Rebels

by Peter De Rosa

  Devoy, flanked by his top aides, blasted off right away. ‘Mr Ambassador, friends in Ireland assure me they’re gonna use this war to try and win their independence.’

  Bernstorff nodded, giving nothing away.

  ‘They will need,’ Devoy continued, in his rasping voice, ‘arms and trained officers, not money. We’ll provide that. I think you’ll agree there might be mutual benefit in this.’

  The Ambassador, as though his face were carved in wood, did not so much as blink.

  Devoy’s features, in contrast, were all screwed up. ‘A rising in Ireland, well-organized and equipped, would divert British forces from Europe. Might even immobilize their fleet.’

  Bernstorff was an intellectual, with a broad high forehead, topped by hair slicked into a wave, and a Kaiser-like moustache. His wing-collar and his tie, kept in place by a diamond-studded pin, gave him an old-world appearance.

  ‘Very interesting,’ he kept repeating, in a perfect English accent like Casement’s that grated on Devoy’s ear.

  Though he received the Clan courteously enough, Bernstorff had to tread warily in view of Berlin’s instructions. Besides, he was a diplomat; subterfuge and military matters were best left to his young military attaché, Captain Franz von Papen.

  After the meeting, Bernstorff wirelessed his despatch to Berlin at once. It was very cool.

  As he saw it, the squabbling Irish in the British Parliament had closed ranks and agreed to fight for the Empire. A big disappointment to Berlin, he knew.

  Secondly, as he looked at the large table in his drawing-room with its campaign map of Europe, he was convinced that Paris would fall in days and Britain would back off.

  Finally, he admired the English. They were of the same race and creed as the Germans, with the same love of beer and tobacco. Born in London himself, he had spent his first ten years there. He had even proposed to his wife in Hampton Court Palace.

  Devoy assumed the meeting was a success. It tickled him that, through the Ambassador, the Brotherhood in Dublin would have a reliable means of communicating with Germany. That was one in the eye for the damned English.

  Casement wrote an Address to the Kaiser. Millions of Irish-Americans, he said, had a feeling of ‘sympathy and admiration for the heroic people of Germany. We draw Your Majesty’s attention to the part that Ireland necessarily, if not openly, must play in this conflict. So long as Britain is allowed to exploit and misappropriate Ireland and her resources, she will dominate the seas. Ireland must be freed from British control.’

  Devoy got the Clan Executive to sign it and Bernstorff forwarded it to Berlin in the diplomatic pouch.

  To be doubly sure, Devoy sent a courier, John Kenny, to Berlin with the Clan’s programme. Kenny handed it in person to the Chancellor. From Berlin he went on to Dublin, where he briefed Clarke and told him how Uncle would send on all his letters to Berlin.

  That night, when McDermott entered Clarke’s shop, he saw this black little figure perched on a stool behind the counter, gazing into space.

  ‘Sean,’ he said, his soft voice throbbing, ‘we can now plan the rising in earnest.’

  That planning was to take months and depend on factors beyond Clarke’s control.

  In the first place, Carson decided that he did not like the Kaiser after all. Assured by Lord Kitchener, the new Minister for War, that Ulster could have a regiment of its own, he turned loyalist again.

  ‘England’s difficulty is not Ulster’s opportunity,’ he had said to a cheering crowd in Belfast’s Ulster Hall. ‘England’s difficulty is our difficulty, and England’s sorrows have always been and always will be our sorrows. We do not seek to purchase terms by selling our patriotism.’

  Then the Home Rule Bill was put on the statute book, though its implementation was to be delayed until the end of the war. It envisaged the possibility of at least part of Ulster being excluded.

  John Redmond accepted this. He was a realist; he knew in his heart that, war or no war, Ulster would fight rather than be forced into a Union with Dublin. But the Bill enabled him to return to Ireland as a conquering hero. He made his way to Parnell’s old shooting lodge of Aghavannagh, County Wicklow, on the slopes of Lugnaquilla. The nearest station was three hours from Dublin on a branch line, and he still had to travel another seven miles. His ‘home’ was a symbol of his remoteness from Irish life. Of the real Ireland, he now knew little.

