[Transcriber's note: The spelling inconsistencies of the original are
retained in this etext.]
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
POEMS
INSURRECTIONS (Maunsel)
THE HILL OF VISION "
GREEN BRANCHES "
SONGS FROM THE CLAY (Macmillan)
THE ADVENTURES OF SEUMAS BEG "
* * * * *
PROSE
THE CHARWOMANS DAUGHTER (Macmillan)
THE CROCK OF GOLD "
HERE ARE LADIES "
THE DEMI-GODS "
* * * * *
THE INSURRECTION IN DUBLIN
BY JAMES STEPHENS
MAUNSEL & COMPANY, LTD. DUBLIN AND LONDON 1916
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
CHAP.
I. MONDAY
II. TUESDAY
III. WEDNESDAY
IV. THURSDAY
V. FRIDAY
VI. SATURDAY
VII. SUNDAY
VIII. THE INSURRECTION IS OVER
IX. THE VOLUNTEERS
X. SOME OF THE LEADERS
XI. LABOUR AND THE INSURRECTION
XII. THE IRISH QUESTIONS
FOREWORD
The day before the rising was Easter Sunday, and they were crying
joyfully in the Churches "Christ has risen." On the following day they
were saying in the streets "Ireland has risen." The luck of the moment
was with her. The auguries were good, and, notwithstanding all that has
succeeded, I do not believe she must take to the earth again, nor be
ever again buried. The pages hereafter were written day by day during
the Insurrection that followed Holy Week, and, as a hasty impression of
a most singular time, the author allows them to stand without any
emendation.
The few chapters which make up this book are not a history of the
rising. I knew nothing about the rising. I do not know anything about it
now, and it may be years before exact information on the subject is
available. What I have written is no more than a statement of what
passed in one quarter of our city, and a gathering together of the
rumour and tension which for nearly two weeks had to serve the Dublin
people in lieu of news. It had to serve many Dublin people in place of
bread.
To-day, the 8th of May, the book is finished, and, so far as Ireland is
immediately concerned, the insurrection is over. Action now lies with
England, and on that action depends whether the Irish Insurrection is
over or only suppressed.
In their dealings with this country, English Statesmen have seldom shown
political imagination; sometimes they have been just, sometimes, and
often, unjust. After a certain point I dislike and despise justice. It
is an attribute of God, and is adequately managed by Him alone; but
between man and man no other ethics save that of kindness can give
results. I have not any hope that this ethic will replace that, and I
merely mention it in order that the good people who read these words may
enjoy the laugh which their digestion needs.
I have faith in man, I have very little faith in States man. But I
believe that the world moves, and I believe that the weight of the
rolling planet is going to bring freedom to Ireland. Indeed, I name this
date as the first day of Irish freedom, and the knowledge forbids me
mourn too deeply my friends who are dead.
It may not be worthy of mention, but the truth is, that Ireland is not
cowed. She is excited a little. She is gay a little. She was not with
the revolution, but in a few months she will be, and her heart which was
withering will be warmed by the knowledge that men have thought her
worth dying for. She will prepare to make herself worthy of devotion,
and that devotion will never fail her. So little does it take to raise
our hearts.
Does it avail anything to describe these things to English readers? They
have never moved the English mind to anything except impatience, but
to-day and at this desperate conjunction they may be less futile than
heretofore. England also has grown patriotic, even by necessity. It is
necessity alone makes patriots, for in times of peace a patriot is a
quack when he is not a shark. Idealism pays in times of peace, it dies
in time of war. Our idealists are dead and yours are dying hourly.
The English mind may to-day be enabled to understand what is wrong with
us, and why through centuries we have been "disthressful." Let them
look at us, I do not say through the fumes that are still rising from
our ruined streets, but through the smoke that is rolling from the North
Sea to Switzerland, and read in their own souls the justification for
all our risings, and for this rising.
Is it wrong to say that England has not one friend in Europe? I say it.
