The Young Rebels

by Morgan Llywelyn

  There is no mention of my age now.

  My first job is to carry ammunition to the Volunteers guarding the windows and doors. They are firing sparingly, trying to make every shot count. Their eyes are red with lack of sleep.

  Tucked into my waistband is the pistol James Connolly gave me. Could I actually shoot someone with it? I don’t know. I don’t suppose anyone ever really knows until the moment comes.

  After a while I go to the basement to see if there is any more ammunition. The two toilets down there, the only ones in the building, are blocked up and overflowing. The smell is terrible.

  Shortly after I return, empty-handed, to the lobby, Mr Pearse emerges from a room at the back. He is carrying a handwritten sheet which he puts up on what remains of the post office bulletin board. It is a manifesto filled with praise for the brave men and women who have carried the fight this far. The only person he mentions by name is Mr Connolly, whom he calls ‘the guiding brain of our resistance’.

  He has written, ‘If they do not win this fight, they will at least have deserved to win it. But win it they will, although they may win it in death. Already they have won a great thing. They have redeemed Dublin from many shames, and made her name splendid among the names of cities.’

  The document continues, ‘I am satisfied that we have saved Ireland’s honour. I am satisfied that we should have accomplished more had our arrangements for a simultaneous rising of the whole country been allowed to go through on Easter Sunday. Of the fatal countermanding order which prevented those plans from being carried out, I shall not speak further. Both Eoin MacNeill and we have acted in the best interests of Ireland.

  ‘For my part, as to anything I have done in this, I am not afraid to face either the judgment of God or the judgment of posterity.’

  ‘Signed P. H. Pearse, Commandant General, Commanding-in-Chief, the Army of the Irish Republic, and President of the Provisional Government’.

  I wish he had added ‘Ardmháistir, Scoil Eanna’.

  Mr Pearse summons all the women in the building and orders them to leave. A few nurses refuse, but most of the others reluctantly accept. He shakes hands with each of them as she departs.

  If he is sending the women away that must mean it’s almost all over. I want to speak to him, but cannot bring myself to ask the question. Instead I just catch his eye and nod.

  Padraic Pearse beckons me closer. ‘You were one of those boys at the Metropole Hotel,’ he says. It is not a question.

  ‘Yes sir. We wanted to be with you.’

  ‘God bless you,’ he says.

  ‘And you sir.’

  He moves off to speak to some of the other men. I watch their eyes following him.

  Then there is a terrible crash right above our heads. Black smoke comes billowing down the main staircase and we can hear the crackle of flames somewhere above. The GPO is built of stone but fitted with timber, and timber will burn.

  Is burning.

  We are fighting on two fronts now; fighting back the increasingly determined British assault and fighting back the flames. Unfortunately we are out of water. Roger runs past me carrying a bucket full of sand from one of the sandbags.

  By later afternoon our battle with the fire is lost. But it is the good clean flame and not the unthinking brutality of the enemy that will drive us from the GPO. Mr Pearse has sent a man called The O’Rahilly to scout the area for the best route of evacuation. He has not returned. So we must make a run for it.

  As dusk settles over the savaged city, the stretcher bearers are summoned to carry out the wounded. To my great pride I am assigned to help carry Connolly. He insists on being the last to leave – except for Mr Pearse, who goes back into the flames one last time to make certain everyone is out of the GPO.

  Then we set out for Moore Lane.

  No sooner do we leave the protection of the post office doorway than British snipers open up on us. I hear the bullets spanging against the walls. Joe Plunkett, coughing, and Seán MacDermott, limping, urge us on. A bullet narrowly misses the stretcher we are carrying. In another moment the hidden sniper will have James Connolly in his sights.

  I hurl myself across on the stretcher, shielding Connolly’s body with my own. I am so close to him I can see the pores on his nose.

  I can see the pores on James Connolly’s nose.

