The Trials of the 1916 Press Pack - Part Five

Excerpt from the book 'The Easter Rising Press Pack' (c) Eddie Bohan

VII

      

Despite the fact that by now the journalists had been issued with Military Passes by the Officer Commanding the North Wall area that would allow them to travel anywhere in the city by early Friday Wilbur Forrest had only reached the Customs House, a couple of hundred yards away from the hotel. He belied his lack of knowledge of the city when he misidentified it as the Four Courts. By early afternoon the ‘guests’ had tired of their confinement and dire warnings about the lack of security around the city. The British were trying to control what news got out. In the afternoon George Leach who had reached the hotel and Forrest evaded British sentries and rebel barricades and meandered their way to the Shelbourne Hotel on St. Stephen’s Green where they had received reports that a female rebel was involved in the fighting.

Captain Butler informed the Foreign Office on April 30^th

            ‘we do not know where they are or what they are doing’

As they reached the back of the hotel on Kildare Street, the battle was still raging. The British troops on the roof of the fine building were pouring fire across the twenty two acres of the Green towards the Royal College of Surgeons where Michael Mallin and Countess Markievicz commanded the Irish Citizens army battalion who were forced to abandon their trenches in the Green for the security of a building.

Just as they entered the lobby of the hotel a British major in charge was not pleased with their presence once their identity and papers were checked.

            ‘Get the hell out of here’ he boomed

After some five futile minutes arguing their case that they should be allowed out onto the roof to report the story the two reporters departed the same way they had come in and in defeat headed back towards the North Wall.

They watched as the starving of the city followed them as they walked through the back streets and alleyways occasionally pausing to allow nearby gunfire to cease. Their civilian clothes provided them some immunity especially from any sympathetic Sinn Feiners in upper windows who fired on uniformed soldiers as they struggled to regain control of the city. In one doorway as they hid from the bullets whizzing down the street, they noticed a women huddled with her children in the hallway of a tenement block. She looked gaunt and exhausted. With tears flowing down her wrinkled face even though they guessed she was not that old, the woman cried out

            ‘No food, no food, my God when will it end’

The firing stopped and they left the family to their woes. The two men ducked from doorway to doorway make slow but steady progress. When they eventually returned to the hotel there was some good news as bread would now be served with their evening meal. On several corners they were stopped and questioned by sentries and even on occasions despite their press passes they were thoroughly searched.

Early on Friday morning, another bright sunny day in Dublin while Forrest and Leach dodged the rebel bullet and their dangerous route back to the hotel, six of the journalists were taken in an open military truck that offered them very little protection with a military escort to the British army headquarters at Parkgate Street near the Phoenix Park. This group whose military pass was signed by the British officer commanding the North Wall, Major Harold Somerville, included Berry of AP, Thomas Naylor of the Daily Chronicle, Phillips of the Daily Express, Bidwell representing the British based Press Association wire service and Baldwin Herbert, a war photographer with the Central News Agency. 

While the foreign correspondents enjoyed their meal being handed to them in the hotel dining room, they were probably unaware that two fellow journalists had been summarily executed by a British officer in Portobello Barracks on the Tuesday and the British military were intent on covering the killings up. The two men were thirty eight year old Patrick McIntyre editor of the Searchlight newspaper and thirty one year old Thomas Dickson editor of The Eye Opener magazine in Dublin. He two men had been arrested on the same day as the pacifist Francis Sheehy Skeffington.

In the dining room as if to make a point to the complaining Forrest about their unwelcome entertainment the night before, the Colonel entered with a red haired, black moustached prisoner who he claimed was the sniper who caused them so much hardship the night before. Forrest asked the rebel prisoner if he had realised he was shooting into his hotel room. He said he knew exactly what he was doing and was proud to have participated in Ireland’s bid for liberty. He only lamented that he wasn’t more accurate with his Russian made rifle. Feeling assured that night, Forrest and Berry retired to their candle lit room. They ambled about their room safe in the knowledge that they had seen the face of their adversary and now all was under control.      

The two journalists worked for a while on their respective typewriters writing their version of events, sharing their stories, Forrest having been in the thick of the action in St Stephens Green and writing about the female rebel and how she is reported to have shot a policeman dead in the early hours of the rebellion and Berry was recounting the meeting in the Vice Regal lodge. They were just about to retire to their beds when a bullet crashed through what little glass panels there was in their bedroom window and missed Forrest by just a couple of life saving inches. Immediately once again they grabbed their mattresses from the bed and settled on the floor under the window sill.

By Saturday morning the British noose around the rebels was tightening and the rebellion was crumbling. Later that evening the first of the rebel prisoners following Patrick Pearse’s surrender were marched down the North Wall passed the journalists hotel. They were to be transported in cattle ships to England and Wales for internment. Forrest reported

‘They were the rank and file of the succession movement. Here some of the low brow of the slums of Dublin indiscriminately mixed with their leaders. But standing out like brilliant lights in the slow moving columns were idealist type, the intellectual, the College professor, the patriot and the martyr glorying in his captivity.’

Percival Phillips described the prisoner movement

‘the people in the street watched the prisoners pass without any demonstration save an old woman spat at them and called them dirty dogs’

(Despatches from the World)

That morning a group of them were taken by motorcar through the disturbed streets of the city via the North Circular Road into the Phoenix Park arriving at the Vice Regal lodge and a press briefing from the King’s representative in Ireland the Viceroy Ivor Guest, Lord Wimbourne. Included in that group was Berry from AP and the INS correspondent Sidney Cave.

Following the meeting in the Vice Regal Lodge with the press pack Captain Butler reported that

            ‘the US journalists heckled poor Birrell and the Lord Lieutenant with alarming acrimony.’

VIII

So how did they report it to the press Stateside? Robert Berry of AP, whose piece was carried by the Bismarck Daily Tribune of Dakota on April 30th 1916 reported

‘Dublin, April 29.—-Baron Wimbourne, lord lieutenant, of Ireland, expressed to the Associated Press at the Vice Regal lodge today, the assurance that, the seditions movement, would be suppressed in the course of a few days. The Viceroy was full of praise for the loyalty displayed by the great majority of private people and consid­ers the momentary success gained and the damage done by the rebels as small, when viewed in connection with the surprise of the outbreak and the evident preparation made for it. The country outside of Dublin, ex­cept for a few isolated places, has, he declared, remained peaceful.

