Rebels

by Peter De Rosa

  I told a few people that I wish you to have everything that belongs to me. This is my last wish so please see to it.

  Love XXXX Joe.

  In front of his signature, he drew a circle with a tiny Celtic cross inside.

  The effort seemed to take a lot out of him. He asked Winifred Carney to look after the letter and give it to Grace.

  ‘That is, if you are not taken prisoner.’

  General Lowe entered Clarke’s shop. With him was Captain de Courcy Wheeler, the son of a Dublin surgeon, also tall and slender.

  Lowe apologized to Elizabeth for the bad manners of his subordinates and asked her to repeat the message.

  Afterwards, he ordered a cease-fire in the area. He had Colonel Portal put his reply to Pearse in writing and signed it.

  A woman has come in and tells me you wish to negotiate with me. I am prepared to receive you in Great Britain Street at the North End of Moore Street provided that you surrender unconditionally.

  You will proceed up Moore Street accompanied by the woman who brings you this note, under a white flag.

  W. N. C. Lowe, Brigadier-General.

  Lowe warned Elizabeth that if there was no reply within half an hour, hostilities would recommence. He drove her to the top of Moore Street.

  ‘Notice the time, please, it’s important. 2.25 p.m.’

  Walking back, she saw to her left, a few yards down Sackville Lane, the body of The O’Rahilly. He lay in a pool of blood, his head on a curbstone, his feet in the doorway of the first house.

  White and shaken, she ran to the house, crying, ‘The O’Rahilly, he’s dead.’ She could tell they already knew. Michael Joseph O’Rahilly, the reluctant rebel, was the only one of the top officers to die in the rising. The irony of it made surrender even more unpalatable.

  The leaders thanked her, then went into private session. Pearse read out Lowe’s message and they drafted their reply which they asked Elizabeth to take back.

  When she reached the top of Moore Lane, not daring to look again at The O’Rahilly’s corpse, General Lowe told her she was lucky not to be shot. She was one minute late.

  ‘Not by my watch, sir,’ she said coolly.

  Lowe read the reply and said, his displeasure showing, ‘This is no use. You’ll have to go back with my ultimatum.’

  He wrote Pearse a second note:

  I have received your letter. Nothing can be considered until you surrender unconditionally.

  On your surrender to me I will take steps to give everyone acting under your orders sufficient time to surrender before I recommence hostilities which I have temporarily suspended. You will carry out instructions contained in my last letter as regards approaching me.

  He told Elizabeth he would allow another half an hour, not one minute longer.

  This time, they synchronized their watches.

  The leaders held a short council. Afterwards, Pearse, sadly and without a word, shook hands with everyone in the house. All but his brother and Sean McDermott broke down and wept.

  Pearse looked down on Elizabeth. ‘Shall we go?’

  Just before 3.30 p.m., kindly Sally Hughes remembered old Davis in the attic and made him a cup of tea. As she went up, she could not resist peering through the keyhole of the drawing-room.

  She was shocked to see a man lying on the floor near the fireplace. She only had time to notice his socks when a soldier appeared.

  ‘What are you up to, missis?’

  ‘Who is it?’ she gasped.

  ‘Nothing for you to worry about. A Sinn Feiner from round about. Now down to your kitchen.’

  Struggling to stop herself from shaking, she went back and said to Nellie Walsh, as calmly as she could, ‘What colour socks is your husband wearing, my dear?’

  Nellie blinked. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Both sat down, terrified.

  When another soldier appeared, Nellie asked, politely, ‘Where is my husband, please?’

  ‘Don’t worry, girl. They’ve both been taken to the Detention Barracks.’

  It was 3.30 p.m. when the two opposed commanders finally met face to face at the top of Moore Street. To Pearse’s right was the Parnell Monument.

  He was a strange figure in his greatcoat and slouch hat with its leather strap under his chin. By his own mystical criterion, this was not defeat but victory. He handed Lowe his sword, romantically, on upturned palms. When an NCO searched him, he drew gingerly out of Pearse’s pocket a round object. It turned out to be an onion.

  Lowe said, ‘I would like this young lady to stay in military custody so she can take the surrender notice to other outposts. Then, of course, she’ll be set free.’

