The Insurrection in Dublin | Page 8

in the City were shut. There was no
traffic of any kind in the streets. There was no way of gathering any
kind of information, and rumour gave all the news.
It seemed that the Military and the Government had been taken
unawares. It was Bank Holiday, and many military officers had gone to
the races, or were away on leave, and prominent members of the Irish
Government had gone to England on Sunday.

It appeared that everything claimed on the previous day was true, and
that the City of Dublin was entirely in the hands of the Volunteers.
They had taken and sacked Jacob's Biscuit Factory, and had converted
it into a fort which they held. They had the Post Office, and were
building baricades around it ten feet high of sandbags, cases, wire
entanglements. They had pushed out all the windows and sandbagged
them to half their height, while cart-loads of food, vegetables and
ammunition were going in continually. They had dug trenches and
were laying siege to one of the city barracks.
It was current that intercourse between Germany and Ireland had been
frequent chiefly by means of submarines, which came up near the coast
and landed machine guns, rifles and ammunition. It was believed also
that the whole country had risen, and that many strong places and cities
were in the hands of the Volunteers. Cork Barracks was said to be
taken while the officers were away at the Curragh races, that the men
without officers were disorganised, and the place easily captured.
It was said that Germans, thousands strong, had landed, and that many
Irish Americans with German officers had arrived also with full
military equipment.
On the previous day the Volunteers had proclaimed the Irish Republic.
This ceremony was conducted from the Mansion House steps, and the
manifesto was said to have been read by Pearse, of St. Enda's. The
Republican and Volunteer flag was hoisted on the Mansion House. The
latter consisted of vertical colours of green, white and orange. Kerry
wireless station was reported captured, and news of the Republic
flashed abroad. These rumours were flying in the street.
It was also reported that two transports had come in the night and had
landed from England about 8,000 soldiers. An attack reported on the
Post Office by a troop of lancers who were received with fire and
repulsed. It is foolish to send cavalry into street war.
In connection with this lancer charge at the Post Office it is said that
the people, and especially the women, sided with the soldiers, and that
the Volunteers were assailed by these women with bricks, bottles,

sticks, to cries of:
"Would you be hurting the poor men?"
There were other angry ladies who threatened Volunteers, addressing to
them this petrifying query:
"Would you be hurting the poor horses?"
Indeed, the best people in the world live in Dublin.
The lancers retreated to the bottom of Sackville Street, where they
remained for some time in the centre of a crowd who were carressing
their horses. It may have seemed to them a rather curious kind of
insurrection--that is, if they were strangers to Ireland.
In the Post Office neighbourhood the Volunteers had some difficulty in
dealing with the people who surged about them while they were
preparing the barricade, and hindered them to some little extent. One of
the Volunteers was particularly noticeable. He held a lady's umbrella in
his hand, and whenever some person became particularly annoying he
would leap the barricade and chase his man half a street, hitting him
over the head with the umbrella. It was said that the wonder of the
world was not that Ireland was at war, but that after many hours the
umbrella was still unbroken. A Volunteer night attack on the Quays
was spoken of, whereat the military were said to have been taken by
surprise and six carts of their ammunition captured. This was probably
untrue. Also, that the Volunteers had blown up the Arsenal in the
Phoenix Park.
There had been looting in the night about Sackville Street, and it was
current that the Volunteers had shot twenty of the looters.
The shops attacked were mainly haberdashers, shoe shops, and sweet
shops. Very many sweet shops were raided, and until the end of the
rising sweet shops were the favourite mark of the looters. There is
something comical in this looting of sweet shops--something almost
innocent and child-like. Possibly most of the looters are children who

are having the sole gorge of their lives. They have tasted sweetstuffs
they had never toothed before, and will never taste again in this life,
and until they die the insurrection of 1916 will have a sweet savour for
them.
I went to the Green. At the corner of Merrion Row a