The Easter Rising

[groundhog]

The Easter Rising

Monday 24th April 1916

The Dublin Division of the Irish Volunteers was organized in four battalions and deployed as follows;

1st battalion under Comdt Ned Daly, minus D Coy, occupied the Four Courts and areas to the northwest to guard against attack from the west, principally from the Royal and Marlborough Barracks. D Coy, numbering 12 men led by Capt Seán Heuston, occupied the Mendicity Institution, across the river from the Four Courts. 1st Bn had a strength of 50 men when mustered at Blackhall St in the morning.

2nd battalion numbered about 200 men under Comdt Thomas MacDonagh who gathered at St. Stephen's Green with orders to occupy Jacob's Biscuit Factory and Bishop Street, south of the city centre.

Comdt Éamon de Valera commanded about 130 men of the 3rd battalion who occupied Boland's Bakery and a number of surrounding buildings to cover Beggars Bush Barracks and the main road and railway from Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire).

Comdt Éamonn Ceannt's 4th battalion, numbering about 100 men occupied the South Dublin Union to the southwest and defended against attack from the Curragh.

A joint force of about 400 Volunteers and Irish Citizen Army gathered at Liberty Hall under the command of Comdt James Connolly. Of these, about 100 men and women of the ICA under Comdt Michael Mallin were deployed to St. Stephen's Green. A small detachment under Captain Seán Connolly were directed to seize the area around the City Hall, next to Dublin Castle, including the offices of the Daily Express. The remainder was to occupy the General Post Office as the headquarters battalion. Accompanying them were four other members of the Military Council: Patrick Pearse (Commander-in-Chief), Tom Clarke, Seán Mac Dermott and Joseph Plunkett.

At midday a small team of Volunteers attacked the Magazine Fort in the Phoenix Park and disarmed the guards. The intention was to seize weapons and blow up the building as a signal that the rising had begun. They failed to obtain many arms and the explosion was not loud enough to be heard in the city beacuse of the lack of explosives. An officer had gone to Fairyhouse with the key to the stores in his pocket. The 14 year old son of the Commanding Officer was shot dead by the Volunteers as he ran to Islandbridge Bksto raise the alarm.

At the same time the Volunteers and Citizen Army forces throughout the city moved to occupy and secure their positions. Seán Connolly's unit made an assault on Dublin Castle, shooting dead a police sentry and overpowering the soldiers in the guardroom, but did not press home the attack. The Under-secretary, Sir Matthew Nathan, who was in his office with Colonel Ivor Price, the Military Intelligence Officer, and A. H. Norway, head of the Post Office, was alerted by the shots and helped close the castle gates. The rebels occupied Dublin City Hall and adjacent buildings. Mallin's detachment, which was joined by Constance Markiewicz occupied St. Stephen's Green, digging trenches and commandeering vehicles to build barricades. They took several buildings, including the Royal College of Surgeons, but did not make an attempt on the Shelbourne Hotel, a tall building overlooking the park. Daly's men, erecting barricades at the Four Courts, were the first to see action. A troop of the 5th and 12th Lancers, part of the 6th Cavalry Reserve Regiment, was escorting an ammunition convoy along the north Quays when it came under fire from the rebels and took refuge in nearby buildings. Two of the lancers were killed, Tpr Scarlett at Ormond Quay and an unnamed soldier in Church St. A young girl was killed in the exchange of fire between cavalry and volunteers.

The headquarters battalion, led by Connolly, marched the short distance to O'Connell Street. They charged the GPO, expelled customers and staff, and took a number of British soldiers prisoner. Two flags were hoisted on the flag poles on either end of the GPO roof, the tricolour and a green flag with the inscription 'Irish Republic'. A short time later, Pearse read the Proclamation of the Republic outside the GPO.

