The Books from the 1916 Tour

Rebel Radio

The story of the broadcasts from the rebels of 1916 when Ireland became the first nation in the world to be declared by radio.

http://kilmainhamtales.ie/14---rebel-radio.php

The Battle for Facts, American Journalists during the 1916 Easter Rising

https://www.amazon.co.uk/1916-Easter-Rising-American-Press/dp/1520722346

Facts of the Rising you never knew.

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COMING SOON

The Thirst For Freedom

Edward Blake - The Irish Canadian Politican

While many Irishmen have travelled the globe to take up State roles, one politician has travelled in the opposite direction. Edward Blake’s father was from County Wicklow and Edward was born in 1833 in what is now Ontario, Canada. In 1858 he married the daughter of an Anglican Bishop, Margaret Cronyn.

Edward joined the legal profession and began to practice in what became one of Canada’s biggest law firms. He entered politics and was elected as a Provincial MP for the Blake South Constituency in the Ontario Parliament. His Irish background was an important factor as two thirds of Irish immigrants at the time lived in the province of Ontario.

By 1868, Blake had become leader of the Ontario Liberal Party then in opposition. On December 20th 1871 he was appointed Premier of Ontario and under a dual mandate rule whereby he served in both the provincial and the Federal parliament he helped bring down the scandal ridden government of Sir John McDonald and while he was offered the Premiership of Canada he turned it down due to ill health. Following the 1874 General Election, Blake was appointed Minister for Justice in the Government of Liberal Party Leader Alexander McKensie. Following the party’s electoral defeat in 1878, McKensie resigned and Blake became the leader of the Liberal Party now in opposition. They lost the subsequent election of 1882 and 1887 to the Conservative Party.

Ill health was again playing a factor in his life and he decided to quit Canada and found himself in London. He was then recruited by the Irish nationalist party to stand in the July 1892 General Election in the South Longford constituency in Ireland. He officially represented the Irish National Federation that emerged during the split in the Irish home rule movement following Charles Stewart Parnell’s affair with the married Kitty O’Shea. He was elected a Home Rule MP defeating Liberal Unionist candidate George Miller garnering 88% of the vote with strong local clerical support. An estimated crowd of 8000-10000 gathered in a field outside Longford to hear a victorious speech from their new MP Edward Blake. The gathering was described by the Toronto World newspaper as ‘the greatest demonstration ever seen in Ireland’

Many described it as similar to the great meetings of Daniel O’Connell and his speech was described as in the mould of the great orator.

At meeting in London attended by Prime Minister William Gladstone in August 1892

‘All of Canada’s experience with home rule justified Ireland in seeking the same measure of self government’ declared Blake. He was returned unopposed in 1895,  1900 and 1906 as an Irish Nationalist as the split was healed after the tumult of Parnell’s departure. Blake raised thousands of dollars in Canada to save the Irish Parliamentary Party from financial ruin

Blake’s political foresight led him to write in the early years of the twentieth century

‘If home rule were not granted, Irelands discontent will increase perhaps to the point where nothing sort of complete separation will satisfy her’

Following a stroke he retired 1907 as an MP on health grounds and returned to Canada. In 1912 he died in Toronto.

The Irish Refugee Crisis

1917 Another Potato Famine

A year after the Easter Rising the preoccupation of British newspapers with the Irish question wasn’t the reaction to the rebel executions, the rise of Sinn Fein or the massive amount of arms still in circulation on the island but headlines blazed about the humble potato.

The British were relying on food crops grown within the British Isles as German submarines were having an affect on imported goods and ships were being used for military purposes rather than food transport. The potato harvest in both Ireland and Scotland had been particularly poor in 1916 and the word ‘famine’ was again circulating. The yield in Ireland in 1916 was a quarter of a millions tons less than a year earlier and exporting from Ireland had been interrupted by the events of Easter week. Towards the end of 1916 the British Government prohibited the export of potatoes from Ireland to Britain leading to major shortages in Britain.

The Belfast News wrote,

“From Clare to Donegal and Dublin to Sligo thoughtful men are asking ‘what will happen if the people’s food is sold for export?’ there is only one answer –famine”

The Donegal Vindicator added

“The crisis has found Ireland as unprepared as the war found Great Britain. The potato famine is upon us and so are the exporters. The farmer who sells his potatoes for export today must be restrained by his more sensible neighbours. There is a food crisis.”

