Wimborne was incensed.
‘Not me! If I resigned it would imply I had made mistakes.’ He fluttered his furry eyelashes. ‘Never! If Nathan and Birrell had accepted my advice there would not have been one rebel at large to start a rising.’
Mrs O’Hanrahan was told that Henry, her second son, was not to be executed like Michael. His sentence had been commuted to life imprisonment.
There was joy in Kimmage, too, when the execution of Joe Plunkett’s brothers, George and John, was commuted to ten years.
On the streets and in the bars, people grew more hopeful.
On that peaceful Sunday afternoon, a letter was put through the letter box of Bill O’Brien’s house.
‘For you, Lillie.’
The message, on Castle writing paper, said, ‘If Mrs Connolly will call at Dublin Castle Hospital on Monday or Tuesday at 11 o’clock she can see her husband.’
She had been awaiting a call for days. Every hour, every minute had brought fresh anxiety. Now that word had come, terror gripped her.
‘They’re going to shoot him, too.’
‘No, no, Mommie,’ Ina said. ‘They wouldn’t dare shoot a wounded man.’
‘Maybe he’s better,’ Lillie said. ‘Maybe he’s well enough to shoot now.’
‘Mommie,’ Ina insisted, ‘can’t you tell things are changing. No one was shot this morning.’
‘It’s Sunday, a holy day.’
‘Nor yesterday,’ Ina insisted.
‘Look at the note,’ insisted Nora. ‘It says you can come Monday or Tuesday. If anything had been settled, they would have given you a definite date.’
Lillie read the note three more times, trying to get at the words behind the words. ‘That must be true.’
A moment later, she wailed, ‘But I still don’t believe it.’
In Kilmainham, Colbert, Mallin, Heuston and Kent were told individually of the sentence of the Court.
‘You are to die at dawn tomorrow.’
Mallin, still upset at having seen his dog but not his wife and children, asked ‘Our families. Will they be allowed to visit us?’
The officer said, ‘The Commandant is drawing up papers this very minute to arrange transport for close relatives.’
Heuston was in Cell 19. He dropped a line to his brother, Michael, studying to be a Dominican priest, hoping he would be free to come.
To his teacher-sister, a Dominican nun, he wrote:
My dearest Mary,
Before this note reaches you I shall have fallen as a soldier in the cause of Irish freedom. I write to bid you a last farewell in this world.
If you really love me teach the children in your class the history of their own land, and teach them that the cause of Caitlin Ni Uallachain never dies. Ireland shall be free from the centre to the sea as soon as the people of Ireland believe in the necessity for Ireland’s Freedom and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices to obtain it.
In Cell 20, Kent wrote out a statement for the public. His stern exterior was his way of hiding from outsiders his passion for Ireland and his deep feelings for his wife and son.
His view was, the Republicans were wrong to surrender. They should have fought to a finish.
The enemy has not cherished one generous thought for those who, with little hope, with poor equipment, and weak in numbers, withstood his forces for one glorious week.
Ireland has shown she is a Nation. This generation can claim to have raised sons as brave as any that went before. And in the years to come Ireland will honour those who risked all for her honour at Easter in 1916.
I bear no ill will towards those against whom I have fought. I have found the common soldiers and the higher officers human and companionable, even the English who were actually fighting against us.
I wish to record the magnificent gallantry and fearless, calm determination of the men who fought with me. All, all, were simply splendid. Even I knew no fear nor panic and shrunk from no risk even as I shrink not now from the death that faces me at daybreak.
I hope to see God’s face even for a moment in the morning. His will be done. All here are very kind. My poor wife saw me yesterday and bore up – so my warder told me – even after she left my presence.
Poor Aine, poor Ronan. God is their only shield now that I am removed. And God is a better shield than I.
In Cell 17, Con Colbert, an assistant clerk in a bakery, wrote ten brief notes to his brothers, sisters and a few friends.
To one sister, Nora, he said, ‘Don’t blame me – perhaps God’s way of saving my soul.’
