The Easter Rising 1916 - Molly's Diary (Hands-on History) Read online

  At once the Post Office staff started to barricade the passage leading from the head of the stairs, filling it with chairs, wastepaper baskets, and boxes.

  “We have no ammunition in our damn guns,” called out another one of the guards. All four of them and the sergeant stayed outside the door to guard the Instrument Room.

  “Ladies, go to the retiring room on the southern corridor,” Mr Guthrie instructed. “Put on your outdoor apparel in case you have to leave the building.”

  I came out of my hiding place, gambling that he would take me for one of the telegraphists. His eyes glanced over me and, in the tumult, I think he did not notice that I was but a child.

  But before the women could leave, several shots rang out close by!

  “The sergeant is wounded!” called out a man. “The rebels are coming up through the southern entrance!”

  All at once a group of rebels burst through from the dining room next door.

  “Everybody out!” ordered a rebel, fixing us with his bayonet. He was a fine-looking man in a beautifully cut uniform, better quality than the others. “I’m very sorry to disturb you, gentlemen and ladies. This is the first and last act.”

  “You came, The O’Rahilly!” another rebel who had just come in greeted him.

  I thought it was funny that his first name was “The” but I found out later that the chiefs of the old Irish clans were called like that.

  “I was going around the country cancelling the Rising on Eoin McNeill’s orders,” The O’Rahilly said. “Nobody bothered to tell me it was happening anyway. I drove straight here. I helped to wind the clock, so I have come to hear it strike.”

  “Everybody out now!” his comrade shouted.

  “I will not leave without this sergeant who needs to see a doctor at Jervis Street Hospital,” rang out a clear Scottish voice. It was Miss Gordon, the Assistant Supervisor of Telegraphs. She was trembling but fixed them with a resolute look.

  The O’Rahilly looked horrified when he saw that the sergeant’s right upper arm was bleeding profusely from a gunshot wound.

  “But I must take him prisoner,” he said. “That is my instruction. Anyone here know First Aid?” Then he noticed me. “You there, attend to the man.”

  I looked down. I had forgotten I was wearing Mother’s Red Cross apron. I froze but the injured sergeant let out a cry and I knew I had to do something.

  With trembling hands, I cleaned out his wound with water from his flask. I had in the large front pocket of the apron a couple of bags of muslin filled with sphagnum moss. So, suddenly remembering my training, I applied the dressing and told him to be brave. Having no other bandages, I tore Miss Nugent’s embroidered cloth that I was still carrying. I hoped she would not mind but it was in a good cause and it was very ugly anyhow. But blood continued to seep through Miss Nugent’s embroidery, staining the straggly embroidered streets with crimson, and the sergeant grew pale.

  “He needs a doctor,” I said, terrified my poorly executed bandage would make him worse. I dearly wished I had listened to my mother and paid more attention to the basic instructions.

  “Allow me, good sir,” said Miss Graham. “When he has received professional attention at the hospital, I will return with your prisoner. No one will think much of you if your prisoners die for want of a doctor.” She was nervous but firm.

  To their credit, they allowed her to leave with the injured man. I breathed a sigh of relief that at least the poor sergeant would get a proper dressing for his wound at the hospital.

  Still shaking, I looked out the window and saw rebels distributing pamphlets to astonished onlookers. I wondered if it was the same notice I saw little Rosie Hackett running in with yesterday at Liberty Hall. The “proclamation”, whatever that is.

  “One of them is going to read something,” I called out. “It’s Patrick Pearse!”

  Everything stopped in the Instrument Room. We gazed down below at Patrick Pearse surrounded by broken glass. He held a paper in his hand and twitched with nerves. But he read out his “proclamation” in a clear voice.

  “Irishmen and Irishwomen, in the name of God and of the dead generations . . .”

  There were a few shouts of “Hear hear!”

  Then one person called “Traitor!”

  “Let the man speak,” called out the flower-seller at Nelson’s Pillar.