  He loved Aghavannagh. It is Synge country, with herons crying over black lakes, haunted by grouse and owls, thrushes and larks in their season, with the gorse a burnished gold in spring. He enjoyed shooting, the long rambles in the blue-toned hills past the occasional cottage over which drifted the blue smoke of turf fires. He relished the peace, the twice daily swim, in cool mountain pools, the chance to catch up with home news from old friends, and sometimes just watching the peak of Lugnaquilla breasting a soft and feathery sky.

  On his way home, on Sunday 20 September, he chanced to hear of a parade of Volunteers at Woodenbridge. He paused to give them a short impromptu address. For all his famed diplomacy, he was a deeply emotional man.

  With Home Rule already assured, he said, it would be a tragedy ‘if young Ireland confined her efforts to remain at home to defend her shores from an unlikely invasion, and shrank from the duty of proving on the field of battle that gallantry and courage which has distinguished our race all through its history.’

  This speech caused twenty on the Executive Committee to resign, including John MacNeill and The O’Rahilly. Redmond was encouraging their men to serve not Ireland but England.

  In the Irish Volunteer, MacNeill pointed out that so far Redmond had only got a promise of Home Rule, with a threat of partition, at that. How, then, could he offer Irish blood?

  The Nationalist movement split. 150,000 followed Redmond, calling themselves National Volunteers. 13,500 stayed with their founder, John MacNeill, to be known as the Irish Volunteers and, in some quarters, as Sinn Feiners, meaning All-Aloners, those who wanted no part with Britain.

  Tom Clarke saw that he had to target MacNeill’s more compact and independent group. If the Brotherhood could infiltrate them, they would have a disciplined army when the time was ripe. He and McDermott began to choose their key men.

  First, Patrick Pearse, headmaster of St Enda’s Irish-speaking school. He was already on the Supreme Council of the Brotherhood.

  True, Pearse cast two shadows. He admired Napoleon and acted like Don Quixote. He wept over the death of a kitten while being convinced that Ireland would only gain her freedom through a blood sacrifice. But as he rose in the Volunteer ranks he was likely to prove very useful in a rising.

  Then there was Joe Plunkett, a round-faced, short-sighted man in his mid-twenties with a sickly pallor in his cheeks. His chief hobbies were poetry and the strategy of war.

  Next was Eamonn Kent, a tall, handsome man who loved all things Irish, the language, the music, the dance. The little he said came through clenched teeth but he had a will of iron.

  Clarke also admired Thomas MacDonagh, the ebullient university lecturer who had intervened with Harrell over the arms landed at Howth, and Eamon de Valera, a mathematics teacher who, born in New York, was Irish from the soles of his feet.

  Old Tom chose these men because, unlike MacNeill and The O’Rahilly, they would never be satisfied with Home Rule. They wanted an Irish Republic and were prepared to fight for it.

  In the States, Bernstorff was becoming more and more impressed by Devoy and Casement and their idea of forming a Brigade from Irish prisoners.

  He telegraphed their proposal to Berlin, adding that if it came to a life and death struggle with England, ‘I recommend falling in with Irish wishes.’

  This message was intercepted and passed on to the British Admiralty in London. It came out of the tube in its cylinder and dropped with a twang into the metal basket.

  Alfred Ewing, a Scot, had been appointed by Admiral Oliver as chief cryptographer. He and his staff of five, sensing this might b
e important, worked on it for hours without success. As Herr Zimmermann had said, the code was beyond them.

  They put the telegraph on file.

  On 1 October, Asquith gave Birrell a new Under-Secretary.

  Sir Matthew Nathan, aged fifty-two, was extremely able yet relaxed. He was squarely built, with a fine head and strong jaw. His dark, handsome face, bristly moustache, and masterful voice made him popular with the ladies.

  In London, Birrell briefed him in advance.

  ‘The first thing you have to know, my dear fellow, is this: though the large and imperious Lady Aberdeen, wife of the Viceroy, believes she rules Ireland, and is the real Lord Lieutenant, it is in reality neither herself nor her bearded diminutive husband. It is I, the Chief Secretary, and now you, my deputy, who rule them.’

  Nathan looked up from his note-taking, not sure whether to laugh or not.