He did not want even his most beloved sister Lila to come. He chose to die uncomforted rather than cause pain to those dear to him.
In Cell 18, Michael Mallin wrote to his parents:
Forgive your poor son who is set to meet his death. Dear father, forgive me all, and you, dear mother, the pain I give you now.
I tried, with others, to make Ireland a free nation and failed. Others failed before us and paid the price and so must we. Goodbye until I meet you in heaven.
Goodbye again. A kiss for you, dear mother. God bless you all.
Your loving son, Michael.
Mallin’s four children ranged from Seamus, who was twelve, to Joseph, aged two and a half. He missed them terribly. There was another on the way.
To his wife he wrote:
My darling Wife, Pulse of my heart,
This is the end of all earthly things; sentence of Death has been passed, and a quarter to four tomorrow the sentence will be carried out by shooting and so must Irishmen pay for trying to make Ireland a free nation. God’s will be done.
I am prepared but, oh my darling, if only you and the little ones were coming too, if we could all reach Heaven together. My heart-strings are torn to pieces when I think of you and them, of our manly Seamus, happy-go-lucky Sean, shy warm Una, Daddy’s girl, and oh, little Joseph, my little man, my little man.
Wife, dear Wife, I cannot keep the tears back when I think of him. He will rest in my arms no more. To think that I have to leave you to battle through the world with them without my help.
We have been married thirteen years or so and in all that time you have been a true loving wife, too good for me.
You love me, my own darling. Think only of the happy times we spent together, forgive and forget all else.
I do not believe our Blood has been shed in vain. I believe Ireland will come out greater and grander but she must not forget she is Catholic, she must keep her Faith.
I find no fault with the soldiers or police. I forgive them from the bottom of my heart. Pray for all the souls who fell in this fight, Irish and English.
God and his Blessed Mother take you and my dear ones under their care. A husband’s blessing on your dear head, my loving wife.
A father’s blessing on the heads of my dear children Seamus, Sean, Una, Joseph, my little man, my little man, my little man. His name unnerves me again. All your dear faces arise before me.
God bless you, God bless you, my darlings. Your loving Husband, Michael Mallin, Commandant, Stephen’s Green Command.
I enclose the buttons off my sleeve. Keep them in memory of me. Mike XXXXXX
Around midnight, military cars were despatched to bring in the relatives.
Mallin’s wife, five months pregnant, was not at home. She was staying with the two youngest at Harold’s Cross with Tom, her husband’s brother. The eldest boy, Seamus, and young Sean were being looked after by their grandmother and Aunt Kate.
When the car came, a policeman, a family friend, handed the official note to the grandmother, saying, with tears in his eyes, ‘Mick’s race is run.’
She woke Seamus and Sean with, ‘Get dressed, boys.’
She was not crying but her attitude conveyed that something awful was about to happen.
Heuston was visited by his mother, his sister, aunt and a first cousin, Lil. His brother Michael came in a special car from Tallaght with his Novice Master, Michael Browne. Father Bro
wne, a tall Dominican, was in his black and white habit. He stayed in the waiting-room, while the relatives went ahead.
They found Sean in a bare unlit cell. The young Tommy who held the candle had no stomach for the task, for he was doing his best not to cry.
Seeing how weepy his relatives were, Sean begged them not to break down.
Their conversation was punctuated by NCOs putting their heads in the door to check all was well. And once, a loud voice was heard outside, saying, ‘Remember, these must be got away by three.’
Con Colbert had no family visiting but a woman prisoner came to see him, the wife of Seamus O’Murchadha, a captain of the Fourth Battalion. She had cooked for them in the Marrowbone Lane Garrison.
She began breezily with, ‘How are you, Con?’
‘I’m one of the lucky ones.’
‘You mean—?’ She gulped back the rush of tears.
He gripped her hand. ‘Sorry, I thought you knew.’
She shook her head.
‘Better be a corpse than a coward,’ he said.