Her Allies of to-day were her enemies of yesterday, and politics alone
will decide what they will be to-morrow. I say it, and yet I am not
entirely right, for she has one possible friend unless she should decide
that even one friend is excessive and irks her. That one possible friend
is Ireland. I say, and with assurance, that if our national questions
are arranged there will remain no reason for enmity between the two
countries, and there will remain many reasons for friendship.
It may be objected that the friendship of a country such as Ireland has
little value; that she is too small geographically, and too thinly
populated to give aid to any one. Only sixty odd years ago our
population was close on ten millions of people, nor are we yet sterile;
in area Ireland is not collossal, but neither is she microscopic. Mr.
Shaw has spoken of her as a "cabbage patch at the back of beyond." On
this kind of description Rome might be called a hen-run and Greece a
back yard. The sober fact is that Ireland has a larger geographical area
than many an independent and prosperous European kingdom, and for all
human and social needs she is a fairly big country, and is beautiful and
fertile to boot. She could be made worth knowing if goodwill and trust
are available for the task.
I believe that what is known as the "mastery of the seas" will, when the
great war is finished, pass irretrievably from the hands or the ambition
of any nation, and that more urgently than ever in her history England
will have need of a friend. It is true that we might be her enemy and
might do her some small harm--it is truer that we could be her friend,
and could be of very real assistance to her.
Should the English Statesman decide that our friendship is worth having
let him create a little of the political imagination already spoken of.
Let him equip us (it is England's debt to Ireland) for freedom, not in
the manner of a miser who arranges for the chilly livelihood of a needy
female relative; but the way a wealthy father would undertake the
settlement of his son. I fear I am assisting my reader to laugh too
much, but laughter is the sole excess that is wholesome.
If freedom is to come to Ireland--as I believe it is--then the Easter
Insurrection was the only thing that could have happened. I speak as an
Irishman, and am momentarily leaving out of account every other
consideration. If, after all her striving, freedom had come to her as a
gift, as a peaceful present such as is sometimes given away with a pound
of tea, Ireland would have accepted the gift with shamefacedness, and
have felt that her centuries of revolt had ended in something very like
ridicule. The blood of brave men had to sanctify such a consummation if
the national imagination was to be stirred to the dreadful business
which is the organizing of freedom, and both imagination and brains have
been stagnant in Ireland this many a year. Following on such tameness,
failure might have been predicted, or, at least feared, and war (let us
call it war for the sake of our pride) was due to Ireland before she
could enter gallantly on her inheritance. We might have crept into
liberty like some kind of domesticated man, whereas now we may be
allowed to march into freedom with the honours of war. I am still
appealing to the political imagination, for if England allows Ireland to
formally make peace with her that peace will be lasting, everlasting;
but if the liberty you give us is all half-measures, and distrusts and
stinginesses, then what is scarcely worth accepting will hardly be worth
thanking you for.
There is a reference in the earlier pages of this record to a letter
which I addressed to Mr. George Bernard Shaw and published in the _New
Age_. This was a thoughtless letter, and subsequent events have proved
that it was unmeaning and ridiculous. I have since, through the same
hospitable journal, apologised to Mr. Shaw, but have let my reference to
the matter stand as an indication that electricity was already in the
air. Every statement I made about him in that letter and in this book
was erroneous; for, afterwards, when it would have been politic to run
for cover, he ran for the open, and he spoke there like the valiant
thinker and great Irishman that he is.
* * * * *
Since the foregoing was written events have moved in this country. The
situation is no longer the same. The executions have taken place. One
cannot justly exclaim against the measures adopted by the military
tribunal, and yet, in the interests of both countries one may deplore
them. I have said there was no bitterness in Ireland, and it was true at
the time of writing. It is no longer true; but it is still possible by
generous Statesmanship to allay this, and to seal a true union between
Ireland and England.
THE
INSURRECTION IN DUBLIN
CHAPTER I
MONDAY
This has taken everyone by surprise. It is possible, that, with the
exception of their Staff, it has taken the Volunteers themselves by
surprise; but, to-day, our peaceful city is no longer peaceful; guns are
sounding, or rolling and crackling from different directions, and,
although rarely, the rattle of machine guns can be heard also.
