DUBLIN DAYS: THE RISING.

LETTERS FROM MRS. HAMILTON NORWAY.

April 25, Tuesday.—On Saturday we were going to tea with friends at Bray when just as we were starting H. (my husband) got an ‘official’ from the Castle, so I went alone and he went to the Castle. News had come that a boat had been taken off the Kerry coast, landing ammunition, and a very important arrest had been made. Easter Sunday passed off in absolute calm, and yesterday (Easter Monday) morning H. said he had a lot of letters to write and he would go and write them at his Club, almost next door to the Sackville Street General Post Office. He found he wanted to answer some letters that were in his desk at the G.P.O. so he walked over to his room and was just sitting down when his ’phone went, an urgent message to go at once to the Castle.

He had only just arrived there and was in consultation with Sir M. N. when suddenly a volley of shots rang out at the Castle Gate, and it was found armed bodies of men were in possession of the City Hall and other houses that commanded the other gates to the Castle, and anyone attempting to leave the Castle was shot. All the officials in the Castle were prisoners.

When N. (my son) came in about 12.30 I said we would walk down to the Club and meet H. The streets were quiet and deserted till we crossed O’Connell Bridge, when N. remarked there was a dense crowd round Nelson’s Pillar, but we supposed it was a bank-holiday crowd waiting for trams. We were close to the General Post Office, when two or three shots were fired, followed by a volley, and the crowd began rushing down towards the bridge, the people calling out ‘Go back, go back, the Sinn Feiners are firing.’ N. said ‘You’d better go back, mother; there’s going to be a row; I’ll go on to the Club and find Dad.’ So I turned and fled with the crowd and got back safely to the hotel.

About 1.30 N. returned, having failed to find H., and we had an anxious lunch. During lunch a telephone message came through saying H. was at the Castle but could not leave.

At 3 P.M. N. told me all was quiet in Sackville Street and begged me to go out and see the G.P.O.

I quaked rather, but we set off and reached Sackville Street safely.

Over the fine building of the G.P.O. floated a great green flag with ‘Irish Republic’ on it. Every window on the ground floor was smashed and barricaded with furniture, and a big placard announced ‘The Headquarters of the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic.’ At every window were two men with rifles, and on the roof the parapet was lined with men. H.’s room appeared not to have been touched and there were no men at his windows.

We stood opposite and were gazing when suddenly two shots were fired, and, seeing there was likely to be an ugly rush, I fled again.

At 11.30 P.M. H. walked in, to my immense relief. The troops had arrived, 2000 of them from the Curragh, at about 5 P.M., and had promptly stormed the City Hall, which commanded the main gate of the Castle, and had taken it after fierce fighting.

Tuesday.—This morning we hear the military are pouring into the city.

All our valuables were stored in H.’s safe and cupboards when we gave up our house, and all our dear F.’s books, sword, and all his possessions, which we value more than anything else in the world; we would not trust them with the stored furniture.

Yesterday afternoon the mob broke all the windows in various streets, and looted all the shops. The streets were strewn with clothes, boots, furniture, tram cushions, and everything you can imagine.

While I am writing now there is incessant firing in St. Stephen’s Green, and we fear there may be street fighting in this street.

Tuesday Evening.—H. and N. have just come in, having seen Dr. (now Major) W., Surgeon to the Forces in Ireland. He told them that so far we had had about 500 casualties, two-thirds of them being civilians shot in the streets.

The first thing Dr. W. heard of the outbreak was a ’phone message telling him to go at once to the Shelbourne, as a man had been shot. He supposed it was a case of suicide, so jumped into his car and went off, fortunately in mufti. In Nassau Street his car was stopped and he was ordered by rebels to get out; he attempted to argue, and was told if he did not obey instantly he would be shot. Had he been in uniform he would have been shot at sight; as a civilian doctor they allowed him to go, and he took his bag and ran. He found three men shot in the Shelbourne, and a boy was shot as he reached the door.