‘And Eamonn Kent?’
‘He has drawn lucky, too.’
He asked her to keep his prayer book for his sister, Lila, and a few buttons for others dear to him.
‘They left me nothing else.’ She took them reverently. ‘I never felt happier,’ he assured her. ‘I never thought I would have the honour of dying for Ireland.’
With the soldier guarding him in tears, the young woman knelt for Con’s blessing.
He protested. ‘I’m not a priest.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘you’re a martyr for Ireland.’
Smiling, just to please her, he made the sign of the cross over her bowed head.
The Mallin family arrived, including Michael’s two brothers, Tom and Bart, and his sister Kate.
Mallin had primed Seamus to look after his wife and other children in case he were taken from them. But he was only twelve and still not fully awake. The prison with its solemn atmosphere frightened them all. They passed a cell lit by candlelight from which came the sound of the rosary being said.
In the next cell was their father.
Mallin greeted them with a small blanket around his shoulders and a rosary draped round his wrist. He had a smile on his face, but there was no joy in it.
He said, ‘I am to die at dawn.’
His broken-hearted wife could not believe it. He had told her they would escape and continue the fight in the country.
As to the children, they could not grasp they would never see their daddy again.
Father Browne had been kicking his heels in the waiting-room long enough. He insisted on being allowed to see Heuston.
Sean, looking very serene, thanked him for coming.
The Dominican stayed only briefly because he heard crying next door and wanted to help.
Mallin’s guard asked him for his permit. Father Browne put his finger to his ear to suggest that he listen to the weeping inside the cell.
The soldier stepped aside. ‘Just walk in, sir.’
The priest in his Dominican robes momentarily silenced the family’s lament.
Mallin said he was having the best wish in his life fulfilled: holding baby Joseph in his arms for the last time. To his wife, he said, ‘Darling, if you go to Liberty Hall, in the room overlooking the river, you’ll find a piece of poplin which—’
‘The Hall’s not there any more,’ she said.
Comforted by his family, even this did not upset him too much.
He turned to Fr Browne. ‘See this one, Father,’ – he indicated Joseph – ‘I want him to become a priest.’
‘That’s grand,’ the priest said, politely.
Mallin pointed to his wife. ‘Another one on the way, Father. If it’s a girl, I want her baptized Mary, in honour of the Blessed Virgin.’
Little Sean tugged on his father’s tunic. ‘I don’t like it in here, Daddy. Why don’t you come home with us?’
When the relatives left, the jail settled down to an unnerving silence. A new day was beginning. It was 8 May.
A military car brought two Capuchins. Father Albert went to Mallin and Father Augustine to Kent.
After Kent had received the sacraments, he said, ‘You have to make other visits?’
Father Augustine nodded.
‘Would you come back’ – he gestured at the paper on the table – ‘when I have finished?’
As the priest rose to go, Kent took out his watch, the one thing he wanted Ronan to have. It showed 2.30 a.m. The seconds, the last of his life, ticked audibly away.
‘I have an hour or so left, haven’t I?’
‘Yes, Eamonn.’
Kent wrote:
My dearest wife Aine,
Not wife but widow before these lines reach you. I am here without hope of this world and without fear, calmly awaiting the end.
In the last phase of his journey, he lost the need of a veneer of cynicism to stop his weakness overwhelming him. Now, as the final seconds beat in his brain, for the first time in a long while he seemed to become what his friend Stephen MacKenna once called him, a kind of remote, tranquil harvest moon. He recalled the sweet days of his courtship when he had a pet name for Aine.
Dearest ‘silly little Fanny’. My poor little sweetheart of – how many – years ago. Ever my comforter, God comfort you now.
What can I say? I die a noble death, for Ireland’s freedom. Men and women will vie with one another to shake your dear hand. Be proud of me as I am and ever was of you. My cold exterior was but a mask. It has saved me in these last days.
