1916 (54 page)

Before 2pm the crowds had greatly increased in numbers. Already the first looting had begun; the first victim was Noblett’s sweetshop. It soon spread to the neighbouring shops. I was much disgusted and I did my best to try to stop the looting. Except for two or three minutes, it had no effect. I went over and informed the Volunteers about the GPO. Five or six Volunteers did their best and cleared the looters for some five or so minutes, but it began again. At first all the ringleaders were women; then the boys came along. Later, about 3.30pm when the military were withdrawn from the Rotunda, young men arrived and the looting became systematic and general, so that Fr John Flanagan of the Pro-Cathedral, who had joined me, gave up the attempt to repress it and I left too.

After I had attended the soldier, I passed into Lower O’Connell Street. Standing at the corner of Clery’s, Sackville Place, I remember seeing a half-drunken British soldier striding along and giving vent to anti-Irish language. As the people were beginning to handle him roughly, I more or less came to his rescue. Immediately opposite, at the corner of the other side of the street, was a chemist standing at the shop door which had a little railing. I asked the chemist to open the railing and hustled him into the shop. I had no sooner got the soldier into the chemist’s shop than I noticed a commotion. A Volunteer was being carried along by two men. He seemed seriously wounded and I was told his wounds were due to a bomb exploding accidentally. I gave him Absolution and he was brought off immediately, through Prince’s Street, down to Jervis Street hospital.

The hurriedly entered notes in my diary that Easter Monday evening do not quite record the events of the day in their strict sequence, but the next incident I have noted is:
Soldiers – about eight – fired at intervals from the walls that project from the ABC office
.
These British soldiers were behind the low walls, three or four feet high, at the ABC office, which is the present Tramway office (60 Upper O’Connell Street) and the Pillar Picture Theatre. They were on their knees, with their rifles propped up against this parapet, and from time to time they sniped at three Henry Street windows of the General Post Office which were facing towards the Rotunda. Volunteers occupied these windows and from time to time interchanged shots with the soldiers. They might as well have been firing at Windsor! By this time, O’Connell Street was crowded, particularly from Pro-Cathedral Street to Abbey Street. As time went on, the crowds grew more and more reckless, passing under the line of fire of the soldiers and Volunteers.

I turned back towards the Rotunda Hospital where I knew I would find these Lancers, in order to make a report about the dead soldier I had attended previously. I saw the officer on horseback and went over to him. The Lancers so drawn up in front of the Rotunda Hospital could not be seen from the vicinity of Nelson Pillar. I informed the officer that I had attended this soldier who had died, as I was under the impression that he was a Catholic, but that I had learned he was a non-Catholic.

While I was reporting to the officer, I took occasion to make a representation. ‘Your soldiers,’ I said, ‘are firing at the corner windows of the Post Office over the heads of the people. They are doing no earthly good, and people will be killed. You ought either to withdraw these men or disperse the people.’ Wrong as the soldiers were, I think it was more indefensible on the part of the Volunteers because the former, being low, could have some control of their fire but the men up on high could not. It may have been in the gaiety of their hearts but it looked desperately alarming.

I am sure that eye-witnesses that late afternoon and next day would say that what most impressed them, and impressed them most unfavourably, was the frivolity and recklessness of the crowd, most of all of the women and children. That is the explanation of the Archbishop’s letter which I suggested to him to write. I had in the back of my mind the idea that the less people were on the street, the less looting there would be. At the time it occurred to some that the explanation of the Volunteer firing was to frighten off the crowds and looters.

At the time it I went again to the Pro-Cathedral to get my bicycle and had a talk with Fr Flanagan. I think it was Fr John O’Reilly CC, who went over first to the GPO to hear confessions. I think he was on duty that day. He was a rather timid man. I have a record that Fr Bowden who was Administrator was also there. Fr Flanagan was the last to go and he had to remain in the GPO as he could not get back.