Two days ago war seemed very far away--so far, that I have covenanted
with myself to learn the alphabet of music. Tom Bodkin had promised to
present me with a musical instrument called a dulcimer--I persist in
thinking that this is a species of guitar, although I am assured that it
is a number of small metal plates which are struck with sticks, and I
confess that this description of its function prejudices me more than a
little against it. There is no reason why I should think dubiously of
such an instrument, but I do not relish the idea of procuring music with
a stick. With this dulcimer I shall be able to tap out our Irish
melodies when I am abroad, and transport myself to Ireland for a few
minutes, or a few bars.
In preparation for this present I had through Saturday and Sunday been
learning the notes of the Scale. The notes and spaces on the lines did
not trouble me much, but those above and below the line seemed ingenious
and complicated to a degree that frightened me.
On Saturday I got the _Irish Times_, and found in it a long article by
Bernard Shaw (reprinted from the _New York Times_). One reads things
written by Shaw. Why one does read them I do not know exactly, except
that it is a habit we got into years ago, and we read an article by Shaw
just as we put on our boots in the morning--that is, without thinking
about it, and without any idea of reward.
His article angered me exceedingly. It was called "Irish Nonsense
talked in Ireland." It was written (as is almost all of his journalistic
work) with that _bonhomie_ which he has cultivated--it is his
mannerism--and which is essentially hypocritical and untrue. _Bonhomie_!
It is that man-of-the-world attitude, that shop attitude, that
between-you-and-me-for-are-we-not-equal-and-cultured attitude, which is
the tone of a card-sharper or a trick-of-the-loop man. That was the tone
of Shaw's article. I wrote an open letter to him which I sent to the
_New Age_, because I doubted that the Dublin papers would print it if I
sent it to them, and I knew that the Irish people who read the other
papers had never heard of Shaw, except as a trade-mark under which very
good Limerick bacon is sold, and that they would not be interested in
the opinions of a person named Shaw on any subject not relevant to
bacon. I struck out of my letter a good many harsh things which I said
of him, and hoped he would reply to it in order that I could furnish
these acidities to him in a second letter.
That was Saturday.
On Sunday I had to go to my office, as the Director was absent in
London, and there I applied myself to the notes and spaces below the
stave, but relinquished the exercise, convinced that these mysteries
were unattainable by man, while the knowledge that above the stave there
were others and not less complex, stayed mournfully with me.
I returned home, and as novels (perhaps it is only for the duration of
the war) do not now interest me I read for some time in Madame
Blavatsky's "Secret Doctrine," which book interests me profoundly.
George Russell was out of town or I would have gone round to his house
in the evening to tell him what I thought about Shaw, and to listen to
his own much finer ideas on that as on every other subject. I went to
bed.
On the morning following I awoke into full insurrection and bloody war,
but I did not know anything about it. It was Bank Holiday, but for
employments such as mine there are not any holidays, so I went to my
office at the usual hour, and after transacting what business was
necessary I bent myself to the notes above and below the stave, and
marvelled anew at the ingenuity of man. Peace was in the building, and
if any of the attendants had knowledge or rumour of war they did not
mention it to me.
At one o'clock I went to lunch. Passing the corner of Merrion Row I saw
two small groups of people. These people were regarding steadfastly in
the direction of St. Stephen's Green Park, and they spoke occasionally
to one another with that detached confidence which proved they were
mutually unknown. I also, but without approaching them, stared in the
direction of the Green. I saw nothing but the narrow street which
widened to the Park. Some few people were standing in tentative
attitudes, and all looking in the one direction. As I turned from them
homewards I received an impression of silence and expectation and
excitement.
On the way home I noticed that many silent people were standing in their
doorways--an unusual thing in Dublin outside of the back streets. The
glance of a Dublin man or woman conveys generally a criticism of one's
personal appearance, and is a little hostile to the passer. The look of
each person as I passed was steadfast, and contained an enquiry instead
of a criticism. I felt faintly uneasy, but withdrew my mind to a
meditation which I had covenanted with myself to perform daily, and
passed to my house.