After we got into bed a ’phone came that H. was to go at once to the Viceregal Lodge in the Phœnix Park, so he dressed and tried every way to get a motor; but of course no motor would go out. After some delay he got the Field Ambulance of the Fire Brigade, at Dr. W.’s suggestion, but when it came the men told H. they had been carrying wounded all day, and that they had been constantly stopped by pickets, and the car searched, and if they went, and the car was stopped and found to contain H., they would undoubtedly all be shot. So H. considered it too risky and it had to be abandoned, and eventually his Excellency gave his instructions over the ’phone, first in French, but that particular ’phone did not speak French! So eventually he took the risk of the ’phone being tapped and gave them in English.

While we were dressing a terrific bombardment with field guns began, the first we had heard, and gave me cold shivers. It went on for a quarter of an hour—awful! big guns and machine guns—and then ceased, but we hear they were bombarding Liberty Hall, the headquarters of Larkin and the strikers two years ago. The guns were on H.M.S. Hecla, that came up the river and smashed it from within about fifty yards. It made one feel quite sick.

H. has just been summoned to the Castle, and there is no knowing when he will be back. All who go out carry their lives in their hands.

N. did a fine thing yesterday. After the Green had been raked by our machine guns’ fire, he strolled up, in his casual way, to see the result. In front of one of the side gates in the railings, which are seven feet high and spiked three ways, he saw a small group of men peering into the Green; he went to see what they were looking at. The rebels had barricaded the gate, which opened inwards, by putting one of the heavy garden seats against it upside down and on the top of it another right side up, and lying full length on the seat, face downwards, was a man, a civilian, with all his lower jaw blown away, and bleeding profusely! N. immediately climbed the railings and dropped down on the Sinn Fein side, and found that the man was still alive; he then turned and fairly cursed the men who were looking on, and asked if there was not one man enough to come over the railings and help him. Whereupon three men climbed over and together they lifted down the seat with the poor creature on it, and dragged away the other seat, when they were able to open the gate, and they brought out the seat and the man on it, and carried him to the nearest hospital, where he died in about five minutes.

N.’s theory is that he was probably one of the civilians taken prisoner by the Sinn Fein the previous day, and was trying to escape from the awful machine-gun fire when he was shot down and fell back on to the seat. It was a terrible case.

Friday, 10 A.M.—N. is of course safer attached to the Red Cross than roaming the streets making rescues on his own, and if he was killed one should at least hear of it; but the risks are many and great, as in street fighting the ambulances are constantly under fire.

Among other things they enter houses where there are known to be wounded Sinn Feiners, and bring them out and take them to the hospitals.

This N. was doing yesterday. One of the most awful things in this terrible time is that there must be scores of dead and dying Sinn Feiners, many of them mere lads, that no one can get at in the houses, where they will remain till after the rebellion; and in some cases the houses take fire and they are burnt. However, whatever is possible is being done.

All the afternoon an awful battle raged in the neighbourhood of the river and quays, and the din of the great guns and machine guns was tremendous. We now have 30,000 troops and plenty of artillery and machine guns, so the result cannot be uncertain, though there is desperate work to be done before the end is in sight.

I cannot give you any idea of what it was like when I went to bed; I sent for Mrs. B., the manager’s wife, and together we watched it from my window.

It was the most awe-inspiring sight I have ever seen. It seemed as if the whole city was on fire, the glow extending right across the heavens and the red glare hundreds of feet high, while above the roar of the fires the whole air seemed vibrating with the noise of the great guns and machine guns. It was an inferno! We remained spellbound.

Yesterday Lord S. had a narrow escape from a sniper who has been worrying this street for two days and could not be located. He was picking off soldiers during the fighting in Grafton Street, but later turned his attention to the cross streets between this and Grafton Street and there as nearly as possible got Lord S., who was coming back to us from the Castle.