By early 1917, the wholesale cost of the spud had mushroomed. A ‘CWT’ (8 stone bag) of potatoes that cost between four and eight schillings in 1916, a year later was costing between eleven and fourteen schillings. Some Irish exporters had been accused of withholding supplies for export to take advantage of the ever increasing wholesale prices. The embargo was lifted on the Irish potato in July 1917 but not before the British Government ordered the Irish farmer to sell his crop for a maximum of £6 10s per ton or 1s per stone down from the reported £14 some farmer had been receiving.    

By March there were prosecutions in Ireland of those appearing to profiteer. Potato sellers Thomas Sheridan and Sons were fined £5 and £2 costs for selling potatoes wholesale to Mary Keating of Arklow for 11s 6d a CWT on March 9^th when the maximum at the time was 10s 10d per CWT. There were many such prosecutions during the following six months across the country.

One newspaper editorial in Wales, an area that had been severely affected by the potato shortages wrote,

“Potatoes are not worth buying if they cost more than 4s a cwt. They have been as high as 8s this spring. The potato is of very little value as food. There is not more than   two per cent of nutriment in the potato. Potatoes at 8s a cwt are equivalent in price to oatmeal as 1s per lb which is absurd. We have largely become the victims of the potato habit. In the early part of the nineteenth century potatoes could be had for two or three shillings a cwt. In those times anybody could live for about a shilling a week on potatoes. The root had very little dietetic value; but it was "filling" and cheap at the price. When however the potato begins to cost the price of a genuine food, it is time- its character was exposed. If you have a. good dinner it is all very well to have a few potatoes as "extras" just as you would have a few tomatoes or Brussels sprouts but to regard the potato as an article of diet in itself is rank folly. If the potato were relegated to its proper place the consumption of that fraudulent tuber would decrease and its price would fall accordingly. People acquired the taste for the potato in an age of poverty and they go eating it quite regardless of the fact that its food value is almost nil. The extraordinary prices which potatoes reached in the spring were due to the rebellion in Ireland. They grow huge quantities of potatoes in Ireland but they are not so foolish as to eat them. The Irish labourer has long ago got over his partiality for potatoes. He lives on tea "soda-bread" and American bacon. Liverpool, Fleetwood, .Glasgow and Bristol all receive daily shiploads of potatoes from Ireland. There is never usually more than a week's supply of potatoes in hand in the big towns of England and Scotland. When the Sinn Fein flare-up took place all shipping between this country and Ireland was held up for a couple of weeks, and it was a month before things became normal. In the meantime the grocers in this country were getting desperate for potatoes. Travellers from Manchester and Edinburgh were scouring the wilds of Wales offering any prices for a few sacks of potatoes. The only cure for the high price of potatoes is for people to use less of them. Those who eat meat can do with less potatoes. Puddings are cheaper than potatoes just now. Those who don't use meat should not use potatoes at all. As a food they are useless; their proper function is to serve as an adjunct to meat. Our fathers formed dietetic habits when certain articles of food were cheap. When circumstances alter the habits should alter. The only point in favour of the potato is its cheapness. Once it ceased to be cheap, it ought to be discarded.”

In parts of England especially Lincolnshire,a good potato growing county, there was a different kind of Irish problem when it came to harvesting the potato crop. In 1917 the ‘Irish Need Not Apply’ signs went up at farms, pubs and shops. The local community turned on Irish labourers who would travel across the Irish Sea for seasonal work as local Englishmen serving in the British Army who were conscripted and had been sent to Ireland during and after the Easter Rising were paid one schilling per week but the Irish who had replaced them in the fields and were exempt from conscription in what locals saw as appeasement were being paid between five and seven schillings a week to replace them.

By the end of 1917, the price had stabilised and the threat of famine in both Ireland and Britain had receded but by the end of that year consumers had discovered alternatives to the potato like swede, turnip and parsnip and as the First World War came to a conclusion the potato crisis had abated.  

Reis's Chambers, The 1916 Rising, the Execution of Francis Hynes and Charles Reis - Part One

5.30p.m. Friday August 11^th 1882

Green Street Special Court, Dublin

Mr. John Walton, a respected solicitor from Ennis, County Clare sat down on the wooden bench after informing Mr. Justice Andrew Lawson that he had concluded the case for the defence. The judge smiled yet again, reached under his red robes and then took out his pocket watch at the end of the silver ornamental chain and opened the lid.