When the rising began, Col. Henry Cowan, Assistant Adjutant General Irish Command, was the senior British Officer in Dublin. Colonel Kennard, the OC Dublin Garrison, could not be located and General Friend, C-in-C Ireland, was on leave in England. Cowan telephoned Marlborough Barracks and asked for a detachment of troops to be sent to Sackville Street to investigate the situation at the GPO. He then telephoned Portobello, Richmond and the Royal Barracks and ordered them to send troops to relieve Dublin Castle. Finally, he contacted the Curragh and asked for reinforcements to be sent to Dublin. A troop of the 6th Reserve Cavalry Regt from Marlborough Barracks, proceeded down O'Connell Street. As it passed Nelson's Pillar, level with the GPO, the rebels opened fire, killing three cavalrymen and two horses and fatally wounding a fourth man. The cavalrymen retreated and were withdrawn to barracks.

A patrol from the 3rd Bn, Royal Irish Regt, approaching the city from Richmond Barracks, encountered an outpost of Éamonn Ceannt's force under Section-Commander John Joyce in Mount Brown, at the north-western corner of the South Dublin Union. A party of twenty men under Lt George Malone was ordered to march on to Dublin Castle. They proceeded a short distance with rifles sloped and unloaded before coming under fire, losing three men in the first volley, then broke into a tan-yard opposite. Malone's jaw was shattered by a bullet as he went in. The CO, Lieutenant-Colonel R. L. Owens, brought up the remainder of his men from Richmond Barracks. A company with a machine gun was sent to the Royal Hospital overlooking the Union. The main body took up positions along the east and south walls of the Union, occupying houses and a block of flats, then opened fire on the rebel positions, forcing Joyce and his men to retreat across open ground. A party led by Lt. Alan Ramsey broke open a small door next to the Rialto gate, but Ramsey was shot and killed, and the attack was repulsed. A second wave led by Capt. Warmington charged the door but Warmington, too, was killed. The remaining troops, trying to break in further along the wall, were enfiladed from Jameson's distillery in Marrowbone Lane. Eventually the superior numbers and firepower of the "British" were decisive they forced their way inside and the small rebel force in the tin huts at the eastern end of the Union surrendered.

During the night, government troops slipped into the Shelbourne Hotel, unnoticed by the rebels and unopposed, and gave themselves a commanding position overlooking St Stephen's Green.

Other casualties on the day

Lt Gerald Neilan RDF, KIA Ellis’s Quay
John Murray, Civilian killed by Irish Volunteers when he failed to halt in May Lane
2/Lt Edward Costelloe, Irish Volunteers, KIA Church St by a sniper

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The Easter Rising

Tuesday 25th April 1916

The military authorities began to reinforce the Dublin Garrison overnight. Trainloads of troops began arriving in the city from Belfast and the Curragh while more were preparing to sail from Britain. By 5.20am, the whole Curragh Mobile Column of 1,600 men was in Dublin. Shortly afterwards, it was joined by the 1,000 men of the 25th Irish Reserve Infantry Brigade. By 4.20pm the number of troops available to the authorities had risen to around 3,000. The Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord Wimborne declared Martial Law in the city.

At daybreak, the troops in the Shelbourne Hotel opened fire with a machine gun on the rebels in St. Stephen's Green. The Volunteers' position soon became untenable and by noon they had withdrawn to the College of Surgeons. Also from early morning, British troops began an assault on City Hall which they captured after some delay. With City Hall captured, the troops moved on to the Express offices in the afternoon. That fight lasted about an hour;

"From our position in front of the College we could see that a terrific fire was being directed against the Daily Express building: plaster and powdered brick were flying in showers from its facade. This fire was to cover the advance of our soldiers. But in spite of this we saw, more than once, one of the running figures pitch forward and fall. . . The fight seemed to last a considerable time - about an hour at its greatest intensity - before the firing began to wane."

A student in Trinity College who witnessed the attack on the offices of the Daily Express


Very little was happening in the GPO at this stage. The men inside were disturbed by the wholesale looting that was going on in the streets about them. Inside, Padraic Pearse issued proclamations of a general uprising in the country and mutinies in the Irish Regiments of the British army although these were not in fact happening. Jacob's Mill was surrounded by a mob of civilians shouting at the Volunteers to go to fight in France. 15 year old Volunteer, Martin Walton absconded from his parents' home to join the garrison. As he was being left in a comrade shot a woman who tried to attack him. Outside Beggar's Bush Barracks a British sentry shot two girls in looted clothes who he took to be rebels in disguise.