  ‘The Viceroy,’ Birrell continued, ‘is nothing but bright buttons and silk stockings, for ceremonial occasions, vous comprenez? The less told him the better for British administration in Ireland. Her ladyship will complain bitterly. Having learned a few words in the vernacular, which is more than most locals have, she thinks she is an expert in all matters Irish.’

  Nathan’s blue-grey eyes twinkled. He was beginning to warm to his new chief.

  ‘The Viceroy himself plainly means well, which makes things so much worse.’

  Birrell told him in confidence that he was asking the PM to get rid of the Aberdeens as soon as possible.

  Birrell not only liked Nathan, he trusted his judgement. The admiration was mutual. Both were Liberals which, Birrell warned him, would not endear him to most Irish civil servants who were Tories and Unionists. ‘They won’t bless you for speeding the advent of Home Rule, my dear chap. But that’s what we’re here for. I don’t know if the Irish can govern themselves but one thing’s certain: no one else can.’

  These two were the best team Ireland had had in years. Birrell had already seen over fifty Irish Bills through Parliament dealing with matters like land-purchase and the National University. While he was obliged, as a member of the War Cabinet, to spend most of his time in London, there was a private wire from the Irish Office to Dublin Castle.

  Nathan was so able and so nice, he had a relatively easy introduction to the most bewildering country in the Empire.

  He worked from 9.30 a.m. to 7 p.m. He saw his top civil servants, army and police chiefs every day. Detectives gave him a run-down on all subversives, like Clarke, Pearse and MacBride; and on places like the HQ of the Irish Volunteers and Liberty Hall, a building by the Liffey which was the home of the Transport Union.

  In October, the Union leader, Jim Larkin, the greatest outdoor speaker of his time, sailed for the States to raise funds. He left James Connolly in charge of the Union.

  Scottish-born, short and stout, Connolly looked like a farmer. He never drank or smoked. A slight speech impediment caused him to say, ‘I’m a so’alist and proud of it.’

  When Connolly called his first Union meeting, he could see the members thinking, This poor bastard is no substitute for Big Jim.

  Larkin was a giant, Connolly was small. Larkin was lean and mean, Connolly was round and chubby. Larkin had a voice like a storm, and, well, who could match that?

  One of his audience was Michael Mallin, a former drummer in the British army. Another was Robert Monteith, a former British NCO. During the strike of 1913, he had seen a patrol of mostly drunk policemen baton a man to death on the quays. Later, his fourteen-year-old step-daughter Florrie was carried in unconscious, her golden hair matted with blood. She had been clubbed by a policeman. Monteith had seen to it personally that the culprit was repaid in kind.

  Another fervent admirer of Larkin’s there that evening was Constance Countess Markievicz. Big Jim’s fiery eloquence had converted this former socialite to socialism.

  They were all sharing the general apprehension when, without warning, Connolly burst into life.

  ‘I’m of the workers, comrades. We work hard. But don’t the capitalist bosses have their anxieties, too? Course they do. They’re never quite sure, poor things, where to take their holidays.’

  The Countess cackled loudly and one or two of the men sniggered.

  ‘I mean,’ Connolly went on, ‘did you have the problem of knowing where to go this summer? To the sunny Riviera, perhaps. Or the vine-clad slopes of France. Or the lakes and fjords of Norway. Or maybe sailing up the Rhine to toast bewitching German fräuleins in frothy German beer.’

  Now everyone was grinning. This wasn’t at all bad.

  ‘Or did you take the easy way out, comrades, by staying in bed to save a meal and telling the wife not to worry about what to buy with the pennies you gave her?

  ‘And while you squandered your substance thus on riotous living, on drunken debauches, on saturnalia of domestic vice, did you ever stop to think of your master, poor, dear, overworked, tired master? No, you insensitive lot. Yet if it was tough on you knowing how to spend your pennies and what to do with your one-day vacation, how about that poor rich fat sod whose life is one long holiday?’

  Hard-bitten Dubliners actually stamped their feet and clapped their agreement.

