expectant siege, with passwords and guards, much in the same way as at
the G.P.O. in the capital, but no outbreak occurred.
On the Wednesday the Lord Mayor and the Bishop of Cork were able to
obtain an interview with the leaders, and as a result of the conference
a temporary sort of truce was arranged, which was never really broken,
though at times it was a matter of touch and go.
That it would have been serious cannot be doubted, for they claimed no
less than six hundred men at headquarters, and anything up from a
thousand within the boundaries of the city, to say nothing of the
surrounding districts, which were anything but favourable either to John
Redmond or William O'Brien.
Now, the inner history of the negotiation, which was later made public
in a letter from the Assistant-Bishop of Cork to the _Freeman's
Journal_, is of supreme importance for two reasons.
In the first place, it explains the kind of influences which were at
work all over the country to prevent the spread of the outbreak by the
better-disposed and more sober-minded of the population.
In the second place, by revealing the psychology of some of the
provincial leaders it goes not a little to establish my theory that even
as late as Monday night something might have been done had the leaders
of the "Republic"--which it must never be forgotten had always been a
"provisional" term--been approached by the best spirits in Ireland
herself, instead of immediately launching an army corps of troops and a
naval detachment bald-headed on to the guns of the Volunteers, who could
never have expected to bring off a victory in the real sense of the
term, and who were only anxious to offer themselves as a willing
holocaust to the Spirit of Nationality they thought was dying fast
because it had merged itself into the Spirit of Empire.
As to Kerry, it was looked upon as being "rotten" with Sinn Fein, and
had there been a rising, these men would undoubtedly have marched to the
help of their Cork brethren.
The theory of the Kerry correspondent of the _Times_ is that the South
was awaiting the advent of Sir Roger Casement, who was to have invaded
Ireland with a fleet of battle cruisers and an army of 40,000 men, but
this ended in as complete a fiasco as the landing of Napper Tandy at
Rutland or Wolf Tone in Lough Swilly in 1798.
The rising, however, was not strictly speaking dependent on Sir Roger
Casement at all: indeed, as afterwards appeared, he had himself tried to
stop the rising by saying that German help had failed.
It appears, moreover, that in Dublin the heads of the Irish Volunteers
had long since come under the strong personal influence of the heads of
the Citizen Army, and it was these latter who forced the pace; and in
admitting this, one is forced to conclude that the rising was as much
socialistic and economic as national. This, too, would explain why it
was almost entirely confined to Dublin. For only in about three or four
other places in Ireland were there risings of any note, and even these
were comparatively unimportant: though, of course, there is no knowing
to what proportions they might not have swelled had the risings in Kerry
and Cork been carried out.
The Volunteers of Swords, for example, who only began activities about
seven o'clock on the Wednesday morning, commenced by a capture of the
barracks and post office, both of which were in their possession by
about 8.30.
Their _coup_ was a minor replica of the Dublin affray. Two of their
leaders, a doctor and a school-teacher, rode up in a motor-car as if
paying a harmless call, and then suddenly produced revolvers and covered
the sergeant, who was standing at the door, saying at the same time: "We
want no trouble, but the arms and ammunition you have in the barracks."
At the same moment about fifty other Volunteers closed in from behind,
with the result that the three unfortunate policemen could do nothing
but surrender, and the booty was distributed amongst the unarmed
Volunteers, and whatever was over stored for any recruits the valour of
this exploit might bring to the new colours.
The door of the post office was next charged at by three of the
strongest of the Volunteers, but being ajar, was consequently entered in
the most undignified way by the invaders, who fell head-over-heels into
the place, which was a couple of feet below the street-level--luckily
for themselves, their rifles not going off.
The telegraphic wires and apparatus were then broken up, and then,
proceeding in the direction of Donabate, the railway bridge at
Rodgerstown was blown up, cutting off Dublin.