You have a duty to me and to Ronan, that is, to live. You will be – you are, the wife of one of the Leaders of the Revolution. Sweeter still you are my little child, my dearest pet, my sweetheart of the hawthorn bushes and Summer’s eves.
I remember all and I banish all that I may be strong and die bravely. I have one hour to live, then God’s judgement.
Adieu, Eamonn.
When Father Augustine came back from seeing Mallin two cells away, he and Kent called on every Irish saint they could remember, Patrick and Brigid, Columba and Colmcille, Kevin and Enda, and a host of others.
‘You will be meeting them soon,’ Father Augustine said, ‘so I do not want to embarrass you by letting you forget the name of any one of them.’
He gave Kent his crucifix.
‘Keep this, Eamonn, and I will be with you to the last.’
It was 3.20 a.m.
Father Albert, sweat beading his high forehead, had also circulated among the condemned and was now with Heuston, listed first of the four to be shot. Sean was in his greatcoat, for it was a cold morning. The stub of a candle was burned out. He was kneeling beside a table, his rosary in his hands.
For the last fifteen minutes, he and Father Albert knelt to pray in a darkness that seemed to bind them and the world into one.
Heuston seemed not to mind that every basic kindness had been withdrawn from him and that, at twenty-five, he was about to die. He spoke in anticipation of meeting Patrick Pearse and the other leaders who had gone before. It struck the friar forcibly that these men were aware that their deaths were not solitary events but part of a blessed brotherhood.
They repeated over and over the prayer Heuston liked best: ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I give you my heart and my soul. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, assist me in my last agony. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, may I breathe forth my soul in peace with you. Amen.’
There was a knock on the door. ‘Heuston. It’s time.’
As they went down to the open space whence the corridor ran into the Yard, Sean said, ‘Remember me, Father, to all my friends in the Fianna, to Michael Staines and to all the boys in Blackhall Street.’
His hands were pinioned behind his back. He was blindfolded. A piece of paper, four inches by five, was pinned to his greatcoat above his heart. Things were moving to the end with surprising suddenness.
Out of the corner of his eye, Father Albert saw Mallin approaching, assisted
by Father Augustine. He put a small cross to Heuston’s lips and the young man kissed the Crucified, whispering, ‘You won’t forget to anoint me, Father.’
The priest squeezed his arm. ‘Of course not, Sean.’
The guard held Sean’s left arm, Father Albert his right.
Outside in a bluish granular dawn was the firing squad for Mallin. Some were smoking nervously, feeling a big giddy, their knuckles gleaming like knobs of ivory. Others, not wanting to be noticed, drifted off to the toilet.
In the Stonebreakers’ Yard, was a second detachment, some standing, others kneeling.
Sean and Father Albert were led to the end where there was a soap box. Sean was seated on it. With perfect calmness, he said with the priest, ‘My Jesus, mercy.’
The priest moved away, feeling the grandeur, unlike any other, of a man dying freely, deliberately in the spring of his years.
The volley broke into his reverie. As he stumbled on feet of iron to keep his promise to Sean, he felt not sad but exalted. He would have given anything to change places with this brave young man.
As Sean’s body was dragged away, the first firing squad was replaced by the second. Father Albert waited to attend to Michael Mallin, who was murmuring the Hail Mary.
Father Augustine was at the preparation point. His left arm was entwined in Con Colbert’s right as he whispered last words in the lad’s ear.
A young soldier started to pin a piece of white paper rather low on Colbert’s breast. Over his head, Con said, ‘Wouldn’t it be better to pin it up higher, nearer the heart?’
The soldier muttered, ‘This’ll do.’ Then: ‘Now give me your hand, mate.’
Colbert shrugged, and extended his left hand.
The soldier said, ‘No, the other one.’
Colbert extended his right and the soldier grasped it and shook it warmly.
As the volley rang out that ended Mallin’s life, the soldier blindfolded Con’s eyes and pinned his hands behind his back. ‘Good luck, mate,’ he said.
Moments later, an NCO called out, ‘Colbert.’
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