  Then we are running again. Running frantically through a hail of bullets. Mr Pearse stumbles once, right into the line of fire, but quickly regains his feet. I hear other men gasp and groan, yet somehow we stumble on.

  At the corner of Moore Street we come to a grocery shop. A grey-haired woman has the door open. ‘This way!’ she calls. ‘Hurry!’

  Crowded among stacks of tinned goods and bags of flour, we stand trying to catch our breath.

  ‘Set me down easy, lads,’ Connolly says. We set the stretcher on the floor. Only then do I realise that I never felt his weight while we were carrying him, I never even felt the cobbles under my feet. The last few minutes have been a dream.

  Or perhaps I should say a nightmare.

  And it is not over yet.

  We soon hear soldiers in the street outside, searching for us. The grey-haired woman has bolted the door and shuttered the windows so the grocery appears to be closed. We are probably safe enough for now, but we cannot get out the way we came in.

  Miraculously, Mr Pearse seems to have got what remains of Headquarters staff out alive, though Joe Plunkett is in very bad shape. He totters on his feet and looks as if he is about to faint. Aside from my own mother I never saw anyone who is dying, but I think he is.

  We have several badly wounded men with us, including a British soldier whom George Plunkett, Joe’s brother, found lying in the street and would not leave to die.

  The kind woman who offered us sanctuary owns the grocery. She is a widow with several nearly-grown children, and they live over the shop. The family do what they can to make us comfortable. They put the most seriously wounded into their own beds, and empty the presses of blankets and quilts for the rest of us.

  Joe Plunkett valiantly refuses the offer of a bed, as does Mr Pearse. James Connolly, who is growing feverish and does not seem to know where he is, makes no objections when we tuck him into the largest bed. His wounded leg is propped on pillows. Stores from the grocery provide the best meal any of us have enjoyed in a week, then Mr Pearse orders the Fianna boys and the wounded men to try to get some sleep.

  The rest of the Volunteers set to work tunnelling into the rear of Hanlon’s Fishmongers, which is next door, hoping to escape unseen through that route.

  In the crowded apartment above the grocery the air is stifling. Yet compared to the last hours in the GPO it is as sweet as roses.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  SATURDAY, EASTER WEEK 1916

  I’m awfully sorry I got Roger into this, and awfully thankful Marcella isn’t here. With every passing hour I grow more certain that we’re all going to die. Yet Roger seems almost casual about it. The boy who complained about everything isn’t complaining about anything. In a few short hours his face has changed into that of a man.

  I wonder what my own face looks like.

  The tunnelling was successful enough, but when the Volunteers broke through into Hanlon’s they discovered British artillery just outside in Parnell Street, and there are machine gun nests everywhere.

  We are trapped.

  The widow offers to prepare breakfast for us, but no one – even Roger – feels like eating. James Connolly is conscious again but all he wants is water. He cannot get enough.

  Mr Pearse spends a lot of his time looking out an upstairs window. The curtains hide him from the street, but they do not hide the street from him. Suddenly he gives a soft cry and buries his face in his hands.

  When he looks up again, he says, in the saddest voice, ‘I just saw them shoot down three civilians. A man, a woman, and a young girl were running up Moore Street carrying a white flag.

  ‘And the British shot them.�
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  He sounds as if his heart is breaking.

  Perhaps it is.

  After several minutes he has a low-voiced conversation with the other leaders. There seems to be some sort of an argument, but Mr Pearse is adamant and at last they agree.

  Mr Pearse announces, ‘It has been decided. As Commander-in-Chief, I am going to surrender myself and submit to whatever punishment British justice demands – on the condition that the rest of you are granted amnesty and no more citizens are hurt.’

  ‘No!’ I cry out.

  He merely shakes his head. ‘Yes. They will destroy our city and everyone in it, and it must stop.’

  ‘But they’ll shoot you on sight,’ someone else says.