  Pearse said to Elizabeth, ‘Do you agree?’

  ‘Whatever you wish, sir.’

  He shook her by the hand. ‘I do wish it. Thank you.’

  She was put under the protection of a Lieutenant Royall and was taken for tea to Tom Clarke’s shop.

  Pearse stepped in a car with Lowe’s tall, handsome son, John, and Captain Wheeler to be driven for a meeting with General Maxwell.

  At Parkgate, Pearse proudly admitted everything.

  The General hardly gave him a glance. Wheeler whispered something in Maxwell’s ear.

  ‘What’s that you say? An onion?’

  The sheer banality of this so-called rebel appalled him. If this object, this thing were not giving himself a mock-post in a mock-Republic, he would probably have made a tolerable errand-boy. He had seen dozens like him in Egypt and the Sudan, selling matches in bazaars.

  Pearse, on the other hand, took Maxwell very seriously. He sensed that he would enable him to achieve his destiny.

  ‘Sit down.’

  The scorn was evident in the soldier’s voice.

  ‘Now pick up that pen and write an order telling your men to lay down their arms. Nothing fancy, mind.’

  Pearse wrote: ‘In order to prevent the further slaughter of Dublin citizens, and in the hope of saving the lives of our followers now surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered—’

  ‘I don’t want a treatise,’ Maxwell interrupted him.

  Pearse continued calmly: ‘– the members of the Provisional government present at HQ have agreed to an unconditional surrender, and the Commandants of the various districts in the City and the Country will order their commands to lay down arms. P. H. Pearse, 29 April 3.45 p.m, 1916.’

  Maxwell grabbed the sheet of paper and read it through a smokescreen of his cigarette. He sniffed at the pretentiousness of phrases like ‘Provisional government’ – fractious bloody tribesmen always used that sort of pompous bloody language – then, without a word, left the room.

  Silence had descended on the house in Moore Street.

  McDermott and Clarke felt that Connolly needed medical treatment as soon as possible. There was something ironic in their choice of hospital.

  Seamus Devoy was sent under a white flag to the Moore Street barricade. ‘James Connolly, Commandant-General of the Dublin Division,’ he said, ‘is badly wounded and we intend taking him to Dublin Castle.’

  The officer in charge was too shaken to reply.

  ‘Please open your barricade to let us through.’

  The gaping officer nodded.

  Six stretcher-bearers under Captain Dermot Lynch picked Connolly up.

  As he said goodbye to each of the other leaders, he was thinking they weren’t such a bad lot, after all. He had a special word with his secretary. ‘For everything, Winnie, thank you.’

  The bearers halted first outside Clarke’s shop where Connolly spoke briefly with General Lowe. They then back-tracked, with an escort of thirty armed guards, to Capel Street, walked south to the Liffey, crossed the Grattan Bridge and up Parliament Street.

  Straight ahead loomed Dublin Castle.

  From the Castle, Nathan rang Norway to say the rebels had surrendered unconditionally.

  Mrs Norway was delighted; yet, with the tension lifted, she grieved more than ev
er for her Freddie. In the first quiet moment in days she found a case containing his letters. In it, there were three tiny hankies embroidered with her name. One of the last things he did was to send them from Armentières.

  She wept uncontrollably.

  Nathan’s next call was to his lodge to bid Estelle goodbye. ‘I am so sorry it had to end like this.’

  ‘Don’t say that. We enjoyed the excitement, really.’

  He asked if she had slept the night before.

  ‘Not a wink. The noise of guns was frightful.’

  ‘Anyway, Estelle, the good news is, the rebels have surrendered.’

  ‘Wonderful! Just as we’re leaving.’

  ‘Nothing for it, then, except to wish you bon voyage.’

  Estelle and the three girls piled into a car. There was chaos on the streets. Never had she seen so many mules, some of them pulling gun-carriages. They had two blow-outs on the way caused by shrapnel and broken glass. But they made it in time to the mail boat, then home to England and sanity.

  At Parkgate, Pearse gave the impression of a man at peace, as though he felt the future would be merciful. Though held at gun-point, a smile never left his lips and there was a beyond-the-stars look in his eyes.