            ‘Members of the Jury it is late and I am instructing the Sub-Sheriff to take you for the night to a Dublin hotel perhaps I can recommend the Gresham, I have dined there often myself and it would be in keeping with the standard of gentleman serving on today’s jury’

The court rose to its feet, the Judge left and the prisoner taken down to the cells underground. The twelve men of the jury filed out and into a sparsely decorated jury room. The men patiently waited for a couple of minutes when the door opened and James Campbell, the Sub Sheriff under the Dublin City’s High Sheriff Edmund Gray MP, entered the room.

            ‘Honourable Gentlemen I am charged with your protection and to provide repose and refreshments for tonight at the direction of His Honour. I can offer you the fine facilities at The European Hotel or the Imperial Hotel’

            ‘But Mr. Justice Lawson recommended the Gresham’ interjected the jury foreman, forty year old businessman and merchant William George Barrett of Kingstown*.

(* Kingstown is now Dun Laoghaire)

A number of the men spoke against staying at the Imperial Hotel as they believed that it was frequented by the rebellious nationalists and supporters of the Charles Stewart Parnell Roman Catholic dominated Irish Party. They suggested as did Mr. Justice Lawson the Gresham Hotel on Upper Sackville Street* or the Shelbourne Hotel located on St. Stephen’s Green. Some of the jurors even suggested that they would rather spent the night in the court house as was with previous juries than go to the Imperial Hotel. But with the introduction of the Prevention of Crime Act and the moving of cases such as murder cases from the assizes in the country outside Dublin, juries were being afforded better treatment in a belief that they would be more conducive to giving the prosecution the desired result. After some heated discussion, Campbell ended the chatter.

            ‘Alright Gentlemen of the Jury as you have rejected the European, I will be taking you to the Imperial.’

The Imperial Hotel was located on Sackville Street and the European Hotel was located on Bolton Street.

(* Upper Sackville Street is now O’Connell Street)

The twelve unhappy men were transported by horse drawn coaches accompanied by Mr. Campbell, two bailiffs John Williams and George Strong and four Dublin Metropolitan Police constables James Caffrey, James Donnelly, Robert Young and Michael Carey. Also with the protection detail was James Campbell Junior son of the Sub Sheriff although not officially court appointed. The coaches traveled along the River Liffey quays as far as Carlisle Bridge* and turned right down Sackville Street passed the recently completed statue of the Emancipator Daniel O’Connell. The coaches stopped in front of the Imperial Hotel that overshadowed all of the buildings on that side of the street. Opposite the hotel was the façade of the General Post Office and between the two on the central meridian named Gardiner's Mall was the impressive one hundred and thirty four feet high Nelson’s Column granite and stone structure. The twelve men and their escorts entered. The men many of them wearing black frock coats, while others wore three piece suits topped with tall hats and walking sticks entered the lobby and waited to be taken to the floor that was assigned to them although there was no room assignments.

(*Carlisle Bridge is now called O’Connell Bridge)

The Imperial Hotel itself was located on the upper floors over McSwiney’s and Delaney’s Mart*, one of the first purpose built shopping malls in Europe opened in 1853 in time for the Dublin Exhibition. It was an impressive four storey structure modern for its day. In 1882 the Hotel was operated by William Lawlor. When James Campbell arrived at the hotel reception he spoke to the manager whom he had dealt with in the recent past. He told the manager that a floor should be cleared for them and that food should be provided for the jury and their protection. He also informed the manager that drink could be served in moderation. This would be good business for the hotel.

(*McSwiney’s and Delany’s Mart is today Cleary’s Department Store)

The jurors were taken to the third floor where all the rooms had been cleared but for two guests William O’Brien and Elizabeth Carberry. It was just after six p.m. and after freshening up, the jurors traveled back down one flight of stairs to a dining room to have pre-dinner drinks.

1881

Lissane and Knockaneane, Ennis County Clare

For a number of years John Doolaghty had worked as a herdsman for the Hynes family on their seventy acre farm but in post famine Ireland and at the height of Land League efforts to get a fair deal in rents paid by native Irish to Landlords, the Hynes family struggled to keep their farm financially viable. In 1878, the Hynes family rented out the grazing parts of their farm to James Lynch of Lissane. Head of the family John Hynes, a solicitor in Ennis in an attempt to keep the family from being evicted resorted to criminal activities and after being suspected of forgery fled the country leaving his wife and sons to look after the homestead. In 1880 the Hynes family were evicted from their farm and it was sold to James Lynch.