  “We hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our lives, and the lives of our comrades-in-arms, to the cause of its freedom.”

  Several people walked off but the flower-seller was weeping.

  “The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens . . . cherishing all the children of the nation equally . . .”

  There was now a chilling silence and I felt sorry for Mr Pearse that his great speech was met with so little enthusiasm.

  “Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government . . . elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.”

  So this was no playacting. The extremists were rebelling and were seizing control of the country!

  There was something very moving in the pale poet speaking from his heart. Even if one did not agree with him. But then I noticed the armed guard near him and saw they meant to win the argument by force.

  I heard some of the names of the signatories and it was just like Anto’s poem. As well as Mr Patrick Pearse, there was old Thomas Clarke the tobacconist, his friend Seán Mac Diarmada who has a gammy leg, Eamonn Ceannt the piper, James Connolly who hates all the bosses, Joseph Plunkett who looks half dead already and Thomas MacDonagh who writes poems and teaches at a university. They must be the most unlikely bunch of revolutionaries ever. No wonder the government didn’t bother arresting them. Though they may feel differently now.

  But are all these good things to be achieved down the barrel of a gun? Can you get good things by bad means? I confess I am confused and much troubled by this. What is the word Miss Nugent was trying to drum into me? Paradox. Where two things that are seemingly contradictory can possibly be true. That’s what it is. Or is it an irony? Where one thing is said but the opposite is meant? Can you come in peace if armed to the teeth? I really should listen to Miss Nugent and pay more attention to my lessons so I can think about these things properly in my own mind.

  The soldier doing First Aid downstairs reported for duty to The O’Rahilly, and said his name was Private Chapman. He asked me where I’d got the bags of bog moss from. I told him I’d made them and asked him if he knew my brother Jack but he just shook his head.

  “Most of the Fianna boys will be under the command of the Countess,” he said. “She is a roving ambassador and will be travelling to all our occupations.”

  “Where?” I asked him quickly.

  “They don’t tell lowly privates,” he whispered. “Until an hour ago, I thought we were on parade. This is as much a surprise to me as you.”

  I tried to fix him with a scowl but tears sprang to my eyes.

  “I think they mean to take the Castle and Stephen’s Green,” he said quietly. “The Countess and Dr Lynn were driving first to the Castle, I heard them say it.”

  In all the confusion no one saw me make my way down to the basement. As I inched along the corridor towards the lift, I heard James Connolly call out to a young man.

  “O’Kelly, would you ever go back to Liberty Hall and fetch the flags out of the room at the back where we keep the brushes?”

  I suppose he meant the Countess’s flags.

  Down in the basement, the wires had been hacked to bits. I prayed Jack had at least played no part in this. There was no sign of Father. I made my way out of the GPO by clambering over the barricade to the Henry Street exit that had been hastily erected by the staff, mercifully still unguarded. As I looked up t
he street, by good fortune I caught sight of my father by Arnotts’ drapers, with Mr Gommershall the Superintending Engineer.

  “Father!” I ran to them.

  “Molly!” he said, grabbing me tightly. “I sent a messenger to find you but told him to go around by Moore Street.” In the strangeness of the situation he did not question what I was doing there but was relieved that I had saved him a journey.

  He gave me twenty pounds! A fortune.

  “Get Miss Nugent to take you to my cousin Elizabeth who will get you all to Kingstown to her parents. Edward is sailing to New York and won’t be back for some months. Willie, their older boy, is on trial for a scholarship to Blackrock College so is away for the week. So you will be a help for Elizabeth. Stay there until we send for you. I will telephone the ticket office at Poulaphouca to hold on to Jack when he comes from his trek in the mountains for his tram and also telephone your mother to stay in Belfast until further notice.”

  I blushed at the mention of Jack at the mountains but I couldn’t say anything.

  “Miss Nugent has gone to Fairyhouse, I think,” I admitted.