  He signed copies of the surrender as they were typed.

  Captain Wheeler had been in charge of Pearse for only fifteen minutes when Lowe phoned, asking him to bring copies to Great Britain Street at once.

  ‘I want you and Miss O’Farrell to take one to the rebel HQ in Moore Street. After that, maybe you’d go to the Castle and get Connolly’s endorsement for his crowd in the Green.’

  Connolly’s arrival in the Castle Yard caused quite a stir.

  He was set down on the spot where PC O’Brien had been shot, three Republicans standing to attention on each side of him, with an outer circle of armed soldiers.

  For ten minutes, the authorities discussed what to do with the prisoner. It was vital to put him where he could not be snatched by rebels still at large. They settled on a room in the Officers’ Quarters which Royalty had once used as a bedchamber.

  When Elizabeth and Captain Wheeler arrived at Moore Street with Pearse’s order to surrender, some of the men were furious. One slammed the butt of his rifle against the wall and threw ammunition down the stair-well to the basement.

  ‘May I remind you,’ Clarke said, gently but firmly, ‘that I spent the best years of my life battling for Irish freedom. If I’m satisfied, why aren’t you?’

  Sean McDermott backed him up. ‘We surrendered not to save ourselves but other people and the city from destruction.’

  Someone snapped, ‘We would’ve fought on.’

  ‘Of course you would,’ McDermott said. ‘I’m proud of you. You put up a great fight. It’s not your fault that we haven’t yet won a Republic. The other side had more men, better arms, that’s all.’ There was pride in his voice as he added, ‘Believe me, your work will tell some day. There will come a time when Irish people will look back on this Easter week and you, each one of you will be honoured.’

  They knelt in the back room, rosaries in their left hands, rifles in their right. Tears ran down many a cheek and the responses came out chokingly.

  *

  Captain Wheeler was conducted up the Grand Staircase to Connolly’s bedroom. It was a State Room, rectangular in shape, with two large windows and beautiful decor, complete with chandelier.

  A white-haired surgeon named Tobin was looking after the patient. Wheeler waited by the bed until his wounds were dressed. Then: ‘If you feel up to it, perhaps you would be good enough to read this.’

  Connolly read Pearse’s order of surrender and said he would to add his own coda. He dictated it: ‘I agree to these conditions for the men under my own command in the Moore Street district and for the men in the Stephen’s Green Command.’

  Shakily he added an ‘only’ to make it read ‘for the men only under my command,’ and signed his name and the date: ‘April 29/16.’

  To speed things up, General Lowe asked Elizabeth O’Farrell to take a copy of the surrender to the Four Courts area. On her way, she was stopped several times at barricades before she ran into the Capuchin, Father Columbus. Taking the white flag, he went with her. They eventually found Ned Daly in a house at the corner of Church Street, on the quays. It was close on 6 o’clock.

  Daly went to the Four Courts to tell his men, with tears in his eyes, of the Provisional government’s decision.

  ‘Fight it out,’ his men cried.

  ‘I’d like to,’ he said, ‘but a soldier must obey.’

  In the Castle, Birrell was writing to give Asquith the latest news. He told him the Four Courts was about to surrender. It contained the Great Seal and ‘all the historical records of Ireland since the day Henry the Second was foolish enough to do what the Romans never did, cross the Irish Sea.’

  Reflecting on the rising, he said, ‘The horrible thing proves how deep in Irish hearts lies this passion for insurrection.’

  Finally: ‘Let me know what you expect me to do.’

  When, soon after 6 p.m., the soldiers returned to 174 North King Street to release Mrs Ennis and Miss Fennell, they were surprised to find them praying over Ennis’s body.

  The women now took courage and went upstairs together. Noonan was in a room on the second floor. He had been shot through the head and bayoneted.

  *

  Daly marched his men to St John’s Convent in North Brunswick Street. The nuns who had stood every morning on the front lawn and prayed with shining faces for their safe return now filed out to say goodbye.

  Sister Agnes called out to Sean Cody, ‘Don’t forget the Germans are on the Naas Road.’

  Sean whipped out his revolver and handed it to Sister Louise Moore. ‘Keep that for me, Sister.’