In the evening, Capt Bowen-Colthurst arrested three civilians, including Francis Sheehy Skeffington. The three were shot next day.

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Wednesday 26th April 1916

Overnight a gunboat, the Helga, had sailed up the Liffey. At 8am, it began shelling Liberty Hall. The first shell missed but subsequent shells destroyed the building, which was actually empty except for a caretaker who legged it after the first shell.

About 2pm the British began to shell the GPO.

At the Mendicity Institute, on Usher's Quay, Seán Heuston's small body of men was holding out against about 400 government troops, holding up the enemy's progress from Kingsbridge to the Four Courts. The fighting was at extreme close quarters, and the soldiers began lobbing hand grenades into the building. When the rebels began to run out of ammunition, having suffered casualties and were about to be over run, Heuston decided to surrender. It was the first rebel garrison to surrender its position. One of the government troops at the Mendicity Institute was Pte John Chapman, an Australian on sick leave after having been in Gallipoli for three months. He made the mistake of returning to Dublin on Easter Monday and was immediately ordered back to duty.

The 26th also saw the battle at Mount Street Bridge, to the south of the city. A handful of rebels was deployed between 25 Northumberland Road, the road's schools and Clanwilliam House, covering the approaches from Kingstown.

About 10.30am, four battalions of the Sherwood Foresters marched from Kingstown for Dublin. Many of them were recruits of a couple of months service. Some thought that they had landed in France. Two of the battalions broke away and marched for Kilmainham and two continued for the city. About 300 yards from Mount Street Bridge, they came under fire from 25 Northumberland Road. Ten Sherwood Foresters fell in the first volley. After some confusion, the officers drew their swords and led a bayonet charge across the road towards the house, where many more were shot at point-blank range. Among the dead was a Capt Frederick Dietrichsen, from Nottingham whose wife and children had met him on the road a few minutes before. Those that got paSt Number 25 were hit from the flank and rear by, among others, the Walshe brothers, Thomas and James, in Clanwilliam House. Thomas recalled the mound dead and wounded soldiers piled on MountStreetBridge and firing his rifle until it was too hot to hold. In Boland's Mill, Eamon de Valera had decided against reinforcing the rebels around Mount Street Bridge because he expected an assault on his own position. Inevitably the men defending the houses began to suffer casualties. One of the first to die was Paddy Doyle followed by Dick Murphy. Thomas Walsh put a coat on a dressmaker's model that they had found in the house and put it in front of a window where it drew a lot of fire. At this stage dead and wounded soldiers and an occasional civilian were strewn all over the road. Priests, nuns and nurses were attempting to remove the injured.
Eventually the Sherwood's were supplied with grenades and a machine gun. In No 25 Michael Malone was killed and the house evacuated. The schools on the road were over-run and in Clanwilliam House, the Walshes and their comrades ran out of ammunition. With the house on fire they decided to evacuate. A man named Reynolds stood up to fire his last shot and was killed in the process. The surviving rebels made their way to the basement from where they climbed through a window and made their way over walls and through the lanes to a factory on Baggot Street, where they settled in the for the night. The Walshe brothers spent a long time on the run after the rising, returning home to their parent's house in November 1916.

At Lower Mount Street after the battle, the Sherwood Foresters' CO, Col Maconchy was greeted by cheering crowds as he surveyed the scene where he lost 230 men killed or wounded.

http://www.derbyshirelads.uwclub.net...on_memoirs.htm


On the 26th, Gen Sir John Maxwell was sent from London with instructions to suppress the Rising using whatever means necessary.

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Thursday 27th April 1916

A day of general fighting across the city.

Having captured the Mendicity Institute the government troops now laid siege to the Four Courts , where the garrison was commanded by Ned Daly. Armoured cars had been improvised from Guinness lorries covered with old boiler plate. House to house fighting was conducted along King Street.