There I was told that there had been a great deal of rifle firing all
the morning, and we concluded that the Military recruits or Volunteer
detachments were practising that arm. My return to business was by the
way I had already come. At the corner of Merrion Row I found the same
silent groups, who were still looking in the direction of the Green, and
addressing each other occasionally with the detached confidence of
strangers. Suddenly, and on the spur of the moment, I addressed one of
these silent gazers.
"Has there been an accident?" said I.
I indicated the people standing about.
"What's all this for?"
He was a sleepy, rough-looking man about 40 years of age, with a blunt
red moustache, and the distant eyes which one sees in sailors. He looked
at me, stared at me as at a person from a different country. He grew
wakeful and vivid.
"Don't you know," said he.
And then he saw that I did not know.
"The Sinn Feiners have seized the City this morning."
"Oh!" said I.
He continued with the savage earnestness of one who has amazement in his
mouth:
"They seized the City at eleven o'clock this morning. The Green there is
full of them. They have captured the Castle. They have taken the Post
Office."
"My God!" said I, staring at him, and instantly I turned and went
running towards the Green.
In a few seconds I banished astonishment and began to walk. As I drew
near the Green rifle fire began like sharply-cracking whips. It was from
the further side. I saw that the Gates were closed and men were standing
inside with guns on their shoulders. I passed a house, the windows of
which were smashed in. As I went by a man in civilian clothes slipped
through the Park gates, which instantly closed behind him. He ran
towards me, and I halted. He was carrying two small packets in his hand.
He passed me hurriedly, and, placing his leg inside the broken window
of the house behind me, he disappeared. Almost immediately another man
in civilian clothes appeared from the broken window of another house. He
also had something (I don't know what) in his hand. He ran urgently
towards the gates, which opened, admitted him, and closed again.
In the centre of this side of the Park a rough barricade of carts and
motor cars had been sketched. It was still full of gaps. Behind it was a
halted tram, and along the vistas of the Green one saw other trams
derelict, untenanted.
I came to the barricade. As I reached it and stood by the Shelbourne
Hotel, which it faced, a loud cry came from the Park. The gates opened
and three men ran out. Two of them held rifles with fixed bayonets. The
third gripped a heavy revolver in his fist. They ran towards a motor car
which had just turned the corner, and halted it. The men with bayonets
took position instantly on either side of the car. The man with the
revolver saluted, and I heard him begging the occupants to pardon him,
and directing them to dismount. A man and woman got down. They were
again saluted and requested to go to the sidewalk. They did so.
NOTE--As I pen these words rifle shot is cracking from three
different directions and continually. Three minutes ago there was two
discharges from heavy guns. These are the first heavy guns used in
the Insurrection, 25th April.
The man crossed and stood by me. He was very tall and thin, middle-aged,
with a shaven, wasted face. "I want to get down to Armagh to-day," he
said to no one in particular. The loose bluish skin under his eyes was
twitching. The Volunteers directed the chauffeur to drive to the
barricade and lodge his car in a particular position there. He did it
awkwardly, and after three attempts he succeeded in pleasing them. He
was a big, brown-faced man, whose knees were rather high for the seat he
was in, and they jerked with the speed and persistence of something
moved with a powerful spring. His face was composed and fully under
command, although his legs were not. He locked the car into the
barricade, and then, being a man accustomed to be commanded, he awaited
an order to descend. When the order came he walked directly to his
master, still preserving all the solemnity of his features. These two
men did not address a word to each other, but their drilled and
expressionless eyes were loud with surprise and fear and rage. They went
into the Hotel.
I spoke to the man with the revolver. He was no more than a boy, not
more certainly than twenty years of age, short in stature, with close
curling red hair and blue eyes--a kindly-looking lad. The strap of his
sombrero had torn loose on one side, and except while he held it in his
teeth it flapped about his chin. His face was sunburnt and grimy with
dust and sweat.
This young man did not appear to me to be acting from his reason. He was
doing his work from a determination implanted previously, days, weeks
perhaps, on his imagination. His mind was--where? It was not with his
body. And continually his eyes went searching widely, looking for
spaces, scanning hastily the clouds, the vistas of the streets, looking
for something that did not hinder him, looking away for a moment from
the immediacies and rigours which were impressed where his mind had
been.