  “Damn that woman! Be my good brave Molly and get your bicycle and go over to Oriel Street by the back routes. With any luck all this trouble will be over by tonight. Lancers might come to Sackville Street on horseback. So hurry.”

  “We must get to Crown Alley to the Telephone Exchange now,” urged Mr Gommershall quietly to my father. “The rebels haven’t cut the private telephone lines yet.”

  “Then we can reroute the telegraphs,” my father said. Then he turned to me. “If you cannot get to Oriel Street, make your way to Dr Ella Webb on Hatch Street. She will take care of you.”

  Mr Gommershall touched my father’s sleeve and I knew he had to go and it might be to some danger.

  “I would take you with me, Molly, but it might not be safe to be with a GPO official.”

  I embraced Father tightly, afraid that it might be the last time I saw him. I didn’t dare linger as I know I am in a whole heap of trouble.

  It was only as I rushed down Henry Street that I realized I had lost his sandwiches somewhere in all the confusion.

  I ran on and noticed a crowd of onlookers had gathered outside the GPO. I saw a copy of the proclamation weighted down with stones so it wouldn’t blow away at Nelson’s Pillar. I picked it up and stuffed it in my big front pocket. There was a strange atmosphere abroad – almost like a show was being put on in the capital. But then I noticed rebel snipers posted on the corners of the GPO.

  “They’ve taken the Daily Express and City Hall, but not the Castle!” someone called out.

  My mind was churning as I ran for my bicycle at the back of our house. I felt bad that I couldn’t confess to my father that Jack was one of Countess Markievicz’s Boy Scouts. But I was going to stick to my plan for good or ill. I would find Jack – that was my main goal. We would go together to Cousin Elizabeth and head for Kingstown. If he wouldn’t come willingly, I would drag him. But I had to find him, either way.

  At home, I got busy and loaded a stock of sphagnum-moss bags into my knapsack and some pannier bags. I also took my First Aid kitbag and my Saint John’s Ambulance armband with the white eight-pointed star. I put my mother’s Red Cross tabard apron over my new coat and a little Red Cross flag on my knapsack. I also packed my father’s spyglass in its little leather case. I already had a photograph of Jack in my locket. And I took my Dear Diary in case I wanted to note down anything interesting. Even mother would have been impressed at how neatly I packed it all in. I also checked in Jack’s room and noticed there was no sign of his climbing gear. His bike was gone too, and that made me think he was most likely to be around the city as he would have taken the tram to the mountains.

  As I wheeled my bicycle around from the back yard, I noticed flags being hoisted over the GPO. One of green, white and orange at the Henry Street Corner and at the opposite end the Countess’s bedspread with the words “Irish Republic” picked out in gold. Only I know the gold is also mustard!

  I hurried across the road and, as I looked up towards the Parnell monument at the top of Sackville Street, I saw a troop of lancers on horseback coming down from the Rotunda, all feathers and plumes like cockatoos.

  Shots rang out! Two horses dropped dead, one near the Pillar and the other much further back along the street, and the whole unit turned tail and charged back down Parnell Street. A soldier fell down, his arms outstretched in the shape of a cross. His poor horse nosed him, waiting for his master to get up. It was the saddest sight. My legs took over and I pelted with my bike from the scene. Now I felt truly unnerved.

  I was going to look for the Countess at Dublin Castle first. I raced across the city, pedalling like fury, going down the quays, across Ha’penny Bridge, through Temple Bar and over to Dublin Castle by the bottom of Dame Street.

  As I cycled through Dame Street, I saw the familiar figure of Skeffy. His face was white with shock as he looked at a broken shop-front window.

  At Dublin Castle, I was met with a very different scene. Hostile crowds had gathered and were jeering at the Green Fenian uniforms of some fellows on the roofs of City Hall. Against the blinding sun, they were like a line of cutouts we make for our scrapbooks.

  A policeman lay in the road. I shuddered. He did not look alive.

