Unlikely Rebels (20 page)

World reaction to the executions was such that General Maxwell could not fulfil his intention of executing the rest of the 100 condemned men. Immediate arrangements were put in place, therefore, to imprison them in Britain, and they were among the approximately 2,000 prisoners who were marched via the Dublin docks to cattle ships waiting to take them away. They were the ‘lucky' ones. As for the journey itself, it was hardly a case of ‘dining at the captain's table'. Joseph Sweeney, one of the prisoners, described how they were put into the hold of the ship and recorded, ‘we all got lousy as a result of the trip over to Holyhead'.
[1]

Most of them eventually wound up in the Welsh village of Frongoch, in a disused, converted distillery. One of the prisoners there was to become a leader in the War of Independence: Michael Collins, the same man for whom Nellie Gifford had found a job, through her ‘Burra' in Dawson Street, with the Plunkett family at Larkfield; the same Collins who had, with Commandant Brennan-Whitmore, helped their commander, Joseph Plunkett, from the nursing home at Mountjoy Square to take part in the Rising and who had brought Grace the gun from her fiancé.

It was Frongoch, more than any other place, that epitomised the unusual nature of the 1916 internments. In effect, the British government was unwittingly providing a kind of residential military university whose activities were orientated towards the creation of a new, free Ireland. Frongoch was simply buzzing with such activity, so, faced with all the problems attendant on acute overcrowding, the authorities arranged route marches and drills, both grist to the prisoners' mill in keeping them fit for the future fight for freedom. There was sport too: Gaelic football, skittles and handball. Sports days were organised, with track events. Hurling, where each player would have a weapon of sorts, was naturally excluded. At night, though it was lights out at 9.45 p.m., cards, draughts and chess were allowed. When gambling crept into the card-playing, their elected camp adjutant, W. J. Brennan-Whitmore, admonished them with a concluding phrase: ‘In God's name do not let us smirch our beautiful ideals.'
[2]

From 2 to 8 p.m., there being no shortage of imprisoned teachers, journalists and poets, classes were provided in five European languages, including Irish and Latin. There were also classes in maths, shorthand, bookkeeping, telegraphy and Irish history. On the cultural side, instruction was provided in choral singing, step-dancing, drama and debates in English and Irish. Creativity found expression in sketching, writing poetry and fashioning small works of art from the most unpromising material: bones from the kitchen were carved into perfectly contrived Celtic crosses, spoons were fashioned into bracelets, coins into rings and twine into quite beautiful macramé belts and bags.
[3]
Many homes in Ireland today have such relics, apart from those in museums.

Concerts were held regularly, including one to honour Wolfe Tone and another to honour the Manchester Martyrs. There were fiddle players, pipers, dancers, reciters of poetry, singers. The songs included the increasingly popular ‘The Soldier's Song' as well as ‘We Will Have Our Own Again', ‘The West's Awake' and ‘Gallant Men of '98'. A resounding finale was the singing of ‘A Nation Once Again' by hundreds of lusty, untrained, emotional male voices. At times there were improvised ‘plays', one of which included a mock fair, with the voices of various ‘bids' for cattle as well as the sound of pigs grunting, donkeys braying and cows lowing.
[4]

‘The Last Post' was sounded, and the Catholics (the vast majority of the prisoners) knelt down to say the rosary. No one has ever called the twentieth-century struggle for Irish freedom the rosary revolution, but this communal prayer forms part of contemporary descriptions time and again.

There were downsides to this prison life, especially as the cold winter approached. The food was largely appalling and inadequate, though parcels sent lovingly from home helped out. Lack of proper heating and ventilation were problems, the latter being so abusive of their health that a name was coined for their suffering:
Tired Frongoch Feeling.

