by M J Lee
'I was wondering if the book and the badge were somehow connected?'
'I see where you're going with this. That maybe the cap badge and either MD or DF are connected.'
She nodded her head.
'Well, there's an easy way to find out.' He tapped a few keys on the computer in front of him, then turned the screen round to face her. 'Here's the list of confirmed participants in the Rising. It's on our website.' He scrolled down. 'As you can see, there are four participants with the initials MD.'
He pulled out a piece of paper and started writing. 'Michael Daley.' He scrolled through the list. 'Martin Dillon, there's another.' He wrote once more. The pen didn't produce any ink. He threw it in the bin beneath his desk. 'Ach, you'd think a country that could produce a Yeats and Joyce and Beckett could produce a decent pen.' He pulled another from the mug on his desk and wrote down a name. Finally, he wrote one other.
'There you go.' He pushed the paper with its four names towards her.
She read them;
Michael Daley.
Martin Dillon.
Michael Dowling.
Maurice Duggan.
One of these men could be John Hughes' father but which one?
'Now, you said your man was four years old in 1929. Well, it won't be him then.' He stabbed Martin Dillon's name with his index finger. She noticed it was stained a deep mahogany brown at the end. A heavy smoker, not so common these days. 'He was killed in 1923, during the Civil War. Put in front of a firing squad.'
'Really?'
The archivist shrugged his shoulders again. 'They were difficult days, don't you know? Irishman fighting Irishman. Not a time we are particularly proud of. And it won't be him either.' He pointed a finger at the last name. 'Stayed in Ireland all his life, became a minister under De Valera and had ten children. His son was a minister too. Runs in the family, you know.'
'Politics.'
He nodded. 'Ireland's always been run by clans. True in the 1500s and true today.'
'So it could be either Michael Daley or Michael Dowling?'
'If he is the man you are seeking…?'
'Do you know anything about either of them?'
'Neither name rings a bell. But we do have over fifteen hundred witness statements from the time. In the fifties, the government decided, for some reason, to interview all the old fighters that had taken part in the War of Independence, as we called it. The testimonies were recorded. We put them online last year.'
'So Michael Dowling or Michael Daley could be mentioned in the statements?'
He nodded once again. 'But there are over 55000 pages to go through. There's a search engine but it's not up to much.'
'I don't have the time. I need to report back quickly to my client. He's dying...'
'I'm sorry to hear that.' The archivist looked at the pictures once more. 'We could try looking for DF?' He went back to his computer and scrolled down it. 'There's only one. Declan Fitzgerald. I remember him. One of the old IRA. Never gave up the struggle, even into his eighties. Dead now of course. But I remember we have his testimony. Would you like to see it?'
'It's a long shot but, right now, I'll try anything.'
He pointed to a microfilm reader in the corner. 'I'll get the correct film. You know how to load it up?'
'I learned it at my mother's breast, Captain Ellis.'
'Don't we all? Then, you won't be needing any help from me so. Do let me know how you get on, won't you?'
'Thanks for your help, Captain Ellis.'
'Call me Tom, unless you join the Army, then a simple sir will do.'
'Thank you, sir.'
He smiled and walked away. She checked the contents of the microfilm on the box. Declan Fitzgerald was the sixth testimony on the list. She put the reels on the reader, threading the film through the spools, before switching it on. The light shone out brightly. The image was slightly out of focus. She adjusted the dial and a page swam into view. A typed page against a slightly yellowed background, almost sepia. She whizzed through the film, stopping occasionally to check a name against the list on the box. Finally, she saw a printed front page, with typewritten insertions.
Roinn Cosanta.
BUREAU OF MILITARY HISTORY, 1913-21
STATEMENT BY WITNESS
Document No. W S 1693
Witness
Mr Declan Fitzgerald,
3, Lugar Road
Ballsbridge
Dublin.
Identity
Member of Irish Volunteers,
'E' Company, 4th Battalion
Dublin Brigade, 1916.
Subject
G.P.O. Easter Week, 1916.
Conditions, if any, stipulated by Witness
Nil
File No. S.580
She began reading the story of the man who had written the inscription, she was sure of it.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Dublin. April 24-28, 1916.
My recollections of that week nearly forty years ago, are they worth reading? I have my doubts. After all, a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. My memories are clouded with what happened afterwards and hindsight is a wonderful thing, is it not? Especially for those who are still alive to tell their tales.
But you'll not get any tales from me, not after all these years, just the truth as I remember it, warts and knobbly bits and all.
I'd joined the Volunteers with my best friend, Michael Dowling. Well, we marched up and down here and there to keep the likes of Padraig Pearse and his brother, Willie happy. I would have missed the Rising completely had not Michael come into my room at St Enda's and dragged me out of my bed. I'd a few wagers on some of the fillies at Fairyhouse that day and after the parades were called off on Easter Sunday, I thought I'd be able to see the horses in action.
Michael, of course, had a different idea. He was always the more obedient of the two of us, there was none of the rebel in Michael even though he spent the next week on the roof of the GPO with the rest of us.