  Again Mr Pearse shakes his head. ‘We must trust our opponents to act honourably, as we would if the situation were reversed.’ He turns to one of the nurses who has come with us, Elisabeth Farrell. ‘Miss Farrell, will you be so kind as to take my offer to the commander of the British forces? We will provide you with a white flag and…’

  I do not hear the rest. In my head I am listening to earlier words. Hope for the best and dare the worst.

  It is over. The surrender has been accepted, but the British insist it must be unconditional, or hostilities will resume within the hour. General Maxwell promises to show no mercy. I don’t believe much the British say, but I believe that.

  An automobile has taken Padraic Pearse to British headquarters to make the final arrangements. Then he will write out orders for the Volunteers to surrender. Unflinching and resolute, he went out holding his head high with pride. Not pride in himself, but pride in all the men and women who have stood with him.

  James Connolly, fighting back his pain, is writing out a surrender order for the Citizen Army because they would not obey anyone else.

  When all is concluded we march out of Moore Street and surrender our arms, including the pistol I never got to fire. I wish now that I had.

  The Volunteers are marched away to spend the night on the grounds of the Rotunda. Tomorrow they will march on to prison to await their fate. The Fianna boys will not be sent to prison, though.

  We are too young. Or so the British say.

  But I know I shall never be young again. And for the rest of my life, part of me will still be in the General Post Office with Padraic Pearse and James Connolly and the bravest men ever born in Ireland.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  AND THEN …

  Within a few short days, the seven signatories of the Proclamation were dead. Pearse and Clarke and MacDonagh, Plunkett and MacDermott and Connolly and Ceannt. And gentle Willie Pearse, who did not even sign the Proclamation. His only crime was loving his brother and wanting to be with him.

  The British lined them up, a few each day, against a high stone wall in Kilmainham Jail. Then a rifle party shot them down.

  Mr Pearse, Mr MacDonagh, and Mr Clarke were shot at dawn on the third of May. I don’t dare let myself imagine that hurried, secret execution. The sun rose red with blood.

  One of the witnesses to the executions said that all the men died well, but Thomas MacDonagh died like a prince. He would have liked that, I think. But oh, Mr Pearse! Ardmháistir! What did we lose when they shot you?

  The following morning the cruel rifles cut down Willie Pearse and Joe Plunkett, who had been married to his sweetheart only the night before in the prison chapel.

  The executions continued in spite of the fact that news of them was leaking out. Protests began mounting both in England and abroad. But no mercy was shown. Padraic Pearse had been named the first president of the newly-declared Irish Republic. By shooting him the British had assassinated a head of state. That didn’t seem to bother them.

  When America declared her independence they would have executed George Washington if they could have got their hands on him.

  Relentlessly, the rest of the signatories and several captured military leaders, such as my friend Con Colbert, were killed. Seán MacDermott and James Connolly were the last to die.

  Mr MacDermott defied them to the end; they say he made a brilliant speech at his court martial. Mr Connolly was shot while tied to a chair because he was too severely wounded to stand.

  The Dublin newspapers condemned the leaders of the Rising as madmen. That’s understandable, the British control those newspapers. Many Dubliners were furious about the Rising because it interrupted business and so many buildings had been destroyed. The wives of Irish men who were serving in the British army called the leaders of the Rising traitors. That’s understandable too; those women were collecting their husband’s army pay every week.

  But after a few days, Dubliners began to acknowledge that it was British artillery which had destroyed their city, and not the rebels.

  Those who actually had known Mr Pearse and Mr Connolly and the others began reminding people that the leaders of the Rising had been poets and teachers and trade unionists. They were without exception decent, high-principled men. Extraordinary men who had been willing to give their lives so that Ireland could be free.

  Public opinion began to turn around.

  Mrs Pearse closed St Enda’s. Two black mourning wreaths were hung on the front gates. We boys had to ride out the storm at home. In my case, that meant Aunt Nell’s house in Kildare because I refused to go back to my father. I shall never go back to him. I declare my independence, too.