One of the most interesting of all the prisoners' activities was the cult of the autograph book. These books, from all the jails, bear similar characteristics. Some of the recorded names were to become significant in the Irish nation, then still only a dream, names such as Seán Mac an tSaoi, Earnáin de Blaghd and Éamon de Valera. There were bantering, and often very comic, stabs at poetic expression as well as nostalgic images of the Irish landscape and expressions of the sort of good fellowship that emerges from hardship shared. More than any of these, however, one positive, dominant note was struck: a commitment to renew the struggle on the men's release. Typical of this determination is that from Michael Brennan's autograph album:

Is mór dúinn na daoiní móra mar atáimíd féin ar ár glunaibh. Éirímís.
(Those we deem great seem only so because we are on our knees. Let us rise.)
The sword we hold may be broken, but we have not dropped the hilt.
[5]

Reflecting this positivism, just as the Progressive League in New York was displacing Clan na Gael, so in Frongoch the first prisoners' council, which called itself the General Council or Civil Govern-ment of the Irish Republic, was replaced by a council comprising officers of the Irish Volunteers and the Citizen Army. The old council concerned itself with social matters, but it had become obvious that the real council was a military one, and so the military organisations took over. Their emphasis was on drill, smuggling in and studying military manuals, and studying firearms and tactics. Frongoch lacked Sandhurst's comfort and equipment but wanted for nothing in determination. Men such as Collins and Richard Mulcahy became the natural leaders for the struggle that lay ahead. Collins made it his business to learn what he could of the widespread locales from which the prisoners came – as far west as the Aran Islands (part of Mellows' Rebellion), as far north as Tyrone and as far south as his own Cork. Friendships were formed and characters quickly assessed. Collins met the nucleus of his squad and flying columns at Frongoch. All in all, one could say that the inmates graduated as Irish revolutionaries and that men such as Collins, Mulcahy and Tomás MacCurtain took their doctorates in leadership.

The Giffords' friend, Constance Markievicz, was jailed in Aylesbury, with none of the camaraderie of Frongoch and the other prisons. She wore prison garb, and her cellmate was a gangster's moll, ‘Chicago May', who developed a surprising affection for the rebel aristocrat. Constance endured the rough prison garb, poor food, filthy bathtubs, appalling kitchen hygiene and forced labour. She was losing weight and one day stole and ate a raw turnip through sheer hunger. This woman, whom Isabella Gifford saw as a corrupting influence in her daughters' political involvement, was the last of the 1916 leaders to be released, in June 1917. She had left Ireland known by few and resented by many. She came back to a tumultuous reception in the streets of Dublin.

General Maxwell's conviction that the Easter executions would put paid to Ireland's dream of freedom proved utterly wrong, and this was nowhere more evident than in Donegal, where Pearse, MacDonagh and Plunkett had studied Irish. They had impressed the Gaelic speakers during their stay there, and one of them, young Niall Ó Baoighill, had such admiration for Joseph Plunkett that his friends called him Niall Pluincéad. This is how Pádraig Ó Dónaill describes it in
Scéala Éireann:
‘A special place should be reserved for the name of Niall Plunkett O'Boyle. He was called Plunkett because he thought so highly of Joseph Plunkett.'
[6]
Young Niall Pluincéad Ó Baoighill of the Rosses, who was to fight heroically the Black and Tans and to give his life for his ideals, was only one of innumerable instances of the effect that Maxwell's actions had on Irish minds. The War of Independence, conceived in Frongoch, was the fruit of the executions, and that war was to be served by the Gifford daughters, both at home and abroad, but not by the Gifford sons.