We went off to war in a tram, carrying our kit and our rifles. We must have looked a sight sitting there on the wooden seats, having paid our fares, with our rifles between our legs. I didn't know then that we were the rebels and we were going to take on the might of the British Army over the next six days. I just thought it was another one of Pearse's little marches through the streets of Dublin. It would create no more bother than blocking the beer from getting to the ale houses.
It was only after we got to Liberty Hall that I found out the truth. We did march that day but it was to take control of the GPO not to listen to speeches in a park.
The first couple of days were quiet with one exception; I met my wife. She was one of the members of the Cumann na mBan and I'm always happy to tell everyone we met over a bowl of stew. We were married in 1917 after I returned from Frongoch and we're still married to this day 38 years later. She's been my partner in the struggle for a United Ireland through all that time. In ups and downs, through thick and thin. And I don't mind saying the best thing that came out of the whole week was meeting her. Forget the rest of the stuff.
I'm sure the others will go on about how glorious the struggle was. If you don't mind me saying, I think that's a load of codswallop. Pearse and his blood sacrifice, all it got was us locked up for a year and him and fifteen others put up against a wall and shot. Now it was the big fella, Michael Collins, who understood that better than most. Later on, we didn't lock ourselves in old buildings waiting for the Brits to shell us out of our hideyholes. We went after them on the streets and shot them, giving no quarter. Shame Collins sold Ireland down the Liffey afterwards though. But you folks will not be wanting to hear about that, will you? Especially from an old Fenian like me.
Anyway, after the first days in the GPO, we were all alright. Sitting on the roof, watching the people go about their business as they had always done.
It was on the Wednesday morning that I noticed that Michael had gone missing. I thought he might have be
en shot and wounded. I remember going up to Pearse, Willie it was, and asking him if he had seen Michael.
He looked down at me, squinting through his pince-nez. 'He's gone on a mission for General Connolly.' I don't like speaking ill of the dead, and he died bravely in front of that British firing squad, but he could be a pompous arse.
I waited all day on the roof for Michael to come back. The shelling had already started when he finally returned. But it wasn't the same man who had left that morning.
He kept talking about a dead child and a hand holding a pink ribbon. Wherever he had been to, something had happened to turn his mind.
Myself and Bridget did our best to calm him down but Michael was never the strongest of souls at the best of times. We put him in a corner of the sorting office and covered him with a blanket, watching over him as he tossed and turned all through the night.
I suppose it was at this time that myself and Bridget fell in love. It seems a strange thing to do in the middle of a revolution but there's no telling when the little fella is going to shoot his bloody arrow. The more we talked, the more we realised we shared the same ideas and goals in life. If anything, she was even more committed to the cause of a United Ireland than I was. One day, we'll see it happen. It's 1955 now and I hope to God it's going to happen in her and my lifetime.
Anyway, I was telling you about the final days in the GPO. Michael woke up on the Thursday morning and seemed to have recovered, back to his normal self he was.
The shelling had continued through the night in the City. Across the street, the Imperial Hotel above Clery's was already ablaze. Nothing had reached the GPO yet but the lower end of Sackville Street, close to the river, was a wreckage of collapsed buildings and smouldering ruins.
Up on the roof, the sniping from the Rotunda had increased and we were forced to lie flat behind the parapet to avoid the bullets as they thudded into the stone of the Post Office.
I had just gone down to the next floor to get some water when there was a loud explosion above my head. Dazed men came tumbling down from the roof, their faces scarred by shrapnel. One man, a tall blond lad with a mop of unruly hair, one of the Maynooth men, I think, had blood pouring from his head. He was helped down the stairs to the dispensary. I heard later that he lost his eye.
The firing increased in volume and was joined by the occasional woodpecker tappings of machine guns. The sounds came from all sides now. It was as if a steel rope was being tightened around our throats, strangling the life out of us.
Michael said we should move the bombs down from the roof in case they exploded. We rounded up a few of the men and some of the prisoners and began to move the grenades down to the basement. One RIC man, obviously not happy at handling live bombs, was visibly shaking as he walked down the stairs, his knees buckling with every step.
We had nearly finished this job when there was another loud explosion this time on the fabric of the roof itself. Fire and smoke began to filter into the telegraph room beneath the roof, extending its reach down the stairwell.
A group of men rushed up to get the hoses onto the fire, but, by then, the water pressure had given out and the job was hopeless.
We were ordered down to the lobby, abandoning our post on the roof. I had loved being there, watching Dublin in the throes of revolution from my perch at the centre of it all.
Down in the main hall, we were kept awful busy. Myself and Michael helped out whenever and where we were needed; filling mail sacks with coal to form a barricade across the entrance, moving munitions out of the basement into Henry Street, blocking the windows with more mail sacks. All to prepare for the attack General Connolly knew was coming.
Through it all, the shellfire and the sniping had become heavier making movement in and out of the GPO increasingly difficult. General Connolly himself had been wounded in the legs by shrapnel as he had taken another one of his tours of inspection in the streets around the building. Michael had carried him down to the aid station, where he was treated by one of the prisoners who was a British Army doctor, caught when the GPO was taken over. Despite the pain, his spirit, his fortitude was undimmed, making time to joke with the women from the Cumann na mBan who took care of him.
'It's a grand thing to be wounded to get all this attention,' he joked.
He was still at the centre of things, though, directing people from his stretcher. Myself and Michael often had the job of carrying him around, so he could 'just take a look at the corner over there.'
When we were free, we joined in the long line of men throwing buckets of water over the spreading flames. But it was like pissing in an ocean of fire. The flames kept getting stronger, devouring the top floor.
The main lobby stank of smoke and sweat. The floor was awash with coal dust leaking from the barricades. Here and there, crates of ammunition were sitting unattended, waiting for an attack that never came.
By Friday evening, the decision was taken to evacuate. I was standing next to Michael when Eamon Bulfin passed on the news.
'We're to move into Henry Place. From there we're going to make our way to join the men in the Four Courts. Gather your things. Be ready to move in ten minutes.'
'Bout bloody time,' I said, 'this place is done for. Time to fight our way out.' I grabbed a long Lee-Enfield and made sure my pockets and bandolier were full of bullets.
'We never did throw those grenades,' said Michael.
'Thank fuck for that. You know they were made at Liberty Hall. I wouldn't trust those feckers to make my arse.' I apologise for the language but you have to realise we were under attack and I'm not going to sugar-coat the truth like a lot of the other witnesses have. I've told how it was all my life and I'm not going to change now.
Michael took his Howth Mauser from the counter. He still hadn't fired it yet despite everything. He was never to fire it, the Brits took it off him before he had the chance.
'Form a line, we're going one by one out of the Henry Street door. There's a Lewis gun covering the road, so we'll have to dash across to get to Henry Place.'
Bulfin led the way, his Smith and Wesson in his hand and his face set. I saw Michael take a last look at the GPO. The blackened walls, the coal dust-streaked floor strewn with broken glass and the scattered crates of ammunition stared back at him.
Did we ever have a chance or was this always supposed to be our Alamo? A place where we were to find a glorious death celebrated by failure.
I elbowed him in the side. 'Will you get a move on there, Michael, sure the roof will be in on top of us by the time you've said your goodbyes.'
Reluctantly, Michael followed the man in front out of the door. It was almost as if he didn't want to leave the GPO. There had been arguments amongst us that it would be better to make a last stand here as the building collapsed around us. To fight on to the death, have the street singers celebrate our sacrifice in songs of our courage in the face of death. But the leaders had kiboshed that. We were ordered to leave and leave is what we would do.
The man in front of Michael stopped. Bulfin was at the corner, directing people to dash across the road one at a time. As each one ran across, the British machine gun behind the barricade at the end of the street would open up, peppering the narrow road with bullets.
All the men in front of him had made it across, but it was only a matter of time before the gunner found his range.
Bulfin tapped Michael on the shoulder, 'Your turn, Dowling.'
He jumped into the road and, running close to the ground, dashed across the street. The bullets whistling past his head but he kept running, only a few more yards to go before he reached the safety of the next alley. A hand reached out to pull him in. The bullets struck the bricks above his head. Chips of brick sliced down, one cutting his cheek just below the eye. I watched him touch the blood with his fingers, bringing them up to his mouth and tasting the red liquid on his hands.
I was the next one to run across the street. 'Are you ready to catch me, Michael?' I shouted before launchin
g my body away from the shelter. I didn't bother to run low, just charged across like an Irish bull in a field of cows.
The British gunner was waiting for me.
A trail of bullets exploded on the street around my legs. The gunner was aiming lower now, using the sparks where the bullets hit the road to adjust his range.
The bullets followed me across the street like children following the Pied Piper. Just as they were about to strike home, my foot hit a cobblestone and my whole body jackknifed launching me into the air and down into the road. I watched as the bullets struck above my head, sparks flaming, slamming into the wall.
Michael ran out from his shelter and grabbed my hand, hauling me to my feet and dragging me to the safety of the lane.
'That was a feckin' close-run thing,' I shouted.
'The fall saved your life.'
'It was a graceful sort of a fall, though, wasn't it?'
'No.'
'You've an awful mouth on you, Michael Dowling. Couldn't you leave a man with his dreams.'
Bulfin joined us having negotiated the run himself. 'Come on you two, we're to spend the night in a house on Moore Street.'
'I thought we were going to the Four Courts?'
'Orders have changed.'
We found a room to sleep in that night. Outside, the sniping and shelling grew louder like Banshees howling outside our window, desperate to get at us. But inside we slept the sleep of the gods. It's strange how we could sleep then. I wouldn't have thought it possible. But sleep we did, with the noise and the shelling and the flames dancing in our dreams.
The following morning we were sitting around waiting for orders when the news came in that we had surrendered.