The military thought the man was on our roof, which made us all whistle with indignation—the mere idea of the wretch being on our hotel; but a thorough search proved he was not here, though he evidently had access to some roof.

Yesterday afternoon, when the firing in Grafton Street was over, the mob appeared and looted the shops, clearing the great provision shops and others.

From the windows we watched the proceedings, and I never saw anything so brazen! The mob were chiefly women and children, with a sprinkling of men; they swarmed in and out of the side door, bearing huge consignments of bananas, the great bunches on the stalk, to which the children attached a cord and ran away dragging it along; other boys had big orange boxes, which they filled with tinned and bottled fruits. Women with their skirts held up received showers of apples and oranges and all kinds of fruit which were thrown from the upper windows by their pals; and ankle deep on the ground was all the pink and white and silver paper and paper shavings used for packing choice fruits. It was an amazing sight! And nothing daunted these people. Higher up, at another shop, we were told a woman was hanging out of a window dropping down loot to a friend, when she was shot through the head by a sniper, probably our man. The body dropped into the street and the mob cleared. In a few minutes a cart appeared and gathered up the body, and instantly all the mob swarmed back to continue the joyful proceedings!

H. and Lord S. were sitting at the window for a few minutes yesterday when the fruit shop was being looted and saw one of the funniest sights they had ever seen. A very fat, very blowsy old woman emerged from the side street and staggered on to the pavement, laden with far more loot than she could carry; in her arms she had an orange box full of fruit, and under her shawl she had a great bundle tied up, which kept slipping down; having reached the pavement, she put her box down and sat on it! And from her bundle rolled forth many tins of fruit; these she surveyed ruefully, calling on the Almighty and all the Saints to help her! From these she solemnly made her selection, which she bound up in her bundle and hoisted, with many groans and lamentations, on her back and made off with, casting back many longing looks at the pile of things left on the pavement, which were speedily disposed of by small boys!

Humour and tragedy are so intermixed in this catastrophe! A very delicate elderly lady who is staying here said to me this morning, in answer to my inquiry as to how she had slept:

‘I could not sleep at all; when the guns ceased the awful silence made me so nervous!’

I know exactly what she meant; when the roar of the guns ceases you can feel the silence.

5 p.m.—Colonel C. has just come in, having been in the thick of it for 48 hours. He tells us the Post Office has been set on fire by the Sinn Feiners who have left it. If this is true, and it probably is, I fear we have lost all our valuable possessions, including my diamond pendant which was in my jewel-case in H.’s safe.

To-day, about lunch-time, a horrid machine gun gave voice very near us, also the sniper reappeared on the roofs and this afternoon was opposite my bedroom window, judging from the sound. A man might be for weeks on the roofs of these houses among the chimney-stacks and never be found as long as he had access to some house for food. When we were working in my room this afternoon he fired some shots which could not have been more than twenty yards away.

I was almost forgetting to tell you how splendidly one of H.’s men behaved when the G.P.O. was taken. When the rebels took possession they demanded the keys from the man who had them in charge. He quietly handed over the keys, having first abstracted the keys of H.’s room! Imagine such self-possession at such a terrible moment.

6.30 p.m.—A party of soldiers and a young officer have just arrived to search the roof for the sniper. They say he is on the roof of the annexe, which is connected with the main building by covered-in bridges. They are now on the roof and shots are being fired, so I expect they have spotted him.

When N. was out last night another ambulance had a bad experience. They had fetched three wounded Sinn Feiners out of a house and were taking them to hospital, when they came under heavy fire; the driver was killed, so the man beside him took the wheel and was promptly wounded in both legs; the car then ran away and wrecked itself on a lamp-post. Another ambulance had to run the gauntlet and go to the rescue! On the whole, as far as possible the rebels have respected the Red Cross, but not the white flag.