It was after my return from the Rotunda that I noticed that the ten or twelve policemen with their inspector, whom I had seen at the foot of Nelson’s Pillar some hours previously, had now moved right under and against the wall of the GPO, near the corner of Henry Street. They were very tense. I spoke very strongly to the DMP inspector, saying it was a scandal to leave the police there with the firing going on. There they were almost under fire. I think I added that the situation was one for the military and not for the police. Two or three minutes afterwards they moved off. Quite unhindered they went off towards Store Street. That was some time coming on to three o’clock. Not a hair of these ten or twelve policemen was touched while they stood at the Pillar or while the firing went on. The DMP suffered no interference from the Volunteers. Their fight was against the British. They did not fire at the DMP at the Pillar.

I was also very much struck by the restraint of Volunteers in the case of another drunken soldier who was an Australian. This happened when I first went to the GPO and met Connolly. The soldier was not quite drunk and was standing eating something, in an attitude of bravado, right under where the Volunteers were firing. Yet the Volunteers did not fire or even disturb him. The soldier was not armed, of course.

I reported to the Archbishop when I returned on Monday evening and
told him what had taken place. I recall that what was uppermost in my mind and in my report was the amazing recklessness of the civilians, that I was certain many of them would be killed and that the women and children were the worst. I have noted in my diary that everything was quiet from 10pm on Easter Monday until 1am on Easter Tuesday morning when firing recommenced towards Cabra and Glasnevin.

Monday’s varied rumours about the Rising

On Easter Monday evening I determined to write down all the reports that came to the Archbishop’s, although I knew the reports were bound to be inaccurate and even fantastic. We were in a favourable way of obtaining information. Our telephone was not cut off for a couple of days. Priests were ringing up, giving us news from the different localities. I wrote these reports down simply as they came. They are as follows:

Seizure of two loads of ammunition by the Volunteers from the North Wall. They did not seize it; they attacked it.

A few minutes past twelve, they entered the GPO, and seized the whole place, tearing up telegraph system.

Stephen’s Green seized and entrenched, and tram upset and barricade erected at the Shelbourne.

Jacobs seized by Volunteers. Five soldiers and a woman were killed there.

The City Hall was seized. If an attack was made on the Castle, it failed.

The Protestant Synod Hall was seized for a short time and a few windows broken by bullets.

South Dublin Union was seized but, as a small back door was left unguarded, the military got in and both sides entrenched on the grounds
.
I think that is true.

Three railway stations were seized, Westland Row, Harcourt Street and, perhaps, Broadstone
.

The bridge over the railway on the North Circular Road was seized by the Volunteers.

The Mendicity Institute and the Four Courts were also seized.

It is said that 300 Volunteers entrenched at Finglas and that the 5th Lancers were sent out, but returned.

Church Street is barricaded.

Firing recommenced at half­past five with the coming of some machine guns from the Bull at the Sloblands and Wharf A. Some Volunteers fired on them. It did not last long.

It also broke out on the Upper Quays, on the north side
.
Anywhere from O’Connell Street to Church Street, I suppose, would be the Upper Quay.

The Manure Works at the North Wall were seized by Volunteers.

Between 9 and 10, the City Hall was recaptured by the military after a big fight. Many Volunteers killed by Maxim guns
.
This would be nine or ten o’clock in the evening.

The Proclamation of the Irish Republic was put up in a few places. It shows
that the outbreak does not include the MacNeill section. It is signed by Pearse, Tom Clarke, Connolly, Joe Plunkett (son of Count Plunkett) McDermott, McDonagh, Kent.

Portobello Bridge was captured, but retaken by the military. Many killed.

Bridge over the Midland Railway on the North Circular Road was blown up, and houses on the city side of it occupied by Volunteers
.

James O’Connor interviews the Archbishop

For James O’Connor’s interview with the Archbishop on the evening of Easter Monday, see appendix to Monsignor Walsh’s
Life of Archbishop Walsh
.

The following verbatim transcript from my diary consists partly of my own observations and partly of information received by telephone during the day:

Easter Tuesday 25th April 1916

On Easter Tuesday morning sniping went on irregularly in all quarters, except Glasnevin and Drumcondra. It was most intense towards the Broadstone and in the direction of the GPO. Some machine guns were firing and a few explosions were heard.