Meanwhile, information had reached Malahide, and there the constabulary
at once proceeded to entrench themselves along the railway, in order to
protect the important bridge there; but the insurgents did not venture,
having already found the contingent that was engaged in a deadly
encounter with the Meath police at Ashbourne, towards the end of the
week, encamping between Fieldstown and Kilsallaghan.
Here, early on Sunday morning, they were surprised to receive a copy of
the proclamation issued by P. H. Pearse, advising them to surrender
unconditionally. So surprised in fact were they, that they determined to
keep "the ambassador of peace" as a hostage until they verified the
astounding news for themselves, one of their leaders motoring up to
Dublin with the Chief Constable. On their return, of course, with the
news confirmed, there was nothing to do but surrender, and this they
accordingly did--their only stipulation being that they should be spared
the humiliation of going back through Swords, where most of them lived.
The rising at Enniscorthy at one time threatened to be a more serious
affair, though it only began on the Thursday, when the Athenæum, one of
the principal buildings of the town, was seized and turned into a
headquarters by the insurgent staff.
Several hundreds of Sinn Feiners now assembled outside, and several
dozen motor-cars which had been "commandeered," together with stores of
petrol and food, and the men were all served out with ammunition, while
amidst huge enthusiasm the green, white, and orange Republican flag was
hoisted over the building.
Afterwards railway lines and telegraphs were destroyed by a special
force and the town methodically taken over, all business houses and
licensed premises being closed, with the exception of the gasworks and
the bakeries, where the employees were compelled to perform their public
duties in the name of the Commonwealth.
The R.I.C. barracks alone held out, being well supplied with ammunition,
but the police there were powerless to interfere, having to stand a sort
of siege day after day.
Enniscorthy Castle, which commands the town, was taken from Mr. Henry
Roche, J.P. All food and arms and vehicles throughout the town were
commandeered. But there was no looting, a considerable body of young men
having been formed into a species of Republican police--an organization
which would have saved the Dublin rising half its horrors.
The ladies of the "Cumann na Ban" next turned the top story of the
Athenæum into an improvised hospital, and here were brought the wounded
in the attack on the constabulary barracks, which lasted all Thursday
and part of Friday.
Friday was spent in preparation and expectation--the news of the
collapse of the revolt in Dublin not having yet reached them--and on
Saturday a motor expedition to Ferns resulted in the capture of the post
office and barracks.
As food had now become scarce, shops were only allowed to sell limited
quantities, and as the situation was becoming dangerous, with the
expected advent of the military, pickets were placed at street corners,
and these insisted on the civilian population keeping within doors.
Another strange, though by no means uncommon, sight was whole rows of
Volunteers going up to the Cathedral for confession, and on the Sunday
attending Mass.
The clergy, while not refusing them the consolations of religion,
however, in no way encouraged them in their illusion of success, for on
the Sunday morning a party of citizens from Arklow brought a priest
under cover of the white flag to announce to the rebels the collapse of
the rising in Dublin.
A deputation of the town was then sent to Wexford to interview the
military there, who confirmed the news; but, as elsewhere, even this did
not satisfy them, and they refused to surrender the town of Enniscorthy
until their leaders had seen Dublin's disaster with their own eyes.
Even then the "commanders" wanted to hold out, and, as the _Daily
Sketch_ correspondent pointed out, it was only when the chief citizens
themselves made the petition that the Volunteers at last consented.
Indeed, it would have been hard to conceive how they could logically
have insisted on defending the town, which refused to acknowledge them;
and the rebels, in justice be it said of them, were nothing if not
logical--even if only the logic of madmen. If Ireland refused to look
upon them as saviours, then they were not going to play the part of
tyrants; and it seems to me that if the civil authorities of Dublin had
taken up this stand on the Tuesday morning, the whole thing might have
fizzled off without a single further military casualty.
On Monday therefore--to continue the story of the Enniscorthy
rising--the rebels surrendered unconditionally to Colonel French, who
entered the town at the head of two thousand military.
At Wexford the situation was saved, as at Drogheda, by the assistance of
the National Volunteers, who, under Colonel Jameson Davis, turned out to
assist the police, the Lord Mayor and six hundred of the chief citizens
enrolling themselves also as special constables.