Guinness’s brewery have made three splendid armoured cars by putting great long boilers, six feet in diameter, on to their great motor lorries. Holes are bored down the sides to let in air, and they are painted grey; the driver sits inside too; they each carry twenty-two men or a ton of food in absolute security. N. saw them at the Castle being packed with men; nineteen got in, packed like herrings, and three remained outside; up came the sergeant.

‘Now then, gentlemen, move up, move up; the car held twenty-two yesterday, it must hold twenty-two to-day,’ and in the unfortunate three were stuffed. It must have been suffocating, but they were taken to their positions in absolute safety!

29th, Saturday, 4 p.m.—Sir M. N. has just rung up to say the rebels have surrendered unconditionally. We have no details, and the firing continues in various parts of the town; but if the leaders have surrendered it can only be a question of a few hours before peace is restored and we can go forth and look on the wreck and desolation of this great city. So ends, we hope, this appalling chapter in the history of Ireland, days of horror and slaughter comparable only to the Indian Mutiny.

April 30, Sunday, 10 a.m.—This morning we hear the reports of the burning of the whole of Sackville Street were exaggerated. The Imperial Hotel, Clery’s great shop, and one or two others were burnt, but the street as a whole escaped, and the Accountant’s Office and the Sackville Street Club were not touched.

Here I must tell you how absolutely heroic the telephone girls have been at the Exchange. It is in a building a considerable distance from the G.P.O., and the Sinn Feiners have made great efforts to capture it. The girls have been surrounded by firing; shots have several times come into the switch-room, where the men took down the boards from the back of the switch-boards and arranged them as shelters over the girls’ heads to protect them from bullets and broken glass. Eight snipers have been shot on buildings commanding the Exchange, and one of the guard was killed yesterday, and these girls have never failed. They have been on duty since yesterday, sleeping when possible in a cellar, and with indifferent food, and have cheerfully and devotedly stuck to their post, doing the work of forty. Only those on duty at the outbreak of the rebellion could remain, those in their homes could never get back, so with the few men who take the night duty these girls have kept the whole service going; all telegrams have had to be sent by ‘’phone,’ and they have simply saved the situation. It has been magnificent!

The shooting is by no means over, as many of the Sinn Fein strongholds refuse to surrender. Jacob’s biscuit factory is very strongly held, and when the rebels were called on to surrender they refused unless they were allowed to march out carrying their arms!

It is said that when Jacob was told that the military might have to blow up the factory he replied:

‘They may blow it to blazes for all I care; I shall never make another biscuit in Ireland.’

I don’t know if this is true, but it very well may be, for he has been one of the model employers in Dublin. He almost gave up the factory at the time of the Larkin strike, and only continued it for the sake of his people, and so it will be with the few great industries in the city. Dublin is ruined!

Yesterday I made a joyful discovery. When we came back from Italy in March, H. brought back from the office my large despatch-case, in which I keep all F.’s letters. I did not remember what else was in it, so I investigated and found my necklace with jewelled cross and the pink topaz set—both of these, being in large cases, would not go into the jewel-case,—also the large old paste buckle, so I am not absolutely destitute of jewelry. But, best of all, there were the three little handkerchiefs F. sent me from Armentières with my initial worked on them; for these I was grieving more than for anything, and when I found them the relief was so great I sat with them in my hand and cried!

This week has been a wonderful week for N. Never before has a boy of just seventeen had such an experience. Yesterday morning he was at the Automobile Club filling cans of petrol from casks for the Red Cross ambulances; he came in to lunch reeking of petrol! In the afternoon he went round with the Lord Mayor in an ambulance collecting food for forty starving refugees from the burnt-out district, housed in the Mansion House, and after tea went out for wounded and brought in an old man of seventy-eight shot through the body. He was quite cheery over it and asked N. if he thought he would recover. ‘Good Lord! Yes; why not?’ said N., and bucked the old man up!

There is intermittent firing in all directions. I doubt if it will quite cease for some days, as their strongholds will not surrender.