At the South Dublin Union, Eamonn Ceannt's garrison was under fierce attack. His 2i/c was Cathal Brugha who would be wounded several times before being evacuated on Friday.

In Marrowbone Lane, where Con Colbert commanded, Thursday saw British soldiers surrounding Jameson's distillery. The troops had entrenched themselves on both sides of the Canal and in a nearby field. At about 2pm the soldiers had advanced to the outer walls of the distillery. Inside ammunition was getting scarce and makeshift pikes were being manufactured from pieces of scrap steel and brush handles.

In the GPO, Pearse still maintained the fiction that the country was in general insurrection and that help was on the way from outside the city. One can only assume that he was trying to keep up morale. In the afternoon James Connolly was wounded by a ricochet which fractured his left shinbone, leaving him confined to a stretcher on the floor.

At this stage the area around the GPO was under heavy artillery fire. Sackville Street was ablaze and commentators reported molten glass from Clery's window flowing in the gutters. The blaze which started in a barricade quickly spread and forced the evacuation of the Imperial Hotel. Government troops attacked from the direction of the Abbey Theatre leading to a gunfight that lasted until the afternoon. Once it was over the looters descended on the area. One looter at least was shot by a sniper.

Ernest Jordison, head of British Petroleum in Ireland, had taken his children to Drogheda to stay with relatives. Cycling home from Clontarf he noted that everything was still and quiet except for the guns being fired in the city. The weather was fine and the country was lighted up from the reflection in the skies of the fires as Dublin burned.

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Friday 28th April 1916

In the early hours of Friday morning, General Sir John Maxwell arrived in Dublin as commander-in-chief of the forces in Ireland.

Dubliners were starting to feel the pinch as food stocks ran low. The basics were hard to find. One woman described her father coming home with two loaves of bread, the first food they had had in three days, which had to be divided amongst 14 people.

In Jameson's Distillery the rebels believed they were winning and that the Germans were advancing on Dublin. Through the day they were subjected to sporadic fire only.

In the Four Courts, Ned Daly's garrison wasn't doing well. The men on North King Street (about seven or eight strong) were cut off from Daly. One man had gone mad and had to be handcuffed to a bed. Their only possible escape route from the Four Courts was down Church Street where the South Staffordshire Regiment was concentrated.

On Sackville Street the shelling continued. The Metropole Hotel was set on fire. Oscar Traynor who commanded there received orders in the evening to withdraw to the GPO. When he arrived there he discovered that no such order had been given and he led his men back to the hotel.
The first direct hit from a shell landed on the GPO at 3pm. The upper floors quickly became death traps and attempts to contain the fires proved fruitless when the water was cut off. At dusk, the garrison assembled in the main hall where Pearse ordered a withdrawal to Williams and Woods factory on Parnell Street. The evacuation began at 8pm in three groups. Pearse was last to leave, having ensured that no one was left behind. The groups were under heavy fire as they crossed to Moore Lane. 17 men were wounded in the withdrawal. During the evening, The O'Rahilly led a charge down Henry Street with most of his men, including himself, being wounded or killed. O’Rahilly bled to death in a lane off Moore Street.

The rebels holed the walls of the houses in an attempt to work their way down Moore Street. Eventually they stopped at a house halfway down the street. Here the members of the Provisional Government who had escaped from the GPO, Pearse, James Connolly, Joseph Plunkett, Thomas Clarke and Seán MacDermott, assembled for a Council of War.

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Saturday 29th April 1916

By Saturday morning the GPO was a burnt-out shell. Its former garrison continued to burrow their way up Moore Street. A fishmonger's shop at Number 16 Moore Street was chosen as the rebel headquarters and the leaders of the rebellion held a council of war here on Saturday morning. About noon the decision was made to surrender.