At nine o’clock I went to the Pro­Cathedral, from there to St Andrew’s, West­land Row, on to Dr Cox
(Merrion Square)
then to (visit John H. O’Donnell our respected solicitor who died three weeks later) Leeson Street, to St Vincent’s Hospital, and back to O’Connell Street. Lower O’Connell Street is largely looted, particularly from Lawrence’s
(in Upper O’Connell Street)
to the Liffey. The Volunteers occupy the Metropole hotel, the Hibernian bank
(12, 13 Lower O’Connell Street – corner of Lower Abbey Street)
and Kelly’s at O’Connell Bridge. The military occupy Trinity College. The side streets leading into O’Connell Street are barricaded against traffic. Two attempts to blow up Nelson’s Pillar failed.
(This report was untrue. No such attempt was made.)
Boland’s and Kennedy’s bakeries supply bread. The gas works are cut off, and James Street is cut off from the central city.

On the whole, everything is much quieter than one would expect. No military or police are to be seen. Sniping was going on between the military in the Shelbourne Hotel and the Volunteers in Stephen’s Green. We hear that serious encounters occurred at Beggars’ Bush yesterday and there was fighting on the North Wall. It was stated that Sir Roger Casement was shot yesterday in London and that there are German submarines in the Irish Sea. Guinness’s (sic) is also occupied by the Volunteers, and the machine­gun mounted on it is firing on the Royal Barracks. The office of the ‘Evening Mail’ is also occupied with a machine­gun (sic). A platoon of soldiers advancing up Dame Street was dispersed by this gun.

The Castle is surrounded by Volunteers who keep up continuous sniping from Pim’s, ‘The Mail’, etc. Several soldiers were killed and wounded by shots from Pim’s. It is said the Mendicity Institution is evacuated.

The only newspaper printed since yesterday appeared to­day at 11.30. It was a stop­press edition of the ‘Irish Times’ and contained no news of interest except a Government Proclamation notifying that stern measures would be taken to put down the insurrection in Dublin, and warning law­abiding citizens not to frequent the streets
nor to assemble in crowds. As a result of my reports to His Grace on the recklessness of the people, especially of the women and children crowding the streets in dangerous places, His Grace adopted my suggestion that notice should be sent to the local parish priests and to the churches of religious, asking the Catholic people to observe this caution. With great difficulty, the notice was printed and circulated.

In making this suggestion to the Archbishop, I had also in mind the widespreading looting in and about O’Connell Street.

Dr Cox and Dr O’Brien called at 2.30 – (leaving at) 3.20. As the Archbishop was disappointed and discouraged by the failure of the medical treatment, he asked me to arrange with Dr Cox to invite Dr O’Carroll to be called in for consultation. Dr Cox fell in with this suggestion.

Dr Cox told me of his very unpleasant experience in crossing the city from Merrion Square to Drumcondra and the dangers attending it, although they were dressed, like all the doctors, in white overalls and had come by Butt Bridge and the quieter area of Gardiner Street. He seemed particularly apprehensive of Beresford Place and of danger from Liberty Hall. Although I told him that our information was that Liberty Hall was unoccupied, he still had such misgivings that I volunteered to accompany him on his return to secure greater safety. We took the Mountjoy Square–Gardiner Street route.

There seemed a perfect lull in the firing and we passed Beresford Place in complete quiet. But, as we had crossed the Quay to step on Butt Bridge pathway, three shots were fired, quite obviously at us, from above the portico of the Custom House. We had an alarmingly narrow escape. One bullet sang between me and a civilian, a yard or two behind me. This man had joined us in crossing the street, as he thought, for greater safety. He was quite definite that these shots from the Custom House were fired by the military. We waited a few minutes under shelter of the (great arcs of) metal work which then formed such a prominent feature of Butt Bridge. Dr Cox could not credit that the shots were fired by the military until a young man in Tara Street came across at a signal from Dr Cox, from whom he (Dr Cox) ascertained that it was perfectly true that the Custom House was occupied by the military. It turned out that this young man was a TCD student – known to Dr Cox – who was acting as intelligence officer for the British. This was at 4.45pm
.