take anything with them except the clothes on their backs. Always no suspicion must be aroused; it must look as if they were starting off for the Easter holidays. This was not an easy leave-taking, for there was a fair chance of the house being sacked and burned. Mrs. Connolly went about, picking up little things that would go in her trunk but the absence of which would not be noticed if any inquisitive policeman came in to see whether anything suspicious was going on. As we left, none of them looked back or gave any show of feeling. Revolution makes brave actors.

That afternoon I was again at ammunition work. This time my duty was to go about Dublin, taking from hiding-places dynamite and bombs secreted therein. Once, on my way back to Liberty Hall with some dynamite wrapped in a neat bundle on the seat beside me, I heard a queer, buzzing noise. It seemed to come from inside the bundle.

"Is it going off?" I asked myself, and sat tight, expecting every moment to be blown to bits. But nothing happened; it was only the car-wheels complaining as we passed over an uneven bit of track.

Besides several machine-guns, twenty thousand rifles and a million rounds of ammunition were aboard that ship. For every one of those rifles we could have won a man to carry it in the rebellion. Thus their loss was an actual loss of fighting strength.

I often think the heroic determination of that captain to sink his ship and crew must have been preceded by many hours of bitterest chagrin and anxiety. He could not have had the slightest idea why the plan was not being carried out. It would have been, too, had the Volunteers at Tralee, remembering the uncertainty of all communication, been on watch for fear the countermanding order might have miscarried.

But it was too late now to draw back, even had the leaders so desired. I do not believe that idea ever entered their heads, for their course of action had been long planned. Two men, however, were uncertain of the wisdom of going on with it. One of them, The O'Rahilly, was minister of munitions in the provisional government and felt the loss keenly, because his entire plan of work had been based on this cargo now at the bottom of the ocean. When he found that the majority believed success was still possible, and that the seizure of arms in the British arsenals in Ireland would compensate for the loss, he gave in and worked as wholeheartedly as the others. The second man to demur was Professor Eoin McNeill, who was at the head of the Irish Volunteers as their commander-in-chief. He did not wish to risk the lives of his men against such heavy odds. Yet, when he left the conference, he had not given one hint of actually opposing plans then under discussion.

As I came out of church on Easter morning, I saw placards everywhere to this effect:

NO VOLUNTEER MANOEUVERS TO-DAY

This was astounding! The manoeuvers were to be the beginning of the revolution. To-day they were not to be the usual, simple drill, but the real beginning of military action. All over Ireland the Volunteers were expected to mobilize and stay mobilized until the blow had been struck--until, perhaps, victory had been won. And the Irish Volunteers made up two thirds of our fighting force. "No Volunteer manoeuvers to-day"? What could it mean?

The eternal buoyancy with which Irishmen are credited came to their rescue that Sunday morning. Mr. Connolly and others believed that if word was sent into the country districts that the Citizen Army was proceeding with its plans, that the Volunteers of Dublin, consisting of four battalions under Padraic Pearse and Thomas McDonaugh, were going to mobilize, the response would be immediate. At once word was sent out broadcast. Norah Connolly walked eighty miles during the week through the country about Dublin, carrying orders from headquarters. But she, like other messengers, found that the Volunteers were so accustomed to McNeill's signature that they were afraid to act without it. They feared a British trick. We Irish are so schooled in suspicion that it sometimes counts against us. In Galway they had heard that the rising in Dublin was on, and later put up such a fight that, had it been seconded in other counties by even a few groups, the republic would have lived longer than it did. It might even have won the victory in which, only three days before, we all had faith.

The Volunteers numbered men from every class and station; the Citizen Army was made up of working-men who had the advantage of being under a man of decision and quick judgment. At four o'clock the Citizen Army mobilized in front of Liberty Hall to carry out the route march as planned. After this march the men were formed into a hollow square in front of Liberty Hall and Connolly addressed them.

"You are now under arms," he concluded. "You will not lay down your arms until you have struck a blow for Ireland!"

The men cheered, shots were fired into the air, and that night their barracks was Liberty Hall.

You might think a demonstration of this character, a speech in the open, would attract enough attention from the police to make them send a report to the authorities. None was sent. They had come to feel, I suppose, that while there was so much talk there would be little action. Nor did they remember that Easter is always the anniversary of that fight hundreds of years ago when native Irish came to drive the foreigner from Dublin. This year, in addition, it fell upon the date of the Battle of Clontarf, so there was double reason for sentiment to seize upon the day for a revolt.