At 12.45pm Nurse Elizabeth O'Farrell, a member of Cumann na Mban, left the house under a flag of truce and walked to the barricade at the junction of Moore Street and Parnell Street. Here she reported Pearse's wish to surrender. O'Farrell was made a prisoner and brought (ironically) to Tom Clarke's shop which was used as a temporary prison. At 2.45pm she was brought back to Moore Street and sent back to the rebels with a note and verbal message offering an unconditional surrender. She was to return within half an hour with a reply. About 3.30pm General Lowe took Pearse's surrender in Parnell Street. Pearse was put in a car and taken to meet General Maxwell. At 3.45pm he signed a general order instructing the rebels to surrender. Connolly, who had been taken to a Red Cross hospital in Dublin Castle, countersigned the order as Commander of the Irish Citizen Army.

The surrender came a s a surprise to many of the rebels who ahad been warmed for further action that evening. They were fell in on Moore Street and were marched up Sackville Street and formed into two lines where they left all their arms and ammunition. Officers with notebooks took down their names. Joseph Sweeney recalled one of the officers just looked at one of rebels and without asking him anything wrote down his name and then walked on. After he had gone somebody asked this fellow, 'Does that officer know you?' 'That's my brother,' he said."

The prisoners were herded into the Rotunda Gardens. Anyone under the age of 18 was sent home (possibly with a note to their parents). Seán Harling was annoyed to be sent on his way with a clip on the ear from an irate Captain.

Nurse O'Farrell had been given surrender orders to be handed to the various posts. Accompanied by a priest, she went to meet Ned Daly at the Four Courts. The next morning she went first to St Stephen's Green, where fighting continued. She then made her way towards Boland's mill. Again there was still sniping in the area and her army driver refused to take her through. As she crossed Grand CanalStreetBridge a man walking behind her was shot.

She located Eamon de Valera in a dispensary that he was using as a headquarters. When O'Farrell arrived with the surrender order de Valera at first thought that it was a hoax, but finally agreed to surrender once he received orders from Thomas MacDonagh who was still in Jacob's Mill. The Tricolour at Jacob's was hauled down at about 5pm. MacDonagh having surrendered to General Lowe went to inform Eamonn Ceannt at the South Dublin Union.

At 6pm a despatch arrived at Jameson's Distillery from Ceannt ordering a ceasefire. At 6.30pm Ceannt, with a priest and a British officer, entered the front gate of the distillery and spoke with the rebel leaders there. When he was finished Colbert fell his men in and told them they were surrendering unconditionally, but that anyone who wanted to escape could do so. Some did so before they were marched to Richmond Barracks. The men in the distillery were the last to surrender.

62 Rebels died in the fighting of Easter Week. The government forces lost 132 killed. About 250 people died, caught in crossfire or shelling or deliberately shot by combatants on either side.

All the rebel commanders, with the exception of De Valera, were executed by the military despite warnings from British and Irish politicians that it would inflame the population of Ireland. And so it proved.

Padraig Pearse, Thomas Clarke and Thomas McDonagh were the first to be executed on May 3rd.

Joseph Plunkett, Willie Pearse, Edward Daly and Michael O’Hanrahan were executed on May 4th.

John McBride was executed on May 5th.

Eamonn Ceannt, Michael Mallin, Sean Heuston and Con Colbert were executed on May 8th.

Sean MacDiarmada and James Connolly were the last to die on May 12th.

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The Easter Rising

Sunday 30th April 1916

2nd Lieutenant Montague Bernard Browne, 2/8th Sherwood Foresters. Died of wounds received in Dublin on 25th April. He was aged 39 and was the son of Mary and the late Rev. S. Browne, of North Collingham, Nottinghamshire. He is Buried at Dean's Grange Cemetery, Co. Dublin.

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The Easter Rising

Tuesday 2nd May 1916

The Courts Martial of Thomas Clarke, Thomas McDonagh and Padraig Pearse were conducted in Richmond Barracks, Dublin. The members of the court martial board were Brigadier-General C.G. Blackader, Lieutenant-Colonel G. German and Lieutenant-Colonel W.J. Kent. The three men were charged with taking part in an armed rebellion and waging of war against the King. They were found guilty and sentenced to death.