Baron Wimbourne, when requested to give an account of what had happened, since the Irish rebels had pro­claimed an Irish republic last Mon­day afternoon, said:
"The outbreak began Monday morn­ing at about 11:30 o'clock. About that time information was received that Dublin had been attacked, St. Steven's green occupied and the post office seized by the rebels. Telephon­ic communication with the Curragh camp was immediately obtained by the authorities, and the reserve troops there were brought into Dublin that night and the following morning.

Sniping Operations
"On Tuesday morning all the re­inforcements we had called for from Curragh had reached Dublin, and since that moment the rebels have not attempted anything except snip­ing from certain houses and locali­ties. It is so easy for them to aban­don houses by back doors and away to other advantageous positions. The military cannot distinguish the rebels from other citizens. Some­ times they reach the houses after hid­ing their rifles and cartridges and mingle with the ordinary inhabitants. As a matter of fact, the general run of people do not sympathize with them. In the early stages of the revolt, the Sinn-Feiners fired on the mem­bers of the fire brigade, but later we cleared the area around the fires and the fires and the firemen were able to extinguish the flames. Regarding the situation in the provinces on the whole, it is very good.

No German Supplies.
"As to the landing of Sir Roger Casement.'' said Baron Wimbourne, "that, was arranged in Germany with the connivance of the Sinn-Feiners. On the night of his arrest, a motor car upset in the river and the occu­pants who were drowned both wore Sinn-Feiner badges. The Germans do not seem to have supplied the rebels with arms which are of all descriptions, including fouling pieces. A proclamation issued by the rebels announcing the foundation of the Irish republic, was signed by seven persons, including Clark. Connolly, Pearce and Mac Dermott."

Post office Burned.
Field Marshal Viscount' French, commander of the Home forces, re­ports that the general post office at Dublin, which has been the principal stronghold of the Sinn-Feiners, has been burned down. Connolly, one of the leaders of the rebels, is reported to have been killed. Many of the rebels have been tak­en prisoners and the move in Dublin is on the verge of collapse. In the rest of Ireland, the situation is gen­erally satisfactory.

The newspaper added though under a piece titled ‘Rebellion Not Quelled.’

‘Official statements were lacking during the day, regarding the situ­ation in Dublin. New dispatches re­ported the military gaining the ascend­ency, but with the rebels still in pos­session of important points, all of which, however, were declared to be commanded by the regulars. Fires of a serious nature have broken out, according to the current telegrams, and street fighting is continuing.’

The Trials of the 1916 Press Pack - Part Four

Excerpt from the book 'The Easter Rising Press Pack' (c) Eddie Bohan

VII

      

Despite the fact that by now the journalists had been issued with Military Passes by the Officer Commanding the North Wall area that would allow them to travel anywhere in the city by early Friday Wilbur Forrest had only reached the Customs House, a couple of hundred yards away from the hotel. He belied his lack of knowledge of the city when he misidentified it as the Four Courts. By early afternoon the ‘guests’ had tired of their confinement and dire warnings about the lack of security around the city. The British were trying to control what news got out. In the afternoon George Leach who had reached the hotel and Forrest evaded British sentries and rebel barricades and meandered their way to the Shelbourne Hotel on St. Stephen’s Green where they had received reports that a female rebel was involved in the fighting.

Captain Butler informed the Foreign Office on April 30^th

            ‘we do not know where they are or what they are doing’

As they reached the back of the hotel on Kildare Street, the battle was still raging. The British troops on the roof of the fine building were pouring fire across the twenty two acres of the Green towards the Royal College of Surgeons where Michael Mallin and Countess Markievicz commanded the Irish Citizens army battalion who were forced to abandon their trenches in the Green for the security of a building.

Just as they entered the lobby of the hotel a British major in charge was not pleased with their presence once their identity and papers were checked.

            ‘Get the hell out of here’ he boomed

After some five futile minutes arguing their case that they should be allowed out onto the roof to report the story the two reporters departed the same way they had come in and in defeat headed back towards the North Wall.

They watched as the starving of the city followed them as they walked through the back streets and alleyways occasionally pausing to allow nearby gunfire to cease. Their civilian clothes provided them some immunity especially from any sympathetic Sinn Feiners in upper windows who fired on uniformed soldiers as they struggled to regain control of the city. In one doorway as they hid from the bullets whizzing down the street, they noticed a women huddled with her children in the hallway of a tenement block. She looked gaunt and exhausted. With tears flowing down her wrinkled face even though they guessed she was not that old, the woman cried out

            ‘No food, no food, my God when will it end’

The firing stopped and they left the family to their woes. The two men ducked from doorway to doorway make slow but steady progress. When they eventually returned to the hotel there was some good news as bread would now be served with their evening meal. On several corners they were stopped and questioned by sentries and even on occasions despite their press passes they were thoroughly searched.

Early on Friday morning, another bright sunny day in Dublin while Forrest and Leach dodged the rebel bullet and their dangerous route back to the hotel, six of the journalists were taken in an open military truck that offered them very little protection with a military escort to the British army headquarters at Parkgate Street near the Phoenix Park. This group whose military pass was signed by the British officer commanding the North Wall, Major Harold Somerville, included Berry of AP, Thomas Naylor of the Daily Chronicle, Phillips of the Daily Express, Bidwell representing the British based Press Association wire service and Baldwin Herbert, a war photographer with the Central News Agency. 

While the foreign correspondents enjoyed their meal being handed to them in the hotel dining room, they were probably unaware that two fellow journalists had been summarily executed by a British officer in Portobello Barracks on the Tuesday and the British military were intent on covering the killings up. The two men were thirty eight year old Patrick McIntyre editor of the Searchlight newspaper and thirty one year old Thomas Dickson editor of The Eye Opener magazine in Dublin. He two men had been arrested on the same day as the pacifist Francis Sheehy Skeffington.

In the dining room as if to make a point to the complaining Forrest about their unwelcome entertainment the night before, the Colonel entered with a red haired, black moustached prisoner who he claimed was the sniper who caused them so much hardship the night before. Forrest asked the rebel prisoner if he had realised he was shooting into his hotel room. He said he knew exactly what he was doing and was proud to have participated in Ireland’s bid for liberty. He only lamented that he wasn’t more accurate with his Russian made rifle. Feeling assured that night, Forrest and Berry retired to their candle lit room. They ambled about their room safe in the knowledge that they had seen the face of their adversary and now all was under control.      

The two journalists worked for a while on their respective typewriters writing their version of events, sharing their stories, Forrest having been in the thick of the action in St Stephens Green and writing about the female rebel and how she is reported to have shot a policeman dead in the early hours of the rebellion and Berry was recounting the meeting in the Vice Regal lodge. They were just about to retire to their beds when a bullet crashed through what little glass panels there was in their bedroom window and missed Forrest by just a couple of life saving inches. Immediately once again they grabbed their mattresses from the bed and settled on the floor under the window sill.