Francis Hynes took particular offence to this loss of the homestead even though he would not have been the beneficiary of the land as it would have gone to his married brother William and especially when he discovered that John Doolaghty had decided to stay on the farm as a herdsman for the new owner. Francis Hynes was a twenty three year old, six foot three fit young man who felt hard done by when Doolaghty would not agree to a boycott of the James Lynch farm. On February 4^th 1881, young Hynes was bound over to the peace by the local Resident Magistrate Captain Hugh McTernan when he was accused of intimidating and attempting to bribe the Doolaghty family. These events followed a meeting in the town of Ennis addressed by the Nationalist MP Charles Stewart Parnell.

On taking over the farm James Lynch whose fortune was someone else’s misfortune had driven twenty three cattle onto the land and the Hynes brothers arrived and drove the cattle onto the road and threatened to take them further if there was no settlement with Doolaghty with regards to him quitting the employ of James Lynch. James Lynch although now in receipt of the farm had no quarrel with the Hynes family as they had proved honest and fair in their dealings with him in the previous years and they had prior to that been good neighbours.

Despite being bound over to the peace, Francis Hynes was suspected of being in a party that attacked the Doolaghty home and fired bullets into a cabinet shattering a number of plates. On another occasion, the grass on Lynch’s farm was cut in the middle of the night and stolen and in October 1881 shots were fired at Lynch himself as he herded some cattle through a field.

On Sunday July 9^th 1882, John Doolaghty and his wife Elizabeth known locally as Eliza left their home and attended Mass in Ennis. After Mass, Eliza went to visit the local convent while John set off on the walk home on that bright summer’s day.

 7p.m. August 11^th 1882

Dining Room, Imperial Hotel, Sackville Street.

Having made the arrangements with the manager and given details of where the invoice should sent, Campbell left for his own home on Rutland Place to have his dinner leaving John Williams and his son in charge of the members of the Jury.

The jury chosen for this case were forty year old William G Barrett a Distiller and mineral water merchant from Kingstown* who was chosen as the jury foreman. Forty five year old Royal Bank, Smithfield branch bank manager Richard Barbor from Rathmines and member of the Church of Ireland. The oldest member of the jury selected was Richard Carey of Lansdowne Road a retired gentlemen who professed to be a Protestant. Church of Ireland members William Gibson of Ormond Quay, fifty one year old plumber William Macklin of Kingstown and James Maconchy of Rathgar. Also selected was Dominic Street based Land Agent resident of Rathgar Edward C Hamilton. He was thirty five years old and a member of the Church of Ireland congregation.  Twenty eight year old Ephraim Phillips was a draper and hosier of Grafton Street a Methodist who would later become a rates collector in the city. John Beatty, forty one years old and a carpet manufacturer with a shop on Grafton Street and a Presbyterian. He was the co-founder of ‘Millar and Beatty, Carpet and Oil Cloth Warehouse’ who also had an office at Number Five Grafton Street. Grave E. Seabright, fifty four of Pembroke Road, Church of Ireland and William Wardropp of Great Brunswick Street* a Presbyterian. Wardropp was involved in building materials and construction sales who resided at Hamilton House on Ailesbury Road. The twelfth and final member of the jury was Scottish born Charles L Reis a jeweler on Grafton Street who was of the Jewish faith.

Charles Lionel Reis was born in Liverpool in July 1849 eldest son of Jonas and Elizabeth Reis. He married his first cousin Elizabeth in 1872 but she would pass away in 1915 after producing nine children, eight of whom survived. In June 1916 he married Christine McKay in Glasgow. In the 1870, Reis came arrived in Ireland having opened stores in Glasgow, Sheffield and Birmingham. He opened his first Dublin store on Westmoreland Street before moving to 115 Grafton Street and opening a second store at 6 Lower Sackville Street which would be vacated for the Dublin Bread Company and Reis’s moving to the corner of Lower Abbey Street. Reis’s company would also open a shop at 85 Patrick Street, Cork City. Reis’s business was destroyed in Dublin and he would pass away in Glasgow in 1927. For the duration of his time in Dublin, Reis lived at 1 Ailesbury Road in the affluent leafy suburbs of Ballsbridge and Mount Merrion.

Of the twelve members of the jury three did not drink whether by choice or belief, Ephraim Phillips, Richard Carey and William Macklin. The group gathered in the dining room and pre dinner drinks were delivered but it was not just the jury having a drink but all their guards would be consuming alcoholic beverages. It was the first opportunity for the gentlemen to get to know each other socially. They formed into small groups, some talking about their business, others about their personal lives and others discussing the case.

