The Wearing of the Green | Page 3

Patriots Executed at Manchester, 23rd November, Will take place in Dublin On Sunday next, the 8th inst.
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The procession will assemble in Beresford-place, near the Custom House, and will start from thence at the hour of twelve o'clock noon.
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No flags, banners, or party emblems will be allowed.
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IRISHMEN
Assemble in your thousands, and show by your numbers and your orderly demeanour your sympathy with the fate of the executed patriots.
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IRISHWOMEN
You are requested to lend the dignity of your presence to this important National Demonstration.
By Order of the Committee.
JOHN MARTIN, Chairman. J.C. WATERS, Hon. Secretary. JAMES SCANLAN, Hon. Secretary. J.J. LALOR, Hon. Secretary. DONAL SULLIVAN, Up. Buckingham-street, Treasurer.
The appearance of the "funeral procession placards" all over the city on Thursday, 5th December, increased the public excitement. No other topic was discussed in any place of public resort, but the event forthcoming on Sunday. The first evidence of what it was about to be, was the appearance of the drapery establishments in the city on Saturday morning; the windows, exteriorly and interiorly, being one mass of crape and green ribbon--funeral knots, badges, scarfs, hat-bands, neckties, &c., exposed for sale. Before noon most of the retail, and several of the wholesale houses had their entire stock of green ribbon and crape exhausted, it being computed that nearly one hundred thousand yards had been sold up to midnight of Saturday! Meantime the committee sat en permanance, zealously pushing their arrangements for the orderly and successful carrying out of their great undertaking--appointing stewards, marshals, &c.--in a word, completing the numerous details on the perfection of which it greatly depended whether Sunday was to witness a successful demonstration or a scene of disastrous disorder. On this, as upon every occasion when a national demonstration was to be organized, the trades of Dublin, Kingstown, and Dalkey, exhibited that spirit of patriotism for which they have been proverbial in our generation. From their ranks came the most efficient aids in every department of the preparations. On Saturday evening the carpenters, in a body, immediately after their day's work was over, instead of seeking home and rest, refreshment or recreation after their week of toil, turned into the Nation office machine rooms, which they quickly improvised into a vast workshop, and there, as volunteers, laboured away till near midnight, manufacturing "wands" for the stewards of next morning's procession.
Sunday, 8th December, 1867, dawned through watery skies. From shortly after day-break, rain, or rather half-melted sleet, continued to fall; and many persons concluded that there would be no attempt to hold the procession under such inclement weather. This circumstance was, no doubt, a grievous discouragement, or rather a discomfort and an inconvenience; but so far from preventing the procession, it was destined to add a hundred-fold to the significance and importance of the demonstration. Had the day been fine, tens of thousands of persons who eventually only lined the streets, wearing the funeral emblems, would have marched in the procession as they had originally intended; but hostile critics would in this case have said that the fineness of the day and the excitement of the pageant had merely caused a hundred thousand persons to come out for a holiday. Now, however, the depth, reality, and intensity of the popular feeling was about to be keenly tested. The subjoined account of this memorable demonstration is summarised from the Dublin daily papers of the next ensuing publication, the report of the _Freeman's Journal_ being chiefly used:--
As early as ten o'clock crowds began to gather in Beresford-place, and in an hour about ten thousand men were present. The morning had succeeded to the hopeless humidity of the night, and the drizzling rain fell with almost dispiteous persistence. The early trains from Kingstown and Dalkey, and all the citerior townlands, brought large numbers into Dublin; and Westland-row, Brunswick, D'Olier, and Sackville-streets, streamed with masses of humanity. A great number of the processionists met in Earlsfort-terrace, all round the Exhibition, and at twelve o'clock some thousands had collected. It was not easy to learn the object of this gathering; it may have been a mistake, and most probably it was, as they fell in with the great body in the course of half an hour. The space from the quays, including the great sweep in front of the Custom-house, was swarming with men, and women, and small children, and the big ungainly crowd bulged out in Gardiner-street, and the broad space leading up Talbot-street. The ranks began to be formed at eleven o'clock amid a down-pour of cold rain. The mud was deep and aqueous, and great pools ran through the streets almost level with the paths. Some of the more prominent of the men, and several of the committee, rode about directing