In the early hours of the morning Bawnard House, Castlelyons, Co. Cork was surrounded by a party of Royal Irish Constabulary under the command of Head Constable William Rowe. Bawnard House was the home of the Kent family including brothers Thomas, David, Richard and William Kent. The constabulary called on the occupants to surrender which they refused to do and a pitched battle ensued, during which Head Contable Rowe was killed and David Kent was severely wounded. In a later attempt to escape, Richard Kent was seriously wounded; he died from his wounds two days later. Thomas and William Kent were both tried by courts martial on the 4th May 1916 in Cork Prison. William was acquitted but Thomas was sentenced to death. He was executed five days later on 9th May in Cork Military Prison which is now Cork Jail. He was buried in Cork Men's Prison which is now demolished and forms part of the grounds of University College Cork. The boundary wall of the prison still stands in Jail Lane where there is a memorial to those executed and buried here between 1916 and 1922. I believe their graves are also marked inside the University grounds.

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The Easter Rising

Wednesday 3rd May 1916

Padraig Pearse, Thomas Clarke and Thomas McDonagh were executed by firing squad in Kilmainham Jail.

Eamonn Ceannt, Sean McDermott, Joseph Plunkett, Michael O’Hanrahan, Willie Pearse, Edward Daly, John Dougherty, John McGarry and J.J. Walsh were court-martialled in Richmond Barracks, Dublin. Ceannt, McDermott, Pearse, Plunkett, O’Hanrahan and Daly were found guilty of rebellion and waging of war against the King and sentenced to death.

Colonel Henry Thomas Ward Allatt, Royal Irish Rifles died of wounds received at the South Dublin Union during the Easter Rising. He was the husband of Constance Allatt of Folkestone, Kent and was a retired officer of the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry. He rejoined the Army in August 1914 as a recruitment officer. He was aged 69 when he died and he was buried at Aldershot Military Cemetery, Hampshire.

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The Easter Rising

Thursday 4th May 1916

Joseph Plunkett, Willie Pearse, Edward Daly and Michael O’Hanrahan were executed by firing squad in Kilmainham Jail

Con Colbert, John McBride, Sean Heuston, W. O'Dea, P. Kelly and J. Crenigan were tried by Court Martial in Richmond Barracks, Dublin. They were charged with taking part in an armed rebellion and in the waging of war against the King. Colbert, McBride and Heuston were sentenced to death.

Richard Kent, Irish Volunteers, died of wounds received on May 2nd at his home in Castlelyons, Co. Cork.

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The Easter Rising

Friday 5th May 1916

John McBride was executed by firing squad in Kilmainham Jail

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The Easter Rising

Monday 8th May 1916

Eamonn Ceannt, Michael Mallin, Sean Heuston and Con Colbert were executed in Kilmainham Jail.

The Court Martial of James Connolly started in Dublin Castle. Connolly was wounded in the GPO and so was confined in Dublin Castle Hospital rather than Kilmainham Jail. The court martial board was made up of three members: Colonel D. Sapte, Lieutenant-Colonel A.M. Bent, 2nd Bn Royal Munster Fusiliers, and Major F.W. Woodward, DSO, Loyal North Lancashire Regiment. He was charged with two offences:

Did an act to wit did take part in an armed rebellion and in the waging of war against His Majesty the King, such act being of such a nature as to be calculated to be prejudicial to the Defence of the Realm and being done with the intention and for the purpose of assisting then enemy.

Did attempt to cause disaffection among the civilian population of His Majesty.

He was found guilty of the first charge and sentenced to death.

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The Easter Rising

Monday 8th May 1916

Thomas Kent was executed by firing squad in Cork Military Prison. In the NCO’s Mess in Collins Barracks is a painting of his execution by men of the British Army. Kent was actually executed by a firing squad drawn from the Royal Navy in Haulbowline.

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The Easter Rising

Friday 12th May 1916

Sean MacDiarmada and James Connolly were executed by firing squad in Kilmainham Jail

www.stephen-stratford.co.uk/easter.htm