The pre-dinner drinks consisted of the following,

William Barrett         Glass of Sherry

Richard Barbor        Glass of Wine

William Gibson         A half glass of Gin and Bitters

James Maconchy     Glass of Sherry

Charles L. Reis        A half glass of Gin and Bitters

Grave Seabright       A half glass of Sherry

William Wardropp   A half Glass of Gin and Bitters

None of the other members of the Jury had a drink before dinner. But the jury were not the only ones having drinks before dinner. The men of the protection detail were also drinking as they took it in turns of three to eat while the others watched the jury members. The drinks served to the protection detail were as follows

John Williams               A half glass of Whiskey

George Strong              A Glass of Whiskey

James Caffrey               A half Glass of Whiskey

James Donnelly             A half glass of Whiskey

Robert Young               A half glass of Whiskey

Michael Carey              A half glass of Whiskey

The conversation was light hearted and warm as they sat around the table and sipped their drinks as they prepared for the evening meal. Most of the men were business men and discussion often veered towards their various occupations and perhaps what they could do for each other once the trial was over.

2.30pm July 9th 1882

The Road at Knockaneane

John Doolaghty attired in his Sunday best tweed suit was walking along the country road home when he met local man Cornelius McCormack who walked and chatted with him between Rossleven Cross and Guaria Cross where they parted and John Doolaghty continued alone along the road home. Suddenly from the bushes jumped a gunman in front of a startled Doolaghty and fired a gun at closed range into his face with the shot damaging much of the left side of his face and some shot penetrating his left eye and penetrating his brain. He collapsed on the road. Doctor Daxon, a doctor at the Clare County Asylum was first on the scene driving on his way home and moments later from the opposite direction came local butcher Michael Considine. They attempted to treat the wounds of the injured man at the side of the road. Shortly after 2.30p.m. Eliza was making her way home when she met a young man running along the road fetching water who informed her that he husband had been shot. She hurried along to the scene of the crime and knelt beside her injured husband cradling his bloodied her in her lap.

She immediately demanded that a priest be summoned. At 3.20p.m. Doctor Daxon left to fetch local curate Reverend J. Loughnane who returned with him and had obtained a flask of whiskey which he brought with him from the rectory. With some water Eliza wiped the blood from her husbands face and a small amount of whiskey was placed on the lips of the injured man but he had problems swallowing. She later recounted to the investigating magistrate that she asked her husband who shot him and she said that he had said ‘Francy’.

Reverend Loughnane began to give the dying man the last rights. He said in court that the man seemed to follow the act of contrition but that he was struggling in and out of consciousness. The priest believed under oath that the man was in a coma. After delivering the priest Doctor Daxon left again for Ennis and informed the local police of the incident. A large force of policemen headed for the scene of the crime.

First on the scene was Constable Richard Doyle followed shortly after at 4.30p.m. by Captain Hugh McTernan RM, sub Inspector Croghran and police surgeon Doctor William Cullinan. According to early reports when Constable Doyle arrived they moved the injured man into the nearly National School of the road and out of the elements and that is where the injured man was when Captain McTernan arrived. But in a number of court appearances the Captain would under oath claim that the injured man was still by the side of the road and that he ordered the constables to break in the door of the school only to fetch a pen and paper for a dying declaration. McTernan said that he asked who Doolaghty who had shot him and that he replied ‘Francy Hynes’ and that he asked ‘was it Francy Hynes who shot you?’ and Doolaghty replied  ‘yes’ this despite both Doctor Daxon and Reverend Loughnane stating that Doolaghty was both incoherent and unconscious.  McTernan swore that he wrote a dying declaration on a piece of paper for Doolaghty. “I John Doolaghty believing that I am dying, declare that Francis Hynes killed me by firing shots at me” and that when he repeated the declaration and showed it to Doolaghty that he replied ‘yes’.

The injured man was then taken home where he was tended to by Dr. Cullinan and his family. He succumbed to his wounds and died on Monday night at 10.15p.m.