By Saturday morning the British noose around the rebels was tightening and the rebellion was crumbling. Later that evening the first of the rebel prisoners following Patrick Pearse’s surrender were marched down the North Wall passed the journalists hotel. They were to be transported in cattle ships to England and Wales for internment. Forrest reported

‘They were the rank and file of the succession movement. Here some of the low brow of the slums of Dublin indiscriminately mixed with their leaders. But standing out like brilliant lights in the slow moving columns were idealist type, the intellectual, the College professor, the patriot and the martyr glorying in his captivity.’

Percival Phillips described the prisoner movement

‘the people in the street watched the prisoners pass without any demonstration save an old woman spat at them and called them dirty dogs’

(Despatches from the World)

That morning a group of them were taken by motorcar through the disturbed streets of the city via the North Circular Road into the Phoenix Park arriving at the Vice Regal lodge and a press briefing from the King’s representative in Ireland the Viceroy Ivor Guest, Lord Wimbourne. Included in that group was Berry from AP and the INS correspondent Sidney Cave.

Following the meeting in the Vice Regal Lodge with the press pack Captain Butler reported that

            ‘the US journalists heckled poor Birrell and the Lord Lieutenant with alarming acrimony.’

VIII

So how did they report it to the press Stateside? Robert Berry of AP, whose piece was carried by the Bismarck Daily Tribune of Dakota on April 30th 1916 reported

‘Dublin, April 29.—-Baron Wimbourne, lord lieutenant, of Ireland, expressed to the Associated Press at the Vice Regal lodge today, the assurance that, the seditions movement, would be suppressed in the course of a few days. The Viceroy was full of praise for the loyalty displayed by the great majority of private people and consid­ers the momentary success gained and the damage done by the rebels as small, when viewed in connection with the surprise of the outbreak and the evident preparation made for it. The country outside of Dublin, ex­cept for a few isolated places, has, he declared, remained peaceful.

Baron Wimbourne, when requested to give an account of what had happened, since the Irish rebels had pro­claimed an Irish republic last Mon­day afternoon, said:
"The outbreak began Monday morn­ing at about 11:30 o'clock. About that time information was received that Dublin had been attacked, St. Steven's green occupied and the post office seized by the rebels. Telephon­ic communication with the Curragh camp was immediately obtained by the authorities, and the reserve troops there were brought into Dublin that night and the following morning.

Sniping Operations
"On Tuesday morning all the re­inforcements we had called for from Curragh had reached Dublin, and since that moment the rebels have not attempted anything except snip­ing from certain houses and locali­ties. It is so easy for them to aban­don houses by back doors and away to other advantageous positions. The military cannot distinguish the rebels from other citizens. Some­ times they reach the houses after hid­ing their rifles and cartridges and mingle with the ordinary inhabitants. As a matter of fact, the general run of people do not sympathize with them. In the early stages of the revolt, the Sinn-Feiners fired on the mem­bers of the fire brigade, but later we cleared the area around the fires and the fires and the firemen were able to extinguish the flames. Regarding the situation in the provinces on the whole, it is very good.

No German Supplies.
"As to the landing of Sir Roger Casement.'' said Baron Wimbourne, "that, was arranged in Germany with the connivance of the Sinn-Feiners. On the night of his arrest, a motor car upset in the river and the occu­pants who were drowned both wore Sinn-Feiner badges. The Germans do not seem to have supplied the rebels with arms which are of all descriptions, including fouling pieces. A proclamation issued by the rebels announcing the foundation of the Irish republic, was signed by seven persons, including Clark. Connolly, Pearce and Mac Dermott."

Post office Burned.
Field Marshal Viscount' French, commander of the Home forces, re­ports that the general post office at Dublin, which has been the principal stronghold of the Sinn-Feiners, has been burned down. Connolly, one of the leaders of the rebels, is reported to have been killed. Many of the rebels have been tak­en prisoners and the move in Dublin is on the verge of collapse. In the rest of Ireland, the situation is gen­erally satisfactory.

The newspaper added though under a piece titled ‘Rebellion Not Quelled.’

‘Official statements were lacking during the day, regarding the situ­ation in Dublin. New dispatches re­ported the military gaining the ascend­ency, but with the rebels still in pos­session of important points, all of which, however, were declared to be commanded by the regulars. Fires of a serious nature have broken out, according to the current telegrams, and street fighting is continuing.’

The Trials of the 1916 Press Pack - Part Three

Wilbur Forrest decided to go over to the railway terminus hoping to find some eye witness accounts. He crossed Watling Street, now a cul de sac toward the curved front of the railway building. Rebel snipers opened fire on their quarry as he crossed the street. His trip back was negotiated faster, taking a running start from the cover of the entrance. The rebel was a second too late, the bullet hitting the street behind Forrest. It was almost a sporting event.

The rebel kept firing this time aiming at the static hotel building pot marking the outside wall. The Colonel decided to place a number of soldiers on the roof to return fire but rather than eliminating the sniper’s fire, it concentrated the rebel fire on the enemy station on the roof. But the sniper was in no way accurate with shots crashing through doors and windows sending those inside diving for cover and moving towards the back of the building.

The British military spin doctors arrived at the hotel to brief the holed up and bored pressmen but information was light and was not tallying with some of the first hand accounts they had already gleaned from locals and soldiers. The Foreign Office had continually pressed for more details of the Rising but rigid War office censorship not only prevented the rebels getting their interpretation on the Dublin troubles but also stifled much potential propaganda. There was an internal British government conflict. There was a lack of or tardiness in issuing military passes to the journalists. Colonel Warburton Davies of the War Office wrote to Hubert Montgomery

‘There appears to be a great deal of trouble as a result of the American correspondents’ trip to Dublin. We propose to put it down to the Foreign Office.’

  

Captain Butler also reported to the Foreign Office that the lack of proper reporting facilities such as access to telegraph or telephone was depriving the journalists of a scoop. The short briefing seemed to take to tracts, firstly the military attempted to portray the barbarity of the rebels while on the other hand they were lauding themselves at the leniency in how the rebellion was being quashed.