May 1, 11 a.m.—I had no time to continue this yesterday, but during the afternoon three of the rebel strongholds surrendered, Jacob’s, Boland’s, and the College of Surgeons on St. Stephen’s Green. From this last building 160 men surrendered and were marched down Grafton Street. It is said that among them was Countess Marcovitz, dressed in a man’s uniform; it is also said that the military made her take down the green Republican flag flying over the building herself and replace it by a white one. When she surrendered she took off her bandolier and kissed it and her revolver before handing them to the officer. She has been one of the most dangerous of the leaders. People who saw them marched down Grafton Street said they held themselves erect, and looked absolutely defiant!

Yesterday H. revisited the Telephone Exchange and a point was cleared up that had mystified everyone; and that is why, when the rebels on Easter Monday took every building of importance and every strategic position, did they overlook the Telephone Exchange? Had they taken it we should have been absolutely powerless, unable to send messages or telegrams for troops. The Exchange is situated in Crown Alley, off Dame Street, and the Superintendent told H. an extraordinary story. It seems when they had taken the G.P.O. they marched a detachment to take the Exchange, when just as they were turning into Crown Alley an old woman rushed towards them with arms held up calling out ‘Go back, go back; the place is crammed with military.’ And, supposing it to be in the hands of our troops, they turned back! This was at noon; at 5 P.M. our troops arrived and took it over.

This saved the whole situation! Whether the woman was on our side, or if she thought she had seen soldiers, will never be known....

I have just returned from walking round the G.P.O. and Sackville Street with H. and some of the officials. It passes all my powers of description; only one word describes it: ‘desolation.’ If you look at pictures of Ypres or Louvain after the bombardment, it will give you some idea of the scene.

We looked up through the windows of the G.P.O. and saw the safe that was in H.’s room still in the wall, and the door does not appear to have been opened or the safe touched; but the whole place has been such an inferno, one would think that door must have been red-hot. Among all the débris the fire was still smouldering, and we could not penetrate inside. Do you realise that out of all H.’s library he does not possess a single book, except one volume of his Dante, and I not even a silver teaspoon!

Everything belonging to F. has gone; as he gave his life in the war, so an act of war has robbed us of everything belonging to him, our most precious possession!

May 2, 10 a.m.—Last evening I walked all round the ruined district. The streets were thronged with people, and threading their way among the crowd were all sorts of vehicles—carts carrying the bodies of dead horses, that had been shot the first day and lain in the streets ever since; Fire Brigade ambulances followed by Irish cars bringing priests and driven by Fire Brigade men. The motors with Red Cross emblems, carrying white-jacketed doctors, would dart along, followed by a trail of Red Cross nurses on bicycles, in their print dresses and white overalls, their white cap ends floating behind them, all speeding on their errand of mercy to the stricken city.

From time to time we came across on the unwashed pavement the large dark stain telling its own grim story, and in some places the blood had flowed along the pavement for some yards and down into the gutters; but enough of horrors. We came sadly back, and on the steps we met Mr. O’B. returning from a similar walk. He could hardly speak of it, and said he stood in Sackville Street and cried, and many other men did the same.

Out of all the novel experiences of the last eight days, two things struck me very forcibly. The first is that under circumstances that might well have tried the nerves of the strongest, there has been no trace of fear or panic among the people in the hotel, either among the guests or staff. Anxiety for absent friends of whom no tidings could be heard, though living only in the next square, one both felt and heard, but of fear for their own personal safety I have seen not one trace, and the noise of battle after the first two days seemed to produce nothing but boredom. The other fact is a total absence of thankfulness at our own escape.

It may come, I don’t know; others may feel it, I don’t. I don’t pretend to understand it, but so it is. Life as it has been lived for the last two years in the midst of death seems to have blunted one’s desire for it, and completely changed one’s feelings towards the Hereafter.