In Galway rebellion has always been in the blood. It was from Athenry,
eleven miles east of Galway, that the "Invincibles," who were
responsible for the Phoenix Park murders, came; and an interesting
account was given of the rising which now took place at Athenry by one
of the special correspondents of the Press, Mr. Hugh Martin.
According to this account the central figure was a "Captain" Mellows,
who, deported a month before from Ireland, had managed to make his
escape from England, and avoiding detection by the constabulary under
the disguise of a priest, suddenly turned up at the psychological moment
a few days before the outbreak of the rising in Dublin.
The Town Hall of Athenry, on Sunday and Monday, seemed to have aroused a
certain amount of suspicion--it was suspected of being a centre of
illegal munition making--but it was not till the Tuesday, thirty-six
hours after the seizure of the Dublin Post Office, that it suddenly
revealed itself in its true colours, when "Captain" Mellows unexpectedly
appeared in the green uniform of an Irish Volunteer and proclaimed the
establishment of an Irish Republic to a body of some five hundred
Volunteers, two-thirds of whom were armed with rifles and the rest with
shot-guns and pikes.
Overcoming the local police, they proceeded to take one of the Irish
Board of Agriculture's model farms about three-quarters of a mile from
Athenry, and having captured the place and appropriated all money,
settled for the night.
The next day, after a vain attempt by the police to dislodge them, they
marched, several hundreds strong, with a whole train of wagons and carts
filled with food of every description, towards Loughrea, where they
captured Lady Ardilaun's seat, Moyode Castle, from the lonely caretaker,
John Shackleton, and his pretty eighteen-year-old daughter Maisie.
A curious figure now appeared in the person of Father Feeny, who,
according to Hugh Martin, appears to have exercised as much control over
the men as the "Captain" himself.
His influence seems to have been on the whole for good, for the account
describes him as hearing the men's confessions and insisting that the
fifteen to twenty young colleens who were one of the most curious
features of the local rising, marching beside the men and doing all
their cooking, should be separately accommodated in the castle at night.
Some isolated R.I.C. men who happened to fall into their hands were
treated as prisoners, but when on the Thursday afternoon the police from
Athenry made an attack, they were chased with motor-cars for a distance
of about four miles back to Athenry, where the forces of the Crown only
just managed to get into their barracks in the nick of time.
The next day--Friday--saw the positions reversed, and news reached the
rebels that troops and artillery were on their way from Loughrea, some
six miles' distance, and it was the rebels' turn to turn tail,
scattering as they went to right and left, in spite of every effort of
"Captain" Mellows to encourage them with stories of the coming invasion
by Germany.
Some made for the hills, others tried to get back to their homes, but
most were seized by the Belfast police, in cars driven by Ulster
Volunteers, and those who did get back had to face not only the taunt of
ignominious defeat but the anger of the Redmondites, who now foresaw the
possibilities of a retribution quite out of all proportion to the
chances they had ever had of success.
Indeed, that seems to have been the general result of the collapse of
the rebellion all over Ireland; and though at first it apparently tended
to weaken the hands of the Irish Constitutional leader--who, when the
news came to him, must have felt as he had on that famous occasion when,
as a young man, five minutes before having to make a great speech near
Manchester, he was handed the news of the Phoenix Park murders--on the
whole it really considerably strengthened his position, much in the same
way as the revolt of De Wet brought out the loyalty of General Botha.
Botha, indeed, was one of the very first to see the similarity of the
two cases, and wired at once to Redmond, though it can of course only be
taken as a very superficial verdict of the South African Premier on the
real grievances underlying the movement, since he could hardly be
expected to understand Sinn Fein, much less those subtle provocations
which eventually counselled the mad appeal to Germany; for there can be
little doubt but that, if Castle rule had prevailed in Pretoria as it
still does in Dublin, South Africa would long since have been a
consenting party to German occupation.