When I spoke he looked at me, and I know that for some seconds he did
not see me. I said:--
"What is the meaning of all this? What has happened?"
He replied collectedly enough in speech, but with that ramble and
errancy clouding his eyes.
"We have taken the City. We are expecting an attack from the military at
any moment, and those people," he indicated knots of men, women and
children clustered towards the end of the Green, "won't go home for me.
We have the Post Office, and the Railways, and the Castle. We have all
the City. We have everything."
(Some men and two women drew behind me to listen).
"This morning," said he, "the police rushed us. One ran at me to take my
revolver. I fired but I missed him, and I hit a--"
"You have far too much talk," said a voice to the young man.
I turned a few steps away, and glancing back saw that he was staring
after me, but I know that he did not see me--he was looking at turmoil,
and blood, and at figures that ran towards him and ran away--a world in
motion and he in the centre of it astonished.
The men with him did not utter a sound. They were both older. One,
indeed, a short, sturdy man, had a heavy white moustache. He was quite
collected, and took no notice of the skies, or the spaces. He saw a man
in rubbers placing his hand on a motor bicycle in the barricade, and
called to him instantly: "Let that alone."
The motorist did not at once remove his hand, whereupon the
white-moustached man gripped his gun in both hands and ran violently
towards him. He ran directly to him, body to body, and, as he was short
and the motorist was very tall, stared fixedly up in his face. He roared
up at his face in a mighty voice.
"Are you deaf? Are you deaf? Move back!"
The motorist moved away, pursued by an eye as steady and savage as the
point of the bayonet that was level with it.
Another motor car came round the Ely Place corner of the Green and
wobbled at the sight of the barricade. The three men who had returned
to the gates roared "Halt," but the driver made a tentative effort to
turn his wheel. A great shout of many voices came then, and the three
men ran to him.
"Drive to the barricade," came the order.
The driver turned his wheel a point further towards escape, and
instantly one of the men clapped a gun to the wheel and blew the tyre
open. Some words were exchanged, and then a shout:
"Drive it on the rim, drive it."
The tone was very menacing, and the motorist turned his car slowly to
the barricade and placed it in.
For an hour I tramped the City, seeing everywhere these knots of
watchful strangers speaking together in low tones, and it sank into my
mind that what I had heard was true, and that the City was in
insurrection. It had been promised for so long, and had been threatened
for so long. Now it was here. I had seen it in the Green, others had
seen it in other parts--the same men clad in dark green and equipped
with rifle, bayonet, and bandolier, the same silent activity. The police
had disappeared from the streets. At that hour I did not see one
policeman, nor did I see one for many days, and men said that several of
them had been shot earlier in the morning; that an officer had been shot
on Portobello Bridge, that many soldiers had been killed, and that a
good many civilians were dead also.
Around me as I walked the rumour of war and death was in the air.
Continually and from every direction rifles were crackling and rolling;
sometimes there was only one shot, again it would be a roll of firing
crested with single, short explosions, and sinking again to whip-like
snaps and whip-like echoes; then for a moment silence, and then again
the guns leaped in the air.
The rumour of positions, bridges, public places, railway stations,
Government offices, having been seized was persistent, and was not
denied by any voice.
I met some few people I knew. P.H., T.M., who said: "Well!" and thrust
their eyes into me as though they were rummaging me for information.
But there were not very many people in the streets. The greater part of
the population were away on Bank Holiday, and did not know anything of
this business. Many of them would not know anything until they found
they had to walk home from Kingstown, Dalkey, Howth, or wherever they
were.
I returned to my office, decided that I would close it for the day. The
men were very relieved when I came in, and were more relieved when I
ordered the gong to be sounded. There were some few people in the place,
and they were soon put out. The outer gates were locked, and the great
door, but I kept the men on duty until the evening. We were the last
public institution open; all the others had been closed for hours.
