Ireland (18 page)

This led to a split in the National Volunteers. Those who supported Redmond went off to fight for Britain, while the remainder stayed in Ireland. Many of those who went off to fight did so because they had no work. In the army, they would be paid, and their families in Ireland would also be paid what was known as ‘separation money’. This meant that the men’s wives and children would not go hungry.

Many of the National Volunteers who stayed in Ireland were angry that Britain had not granted Home Rule. Others didn’t want Home Rule, but an Irish Republic, similar to that proposed by Wolfe Tone. They knew that Britain would not willingly agree to this. If they wanted to achieve it, there would have to be a rebellion.

Among those in favour of rebellion were seven men whose names are now revered like that of Wolfe Tone and Robert Emmet. They are Patrick Pearse, Thomas Clarke, Thomas MacDonagh, Joseph Plunkett, Seán McDermott, Eamonn Ceannt and James Connolly. While Britain was fighting a war, these men believed that it was an ideal opportunity for rebellion. They also hoped to get help from Germany, Britain’s sworn enemy.

In 1915 these men formed a military council, whose aim was to organise a rebellion. They did not inform their leader, Eoin MacNeill, of the council, or of its aims. They were also aware that, with their numbers reduced by those who had gone to fight for Britain, the chances of a rebellion succeeding were poor. But they were willing to make what they described as a ‘blood sacrifice’ for their country.

They planned the rebellion for Easter 1916, aware that they were almost certainly going to their deaths. What they could not have imagined was that this rebellion, the Easter Rising, would, at last, sow the seeds of Irish freedom.

Y
ou must think by now that the history of Ireland is all about rebellions. And you would be right to some extent, for there were a great many rebellions indeed. But none had such a major impact on the country as the 1916 Easter Rising.

The date set for the rising was Easter Sunday, 23 April 1916. It was kept a closely guarded secret and even Eoin MacNeill, the leader of the Irish Volunteers, did not know of it. The fact that the date was kept secret caused great confusion.

The plan was that the Volunteers, aided by the Irish Citizen Army, would take over strategic positions in Dublin city. These were the Four Courts, Jacob’s Biscuit Factory, Boland’s Mill, South Dublin Union Workhouse and Liberty Hall. The headquarters would be at the General Post Office (GPO) in Sackville Street, now O’Connell Street.

The Volunteers, who numbered around 15,000, badly needed guns. Roger Casement, the man who had obtained the guns landed at Howth, was in Germany trying to get more. Casement, who was born in Sandycove, near Dublin, in 1864, was a former British diplomat. He had been knighted by Queen Victoria, but despite this was an Irish patriot.

Germany, which was at war with Britain, gave Casement 20,000 rifles and ammunition. These were sent to Ireland in a ship, the Aud, while Casement returned in a German submarine. British spies had learned of the shipment and Casement’s involvement. Soldiers and police were lying in wait at Banna Strand, County Kerry, where both Casement and the shipment were to land.

On Good Friday morning, Casement landed at Banna, and was immediately arrested. The
Aud
was intercepted by the Royal Navy as it approached the Irish coast. The German crew refused to surrender the vessel and scuttled it. It sank with its cargo of rifles, depriving the Volunteers of badly needed arms. This was a major setback but not the only one.

The need for secrecy created a second problem. Instead of informing the Volunteers that there was to be a Rising, the leaders merely ordered them to meet for manoeuvres on Easter Sunday. This was something that happened regularly so the Volunteers didn’t know that they would be taking part in a Rising. A third problem occurred when Eoin MacNeill learned of the Rising. He immediately issued an order forbidding it to take place. This caused great confusion among the volunteers, which wasn’t helped by the fact that communications were poor at the time. There were few telephones in Ireland back then and, of course, there was no Internet or mobile phones. So it was impossible to ensure that every volunteer got MacNeill’s order and this only added to the confusion.

The British authorities had also learned of the Rising and planned to arrest the leaders. But when Casement was captured and the
Aud
scuttled, they assumed that the Rising would not go ahead. When MacNeill issued his order forbidding it, the British authorities were further reassured, and did not go ahead with the arrests. The rebels, however, were determined to proceed with the Rising. They issued new orders that the manoeuvres planned for Easter Sunday would now take place on Easter Monday.

