Easter

ON Easter Monday morning, 1916, Irish men and women declared their belief in their country’s right to national independence, and their willingness to die if need be to win that right.

They took possession of the capital, and hoisted over it the green, white, and orange flag of the Irish republic. Unfortunately, owing to the demobilizing order issued by Sean MacNeill, the Republican forces were small, not very much larger than a battalion of the English Army. On Easter Monday morning there were only nine hundred men in arms, but at the end of the week about fifteen hundred men surrendered.

The fight was short, but it was a good, clean, able one. Fifteen hundred men held the city for a week against a force of twenty-five thousand English soldiers, supplied with armored cars, field-guns, rifles, and all the necessary equipment of an army of war.

It was a week full of heroic incidents. At Mount Street Bridge a body of two thousand English soldiers with full war equipment was held at bay for over twelve hours by five rebels armed only with rifles. When, near the end of the fight, the ammunition was giving out, two of the men went for supplies; the remaining three gave no sign that their numbers were lessened. A little later one was killed and then one man held the fort while the other buried his dead comrade. Two forts overlooking O’Connell’s Bridge were held by six men, three in each. They were not killed, although shot and shell were poured into the forts. When they could hold out no longer they made their way to the General Post Office. These six were what was known in Dublin as Kimmage men — men who had been born in England or Scotland and, in most cases, had never been in Ireland before; men who, knowing the day was near, came over to Ireland to make ready.

It seemed to me, in those days, that they were like the reserve men who are mobilized by a nation on the eve of going to war. Most of these men spoke with a Scotch or English accent, and an amusing story is told of one of them. A party of seven was evacuating one of the forts, and making an attempt to gain the General Post Office. The street was swept with machine-gun bullets. They had to cross the street. They took a zigzag course, one after another — the first, second, third, and fourth men crossed in safety, and the fifth was so struck by this that in the middle of the street he stopped to remark to the man behind him, ‘Blimy, this is gryte!’ and then made his way across. Our men seemed to lead charmed lives. Their casualties were marvelously small, — one hundred and fifty killed and wounded, — the dead numbering about thirty.

I was first sent to the North of Ireland with a dispatch on Easter Monday morning. I was commandant of the Ambulance Corps going North, and had all my medical supplies with me. Unfortunately, the men had received the demobilizing order, and believing there was to be no rebellion, they had returned home, so there was no need for me.

When I was going back to Dublin, I went to stay the night in a house that had just been searched by the military, and a small amount of ammunition had been taken from there by them. I had to pass through the military on my way to the house, and as I was in a motor-car with all my bundles, they evidently came to the opinion that I was bringing more ammunition there, as they paid the house another visit at two o’clock in the morning. They searched the whole house again, questioned me closely, took my address, and went through my kit bag. They finally left, seizing all my medical supplies and not disdaining to take my haversack, containing two days’ rations. This frightened the lady of the house and she asked me to leave. She said she did not want an arrest from her house. I left early the next morning.

I had sent a young girl ahead with a dispatch some time before. Feeling myself responsible for her, I did not care to return to Dublin without her. I started for the town she was in. The lady of the house told me it was not five miles away. I decided to walk: to go by train I would have had to pass the inspection of a constabulary, and that was the last thing I desired. I set out at seven o’clock, and walked all day on a lonely mountain road — mountains on one side of me, bogs on the other, and never a tree for shade, and never a house to get a drink in. The sun was roasting that day, and I was heavily laden. I had my uniform on, under a skirt and mackintosh, and was carrying the kit bag of the other girl and my own. I walked until I was completely worn out, not able to go more than a few yards at a time. Near my journey’s end I met the girl I was looking for. She took me to the house she was staying in. In that house, I learned that I had walked nearly twenty miles.

I rested that night and in the morning the little girl and I started for Dublin. We took a train which brought us to Dundalk. When we arrived there the station was full of military and constabulary. We asked if we could get to Dublin, and were told the only train going there was a military one, and that the lines were in the hands of the military. We decided to walk. We learned from the automobile signs that it was fifty-six miles to Dublin. We started on our road after lunch and we walked all that day. We had to pass a military barricade at a place called Dunleer, some eight miles from Drogheda.

We were rather nervous. We did not want to be stopped, for we did not know the name of the next village. If we were asked where we were going, we could not say,— it would be worse than folly to say ‘Dublin,’ — but we passed it, however, and walked until dark. We thought it possible that there might be military or police patrols, and as no hotel was near, we did not desire to arouse suspicion by asking for a night’s shelter, so we decided to lie out in the field that night. We did so, and a most uncomfortable night it was. It was very cold. A heavy mist came down and soaked into our clothes. We watched for the dawn, then we resumed our walk, and reached Drogheda in time for seven o’clock mass.

We had no adventures until we came to Balbriggan. There was another military barricade there, which we managed to pass while the soldiers were having a heated discussion with three men they desired to search. At 7.30 on Sunday night we arrived on the outskirts of Dublin. There we learned the dreadful news that our men were surrendering and that my father was wounded and a prisoner in Dublin Castle.