I went upstairs and sat down, but had barely reached the chair before I
stood up again, and began to pace my room, to and fro, to and fro;
amazed, expectant, inquiet; turning my ear to the shots, and my mind to
speculations that began in the middle, and were chased from there by
others before they had taken one thought forward. But then I took myself
resolutely and sat me down, and I pencilled out exercises above the
stave, and under the stave; and discovered suddenly that I was again
marching the floor, to and fro, to and fro, with thoughts bursting about
my head as though they were fired on me from concealed batteries.
At five o'clock I left. I met Miss P., all of whose rumours coincided
with those I had gathered. She was in exceeding good humour and
interested. Leaving her I met Cy----, and we turned together up to the
Green. As we proceeded, the sound of firing grew more distinct, but when
we reached the Green it died away again. We stood a little below the
Shelbourne Hotel, looking at the barricade and into the Park. We could
see nothing. Not a Volunteer was in sight. The Green seemed a desert.
There were only the trees to be seen, and through them small green
vistas of sward.
Just then a man stepped on the footpath and walked directly to the
barricade. He stopped and gripped the shafts of a lorry lodged near the
centre. At that instant the Park exploded into life and sound; from
nowhere armed men appeared at the railings, and they all shouted at the
man.
"Put down that lorry. Let out and go away. Let out at once."
These were the cries. The man did not let out. He halted with the shafts
in his hand, and looked towards the vociferous pailings. Then, and very
slowly, he began to draw the lorry out of the barricade. The shouts came
to him again, very loud, very threatening, but he did not attend to
them.
"He is the man that owns the lorry," said a voice beside me.
Dead silence fell on the people around while the man slowly drew his
cart down by the footpath. Then three shots rang out in succession. At
the distance he could not be missed, and it was obvious they were trying
to frighten him. He dropped the shafts, and instead of going away he
walked over to the Volunteers.
"He has a nerve," said another voice behind me.
The man walked directly towards the Volunteers, who, to the number of
about ten, were lining the railings. He walked slowly, bent a little
forward, with one hand raised and one finger up as though he were going
to make a speech. Ten guns were pointing at him, and a voice repeated
many times:
"Go and put back that lorry or you are a dead man. Go before I count
four. One, two, three, four--"
A rifle spat at him, and in two undulating movements the man sank on
himself and sagged to the ground.
I ran to him with some others, while a woman screamed unmeaningly, all
on one strident note. The man was picked up and carried to a hospital
beside the Arts Club. There was a hole in the top of his head, and one
does not know how ugly blood can look until it has been seen clotted in
hair. As the poor man was being carried in, a woman plumped to her knees
in the road and began not to scream but to screetch.
At that moment the Volunteers were hated. The men by whom I was and who
were lifting the body, roared into the railings:--
"We'll be coming back for you, damn you."
From the railings there came no reply, and in an instant the place was
again desert and silent, and the little green vistas were slumbering
among the trees.
No one seemed able to estimate the number of men inside the Green, and
through the day no considerable body of men had been seen, only those
who held the gates, and the small parties of threes and fours who
arrested motors and carts for their barricades. Among these were some
who were only infants--one boy seemed about twelve years of age. He was
strutting the centre of the road with a large revolver in his small
fist. A motor car came by him containing three men, and in the shortest
of time he had the car lodged in his barricade, and dismissed its
stupified occupants with a wave of his armed hand.
The knots were increasing about the streets, for now the Bank Holiday
people began to wander back from places that were not distant, and to
them it had all to be explained anew. Free movement was possible
everywhere in the City, but the constant crackle of rifles restricted
somewhat that freedom. Up to one o'clock at night belated travellers
were straggling into the City, and curious people were wandering from
group to group still trying to gather information.
I remained awake until four o'clock in the morning. Every five minutes
a rifle cracked somewhere, but about a quarter to twelve sharp volleying
came from the direction of Portobello Bridge, and died away after some
time. The windows of my flat listen out towards the Green, and obliquely
towards Sackville Street. In another quarter of an hour there were
volleys from Stephen's Green direction, and this continued with
intensity for about twenty-five minutes. Then it fell into a sputter of
fire and ceased.
I went to bed about four o'clock convinced that the Green had been
rushed by the military and captured, and that the rising was at an end.
That was the first day of the insurrection.