On that morning, the Volunteers and their leaders gathered at Liberty Hall, which was the headquarters of James Connolly’s trade union movement. From here, led by Connolly, Patrick Pearse, Joseph Plunkett and Thomas Clarke, around 1,000 men marched to the GPO. Other groups of volunteers went off to their designated positions. The Irish Citizen’s Army marched to Stephen’s Green.

When the Volunteers reached the GPO they took over the building. A curious crowd gathered outside and the leaders stood on the steps of the GPO while Pearse read out a document, known as the Proclamation. It declared that Ireland was now a Republic and that they pledged their lives to fight to defend it. At this, the crowd began to jeer and laugh, thinking it all highly amusing. They were unaware that the leaders on the steps were about to lay down their lives for what they believed in.

The Volunteers inside the GPO were preparing to fight. They broke out the glass in the windows and set up firing positions. In the event that they might have to retreat from the building, they broke through the walls at the rear so that they could withdraw into the houses in Moore Street. Provisions of food and water were brought into the building from the nearby Metropole Hotel. On the roof of the GPO, the Tricolour, the flag of the new republic, and a green flag with a harp emblem were raised. Both fluttered in the breeze, a visual declaration that an Irish Republic now existed, at least in the minds of the volunteers. In 1922, the Tricolour of green, white and orange was officially adopted as the Irish flag.

Rather than instilling the crowd with patriotic fervour, the flags flying above the GPO made them laugh all the more. They continued to heckle and taunt the Volunteers. As news of the Rising spread among the citizens of Dublin, their mood turned to anger. Many of these were the poorest of the poor, who lived in tenements in appalling conditions, and had never had a regular income. But all that had changed in 1914 with the outbreak of war. Husbands, fathers and sons from these poor families had joined the British army, and now their families were receiving the ‘separation money’ from the British government.

These poor people, mostly women, feared that the Rising would endanger the payment of this money. One can’t blame them, for if they did not get that money, they and their children would go hungry. Many would certainly starve. Rather than support the Volunteers, these people bitterly opposed them. They saw them, not as patriots, but as blackguards. Many hurried to the GPO to taunt the Volunteers, while others continued to mock and laugh, still enjoying the joke.

But the situation turned deadly serious when a troop of mounted lancers charged down Sackville Street. The Volunteers in the GPO opened fire. Horses and men fell in the street under a hail of bullets. The crowd withdrew in panic, aware that this was no longer something to be taken lightly.

Meanwhile, throughout Dublin, other Volunteers seized strategic buildings. Even Dublin Castle, the headquarters of British rule in Ireland, was attacked. But the Volunteers did not press home the attack, thinking that it would be impossible to take the building. In fact, the castle was poorly defended, and could have been taken, which would have been a great boost for the Volunteers.

The British authorities, certain that the Rising had been called off, were taken by surprise. Because it was a bank holiday, many army officers and officials had gone to the races at Fairyhouse. There were insufficient soldiers in Dublin to deal with the rebels, so reinforcements and artillery were sent for. The British planned to encircle the Volunteers and close in on them once the reinforcements and the artillery arrived. This meant that during the first few days there was little fighting in the city. Instead, there was widespread looting as law and order broke down.

On that first Monday night, looters started fires in the houses near the GPO. Crackling flames lit up the night sky. Windows shattered in the extreme heat. Roofs fell in with resounding crashes, sending flames higher still. Mobs rampaged through the streets carrying away looted goods from shops and houses. For those in the GPO, the situation seemed unreal. They had seized the building, declared an Irish Republic and were ready to fight to defend it. But it seemed as if the British army did not wish to fight them, even though they were few in number and poorly armed.

It was not until Thursday that the British were in a position to attack. By then heavily armed reinforcements had arrived. Machine-gun posts were set up and artillery readied for shelling. A gunboat, the
Helga
, sailed up the River Liffey and took up a position from where it could shell the GPO.

With a salvo of artillery shells, the fighting began. The shells smashed into the GPO and the building came under a hail of bullets. The defenders fired back, but they had no heavy guns to knock out the British artillery. Its shells soon set the roof ablaze. Before long the GPO and many of the adjoining buildings were raging infernos.