The battle between news giving and news withholding was raging within the British Government and press

‘Britain holds the record as the worst press agent of the allies and many things could be disclosed which could establish once and for all the predominant part she is playing in the war and go far to remove the impression also in neutral states that she is experiencing a bad time’

wrote W Orton Tewson in the San Antonio Express April 30th 1916

Phillip Gibbs of the New York Times wrote in his paper that it was a ‘splendid coincidence’ that on the night when Sinn Fein were ‘trying to besmirch the honour of Ireland on the streets of Dublin, Irish battalions at the front on France were on the fighting line and by great gallantry gave proof of the world that the heart of Ireland was loyal’ In the midst of the Rising 538 Irishmen many of them Dubliners died at Hulluch when the Germans launched a poison gas attack.  

But the street, house to house fighting in Dublin was different to the open field battles of the Western Front, this was urban warfare many of whom had never experienced this kind of close quarter combat before. From the roof they press were able to identify the green flag with the golden harp hoisted above the distillery beside the Victoria Bridge on the Ringsend Road. The men had a ringside view of the British artillery targeting the distillery that despite the flag flying from its roof was now empty with the rebels having been withdrawn to Boland’s Mills.

In Forrest’s despatch printed in the Pittsburgh Press on Sunday April 30^th he reported,

“A naval destroyer landed a party of correspondents from England at 7am, Thursday at the North Wall Quay almost in the heart of the ‘war zone’ and within a stone’s throw of Liberty Hall former headquarters of the Sinn Feiners which was literally blown to bits by naval guns at 1pm.

We watched the bombardment from a window on the third floor of a hotel. Naval patrol boats swinging in close to shore sent shells screaming into the city bringing the rebel strongholds crashing down with loud roars.

One shell blew a great hole in the side of the Dublin City Distillery where a large number of Sinn Feiners had congregated. In response the rebels ran up the flag of the new Irish Republic, green and gold emblazoned with a harp. Another shell hit the distillery and the rebels burst from the doors in mad flight.

The fighting Thursday was the most desperate of the week. The rebels knowing that surrender meant the enforcement of the death penalty for treason fought like cornered rats. The Government troops in no mood for gentle handling of the rioters attacked fiercely.

Soldiers were posted in large force along the quays and in the warehouses across the street from our hotel answering with sharp volleys to the sniping rebels. Shells from the British 18 pounders were bursting accurately against the walls and roofs of several buildings held by the Sinn Feiners. Through binoculars we watched from the roof of our hotel successive infantry attacks as the Government troops charged against the rebel barricades. The fighting was so near we could pick out with ease individuals in the struggling groups.

Many of the British soldiers facing fire for the first time in their lives displayed the greatest daring in charging the rebel positions in the face of hot fire.

When dawn broke on Friday the ruins of Liberty hall and other buildings wrecked by artillery or burned to the ground were clearly visible. The general post office and custom house seemed unscathed by the flames.

Only intermittent firing was heard after breakfast and a party of correspondents accompanied by a British Officer attempted a tour of the business district near the battle zone. The sniping became too hot and the party retreated.” 

Forrest reported that it was ‘shell number thirty eight’ that eventually felled the rebel flag. Their attention was then turned to the right and the area around the rebel headquarters as nightfall fell on the Thursday smoke was giving way to flames licking the sky illuminating the city centre as nightfall set in.

It was the reflection of many of these experienced journalists that the rebellion had been well planned and under the noses of the British authorities.

VI

Thursday night arrived and Forrest was sharing a third floor room with Berry at the front of the hotel. They had eventually got some copy away out of Dublin, how long it would take to get to London was another matter. A military tug had arrived in port to deliver military despatches and it returned the typewritten reports across the Irish Sea. The electricity in the hotel had been cut and light was now provided by candle. There was a single candle in each room. Forrest and Berry had just turned in as it had been a long forty eight hours since they met at Paddington Station. Tiredness had enveloped the two reporters. Just as Forrest was about to snuff out the candle a bullet

‘buzzed through the window in the manner of a bumble bee in a hurry’ striking the back wall of the bedroom. Another quickly followed and the two men tumbled from their beds to the relative safety of the carpeted floor. As they waiting for the next shot they noticed one of the fired bullets on the floor having failed to penetrate the wall.

They pulled their mattresses from the beds and lay beneath the window sill. Forrest decided to test the rebel sniper’s accuracy. Using the light from the candle, he placed his brimmed hat on his cane which he famously took everywhere and waved it in front of the window drawing fire from the rebel sniper located a couple of hundred yards away. His firing was not accurate whether it was a lack of experience or poor weaponry the men could only speculate. Only one more bullet penetrated their room, the rest cannoning off the brickwork outside. They were baiting the rebel into wasting ammunition and he eventually tired and the shooting stopped. Berry blew out the candle and the two men slept the night on the floor.

When the men made their way down to breakfast early on the Friday morning they complained sarcastically to the Irish born Colonel that it was an outrage to allow a sniper to interrupt their nights sleep but another new problem was to face the journalists that morning, one that faced the entire city, a food shortage. The only food available in the hotel was some cod fish that had been landed further down the quay. To wash it down there was a small supply of port wine from the cellar. There was no milk and the water supply had been interrupted. The British reporter from the Manchester Guardian stated

            ‘as evidence of food shortages, it is only necessary to state we were served roast beef and potatoes for luncheon and dinner and this for four days running’.

Arthur Draper reported that when the fish had been landed the evening before a number of women draped in their shawls gathered around the trawler when they were fired upon by rebel forces in Boland’s Mills. A British soldier with the women waited for a second volley of shots to identify the origin of the mussel flashes and he immediately returned fire silencing the sniper and allowing the women to collect their much needed yet meagre food supply.

The reporters watched as a local bakery was cleared by British soldiers and the ovens fired up to begin producing bread again. Once the bakery was producing bread local women and children who had now struggled for food for four days and ravenous with the hunger queued outside in an orderly fashion desperate for a small ration. There was constant fire from the rebels with Forrest reporting that two children were hit, killing one of them.

More U.S. correspondents arrived on the Friday of the rebellion landing at Rosslare, County Wexford. Among them was Vermont born Dewitt McKenzie and the Canadian war correspondent Frederick McKenzie (no relation to Dewitt). The Quebec born reporter writing for The Star in Toronto, he was definitely not a friend of the rebel cause. He suggested that support for the rebels came from three classes of people, the old irreconcilables, the young intellectuals and Dublin’s Labour movement. He reported that ‘The Irish Volunteer’ newspaper edited by Irish Volunteer leader Eoin McNeill in its April 22^nd edition before the rebellion dealt with how insurgents could hold a crossroads during guerrilla warfare. It contained he said ‘full practical instructions in Civil War’. He found his way to the hotel with the rest of the correspondents.