  “They burst through the Castle gates. It was all them actors from the Abbey Theatre,” a dairyman said. “Constable James O’Brien tried to bar them, so he did, and they shot him in the head. That pretty actress woman, what’s her name – Helena Moloney – fired her revolver into the air and the rest of the police ran like blazes. Imagine they have women fightin’ and all. Then a soldier on duty fired at the gate before runnin’ for cover and the rebels all scattered like mice.”

  “But then they didn’t go into the Castle, that’s the strange thing – there are hardly any soldiers there,” said a young woman office worker in a smart suit. “They’ve gone into City Hall instead,” she pointed to the City Hall which is right next to the Castle, “and the offices of the Mail and Express newspapers. They’re posting snipers on all the roofs.”

  “That Mr Sheehy Skeffington nearly got shot himself rescuing a British soldier,” said the dairyman.

  I knew then why Skeffy had looked so shocked and pale.

  As we spoke a heavy rat-a-tat rang out. It was raining bullets down on the Castle. My hands flew to my ears and panic gripped my stomach. But it also felt unreal, like a pageant was unfolding, and at any moment the curtain would come down.

  “Girl, you should go home!” said the dairyman as we crouched in a doorway.

  “That’s Seán Connolly on the City Hall roof, I’d swear it!” said the young office worker, Eileen, who’d told me she was a typist in the Castle. “He works at City Hall, in the driving-license division, so he must have got them in. He’s a great actor. I have tickets to see him in Yeats’s play tomorrow.”

  I told her we also had tickets.

  “I go to everything he’s in. He should be in the pictures.” Her eyes shone when she spoke of him.

  I looked up and saw several people moving about on the ramparts. I took out my spyglass and, flickering on the edge of my field of vision, I thought I saw a youth with red-gold hair blazing in the sun.

  “Jack!” I cried out.

  If Seán Connolly was up there, his brother Matthew and Jack might be also!

  There was a lull in the shooting and, without thinking, I ran towards the City Hall gates and somehow, I don’t know how, I scaled them. No shots rang out. Perhaps because they saw I was wearing medical insignia and carrying my First Aid kit.

  I rushed into the building and the young man guarding the entrance let me through. I ran, my breath ragged in my throat, up the wide marble staircase and heard the hail of bullets as it ricocheted off the building. It sounded different to the rifle fire – more constant.

  Shards of glass flew by as I ran up those stairs. Bullets splintered wood and raised clouds of plast
er and stone dust.

  I passed two women, one in Citizen Army dress, the other in plain clothes, who were looking out the window on the second floor.

  “There’s been a change in the weather, looks like a hail shower,” one called.

  “That’s not hail, that’s bullets!” her comrade replied.

  I glanced back. Sheets of bullets were streaming past the window.

  I gained the roof and saw about ten Citizen Army rebels up there. The city flag of Dublin, with three gates on green with a blue corner, was lying limp. Up the slope, behind the roof gable facing Parliament Street, I saw a roof ladder, and on it Matthew Connolly! He was on lookout duty, his bugle still around his shoulder. As more volleys of shots rang out, the roof slating near him was becoming cracked and chipped.

  “Get down from there, you eejit!” I called out.

  Matthew glanced back and nearly fell off his ladder.

  “Are you one of us?” he asked.

  I pointed to my Saint John’s Ambulance armband. “No, I’m looking for Jack.”

  “Haven’t seen him since this morning,” he said.

  “But he’s in it, isn’t he?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  Another volley of fire rang out. The slating became perforated with holes and slid into the valley beside him.

  As Matthew came down the ladder, another rebel shouted out, “For God’s sake, Matthew, get over to the Dame Street end!”

  He obeyed, moving to the far corner of the roof obscured by chimneystacks.

  I saw a First Aid Instructor, Dr Kathleen Lynn, who was one of the Citizen Army. She had taught us how to make a tourniquet to stop bleeding and how to do artificial respiration.

  “You have the supplies?” she said to me.