James Connolly, in a desperate counter-attack, led a group of Volunteers out of the GPO. But they came under heavy machine-gun fire. Connolly was hit and his thighbone shattered. He was dragged back inside GPO, where he lay in terrible agony. By now, the GPO was burning fiercely and already many Volunteers lay dead or wounded. Shells still rained down relentlessly and bullets tore through the open windows. The situation was desperate. The Volunteers had no alternative but to withdraw. Taking their wounded, including Connolly, they retreated through the holes in the rear wall. They crossed Moore Street under heavy fire and took shelter in the houses. But they were hopelessly surrounded and could go no further.

To continue fighting would mean certain death for many more Volunteers and reluctantly, the leaders decided to surrender. Some of the Volunteers wanted to fight on, but were persuaded not to. A truce with the British was arranged and on Saturday afternoon, 29 April, Pearse and the Volunteers surrendered. Around the city, other groups of Volunteers also surrendered. Those at Boland’s Mill, under the leadership of Éamon de Valera, were the last to surrender.

All the Volunteers were tired and dispirited. Their uniforms, worn with such pride and hope and promise on Easter Monday morning, were tattered and stained with ash and dust and blood. On Sackville Street, a terrible sight greeted them. Dublin seemed to be ablaze. The buildings, which were already burned out, stood roofless and windowless against the backdrop of the smoke and flames. The street was littered with dead bodies and slick with blood. A famous Volunteer known as The O’Rahilly lay riddled with bullets beside his burnt-out beloved De Dion motorcar. Waiting for the Volunteers was the armed might of the British army.

Hungry, tired and downhearted at the sight of so many dead and the failure of the Rising, the Volunteers were marched up Sackville Street to the Rotunda Hospital. Here, the bedraggled men were herded into a small area and surrounded by armed British soldiers, many of whom had lost colleagues in the fighting. A British officer, Captain Lee-Wilson, strode among the prisoners, striking them. He was a cruel man and not only beat the prisoners, but forced some of them to strip naked. One man who was humiliated in this way was Thomas Clarke. He had an injured arm and had difficulty using it. Enraged by Clarke’s inability to undress quickly, Lee-Wilson tore off his uniform. This caused the wound in Clarke’s arm to bleed, adding to his misery.

Night was gathering and, though it was the end of April, it was bitterly cold. For an old man like Clarke, who had spent long years in English jails, this was not only a public humiliation, but also a physical ordeal. Many of the prisoners protested at the treatment of Clarke, but were beaten and kicked until they were silent.

That night the prisoners remained tightly packed together outside the Rotunda Hospital. They were not allowed to sit or lie down. Anyone who did so was dragged to his feet and kicked and beaten. It rained, and they grew colder and more miserable as the night wore on.

The next day the prisoners were marched to Richmond Barracks. Policemen, known as G-men, moved among them, picking out the leaders for court martial and certain execution. The remaining prisoners were then marched through the city to a cattle boat, which would take them to prisons in England. On the journey, the citizens of Dublin came out to watch. Some cheered and shouted encouragement, much to the anger of the British soldiers. But others hissed and spat at the prisoners, angered by their actions. Their city had been shelled and burned. Hundreds of citizens had been killed in the fighting. Most of the women still considered their ‘separation money’ to be more important than freedom for Ireland.

While the Volunteers were shipped off to prison, the leaders were court-martialled. They were found guilty of rebellion and sentenced to death. Over a period of weeks they were executed at Kilmainham Jail by firing squad, and were buried within the prison walls. As each execution was announced, public outrage grew. Now those people who had condemned the rising, and many of those who had earlier spat on the Volunteers, condemned the executions. The public outrage was fanned by stories like that of William Pearse, who was executed because he was the brother of Patrick Pearse; and of Joseph Plunkett, who was shot minutes after marrying his girlfriend, Grace Gifford. Public outrage reached its peak with James Connolly’s execution. Though seriously wounded during the Rising, he was condemned to death. Suffering terrible pain from his wound and unable to stand, he was tied to a chair and shot.