July 9th 1882

Hassett's Public House, Barefield

Constable Doyle was despatched to arrest Francis Hynes whom they were informed could be found in Hassett's public house in the nearby village of Barefield. Constable Doyle said that he found the suspect eating outside the bar and that he seemed to him to be intoxicated. Francis Hynes was twenty three years old and athletic in build in his six foot three inch frame. The son a local solicitor who had himself ran foul of the law on charges of forgery. They owned a farm at Drumdoolaghty but it the tough economic times of post famine Ireland and at the height of the land leagues battle for fair rents for tenants, the family let out the grass on their farm to James Lynch in 1878 and 1879. The following year financial matters overtook the Hynes family and they were evicted from their farm in 1880 for non payment of rent. The farm was then sold to James Lynch who maintained the employment of the herdsman James Doolaghty much to the displeasure of the Hynes family. In February 1881 Francis Hynes was bound over to the peace by the local Resident Magistrate Hugh McTernan for twelve months for intimidating and attempting to bribe James Doolaghty. The intimidation included the cutting and stealing of the grass on the farm in the middle of the night and the opening of gates and allowing Lynch’s cattle to roam free on the roads.  In September 1881 a group of armed men including members of the Hynes family raided the Doolaghty family home on the farm and fired a number of shots in an attempt to get Doolaghty to boycott the employment of Lynch. Even the sound of shattering delph did not stop Doolaghty faithfully serving his master as he too had a large family to feed and needed the work. In October 1881 shots were fired at James Lynch as he herded his cattle from a field. Much of the Hynes’s frenzy was whipped up following an impassioned speech in Ennis by the leader of the Irish party Charles Stewart Parnell.

When he was searched he found some gun powder and buck shot in his pocket and a pair of dry socks. He claimed that in appearance that his boots were grey as though they had been through water and his socks seemed wet and were up over the bottom of his trousers. Hynes immediately denied any hand or part in the shooting and that he could not have done it as he was in the bar at the time of the shooting and that from the time of the shooting to the time he arrived in the pub he would not have had the time to make the four mile journey. The police claim that there was a stream between the scene of the crime and the place of arrest and that it why his boots looked wet that he made his escape through the stream.

The landlady of the house and three customers claim that Francis was drinking with them at the time of the murder. He claimed that at the time given for the murder he was entering the bar and would not have had the time to make it from the scene of the crime to the pub in the allotted time. Francis Hynes was taken to the police barracks in Ennis. 

7.30p.m. August 11^th 1882

The Dining Room of the Imperial Hotel

The jury were eating dinner and another round of drinks were served while they were eating. There was sherry, whiskey and a bottle of Claret served. The drinks orders were as follows

William Barrett              A Glass of Sherry

Richard Barbor             A Glass of grog

John Beatty                  One and a half Glasses of Sherry

William Gibson             A Half Glass of Sherry

Edward Hamilton          A Glass of Whiskey

James Maconchy          Two Glasses of Sherry

Charles Reis                 Three Glasses of Claret

Graves Seabright          A half glass of Claret

William Wardropp        A Glass of Sherry and Three quarters of a glass of Whiskey

The other three jurors only had water with their dinner.

The protection detail also ordered drinks with their meals as follows

John Williams               A Glass of Whiskey

George Strong              A Glass of Whiskey

James Caffrey               A Glass of Whiskey

James Donnelly             A Bottle of stout

Robert Young               A Glass of Whiskey

Michael Carey              A Glass of Whiskey

After the plates were cleared another round of drinks were ordered by some of the jury members and Charles Reis ordered a bottle of champagne and four glasses for himself, Mr. Barrett, Mr. Maconchy and Mr. Wardropp. He tells his fellow jury members that having a bottle of champagne after his lunch was a regular occurrence if he were at home. William Gibson ordered a glass of beer and Graves Seabright had another glass of Claret. Some of the men began to smoke cigars and there was discomfort amongst some of the older members and the non smokers as the room quickly resembled a harbour fog scene. As chairman of the jury, Mr. Barrett asked the guard at the door if there was somewhere else the men who wished to smoke could go. After some discussion and a suggestion from Charles Reis, six of the jury, half of them, were escorted down one floor to the hotel’s billiard room by two constables and a bailiff. On duty in the room was the hotel’s Billiard Marker Alfred Martin.

Four jury members remained talking in the dining room and Richard Barbor and William Macklin retired to bed early at 9.45p.m. and 10p.m. respectively. Mr. Barbor spent his time after dinner reading a copy of The London Times and retired to bed when a member of his family had delivered his nightclothes to the reception of the hotel and they had been passed onto him by one of the Constables. At 9.30pm Mr. Campbell arrived in the dining room and passed the remark to Mr. Beatty that jurors now had so much liberty compared to olden days when they would have been locked up in the sparse and unaccommodating surroundings of the Green Street Courthouse.

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.’