Notes

Nellie Gifford, being a member of the Royal College of Surgeons outpost, was marched with her fellow prisoners to Richmond Barracks and on to Kilmainham Gaol. She has left a description of her time there: three to a cell, she knew neither of her two cellmates but remembered taking charge, especially in the matter of frequent exercise. It was a bitterly cold spring, and she could see snow on the mountains when her cellmates lifted her up to the window to get a view. However, they were all fortunate in their icy lodgings in that the matron had suffragette leanings and was chuffed at having under her authority two countesses (Markievicz, before her transfer to Aylesbury, and Plunkett) and one lady doctor (a rarity in those days), Kathleen Lynn. She allowed her prisoners the much-needed luxury of hot baths and new blankets, there being no bedding in this deteriorating old prison when the sudden influx of women prisoners arrived. With as many other little alleviations as possible, she made their stay as comfortable as anyone could in the cold, damp fortress. Dr Lynn, before being deported with Countess Markievicz, thanked the matron on behalf of them all.

In other parts of the jail, not so cossetted, had been Nellie's brothers-in-law Thomas MacDonagh and Joseph Plunkett. The Plunkett parents and their two younger sons, George and Jack, were also held in the jail. Nellie shared something else with the Plunkett family: both she and the Count had lost their official jobs as a result of their actions – he as director of the National Museum of Ireland and she as ‘the cookin' woman'. Countess Plunkett met Nellie in the jail's exercise yard when she faced deportation to England with her husband and offered her the opportunity to stay at Larkfield House in Kimmage on her release, no doubt aware of Isabella's antipathy to the Rising. When news of a general release filtered through, the Countess approached Nellie again, kissed her affectionately and repeated that she would be welcome at Larkfield House and that the servants had been instructed to treat her as one of the family.

Josephine Plunkett was aware not only of Isabella's hostility but also of Frederick's illness. Her offer of hospitality to Nellie and also to Grace and many other members of the movement provides a warm, pleasant image of Joseph Plunkett's mother, despite less happy matters yet to come.
[1]
This daughter of the Gifford family was very glad of the proffered hospitality. On her release she returned to her home in Temple Villas, from which she had gone to St Stephen's Green as a member of the Citizen Army: Nellie's ring on the door was answered not by a maid but by Isabella herself. Her words were curt: ‘You can't come in here.'
[2]

Nellie wanted, above all, to say goodbye to her sick father, because already she had thoughts of leaving for America. She had been, after all, his favourite, the little girl whom he had brought with him on his trips as land agent to various rural areas, the youthful hostess who had attended him and his friends, the Yeats men, with her toddy and hot scones. Nellie was allowed to say her goodbyes to him, and she left her childhood home which she was not to see again. Her father she would also never see again. Without funds, she thought of Countess Plunkett's offer of hospitality and made her way to ‘The House of Larks', so called, poetically, by her late brother-in-law Joseph.

The Plunkett residence was an old-style mansion with a large entrance hall, stairs on either side and a balcony facing the entrance door. Nellie was not the only ‘refugee'. Two other republican activists, the Skinnider sisters, were there along with other waifs and strays of Easter Week. It gave them a respite to consider how to pick up the threads of their unravelled lives. Grace Gifford – now Plunkett – was also at Larkfield. Grace became friendly with Joseph's younger sister, Fiona, and it was there that the aforementioned picture of Grace, cradling a kitten in her arms, was taken.

Nellie did not go straight to America from Larkfield House but went first to Liverpool where she stayed in the friendly home of a republican, Peter Murphy. Liam Mellows was also there, and his life was to become very much a part of the Giffords' lives in America. Mellows was a wanted man, and so Nellie dyed his hair blond, though he had not thought, as Nellie observed wryly, of his dark eyebrows and eyelashes.
[3]
The same Peter Murphy later wrote to
The
Irish Press
in reply to some items which had appeared from Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, Frank Robbins and a Mr H. Harvey on the subject of Mellows' escape to the USA:

The facts were as follows: When Liam Mellows came to my house and made himself known to me, I undertook the work of getting him into America. He stayed at my house for a fortnight and I was with him night and day. The only ones who engineered his safe passage were myself and my
aide-de-camp
in the Shipping Federation. Many pleasant evenings we had, too, during that time; and Miss Nellie Gifford (now Mrs Donnelly) may remember them; for instance, the night she dyed Liam's hair and made him jump as she worked on his brows and lashes. She was also ‘on the run' at the time, waiting to sail to America on a false passport, and they sailed within a few days of each other.