He ventured out onto the North Wall Quay where a troop of Crown soldiers were behind a row of wooden beer barrels returning fire towards the gas works and Boland’s Mills on the southside of the Liffey. He reported from behind the barricade with enemy fire passing overhead

            ‘our boys had machine guns’.

He later visited Sackville Street ruined by flames and looting.

            ‘The heart of one of our great cities wrecked by the work of our own people’.

Back in the hotel someone had a copy of the Proclamation, one of the few not in military hands and already the holder was asking for £250 for the sale of this historical document.

He also reported some hearsay accounts from St Stephens Green where Countess Markievicz, he told his readers was in a green military man’s uniform. He reported on what happened to British prisoners of war in the Royal College of Surgeons.

‘‘They’re going to shoot us old man whatever we do’ a young NCO said to a fellow prisoner. ‘We might as well have a good time while we can’

He started chatting to the rebel women cooking the meals. Chatting led to kissing. The Countess was horrified when she saw the young soldiers arm around the girls waist. The girls were banished to another part of the building by Markievicz but they crept back to enjoy the company of the POW’s’

McKenzie believed that the right place for a war correspondent is where he can see what he is supposed to describe. What many of the correspondents did manage to see was a copy of the new Republic’s own newspaper The Irish War News. The four page publication first hit the streets on the Tuesday of Easter Week. Two journalist and printers were in the GPO when it was seized and Patrick Pearse knowing their backgrounds detailed the two men to seize a printing press and publish the new states’ first newspaper. Waterford born James Upton, an editor at the Kilkenny Journal and Joseph Stanley who was the man behind the printing of The Spark at Liberty Hall left the rebel headquarters and seized James O’Keefe’s printing press at Halston Street. There with the assistance of Mathew Walker and his son Charlie, Tom Ryan and James O’Sullivan, 12,000 copies rolled off the presses. The front page article written by Patrick Pearse was titled ‘If The Germans Conquered England’. The back page contained a ‘Stop Press’ column that announced that a new Republic had been declared and the provisional Government members were named.   

The Trials of the 1916 Press Pack - Part Two

(c) Eddie Bohan 2016

 III

‘Almost impossible’ he said but to the two determined journalist’s eager to get their story nothing was impossible. They had already negotiated a tricky journey and survived a bombing raid so crossing the Irish Sea would just be another surmountable objective. They dragged themselves and their luggage back up the pier towards the railway station and went into the telegraph office. They both sent messages to their respective London offices imploring them to intercede on their behalf. As they did so they spotted the smoke from the funnels of the destroyer leaving the harbour into the Irish Sea.

They also telegrammed Captain Reginald Hall the head of Naval Military Intelligence with who both were well acquainted with. Forrest and Berry then set about the task of booking into a hotel, informing the telegraph operator where they could be contacted when a reply arrived. For Forrest his first problem in Holyhead was the fact as an American born in Illinois he was an alien in a wartime British naval port and his editor had to convince the Foreign Office to allow him to stay in Holyhead pending a decision from the War Office whether or not to allow him to travel to Dublin. The Foreign Office coordinated with the Home Office and he was allowed to wait on the War Office decision.

A telegram was delivered that put the two men out of their misery in that Wednesday evening.

‘Train leaving Euston tonight carries Foreign Office credentials enabling you to take boat leaving Holyhead Thursday’

The two men were told to meet the train personally to collect their documents. They discovered that the train would arrive just after two in the morning. They also ascertained that a light Naval craft was leaving for Dublin soon after and not only would it get them across the Irish Sea but rather than landing them in Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire) on the outskirts of the city this Naval vessel would take them up the River Liffey into the heart of the action. Berry remarked that they would be heading towards

            ‘A beautiful and exclusive word picture of a genuine revolution’

As the first and only reporters heading to Dublin it would be ‘their’ war. They were very pleased with themselves and their efforts thus far.

In their hotel they headed into the dining room to dine in celebration on the most expensive food available, washing it down with expensive red burgundy wine and a couple of Napoleon cognac’s to toast their success and all on their expense accounts.

They left the hotel to take a leisurely walk around the small Welsh harbour town killing time until the clock struck two. Occasionally they checked the harbour to make sure their gray hulled sea transport was still tied up. They discussed what they knew about the Irish situation, how best to file their stories and how to by pass the British censors. They were also happy in the knowledge that no civilian or military ships were departing anytime soon except the one they would be on confirming to them that they would have no competition in their well engineered plan to reach the Irish battlefield. They were extremely satisfied with their good fortune and their fine meal.

The clock struck two, Forrest and Berry made their way to the station platform to await the London train. As the train halted at the buffers they spotted a familiar face of Captain Ralph Butler from the Foreign Office alighting from one of the carriages. Butler had been born in Harrow in 1883 and educated at Rugby before graduating from Corpus Christi College at Cambridge. He had been a journalist covering the war in the Balkans before being attached to the Foreign Office with the task of looking after front line journalists. He would be travelling with the men to Dublin.

As the reached the officer, who greeted them warmly, a blow was about to be delivered that would rock the two men.

(c) Eddie Bohan 2016

IV

Within seconds a large group of fellow American and British journalists gathered around the trio on the platform. It was an absolute disaster from a journalistic exclusive point of view and a real blow to Forrest and Berry. Their enquiries to the Admiralty for permission to board the Naval vessel to Dublin had given the Admiralty and the War Office press office a golden opportunity to have their spin put on events in Dublin for the American public and if two American reporters were able to go why not more with a number of British journalists who would not be sympathetic to these ‘Sinn Feiners’ who dared rise up against the King as so many men (including thousands of Irishmen) were sacrificing their lives on the Western Front.

The British Government naturally hoped to convince America and their populace of the justice of its handling of the rebellion. The Foreign Office initially opposed the introduction of American opinion into discussion of Irish affairs. The head of the Foreign Office news department Lord Newton wanted to counteract ‘a network of German lies’.

They also realised that not only would the members of the Fourth Estate be transported to Dublin but also on board was an ashen faced Chief Secretary to Ireland Augustine Birrell MP. He had been severely criticised in the Houses of Parliament by the opposition for not being in Dublin when the Rising broke out on Easter Monday.

In the House of Commons on Wednesday Wilfred Ashley MP asked Prime Minister Herbert Asquith if English journalists would be accompanying American journalists who were going over that day.

            ‘I think so’ replied the Birrell who added that he was

‘anxious that news should not reach neutral countries which would be calculated to give a false impression of the importance of what had taken place, important as they were.’