I was sent on my bicycle to scout about the city and report if troops from any of the barracks were stirring. They were not. Moreover, I learned that their officers, for the most part, were off to the races at Fairview in the gayest of moods.

When I returned to report to Mr. Connolly, I had my first glimpse of Padraic Pearse, provisional president of the Irish Republic. He was a tall man, over six feet, with broad shoulders slightly stooped from long hours as a student and writer. But he had a soldierly bearing and was very cool and determined, I thought, for a man on whom so much responsibility rested,--at the very moment, too, when his dream was about to take form. Thomas McDonagh was also there. I had not seen him before in uniform, and he, too, gave me the impression that our Irish scholars must be soldiers at bottom, so well did he appear in his green uniform. At Christmas he had given me a fine revolver. It would be one of my proudest possessions if I had it now, but it was confiscated by the British.

I was next detailed as despatch rider for the St. Stephen's Green Command. Again I went out to scout, this time for Commandant Michael Mallin. If I did not find the military moving, I was to remain at the end of the Green until I should see our men coming in to take possession. There were no soldiers in sight; only a policeman standing at the far end of the Green doing nothing. He paid no attention to me; I was only a girl on a bicycle. But I watched him closely. It was impossible to believe that neither the police nor the military authorities were on guard. But this chap stood about idly and was the last policeman I saw until after the rising was over. They seemed to vanish from the streets of Dublin. Even to-day no one can tell you where they went.

It was a great moment for me, as I stood there, when, between the budding branches of trees, I caught sight of men in dark green uniforms coming along in twos and threes to take up their position in and about the Green and at the corners of streets leading into it. There were only thirty-six altogether, whereas the original plan had been for a hundred. That was one of the first effects of Eoin McNeill's refusal to join us. But behind them I could see, in the spring sunlight, those legions of Irish who made their fight against as heavy or heavier odds and who, though they died, had left us their dream to make real. Perhaps this time--

At last all the men were standing ready, awaiting the signal. In every part of Dublin similar small groups were waiting for the hour to strike. The revolution had begun!

To the British, I am told, there was something uncanny about the suddenness with which the important centers of Dublin's life were quietly seized at noon on Easter Monday by groups of calm, determined men in green uniforms.

They were not merely surprised; they were frightened. The superstitious element in their fear was great, too. It had always been so. When Kitchener was drowned off the Irish coast, a man I know, an Irishman, spoke of it to an English soldier.

"Yes; you and your damned rosaries!" retorted the soldier, looking frightened even as he said it.

The British seem to feel we are in league with unearthly powers against which they have no protection. On Easter Monday they believed that behind this sudden decision, as it appeared to them, something dark and sinister was lurking. How else would we dare to revolt against the British Empire? It was as if our men were not flesh and blood, but spirits summoned up by their own bad conscience to take vengeance for many centuries of misrule. It must have been some such feeling that accounted for the way they lost, at the very outset, all their usual military calm and ruthlessness.

We recognized this feeling, and it made our men stronger in spirit. We were convinced of the justice of our cause, convinced that even dying was a small matter compared with the privilege we now shared of fighting for that cause. Besides, there was no traitor in our ranks. No one had whispered a word of our plans to the British authorities. That is one reason why our memory of Easter Week has in it something finer than the memory of any other rising in the past. You must bear in mind that the temptation to betray the rising must have been just as strong, that it had in it just as much guarantee of security for the future, as heretofore. Yet no one yielded to this temptation. Even more amazing was the fact that the authorities had not paid any heed to those utterances which for months past had been highly seditious. For instance, here is what Padraic Pearse stated openly in one of his articles:

I am ready. For years I have waited and prayed for this day. We have the most glorious opportunity that has ever presented itself of really asserting ourselves. Such an opportunity will never come again. We have Ireland's liberty in our hands. Or are we content to remain as slaves and idly watch the final extermination of the Gael?