  As it disappeared up her broad sleeves, Sister Louise said, ‘Even my guardian angel won’t know it’s there.’

  The rest handed their revolvers over to Sisters Brigid, Patrick, Monica, Agnes and even Reverend Mother. As they left, never to return, the Sisters went on their knees to say the rosary.

  Lowe was waiting in O’Connell Street when the 1st Battalion arrived.

  ‘Tell them,’ he said to Wheeler, ‘to lay down their arms.’

  Wheeler and Daly smartly saluted each other.

  ‘God,’ groaned Lowe. ‘Saluting a rebel!’

  He asked officers who had accompanied the rebels on the last stage of their march: ‘Who’s in charge of these men?’

  Daly, fearless of the implications, said, ‘I am.’

  There was a moment in Moore Street when Old Tom fingered a revolver, wondering whether to make an end of himself. Seeing him, his friend Sean slowly shook his head.

  ‘I guess you’re right,’ Clarke said. ‘I’ll let the British do me the honour.’

  They had delayed, savouring freedom for as long as possible, but now it was the HQ’s turn to surrender.

  Sean MacLoughlain, flanked by Willie Pearse and Joe Plunkett, led the way under a cloudless sky, all three waving white flags like symbols of victory. Four abreast the men marched, proudly, arms at the slope.

  Down shuttered streets where the dead still lay in doorways they came to Nelson’s Pillar. Above the shell of the GPO they saw their flag. The letters ‘Irish Republic’ were scorched and the pole it hung from was at a crazy angle but it was still flying.

  On the other side of the street were their comrades from the Four Courts. They crossed to the Gresham Hotel where the military were waiting and laid down arms. Some Tommies, disciplined until the rebels disarmed, started calling them ‘vicious Irish bastards’.

  In contrast, as they were giving their names and addresses, a British officer walked behind them, saying quietly, ‘If you have on you any incriminating papers, tear them up quick and drop ’em in the gutter behind you.’

  Among the four hundred who surrendered were Winifred Carney and Julia Grenan. All were marched to the grassy forecourt of the Rotunda Hospi
tal.

  Joe Plunkett was almost out on his feet. A Tommy shoved and cursed him, threatening to bayonet him if he didn’t get a move on. An NCO took the private by the arm. ‘Do your duty, soldier, and leave it at that.’

  One lad, Sean Harling, had been selling race cards for the Fairyhouse Races outside Broadstone Station when the rising started. This had been the grandest week of his life.

  A British officer clipped him on the ear and grunted, ‘Get the hell out of here, lad.’

  ‘Wha’s a-marrer,’ complained Sean, ‘amn’t I a prisoner?’

  He was given a friendly push, ‘Go home to your mommy.’

  At the Rotunda, Captain Lee Wilson noticed McDermott leaning on his stick.

  ‘So,’ he said, with a sneer, ‘you have cripples in your army.’

  McDermott replied, with dignity, ‘You have your place, sir, and I mine. Hadn’t you better mind your place?’

  At which the Captain, young, thin-faced, caddish-looking, came out with a string of obscenities. He ordered machine-guns to be trained on the prisoners.

  ‘If any of this bunch move, shoot ’em like the rats they are.’

  His Majesty King George V had invited Sir John French to Windsor where he was vacationing to brief him on Ireland.

  ‘Tell me, General,’ he asked, in a comfortable room off the Long Gallery, ‘how are things over there?’

  ‘Going very well, Your Majesty.’

  The King was concerned about his Irish subjects. ‘Tell me more.’

  Sir John drew out a piece of paper.

  ‘A wire just received from General Maxwell, sir. He says, “There are strong indications of a collapse of the whole rebellion.” ’

  ‘Thank God,’ the King said. ‘I was hoping it was a storm in a teacup.’

  At 10 o’clock, when an NCO came to No 172, Sally Hughes pressed him to let her go to the top of the house. In the end he said, ‘If you promise not to kick up a row I’ll take you up. But first, I’ll need hot water and a towel.’

  At which she and Nellie Walsh burst into tears.

  As he went upstairs with the basin, he called over his shoulder to a drunken sentry in the hallway, ‘If there’s any more bawling down there, blow their bloody brains out.’