HMS Dove

Birrell and his party of seven had travelled first class from Euston to Holyhead picking up another reporter at Chester for the final leg of the journey to the Welsh Port. (*see invoice for voyage) An officer from the vessel tied up in the harbour greeted the party on the platform as Forrest and Berry took possession of their permissions. He announced that his ship would be underway as soon as the party of a dozen men were aboard HMS Dove. Within forty five minutes the grey naval vessel was heading out into the choppy and dangerous waters of the Irish Sea heading westwards.

Along with Forrest, Berry and Birrell was forty seven year old James Tuohy, the London correspondent of the New York World. Cork born Tuohy was well known in Ireland as over the years had garnered the confidence of Charles Stewart Parnell, John Dillon and John Redmond. He was also at the time the Freeman’s Journal correspondent in London. Arthur Stimson Draper was the London Correspondent of the New York Tribune whose articles also appeared in the Daily Chronicle. Percival Gibbons from the Daily Express who was Welsh born and German educated and his colleague Percival Phillips who had left the British GHQ in France on the Western Front to make his way to Dublin, a reporter from the Manchester Guardian and their official photographer Walter Doughty. Also on board was Henry Whigham a forty seven year old reporter who had finished sixth at the US golf open on 1896 before turning to writing for a living and Sidney Cave who was from the International News Service.  Sidney B. Cave was born in Northampton on 4th September 1879, son of Edwin & Ruth Cave, who named him Sydney Brambley Cave. By 1901 Cave was employed as a journalist residing in Northampton. By 1909, he had moved to Dulwich, living just a few doors away from his elder brother, Albert. He became staff correspondent with the International News Service in 1915.

Manchester Guardian reporter George Leach arrived in Kingstown with another journalist J C Radcliffe travelling across the Irish Sea with British reinforcements. Leach grabbed a taxi from the port to the Northside of the city and the suburb of Drumcondra and from there he made it on foot into O’Connell Street, the heart of the new Irish Republic.

The journalists were now all on board HMS Dove under the captaincy of Cyril Edwards. HMS Dove was a fast light patrol boat. At just under two hundred and fifteen feet long, it had a top speed on twenty nine knots. Its four boilers fed steam to its two four cylinder steam engines. It was armed with a machine gun mounted on the ships bridge, five six pounder guns and two torpedo tubes. HMS Dove was launched from Hull Shipyards in March 1898 and went into British Naval service in July 1901. It was the ideal vessel to cross the Irish Sea in April 1916 with such a valuable cargo. It was fast and armed against the threat of German submarine activity in the Irish Sea. This was the same U Boats activity that the rebels had hoped would stop British reinforcements arrive. The ship had a compliment of sixty three officers and men and adding a dozen more souls made conditions cramped in the extreme.

Forrest found himself in the Captain’s quarters. At the Captain’s suggestion the steward mixed a ‘concoction of thick British navy cocoa’. The serving was very tasty but after such a sumptuous meal and a fair drop of wine in Holyhead, the addition of this concoction to the bucking and rolling of the ship was not sitting well with the reporter. Forrest left the cabin and climbed up a metal ladder towards the outside deck and was unceremoniously dragged through a manhole cover onto the gun deck by one of the seamen topside. Forrest slumped against the hull in almost total darkness as the ship ran dark trying to avoid the attention of patrolling u-boats.

The seaman attached a length of rope to Forrest’s waist which was tethered to the ship to prevent him falling overboard. There was sufficient slack in the rope to allow him to bounce off heavy metal objects that were secured to the deck as it sped through the waves.

For the three long hours of the seventy mile crossing, Forrest struggled with the fog, the mist, the waves and the constant dull pain in his stomach. The dawn of Thursday morning began to protrude from the darkness. As the light grew stronger he looked at the metal objects, shiny metal balls about a foot in diameter with handles attached. He asked the young sailor, who had kept him company all night what the objects were,

            ‘Six depth charges’ he nonchalantly replied adding

            ‘The safety catches are all secure sir, there’s not the slightest danger’.

As Forrest digested the shock of bouncing off high explosives for the previous number of hours, the coastline of Ireland began to appear from the horizon. The destroyer slowed speed which was a welcome relief. They passed a two master yacht just after six a.m. and the captain brought his ship to a stop as his crew ensured the vessel and its crew were not in league with the rebellion. The all clear was given and HMS Dove was underway again. An hour later they passed the lighthouse at the Great South Wall at the mouth of the River Liffey. As the ship entered the bay the officers were handed side arms and ammunition to repel any attack on the vessel as it made its way to its mooring point.

The rebels of the 3^rd Battalion of the Irish Volunteers commanded by American born Eamon DeValera had seized Boland’s Mills near Ringsend on the southside of the Liffey and a nearby disused distillery which gave the rebels an excellent vantage point over the river. The rebels opened fire on HMS Dove as it moved slowly up the river. Forrest hurriedly untether himself and went below deck for safety. The vessels machine gun retuned fire directed at the rebel position, after ten minutes the firing stopped.

The ship tied up just short of the Custom House from where the correspondents could see the work of another British vessel The Helga which had first targeted Boland’s Mills and then James Connolly’s Irish Citizens Army headquarters in the now deserted Liberty Hall just on the far side of the railway line bridge.

Despite the fact that many of the journalists had spent many years reporting from battlefields across Europe, the tension on board the vessel as it docked was almost unbearable in such a cramped space. The party of twelve left one by one up the narrow gang plank. Once the ships engines had stopped all Sidney Cave could hear was the sound of machine gun fire. Birrell also stepped ashore and briefly addressed the pressman in front of a large party of British soldiers.

‘I wish you luck gentlemen, I don’t know what will happen to you now that you are here.’

Birrell was ushered into a motor car and whisked away with a military escort bound for the Vice Regal lodge in the Phoenix Park.

Cave reported that

‘Dublin seemed to be a dead city except for some weird evidence of hidden life. It seemed unreal, the streets, the quays and docks were all deserted”

.

‘Bullets swish overhead’. The reporters were left in little doubt that they were in a war zone.

The pressmen as a group with their chaperon Captain Butler zig zagged away from the direction of the ship back down along the North Wall Quay. They quickly passed the North Wall railway terminus and entered the lobby of the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) Hotel managed by Edwin Solomons at 58/59 North Wall Quay. The hotel was almost on the front line of the battle, windows were shattered, and bullet holes littered the front of the red brick building that faced both onto the River Liffey and Boland’s Mills across the waterway.

The hotel, originally the Prince of Wales Hotel had been purchased by LNWR Company, who operated a sailing service across the Irish Sea, when they moved their Irish terminus from Kingstown to the North Wall Quay in 1861.