The Federation official and I arranged the details for Liam to sail as a coal-trimmer named John Atheridge with a doctored book on a tramp steamer. I left him at Lime Street station as a member of a scab crew, going to Devonport to join the ‘tramp' which sailed to Barbados; and Mellows did not reach New York until six weeks later.
[4]

One of the most remarkable – and most forgotten – men of the Rising, at the age of twenty Mellows had been given orders by Pearse before Easter Week to ‘mobilise the west', which he unquestioningly proceeded to do – on his bicycle. The northern Volunteers had been instructed to join Mellows. On the fateful Easter Monday he had rallied 15,000 men for whom his supply of arms consisted of thirty rifles and seventy guns – one weapon to every 150 men, unless they were able to equip themselves with improvised weaponry. For all that, there did take place a confrontation in arms against Britain in the west of Ireland, and it has gone down in history as Mellows' Rising. Despite his troops' restricted numbers and paucity of arms, the youthful leader brought them success in capturing several RIC barracks, ambushing RIC and British army forces, cutting off communications, holding Moyode Castle in County Galway and generally creating mayhem in the west. When news of the surrender came, Mellows' Rising was in full swing, but he obeyed orders, disbanded his men and made good his escape, avoiding imprisonment. He was still a wanted man, however; hence the disguise.

When Nellie secretly reached New York in late October 1916, the ‘terrible three' of Bridget Hamill's nursery were reunited. Gabriel and Ada, her partners in childhood adventures, received her with open arms, and, of course, ‘John', the baby of Temple Villas, gave her just as hearty a welcome. It is easy to imagine the talk that went on into the small hours, that first night, the cups of tea, the tears, the memories. News of the Rising was a source of mixed emotions. How were Grace and Muriel bearing up? How were father and mother reacting? That the tricolour had flown over the GPO and other places seemed to be particularly welcome news: the symbol of a free Ireland. Gabriel, as the only unionist among them, must have felt the odd man out.

Ada, however, fired with enthusiasm, had been going about the business of celebrating the flag's symbolism in her own inimitable manner: after the Easter Rising she had bought three pieces of cloth – green, white and orange – and made what may have been the first Irish-American tricolour. In Carnegie Hall her home-made flag was flown conspicuously from the balcony and was greeted by a standing ovation, with delighted cheering and clapping of hands.
[5]
Happy with this outcome, the intrepid Ada mounted a trolley car the next morning, the flag concealed beneath her coat, and went onto the top deck. The driver could not understand the extraordinary respect his car was receiving as he passed the New York cops on the beat. They were giving him, or rather the improvised tricolour (of which he was unaware), a full military salute as the trolley car passed. Ada was delighted with her ploy and waved her flag with gusto.
[6]

All the siblings' enthusiasm, however, was tempered by their losses: the tragic wedding, the execution of their brothers-in-law, Thomas and Joseph, who had been, for years, such a favourite with them all, even Isabella; the grief of their widowed sisters, Grace and Muriel. They grieved also at the thought of their small niece and nephew, Barbara and Donagh, left fatherless. Gabriel was part of this family grief, for all his unionist sympathies, nostalgically remembering the sketch he had done of Thomas. A particular shock had been the news of Grace's midnight wedding and her short-lived marriage to Joseph. A description of Nellie's imprisonment in Kilmainham Gaol brought more distress, and for ‘
John' there was the added grief of Countess Markievicz's jailing and deportation and the details of the deaths of the other leaders, especially the three men who had so encouraged her in her journalism; James Connolly, Seán Mac Diarmada (with his
Irish Freedom
) and especially Thomas Clarke, whose letter to John Devoy had been intended to cushion her entrance to American republican journalism. These were all personal sorrows in the midst of general Irish-American grieving.