  Within weeks of the Rising, Ireland was a different place. A surprising number of people began saying they had been close personal friends of the leaders. And it was strange how many claimed to have fought in the GPO during Easter Week, 1916. If only a quarter of them had really been there, we would have defeated the enemy on the first day.

  Now freedom – saoirse, in Irish – is on everyone’s lips. The air sparkles with it. Men and women have a new spring in their step; they don’t walk with their heads down any more. We’re not willing to go back to being second class citizens in our native land. If we have to, we’ll go to war to finish what was started on Easter Monday.

  When Mr Pearse and Mr Connolly were murdered something bigger than them was born.

  No men ever undertook a more desperate gamble. The odds against them were terrible, but they believed that the effort was more important than the outcome. It’s up to us to prove their sacrifice was worth it. I mean to do my best.

  The volleys of rifle fire at Kilmainham have slain our heroes but not their dream. They have given Ireland back her soul.

  Author’s Note

  The boys and girls named in this novel are fictional, but are based on real young people who actually participated in the events described. The events themselves are part of Irish history. That includes the exploits of the smaller St Enda’s boys who recklessly ignored Pearse’s orders and sneaked into Dublin to take part in the Rising. Fortunately they all survived.

  The adults in this book, with the exception of John Joe’s family, Roger’s family and Mr Preston in the Metropole Hotel, are part of Irish history too. The names of Pearse and Connolly and Markievicz and the others became famous throughout Ireland.

  Following the Rising, British soldiers occupied the Hermitage. They searched the house from top to bottom for weapons; they even dug up the gardens, but found nothing.

  Although the heartbroken Pearse family was in mourning, in the autumn of 1916 Mrs Pearse re-opened St Enda’s as a tribute to her sons. Thomas MacDonagh’s brother Joseph served as Headmaster for a time. He was succeeded by Francis Burke, a former student. But without Padraic Pearse the school never regained its original excellence. His unique vision had been the heart and soul of St Enda’s, which finally closed its doors for good in 1935.

  After Ireland fought and won its War of Independence in 1921, both Mrs Pearse and her daughter Margaret served as senators in the Seanad. Upon their deaths St Enda’s was bequeathed to the people of Ireland.

  The writings of P. H. Pearse are still studied and admired by progressive educationalists around the world, though some of
them are unaware of his connection with Ireland’s struggle for freedom.

  If you would like to know more about Padraic Pearse and the school he founded, I suggest you read:

  Scéal Scoil Éanna, The Story of an Educational Adventure, published by the National Parks and Monument Service

  The Man Called Pearse, by Desmond Ryan, published by Maunsel and Co. Ltd.

  Pádraic Pearse, by Hedley McCay, published by Mercier Press

  ‘St Enda’s and Its Founder’, from The Complete Works of P. H. Pearse, published by Phoenix Publishing Company

  A Significant Irish Educationalist, Séamas Ó Buachalla, editor, published by Mercier Press.

  Best of all, visit Scoil Éanna itself, now the Pearse Museum in Rathfarnham, County Dublin. The Hermitage has changed very little since the Pearse brothers left it for the last time on Easter Monday, 1916.

  Spend a little time sitting behind the desk in Padraic Pearse’s office, or in the study hall with the stage on which his students produced the plays he wrote. Upstairs are the dormitories where boys like John Joe and Roger slept. If you listen carefully you may catch the echo of boyish voices.

  Wander through the well-tended grounds and the woods beyond and try to imagine what a paradise this was for Irish boys who had never known such a school before. Experience the sense of peace, and of hope, that still linger at Scoil Éanna.

  About the Author

  Growing up in Texas, Morgan had two obsessions – horses and Ireland, the land of her grandparents. Before becoming a writer she worked with horses and was shortlisted for the USA Olympic dressage team in 1975, missing the final selection by just half of a percentage point. Then she took up writing. Her second novel, Lion of Ireland, dealt with the life of Ireland’s greatest hero, Brian Boru. This book turned out to be a bestseller and was sold around the world in twenty-seven different countries.