This, however, was only one of the subtler aspects of the rising which
hardly found its way across the Channel, and consequently could scarcely
be expected to appeal to a colonial who was not an Irishman himself.
As the collapse became more general, however, it became more and more
evident to intelligent statesmen that it was more a hatred of Castle
rule than a love of German rule that had been at the bottom of it all,
and that it had been, in spite of the bluster of foreign alliance, more
an armed protest against a domestic state of affairs than a real attempt
to sever the Imperial link; nevertheless, the latter idea still survived
in the minds of the military authorities, who could see in it nothing
else, with the disastrous results that only became evident in the
aftermath.
CHAPTER THE FIFTH
AFTERMATH
The surrender and collapse of the abortive rising was no sooner over
than the whole affair took an entirely new aspect and passed through a
completely new phase when it came to deciding what should be thought of
the incident and what should be done to the prisoners.
It called for the utmost delicacy of handling on all sides, but this is
just what it did not get, and at once there was a complete revulsion of
feeling for the Sinn Feiners which, had it come before the rising, might
have enabled them to sweep everything before them.
The psychological change is curious as a study in Irish politics.
The first announcement of the rising was so sudden that it took all but
those immediately concerned entirely by surprise, and after a moment of
almost speechless amazement the movement was promptly denounced by every
moderate man in Ireland.
To the Nationalists it appeared at first as if it were the tearing
asunder of the Home Rule Bill and the ruination of the constitutional
cause for ever. Consequently their attitude was, from their own point of
view, perfectly correct, viz. unqualified denunciation. But as further
details came along and their opponents in England began to make capital
out of it, the case became different. The cry went up that it was want
of strength on the part of Mr. Birrell, the Chief Secretary, who could
do nothing but resign under the circumstances; and so pained was he that
he even went to the length of what was called a confession of guilt: but
his weakness had really been great strength--for any weakling can be
strong enough to sign an order for wholesale slaughter if he "damns the
consequences."
True, there could be no minimizing of the event either in the matter of
casualties or damage done.
A fortnight previous and Ireland was still the "one bright spot" and
Sackville Street one of the finest thoroughfares in the kingdom, but
during those momentous days the capital had been for the greater part of
a week almost entirely in the hands of the rebels; a Republican flag had
taken the place of the English Jack, which had floated over it for seven
continuous centuries, and now Dublin lay a heap of crumbling buildings,
whose smoking ruins looked like the track of the Huns--it might now be
called Ypres-on-the-Liffey.
The loss of life, too, had been tremendous, but the military casualties
were out of all proportion to those of the rebels, in some cases the
skirmishes representing a proportion of ten, and even twenty, to one.
The casualties, in fact, were as high as many a Boer War battle, and
amounted to three hundred killed and over a thousand wounded, of which
nearly two hundred were civilians. They included over sixty officers and
about four hundred rank and file. The Royal Irish Constabulary lost two
killed and thirty-five wounded; the Dublin Metropolitan Police six; the
Royal Navy three; and the Loyal Volunteers sixteen. With regard to the
Sinn Feiners no figures are available, but they must have been
considerably less than a quarter of these--perhaps even under.
The circumstances under which the troops and police suffered, however,
were such that the severest measures were adopted by General Sir John
Maxwell, who issued the following statement with regard to the action of
the courts martial:--
"In view of the gravity of the rebellion and its connection with German
intrigue propaganda, and in view of the great loss of life and
destruction of property resulting therefrom, the General Officer
Commanding-in-Chief has found it imperative to inflict the most severe
sentences on the known organizers of this detestable rising and on those
commanders who took an active part in the actual fighting which
occurred. It is hoped that these examples will be sufficient to act as a
deterrent to intriguers and to bring home to them that the murder of
His Majesty's liege subjects or other acts calculated to imperil the
safety of the realm will not be tolerated."
The military authorities have been blamed for the excessive rigour with
which these orders were carried out, especially for the use of shells,
but it may be questioned how far this did not arise purely from the
nature of the situation.