Nothing could be more outspoken or direct. When it is remembered that England's enemies have always been regarded as Ireland's allies; that an English war, wherever fought, is a signal for us to rise once more, no matter how many defeats we have suffered, it might have been supposed the British, stationed in such numbers in and around Dublin, would not have been put to sleep by what must have seemed, to the wary observer, an acute attack of openness and a vigorous interest in military affairs. There were some, of course, among the police and officials who made their reports of "highly seditious" meetings and writings, but I suppose the authorities did not believe we would strike. From America they learned of aid to come by ship when Igel's papers were seized by United States authorities. It may have been this information that put the English patrol-boats on their guard in Tralee Harbor. It even may have been thought that when that ship went down the rising was automatically ended. So it might have been had our revolt been "made in Germany," but it must be remembered that it was the Irish who approached the Germans. Thus there was no anxiety in Dublin that Easter Monday except as to which horse would win the Fairview races.

As soon as our men were in position in St. Stephen's Green, I rode off down Leeson Street toward the Grand Canal to learn if the British soldiers were now leaving Beggar's Bush or the Portobello barracks. Everything remained quiet. That signified to me that our men had taken possession of the post-office for headquarters and of all other premises decided on in the revised plan of strategy adapted to a much smaller army.

The names of these places do not sound martial. Jacob's Biscuit Factory, Boland's Bakery, Harcourt Street Railway Station, and Four Courts are common enough, but each had been chosen for the strategic advantage it would give those defending Dublin with a few men against a great number. The Dublin & Southeastern Railway yards, for example, gave control of the approach from Kingstown where, it was expected, the English coming over to Ireland would land.

Upon my return, I found our men intrenching themselves in St. Stephen's Green. All carried tools with which to dig themselves in, and shrubbery was used to protect the trenches. Motorcars and drays passing the Green were commandeered, too, to form a barricade. Much to the bewilderment of their occupants, who had no warning that anything was amiss in Dublin, the men in green uniforms would signal them to stop. Except in one instance, they did so quickly enough. Then they were told to get out. An experienced chauffeur among our men would jump in at once and drive the car to a position where it was needed. The occupants would stand for a moment aghast, then take to their heels. One drayman refused his cart and persisted in his refusal, not believing it when our men told him this was war. He was shot. Two British officers were taken prisoners in one of the autos. We could not afford men to stand guard over them, but we took good care of them. Afterward they paid us the tribute of saying that we obeyed all the rules of war.

Commandant Mallin gave me my first despatch to carry to headquarters at the general post-office. As I crossed O'Connell Street, I had to ride through great crowds of people who had gathered to hear Padraic Pearse read the proclamation of the republic at the foot of Nelson's Pillar. They had to scatter when the Fifth Lancers--the first of the military forces to learn that insurgents had taken possession of the post-office--rode in among them to attack the post-office.

Nothing can give one a better idea of how demoralized the British were by the first news of the rising than to learn that they sent cavalry to attack a fortified building. Men on horseback stood no chance against rifle-fire from the windows of the post-office. It must be said in extenuation, however, that it probably was because this cavalry detachment had just convoyed some ammunition-wagons to a place not far from O'Connell Street, and so were sent to "scatter" men who, they supposed, could be put to flight by the mere appearance of regulars on horseback.

When I reached the open space in front of the post-office, I saw two or three men and horses lying in the street, killed by the first volley from the building. It was several days before these horses were taken away, and there was something in the sight of the dumb beasts that hurt me every time I had to pass them. It may sound harsh when I say that the thought of British soldiers being killed in the same way did not awaken similar feelings. That is because for many centuries we have been harassed by men in British uniform. They have become to us symbols of a power that seems to delight in tyranny.

Even while I was cycling toward the post-office, the crowd had reassembled to watch the raising of the flag of the Irish Republic. As the tricolor--green, white, and orange--appeared above the roof of the post-office, a salute was fired. A few days later, while it was still waving, James Connolly wrote: "For the first time in seven hundred years the flag of a free Ireland floats triumphantly over Dublin City!"

Mr. Connolly and a few of his officers came out to look at it as it waved up there against the sky. I saw an old woman go up to him and, bending her knee, kiss his hand. Indeed, the people loved and trusted him.

Inside the post-office our men were busy putting things to right after the lancers' attack. They were getting ready for prolonged resistance. Window-panes were smashed, and barricades set up to protect men who soon would be shooting from behind them. Provisions were brought over from Liberty Hall, where they had long been stored against this day. But what impressed me most was the way the men went at it, as though this was the usual sort of thing to be doing and all in the day's work. There was no sign of excitement, but there was a tenseness, a sense of expectancy, a kind of exaltation, that was almost more than I could bear.

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