Nevertheless, despite the initial reaction felt even by those outside the movement and the personal loss of those intimately involved, positive thinking began to subsume the sorrowing. Pádraig Pearse became the Irish standard bearer of the theory that martyred blood is an essential to gain freedom from a determined conqueror, but, in fact, the other executed men had, in either prose or poetry, in one way or another, subscribed to the same political theory – for it
was
politics, of the most dramatic kind. Why else would they have engaged in an armed confrontation whose optimum goal had been to hold out for six days? The ‘red rose of patriotism' had been nourished by the execution squads as predicted and was putting out fresh blooms, even on another continent. It is obvious from Plunkett's mentioned reservations to Grace in the Moore Street letter and from Pearse's reason for surrender that these men had no bloodlust. Perhaps the defining factor was that there is a moral difference between a war of conquest and one of liberation.

Nellie was to find, as had ‘John', that the relationships between the émigré Irish and their descendants, on the one hand, and the Irish emissaries of the movement who had come over from Ireland to seek help were not always perfect. Even the matter of Devoy's anti-feminism was not singular because American life was strangely out of tune with the freedoms women were gradually achieving in Ireland and in Europe generally. Even such a non-political matter as smoking, which in Ireland had become generally acceptable for women, was frowned upon in America, and there was even a law forbidding women to smoke in public.

Ada was never a prolific writer – she told her stories with her paintbrush – but both Nellie and ‘
John' have left interesting records of their time in America. ‘
John's' style (in
The Years Flew By
) is professional, but Nellie's unpublished notes have a compensatory warmth. She had not been six months in New York when she received an invitation from a professor and his wife to spend a week's vacation in their home. The journey took eight hours by train and then about one hour by horse transport. She spent a pleasant week, and the professor left her back to the station to catch her New York-bound return train. A train drew in while they were chatting, but he dismissed it as the wrong one. It was he who was wrong, however, as Nellie discovered to her grief, and she spent several cold, miserable hours on the bleak station platform waiting for the second New York train of the day. Not only did it not arrive at its destination until after midnight but it had no dining car, and she had had neither bite nor sup since an early breakfast. So she waited, huddled miserably, collar up against the extreme cold. The ticket collector saw her plight and shared his coffee and sandwiches with her. He said that if she had any difficulty on her arrival she was to return to the depot and they would fix her up somehow for the night. He also warned her that she was to speak to no one except a policeman. It is a very human story with its absent-minded professor and kind ticket collector, solicitous for a young woman's hunger and safety.
[7]

Three of Isabella's daughters, Ada, Nellie and ‘
John', were now working hard in America for recognition of Ireland's nationhood. To this was added a plea for economic help for the bereaved families of the Volunteers who had been killed in the Rising. Hanna Sheehy Skeffington toured America with the objective of raising funds. The Gifford involvement in this push for help was not hugely significant, it is true, but it was consistent and determined, and there is no doubt that they made an impact in spreading the gospel of republicanism and in collecting funds for the almost destitute families of some of those executed or interned. In fact, in some areas of Irish-American republicanism the Gifford influence was to become quite dramatic.

At home, their three sisters, Kate, Muriel and Grace, were trying to come to terms with the deaths of the two executed men who had been husbands and brothers-in-law. Kate was the quiet stalwart in the background, her home in Philipsburgh Avenue on Dublin's northside a haven for Grace when she left Larkfield. Muriel, like many widows before and since, had to put aside her sorrow with two children to rear and a capital sum of £300, which constituted the assets her husband had left.

Grace found herself in a rather different position. She became a sort of icon as the story of her Kilmainham Gaol marriage filtered into the public consciousness. Some years ago, a senior citizen in Coolock, who wished to remain anonymous, recalled a poem she had learned at school in Castleplunkett, Castlerea, County Roscommon, in the 1920s: