When I first conceived this History, I made clear my awareness that I lived in an important historic period. Indeed, I knew that I was living through several moments of definition; the land agitation gave way to serious land reform, with the Wyndham Act making sure that no farmer need feel forced to be a tenant all his life. Then came the Great War, with its postponement of Home Rule for Ireland, meaning that many young men had gone to die in return for a promise that would now never be kept. In short, I lived in a country where something of importance seemed to happen every day. One day, history came to touch me directly.
Ever since I met Joseph Harney, I had known that he carried rebel fire inside him. We spoke much of politics, and he gave no quarter in his belief that political freedom came only from military force. We never argued this point, Harney and I; my own plea went toward never having violence, but my pacifism had not been such that it stopped me trying to go to war.
Admittedly, I had been swayed by the promise of the Home Rule that Ireland would be granted in exchange for our soldierly support. When that self-government never came, despite the numbers of Irishmen who died in the hope of it, I felt more sympathetic to Harney's idea—but I always believed, as I still do, that debate will always have to take place, so it might as well come first as last.
Harney worked demonically hard at the castle restoration. He took no time off, didn't want to; occasionally he visited his family, over in Urlingford. No matter what time he came back—we both slept at the castle—there he sat at breakfast next morning, bright as day and busy as a bee, full of plans and opportunities. So it was that I felt shock—but not surprise—when, on the evening of Saturday, the 15th of April 1916, Harney came to me and said quietly, “I have to go away for a time.”
My heart quickened—and he knew that I knew.
“Don't ask any questions, Charles. I'm better if you don't.”
I walked with him as he rode his bicycle down to the main gate. As he climbed on the saddle and began to turn the pedals he said, “I'll be back. I don't know if it'll be soon. But—if I say I'll be back, I'll be here.” And off he rode.
A week and a day later, on Sunday afternoon, two ladies appeared in the driveway. On a beautiful afternoon I was standing at the end of the Long Terrace, using the low wall as a table while I calculated the wages needed for the coming week. Matters had been under tight control, and month after month Harney and I had been able to tell April that the entire task was costing no more than we'd assessed—and often less.
The two ladies with their bicycles came shyly along the avenue, having dismounted out of respect. I assumed them to be local girls seeking employment—people came to us every day looking for jobs—or sightseers or relations of some of the workers whom we had billeted on the estate. When they saw me, they conferred—and then with some determination put their bicycles carefully aside and made their way to me.
They approached straightforwardly, with no hesitation—two young women, one with dark hair, one with red.
As they drew closer, I said, “I know who you are.”
They did not laugh; nor did they smile. One said, “You're Mr. O'Brien, aren't you?”
Their solemnity worried me.
“I am. Is everything all right?”
The older said, “Well, we don't know, and we don't know what to do.”
And the younger-looking one chimed in, “Joseph's gone to Dublin. A fellow came to the house this morning looking for him. When we told him Joseph was gone, he said, ‘Doesn't he know it's all off?’ That's all we know.”
By dint of questioning, I discovered that Joseph had long been a republican volunteer on the understanding that if an armed rebellion were to take place, he would be in the front line. Rumors had abounded that “something” was going to happen—but the “something,” said the Harney sisters, was supposed to be canceled, and if Joseph didn't know, they said, “mightn't he be walking straight into a trap?”
I had long suspected, from Harney's demeanor, that some plans had been drawn. He received letters, and once or twice men came to see him; he met them down the avenue, much talk took place, and the men returned the way they had come. I never asked questions, and he never told me information; I assumed that he was part of some plan or other— rather, it is more accurate to say that were he not part of some plan or other, the other plotters must be fools not to have engaged him.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked these now-distressed girls.
They looked at each other. “Can you get him back?”
The younger girl said, “He'll do anything for you.”
“But I don't even know where he is.”
“We know,” they said in eager voices, and they told me an address on Northumberland Road, Dublin. I knew that I could find it—and I said that I would try. Both girls came with me to the kitchen, where Helen made them tea; for once she remained good-tempered, and they knew many people in common. I found April; she did not wish to meet the girls. When they had gone, I told her that I must go to Dublin to find Harney, that I feared he might be in some danger.
She said, nonchalantly, “I presume everything is in order.”
That was all; she said nothing else.
The Easter Rising (as I taught in school so often) began in confusion. It ended in tragedy, was reborn in defiance, and concluded in triumph six and a half years after it began. There had been confusion among Irish republican activists and disagreement as to the timing of an armed uprising. But the principle had been accepted. England, weakened and distracted by war, had a vulnerable flank to the west. All going well, Germany might prove a valuable ally if it saw the Irish also declaring war, and if it had begun to gain ground in France and Belgium.
However, only a small percentage of the country had the slightest interest in an armed rebellion or anything like it. Many Irish hearts had been broken already by the Great War. The reports coming back from the mud and blood grew worse and worse. Battlefield names—Ypres, Loos, Verdun—these became chants in a dirge. The fallen men had been volunteer soldiers. Nobody wanted more death.
Friction within the republicans reached a head just before Easter Week. One faction assumed that it would attempt to take the city of Dublin. Another believed that the action had been called off. Both happened. Just over a thousand armed men occupied key buildings in the center of the capital. Some thousands more around the country never shouldered a gun.
By the late afternoon on Easter Monday, 24 April, the rebels had barricaded themselves inside the General Post Office and several other establishment buildings. Other, smaller groups of rebels watched key Dublin avenues. These were men mostly without uniforms, country boys, with disparate guns, little ammunition, and a day's rations—sandwiches made by their mothers, sisters, and wives.
SUNDAY, THE 23RD OF APRIL 1916.
Charles is staying here tonight. Tomorrow he will go to Dublin, he says, to find Harney, who “may be in some kind of trouble.” He aims to catch the train. Other than a worry for Harney, Charles looks splendid. I told him what I hear: That the castle work is excellent. That the craftsmen would do anything for him.
He asked my opinion. We talked about the stonework, the carpentry. He asked about his father, whom he hasn't seen for some time. It always seems that Bernard is out when Charles calls.
Should I be worried that Charles goes to bring back Harney? Fewer than two years ago I should have been frantic; not tonight.
Today I dared ask the Question. Charles only said that “April works very hard. The men respect her. I don't want to distract her.” I told Charles that she comes here now and then, and we talk. In the past he would have blurted, “Does she speak of me?” Not now. I wonder what is going on in his head.
The train had many people on board, returning to Dublin after Easter. It seethed with rumors that burst into the fire of fear as we neared the city. Outside Kildare, we were stopped a long time in one place; nobody knew what was happening. One voice said that Dublin was in flames from the r
iver to the hills; another said that the English soldiers had been routed, and that a new flag flew over the Post Office. Out of a genuine excitement there grew a sincere dread; many people hoped to turn back but could not leave the train.
We started again, shuddering, halting, and running for some miles, but very slowly—and then we stopped again, for a long time. The train fell silent, with whispered conversations here and there, and now we drew away again, and the evening darkened. As I did not reach the city until several hours later than I had hoped, my intention—to find Harney, take him to a hotel, and then catch the morning train home with him—was thwarted. On Monday night, I found myself on the street at Kingsbridge station, being told by a soldier at gunpoint to go back where I came from.
I found a night's lodgings in a boarding-house at Islandbridge, a mile's walk from the train. There, nobody had gone to bed; the household sat at the table as I ate, and people came and went, all bearing excited news or asking fearful questions. An impression began to form of the day's events and the condition of the city.
It seemed that small parties of armed men had marched to many points and announced themselves as the “Irish Republican Army,” the new governing force of the city. In the General Post Office at Sackville Street, they had run up a rebel flag; and in broad daylight, the “Army Commander,” a gentleman named Pearse, had proclaimed Ireland a republic “in the name of God.” Some gunfire had been exchanged, but in general it had been agreed that the British Army had been taken by surprise—because most of its officers had gone to a race meeting out in the countryside.
In my bones I knew that Harney would be installed deep within this hurly-burly. His reliability made it likely that he would be at the address his sisters had given me; it seemed that I would have to look for him in the very thick of things.
I was excited—apprehensive too, but mostly excited, as must be imagined in a man who once had set himself to write a History of his own country in his own time. As I lay down on the tiny bed in the box of a room, listening to the hum and murmur of talk that still went on downstairs, I reflected that, two years ago, I should not have approached this task in anything like so confident a frame of mind. And I reflected further that I had received an incomparable gift from April Burke, the wife of the late Mr. Somerville. She had made me competent; my desire for her respect and love had indeed raised me up and improved me.
Next morning I set out at seven o'clock; a passing bread cart (with a silent driver) took me to Kingsbridge, where I had last night disembarked from the train. Knots of people waited there; piles of luggage suggested that they meant to quit Dublin. One man told me that the city center had been rendered impassable—“Barricades everywhere. Those bloody Sinn Feiners, why can't they leave well enough alone?” Others also cursed “the Shinners.”
Mr. Griffith's “Sinn Fein” movement had by now, of course, caught much of the nationalistic imagination, and people saw no difference between his political activism and the Irish Republican Army's militancy.
When I had walked along the river some distance, I met the first barricade. It is important to describe my appearance; I had specifically dressed like a well-to-do business gentleman, black frock coat, hat, etc., in case I had to deal with officers. As I reached the barricade, a soldier halted me, gun aimed.
“Where is your commanding officer?” I asked.
A blond young man appeared.
“Are you in charge here?”
“What is your business?”
I said, “My practice is my business. I need to reach it.”
In the distance I heard gunfire; and I saw smoke rising from buildings. No people walked anywhere—the streets had emptied except for soldiers.
“No chance, I'm afraid,” said the young officer. He looked apologetic and respectful; my attire was having the desired effect. “Where did you want to go?”
“Close to the Post Office,” I said.
He shook his head. “We have a siege there,” he said. “We've already had casualties.”
“I stayed with friends in the country last night. Shall I be able to get home?”
“Depends where home is.”
I said, “Northumberland Road.”
“No trams, I'm afraid. Wait here, Doctor.”
The young officer returned. “I can get you part of the way—one of our chaps is going to Merrion Square.”
As he escorted me to a nearby vehicle, he said to me, “My father's a doctor. I'm supposed to be in France.”
The first two days of the Easter Rising had about them an aura of stalemate, of action yet to happen. Nobody had accurate information. Rumor distorted everything. The British government, engrossed with the war in Europe, reacted slowly.
And at noon on the Monday, Patrick Pearse, a barrister, teacher, and poet, had the freedom to stand in the street outside the General Post Office, which his men had commandeered, and read the Proclamation of the Irish Republic.
Those who saw this event—now an iconic moment in Irish history— recall chiefly the scattered cheers and jeers, and the strained, pale look on Pearse's face. He knew that he was taking hundreds, if not thousands, of men into a blood sacrifice.
Not all of the streets were closed. The official response was as sporadic and incomplete as the rebellion itself. Over wide areas of Dublin, life continued as normal. Children spent their holiday week as they always did, playing in the streets. On Tuesday morning, people returned to work as they found it possible. Newspapers appeared, and milk trucks and bread vans made their rounds. The city had not yet heard enough to make it feel threatened.
Reinforcements had been called up from other garrisons in Ireland— by train from Belfast, on foot from barracks nearer to Dublin. And in England, troops were scraped together. With scant munitions, they took the train that would carry them to the boat that would put them down on the Irish shore.
Charles O'Brien's ride in an army vehicle brought him to Merrion Square, childhood home of Oscar Wilde. From there, he had a walk of ten minutes or so to the address he had been given on Northumberland Road. Neither he nor anyone else knew, on that Tuesday morning, whether he would have safe passage.
Although I believed that I knew my way, I asked an old lady whether Northumberland Road lay straight ahead. All around me seemed peaceful.
She replied, “What are you goin' there for?”
I said, “I must meet a friend.”
“Well, there's fellas up there with guns. And the Shinners—aren't they after locking themselves into Boland's Mill, so they are. I hope they all get shot.”
“You don't sympathize?”
“Ah, what are they, only corner-boys? Louts, is what they are. Disturbin' the peace on us.” Her sweet face became harsh.
“But they see it as a fight for freedom?”
She said, “My daughter, she has a husband out in France; he's in a uniform, so he is, not some coward firing guns from behind a wall. He's fightin' for our freedom, so he is.”
And she went on her way.
From that corner of the square it is possible to look all along Lower Mount Street to the beginnings of the red brick and leafy peace of Northumberland Road. I stepped out into the roadway, and nothing did I see other than some boys playing with a ball. I walked on, without the hint of what was to come about in the next few days.
On Mount Street Bridge on that glorious morning I looked back to my left at the hulk of Boland's Mill. Nothing seemed untoward; I saw no activity—but nothing occurred on the streets either. Nor did I see any soldier, nor a gun of any kind; and Northumberland Road was as quiet as a smile; indeed, the loudest noise at that time came from my rapping on the door-knocker of No. 25.
Nobody answered. I did hear footsteps, however—and I knocked again. After a metallic scraping sound, the large brass flap of the letter box was pulled back from the inside, and a gun-barrel appeared.
A voice said, “What?”
“Is Mr. Harney here?”
“Who wants him?”
“His friend Charles O'Brien.”
Nothing happened; I had produced no response. The gun-barrel remained in place. I waited. After several moments I knocked again.
I must have waited thirty or forty minutes; then I knocked again, with particular force, and shook the door so hard that I obviously dislodged the gun wedged inside. (I had long concluded that the gun's owner had left it there as a threat.)
Footsteps came striding, and the door whipped open.
“In—quick.”
Two men stood in the hallway. The one at the rear held a gun; the other picked up his rifle from the floor.
“Joe's asleep—he was on watch all night.”
They led me upstairs and introduced themselves: “I'm Jimmy Grace, this is Michael Malone. Sit in there, and we have to ask you not to move.”
We had come to an upper-floor drawing-room, with two long windows overlooking Northumberland Road; a third window in the side of the room faced south. I believe that I immediately understood the objective—and it had probably been decided by Harney. Troops arriving might possibly come along this road, the main artery from the port of Kingstown, which continued broad and easy into the city center. This house would provide an excellent ambush point.
Lace curtains hung down over the windows; by moving them aside slightly I could see directly into the houses across the road. As far as I could ascertain, no other ambush was prepared; directly opposite, a girl in a maid's cap and apron walked here and there, restoring sheets to a bed. In another house, a gentleman sat in a chair, reading a newspaper.
Michael Malone said to me, “Here, for now, you have to do everything you are told. So—step back from the window.”
He said it pleasantly, and I found a chair deep inside the room.
“Who's in command here?” I was careful to voice the question in no pejorative way.
“Commandant Harney. Otherwise we'd have shot you.” Mr. Malone did not smile as he spoke; Mr. Grace remained silent.
I sat in that room for three hours; other than the two men, nobody came or went. At a quarter to three, they gave me bread and tea. And at three o'clock I heard the familiar footstep coming down a nearby staircase; after a whisper in the hallway outside, Harney entered, beaming.
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