Certainly the rebels were at a disadvantage, and consequently won a
certain amount of sympathy, yet only a day before that sympathy was
entirely with the unfortunate military; but eventually a point was
reached when, instead of the military retrieving the situation lost by
the weakness of the politicians, it became a question whether they were
not undoing a good deal that it had taken a great deal of hard work upon
the part of the politicians to build up.
Now this is no idle theory, but the only possible explanation of a
series of changes that ensued.
When the news of the rising was first announced to John Redmond, he made
a dignified if not too diplomatic reply, in which he expressed despair
about the situation and utter disgust about the culprits.
The next official utterance was the somewhat ponderous manifesto of the
Irish Party--interesting as an historical summary of Ireland's real
attitude to the Empire, but lacking a grip of the actual psychological
drama of the situation.
The same may be said of the Irish leader's first appeal for clemency in
the treatment of the prisoners.
It was in the shape of a question asked of Mr. Asquith as to whether he
was aware that the continuance of military executions in Ireland had
caused rapidly increasing bitterness and exasperation among large
sections of the population who had no sympathy with the rising, and
whether it might not be better to follow the precedent set up by General
Botha in South Africa, where only one had been executed and the rest
exceedingly leniently treated, and stop the executions forthwith.
The Premier's reply was a curt refusal, phrased in the terms of an
absolute confidence in the discretion of the military authorities.
Unfortunately that "discretion" was exercised in such a manner as at
once to place its victims in the same category as Emmet, Wolf Tone, and
the Manchester Martyrs. In a word, to use the words of an English
critic, "It gave the Sinn Feiners the real victory, for it was looked
upon as the verification of all that they had feared and prophesied, and
for which they had, until that point, been looked upon as fools and
scaremongers."
Looking back over the situation at this critical juncture, it may well
be doubted whether it was altogether wise to carry out any sentences
into execution, and the Bishop of Limerick referred very pointedly to
the example of a very similar situation in the case of the Jameson raid,
when the leniency of the Boer Republicans towards the raiders avoided
war with England.
Technically, of course, the two were exactly parallel--by all the laws
of sovereignty a rebel deserves instant death; but it became a question
of diplomacy as well--a point which seems to have been lost in the clash
of battle.
In other words, had time allowed--and of course there was no knowing
what effect the resistance of Dublin might have on the country--it may
be a moot point whether it might not have been advisable to separate the
two questions of the sentence of death and the actual executions, and
one can well imagine the conciliatory effect of a Royal Act of Clemency
in the event of maturer consideration making it advisable to commute
those sentences.
Thus Lord Bryce, who might have been considered not only to know Ireland
from past experience, but to speak with his hand on the mental pulse of
the American people on this matter, strongly advised clemency in the
following letter to the _Westminster Gazette_, in which he endorsed the
advice of Sir West Ridgeway, a former Under-Secretary for Ireland:--
"Permit me to express hearty concurrence with Sir West Ridgeway in the
advice which his thoughtful letter of yesterday contains. He knows, as
others who have lived in Ireland or have studied her history know, that
excessive severities have done far more harm by provoking afresh
revengeful disaffection than punishment has ever done to quell it. This
was eminently true of the rebellion of 1798, suppressed with a cruelty
which shocked the humane minds of the Viceroy (Lord Cornwallis) and Sir
Ralph Abercromby. The abortive rising of 1848 (which I am old enough to
remember) was treated with a comparative leniency which the public
opinion of that day approved, and which was justified by the result. Its
chiefs did not become heroes.
"That condign punishment should be meted out to a few of those most
responsible for this mad outbreak in Dublin, with its deplorable
bloodshed, is inevitable. But this once done, a large and generous
clemency is the course recommended by wisdom as well as by pity, and is
all the more fitting because it will be a recognition of the fact that
the rising was the work of a handful of persons, mostly ignorant,
unbalanced visionaries, and is unequivocally condemned by the vast
majority of the Irish people.--I am, faithfully yours,
"BRYCE.
"FOREST ROW, SUSSEX, _May 4th._"