  Connolly’s voice went on a mountain climb. ‘We, comrades in poverty and sorrow, we who toil from dawn to dusk from January to December, from when we’re ten till old age at forty, what do we know of troubles, except the landlord, the fear of losing our jobs, the perils of sickness or accident, the lack of necessities, the dampness of our homes, the insolence of our superiors, the awful future in the poorhouse?

  ‘With these trifling exceptions, comrades, we have nothing to bother us. Whereas our poor tormented bosses are working hard in their mansions with their feet up. Working with their brains. Poor bosses! Mighty brains! Using those big bosses’ brains to enslave people like us. But, you know, as a so’alist, I don’t much care for a system where the boss has more power than God Almighty.

  ‘One word of warning. People talk about a Republic. But the new lot won’t be any different from the old. We’ll still be a bit of the capitalist Empire. The party evicting us from our slums will wear green uniforms and the Harp instead of the Crown; the warrant turning us out on the roadside will be stamped with ‘Irish Republic’. Capitalists, brothers, are stinking capitalists the world over. Which is why I intend to spread this’ – he began to unfold a huge banner in front of them – ‘over the face of the Hall.’

  When the Countess took the other end of the banner, they all read: ‘We serve neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland.’

  13 October was a red-letter day for the British. Four German destroyers were sunk and a fast Russian cruiser, specially commissioned by the Admiralty in St Petersburg, arrived in England.

  Admiral Henry Oliver and Sir Alfred Ewing were summoned to the Russian Embassy where they were handed a compact, heavy, sea-stained package. Back at the Admiralty, they opened it to find they had been given the German naval codes, lined in lead, from the Magdeburg.

  It contained the work-columns on which the codes were based, plus the key to the cipher system by which the codes had maximum variability. It could be changed from hour to hour. It was brilliant. But was it still in operation?

  Ewing tried it on that day’s intercepts. Splendid. His team could decode them with little difficulty.

  He grew very excited. The Germans, with their transatlantic cables cut, were forced to use telegraphic messages.

  He suddenly remembered he had on file Bernstorff’s telegraph to Berlin of 27 September. His team could hardly believe what it revealed.

  Sir Roger Casement, former British consul, was hoping to raise an Irish Brigade in Germany and travel with it to Ireland for a rebellion.

  Casement was then in New York, shaving off his beard for his mission. Afterwards, fingering his smooth chin in embarrassment, he had a final word with Devoy, Cohalan and McGarrity.

  Devoy could not catch all that was being said. He asked repeatedly in a
loud voice what the hell was going on and people yelled top secrets back at him.

  One thing he failed to hear: Casement was taking a servant named Christensen with him because he spoke German.

  They checked his passport and ticket to Christiania (Oslo). A Clan member, James Landy, came in. He gave Casement his identity papers and a ‘Sons of Veterans’ badge. He also handed him his spare glasses and some letters addressed to himself, including one from the Assistant Secretary of State.

  Cohalan and McGarrity gave Casement a last run-through.

  ‘Name?’ said Cohalan.

  ‘James Landy, without an e.’

  ‘Subject of which country?’ asked McGarrity.

  ‘American citizen.’ Casement’s cultured English accent made his two interrogators wince.

  ‘Mother’s name?’ said McGarrity.

  ‘O’Mara.’

  ‘Wrong,’ snapped the Judge. ‘That’s your wife’s maiden name. Your mother’s name was …?’

  ‘It’s on the tip of my tongue. It’s … Sorry.’

  ‘Joyce.’

  ‘Of course.’

  It was plain that Casement was going to make a hell of a rotten spy, with that accent and his bad memory for details. Devoy hoped that if he survived the next twenty-four hours things might just work out.

  As a red herring, a room had been booked for Casement in a Chicago hotel while in New York he went through his papers again and practised an American accent, without much success.

  He looked in the mirror. It was obvious he had shaved off his beard because of the whiteness of his chin. He sent out for buttermilk and washed the rest of his face in it to try and tone down his complexion.

  After a restless night, he went on board a small Danish steamer, Oskar II, with Landy. In the cabin they switched roles. Adler Christensen was already installed next door.

  A British agent on the quay picked up the phone and got through to British Intelligence with the news that Sir Roger Casement was on board Oskar II. The message was flashed to the Atlantic Fleet with the order, ‘Take all necessary measures to apprehend him.’