I saw my father the following Tuesday. He was in bed, his wounded leg resting in a cage. There was an officer of the R.A.M.C. in his room all the time I was with him. He was very weak and pale and his voice was very low. I asked if he was suffering much pain. He said no, but that he had been propped up in the bed and court-martialed and the strain was very great. I was very much depressed at hearing that. I had been thinking that there would be no attempt to shoot him till he was well; but I knew then, that if he was court-martialed while he was unable to sit up in his bed, the authorities would not hesitate to shoot him while he was wounded.

He was very cheerful, as he lay in his bed making plans for our future. He gave my mother, who was with me, a message to Skeffington, asking him to get some of his songs published. It nearly broke my mother’s heart to think she could not tell him that his good comrade and friend had already been murdered by English soldiers. (Before we were permitted to see my father, we were asked to give our word of honor that we would give him no news from the outside.) I tried to tell him some news, however. I told him that Captain Mellows was still out with his men in the Galway hills. He smiled and said, ‘They were always good boys.’ I told him that Lawrence Ginnell was fighting for the men in the House of Commons. ‘Good man, Larry!’ he said; ‘he can always be depended upon.’

He was very proud of his men. ‘It was a good clean fight,’ he declared. ‘The cause cannot die now. It will put an end to recruiting. Irishmen now realize the absurdity of fighting for the freedom of another country while their own is still enslaved.’ He praised the brave women and girls. ‘No one can ever say enough to honor and praise them,’ he said.

He told me about one young boy who was carrying his stretcher when the rebels were trying to retreat from the burning Post Office. The street they were crossing was swept with bullets. If a bullet came near the stretcher, the boy would move his body to shield my father. He was so younglooking that my father asked his age. ‘I am fourteen, sir,’ he replied. My father’s eyes lit up while he was telling this story. At the end, he said, ‘We cannot fail. Those young boys will never forget.’

When next I saw my father, it was at midnight on Thursday, May the eleventh. A motor-ambulance came to the house. The officer who accompanied it said my father was very weak and wanted to see his wife and eldest daughter. My mother believed this, as when she had last seen my father he was very weak and suffering much pain. He had told her that he never slept without morphine. Nevertheless, she was a trifle apprehensive, for she asked the officer to tell her if they were going to shoot my father. The officer said he could tell her nothing.

It seemed to take hours to get to the Castle, and when we were stopped by the sentries the minutes seemed hours. Finally we were passed in, and were taken to my father’s room at once. We were surprised to see on the small landing outside his room about a dozen soldiers encamped. They had their beds and full equipments with them. Six were on guard at the top of the stairs, and in the little alcove leading to his room were three more; all had their rifles with fixed bayonets.

We entered the room; my father had his head turned to the door. When he saw us he said, ‘Well, Lillie, I suppose you know what this means.’

My mother cried out, ‘O James, it’s not that, it’s not that!’

‘Yes, Lillie, I fell asleep to-night for the first time, and they wakened me at eleven to tell me I was to die at dawn.’

My mother broke down, laid her head on his bed and sobbed heartbreakingly.

My father patted her head and said. ‘Don’t cry, Lillie, you will unman me.’

My mother sobbed, ‘But your beautiful life, James, your beautiful young life!’

‘Well, Lillie,’ he said, ‘has n’t it been a full life and is n’t this a good end? ’

I was crying, too. He turned to me at the other side of his bed, and said, ‘Don’t cry, Nora, there is nothing to cry about.'

‘I won’t cry,’ I said.

He patted my hand and said, ‘That’s my brave girl.’ He then whispered to me, ‘Put your hand here,’ making a movement under the bedclothes. I put my hand where he indicated. ‘Put it under the clothes.’ I did so and he slipped a paper into my hand. ‘Smuggle that out,’ he said, ‘it is my last statement.’

Mother was sitting at the other side of the bed, her face growing grayer and older every minute. My father turned to her and said, ‘Remember, Lillie, I want you and the girls to go to America; it will be the best place for them. Leave the boy at home in Ireland. He was a brick and I am proud of him.’

My mother could only nod her head. My father tried to cheer her up by telling her about a man who had come to the Post Office during the revolution, to buy a penny stamp, and how indignant he was when he was told he could not get one. He turned to me then and said, ‘I heard poor Skeffington was shot.’ I said, ‘Yes,’ and then told him that all his staff, the best men in Ireland, were gone. He was silent for a while. I think that he thought that he was the first to be executed. I told him that the papers had said that it was promised in the House of Commons there would be no more shootings. ‘England’s promises!’ was all he said to that.

The officer then told us we had only five minutes more. Mother was nearly overcome. We had to give her water. My father tried to clasp her in his arms but he could barely lift his head and arms from the bed. ‘Time is up,’ the officer said. My father turned to say good-bye to me. I could not speak. He said, ‘Go to your mother.’

I tried to bring her away. I could not move her. She stood as if turned to stone. The nurse came forward and helped her away. I ran back and kissed my father again; then the door was shut and we saw him no more.

We were brought back to the house. My mother went to the window, pulled back the curtain, and stood watching for the dawn, moaning all the while. I thought her heart would break and that she would die.

We went to the Castle in the morning to ask for my father’s body. They would not give it to us. A kind nurse managed to get a lock of my father’s hair which she gave to my mother.

That is all we have of him now.