The journalists found themselves unwelcome in the beleaguered hotel. By Thursday food rations were running low and more mouths to feed would put an extra strain on those rations. They found that the Irish born Colonel in charge of the British forces around the hotel was also staying there as were many of the men in his command including kilted Scots Guards who were protecting the railway terminus next door. The only positive was that from the time of their arrival at the hotel, the bill for their stay including meals was paid for by the British Foreign Office through their representative Captain Butler.

The Colonel took the journalists out onto the roof of the hotel to point out many of the city’s landmarks and areas he believed were under rebel control. Smoke rising that Thursday morning was from the many fires now engulfing Dublin’s main thoroughfare O’Connell Street and around the rebel headquarters in the GPO. Draper surveyed the city landscape and wrote that

            ‘A lurid canopy of flame hung over the city’

They were unable to leave the hotel due to the heavy fighting and they awaited the arrival of military passes. The interviewed as many as they could in the hotel or simply those passing by the front door occasionally during a lull in the firing but this was the easy part. They typed their stories on hotel headed paper on their portable typewriters but they had no means of communications with their London offices.

They spent their first day in the new Irish Republic huddled in the confines of the hotel. Snipers from across the Liffey opened fire on any movement around the area. Draper from the NY Tribune described the hotel as a temporary prison.

The Trials of the 1916 Press Pack - Part One

The barrister, poet and educator Patrick Pearse stepped out onto the steps of Dublin’s General Post Office just before one o’clock on a sunny April bank holiday Monday and read aloud the proclamation declaring an Irish Republic.

As news of the first shots of the Easter Rising reached the news desks at Fleet Street in London, editors quickly realised that this was more than just a cabbage patch rebellion. Telephone and telegraphic communications were either cut by the rebels or by the British authorities meaning Dublin in terms of news was further from London as the British capital was from Moscow.

Two of the three leading Irish newspapers the Irish Independent and the Freeman’s Journal were off the Dublin streets as the battle intensified and their offices and printing presses were ablaze while the Unionist pro-British Irish Times were limited in both publications and content. Journalists were in the dark and subject to the strict reporting restrictions of the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) which had been introduced at the outbreak of World War One. There had been a crack down at the start of April 1916 on many of the nationalist newspapers that flooded the streets of Dublin. On Friday April 1^st, the police raided the offices of the ‘Gaelic Press’ on Liffey Street from where publications such as The Spark, The Gael and The Gaelic Athlete were published. Liberty Hall, the headquarters of James Connolly’s Irish Citizen Army was also raided by armed police as they attempted to close the printing press there that issued ‘The Worker’s Republic’ but armed Volunteers forced the police to withdraw and the paper was printed the next day. Other papers suppressed were ‘The Irish Freedom’, ‘Ireland’, ‘Scissors and Paste’, ‘The Irish Workers’ and in Cork ‘Fianna Fail’.    

The battles of the western front had dominated the news cycle and front pages globally and Ireland had almost been forgotten about. Those editors whose reporters were filing for newspapers and the news wire agencies knew that the large Irish-American population would be far more interested in the events in Dublin than the French frontline as in April 1916. The United States was still a neutral nation and in the midst of a Presidential election. Trouble in Ireland would become a media event.

The first trickle of information began to immerge from the House of Commons on the Tuesday when the Chief Secretary of Ireland Augustine Birrell made a statement to the House of Commons in Westminster attempting to minimise the effects of the rebellion on Ireland. Birrell announced that there had been grave disturbances in Dublin and that rebels were in control of four or five parts of the city but that the situation was well in hand. The debate in the House of Commons itself was held behind closed door and the press relied solely on official Government communiqués which minimized the impact of the events unfolding in Ireland.

While all reports in the UK press were copied from official Government communiqués, the US press were harder to control and it was done with the use of wireless telegraphy and Atlantic cables.

Many of the U.S. newspapers received their news from wire services. In August 1914 the British Government created the Press Bureau with the intention to gather news and telegraphic reports from the British Army then censor it and issue the sanitized version to the press. The Bureau allowed neutral journalists (The US was still neutral in April 1916) to write their own articles after providing official communiqués. This was of major importance to American journalists. This helped camouflage the source of the propaganda, making it more acceptable to the reading public.

The official communiqués reprinted often without a by-line, simply a 'report from London' began to appear on Tuesday in New York and Washington with the official line from the UK Government which had been wireless telegraphed from Caernarvon in Wales via the Press Bureau.

There was however an interesting piece in the New York Tribune printed on Easter Sunday, the day before the Rising began with the paper already reporting 'disturbances' in Dublin. 'Rumours of political rioting have reached Berlin' began the article which had been sent on the wires from Europe on Saturday. Despite disbelief by the newspaper in much of the news dispatched via Amsterdam they did conclude that there was at that stage serious rioting on the east coast of Ireland and that the areas were under military control.

The strange aspect to the story is that the report is attributed to the 'Overseas News Agency' which was in fact a British covert propaganda operation run by the British in the United States. The ONA would feed stories to the US media especially The New York Tribune who having picked up the story would in turn become the source for other media outlets lending credence to whatever story the British wanted published.

Back in London Augustine Birrell when responding to a question in the House of Commons when he said,

‘It had been necessary during the last few days that news should not reach countries and especially our friends in America which would give a false impression of the importance of the events, important as they were.’

Hansard House of Commons Debates

He added that he hoped that the strict censorship would be taken off soon. But the rebellion was already front page news in the New York Times as it hit the streets on Tuesday. In Wednesday’s New York Times their report stated,

‘According to a statement of a prominent leader in Irish American affairs last night (Tuesday), the revolt in Ireland has spread to a far greater extent than has been given out by the British authorities. It was affirmed that the news had come from private sources in Ireland and received in Brooklyn.’

The Federal Bureau of Investigations had discovered documents in raids in New York on supporters of John Devoy that rebellion plans had always included the setting up of a broadcast station to get news of the new Provisional Government out to the rest of the world.

In a report in New York’s 'Evening World' on Tuesday, the General Post Office (GPO) had been captured by rebels but had almost immediately been retaken by British forces. The 'revolution in Ireland had been planned by the German Government' was slanting the view and exaggerating the influence of the Germans in the Rising. In the space of seven paragraphs the rebels were referred to as 'rebels', 'rioters','revolutionists' and 'a mob'. 

British influenced newspapers referred to the outbreak of fighting in Dublin as ‘riots’, ‘serious riots’, ’disturbances’, ‘grave disturbances’, ‘outrages’, outbreak of alarming character’, ‘traitorous events’ and ‘Dublin sensation’ while papers in North America within hours were referring to ‘A Rising’ and ‘A Rebellion’.

Newspapers reported that wireless messages had been received by Irish American organisations in New York from Ireland but some papers countered this by stating that was impossible as 'cipher messages out of Ireland were impossible due to a strict British ban on cipher messages'. And while many of the news reports were certainly fanciful, rumour based and displayed a vivid imagination by some Irish Americans of exactly what was happening on the streets of Dublin, we know now that the Ring brothers did telegraph news of the Rising launch from the Valentia Wireless station in the early days of the Rising before the British gained control of Valentia. 

II

Wilbur Forrest was the youngest chief in the history of the United Press wire service. (God within the Machine). Forrest was born in 1887 in Illinois the son of a surgeon but rather than a medical career he moved into journalism joining United Press in Chicago. He had been the first wire service correspondent to arrive at Queenstown (Cobh) County Cork after the sinking of the liner The Lusitania off the Irish coast by a German U-boat submarine in 1915. He had reported from the front lines in France although certainly not an admirer of the horrors of war. He said covering these hellish sights were

            ‘The glorified dissemination of Government propaganda’

In April 1916 Forrest was twenty nine years old and was earning *$32.50 per week He had just filed a report that

            ‘Aristocratic owners of England’s famous country estates are selling their holdings because the war has pinched them financially. Forrest married Floss Springer in October 1914 and as he travelled Europe delivering reports his wife was in April seven months pregnant.

(*Spokesman Review December 27^th 1957)

His employer was the United Press news agency founded in 1907 by E W Scripps. Their main competitor was the Associated Press that could trace its origins to 1846 New York. The AP had an advantage on its rival as it used a modern 34 word teletype telegraph system with over two thousand outlets using their service. The UP was still using Morse code which required its subscribers to employ a Morse code operator in their offices to write down the story. The third US based news agency was The International News Service founded in 1909 by the newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst.

All official Government traffic would be given priority in war time for telegraphing across the Atlantic leading to delays of up to twenty four hours to get stories flashed across the great ocean. The AP by passed much of this log jam by using the more expensive private telegraphs often from the west coast of France, thus also by passing official British censorship who would have to clear every word being sent from Britain. This was costing the news agency $2,000* per day but it was deemed worth it as they supplied more newsrooms that their rivals.

(*www.csuchico.edu)    

On Wednesday morning Forrest made his way promptly to the UP offices on Bouverie Street and to his editor Ed Keen who immediately agreed with him that he should make his way to Dublin. With the words ‘go to it’ still ringing in his ears he quickly grabbed a travel bag he kept at the offices just for such a fast deployment and his trusted portable typewriter. He was already familiar with the routes to Ireland after his 1915 visit to cover the Lusitania disaster. He hailed a taxicab and made his way to Paddington railway station to catch the train that would take him to Fishguard in Wales and then make his way across the Irish Sea to Rosslare in County Wexford, the route he used to get to Queenstown.

Once at Paddington he made his way to the ticket office only to be disappointed as he had just missed the train and thus his chance to reach Dublin before any other reporters to obtain the exclusive scoop for his employers, a journalistic gold medal.

As he stepped away from the ticket kiosk he met a fellow reporter, the Scottish born Robert Berry from his rival wire service Associated Press. They mused as to what to do next with returning to their respective offices not a viable option. At this stage they realised the folly of both of their original plan of getting a ferry from Fishguard as this would have meant travelling northwards the ninety five miles to Dublin through both rebel and Crown forces cordons that may have been set up around the capital.

A look at the curtailed train timetables as a result of the war and the military use of the railway lines, they noticed that a train would depart shortly from Euston Station heading for the naval port of Holyhead in North Wales. The men shared a cab the short distance up the Marylebone Road to Euston Station. As they arrived at the station Forrest realised that as an American citizen in wartime London he would have difficulty in purchasing a rail ticket to a British naval port. But once they got inside the main concourse this problem was overcome as even though Berry worked for an American news service, his Scottish birth and British passport allowed his to purchase two tickets without any complicating questioning or further delays.

They sat overlooked by the large statue of the civil engineer and railway pioneer George Stephenson in the waiting room passing the thirty minutes to the departure time for their train that would transport them the three hundred miles to Holyhead. Suddenly the station was plunged into darkness as German zeppelins approached the English capital on yet another bombing raid. There had been three raids earlier that same month including one the night before. For the fifty people in the waiting area with the two reporters the minutes ticked slowly by as they waited. The German airships would use the River Thames as a navigation tool but once they reached the populated areas their bombs were often widely inaccurate and therefore the chances of a bomb landing on the railway building was remote.

The British anti aircraft guns opened up in the afternoon sky attempting to deter the German raiders. An enemy bomb landed nearby rattling both the building and those intended passengers inside*. Once the anti aircraft guns fell silent the two journalists nosed outside the front door and they could see the flames and smoke rising in the aftermath of the German attack. Despite this being news worthy story they both knew that anything they would write about the attack would never get passed the British censor in the War Office. They speculated if the consecutive nights of Zeppelin raids on the east coast of England had anything to do with the events of Ireland already aware that a German ship had been captured off the coast of County Kerry carrying a deadly cargo of weapons and munitions for the intended rebellion.

(According to www.iancastlezeppelin.co.uk the closest any Zeppelin’s came to London on the night of 24/25^th April was North East of London near Illford when LZ 97  commanded by Erich Linnarz)

The attack had the knock on effect of delaying train arrivals and more importantly departures at Euston station until the all clear was given by the military. Nothing seemed to be falling in their favour but eventually the all clear was given and they made their way down the platform and boarded their train. A short time later the steam engine slowly dragged itself out of Euston hurtling across the English countryside into Wales and eventually onto the Isle of Anglesey and the port of Holyhead.     

Once they arrived in Holyhead train station, the two men hurried down to the pier towards a British naval destroyer that seemed to be ready to depart. Half way down the pier their path was blocked by a Naval Lieutenant. The two reporters explained who they were and what their mission was.

‘If you men go to Ireland on that destroyer and I don’t know even if it is going to Ireland, you will board it without the permission of his Majesty’s admiralty in London’

The command was delivered to the two men in such a manner to leave them in no doubt that getting permission from London was almost impossible. 

Patrick Pearse in NY

Patrick Pearse went stateside in 1914 on a fund raising drive to fund his school St. Enda's. In early February 1914 he departed from Cobh on board the Cunard liner SS Campania. He returned on board the SS Baltic in May 1914.