The need of explosives was great, and I took part in a number of expeditions to obtain them. One night we raided a ship lying in the river. The sailors were drunk, and three or four of our men had no trouble in getting into the hold. I was standing guard on the other side of the embankment wall, holding one end of a string that served as a telegraph between our outposts in the street and our men in the boat. One jerk from me meant, "Some one coming"; two jerks, "Police"; three jerks, "Clear out as best you can."

Suddenly I heard the outpost up the street whistling a patriotic tune. This was a signal to me. It meant the police were coming. I gave two jerks of the string and waited.

A policeman came slowly toward me. He had his dark-lantern and, catching sight of me, flashed it in my face. He stared, but said nothing. No doubt he was wondering what a decently dressed girl was doing in that part of town at such an hour. I watched him as closely as he watched me. If he caught sight of my string, I intended to give three jerks, and, at the same moment, throw pepper in his face, my only weapon.

But he did not notice the string, and passed on. My heart had stopped beating; now it began again, though I felt rather queer. Risks like this have to be taken, however, when one is preparing a revolution and has neither firearms nor ammunition, the people in power having put an embargo upon them. It is all in the way of war. I can add that this raid was as successful as usual.

One day the countess took several of us, including her dog Poppet, out beyond Dundrum. Upon our return we could call this expedition "a little shooting party." And it would be the truth, for Poppet, being an Irish cocker, more interested in hunting than in revolts, joined himself to two men who were intent on getting birds. He was of so great assistance that these men, in recognition of his services, gave us a few of the birds he brought in. We took them home as trophies.

A FIANNA BOY

But the whole truth was that we had been out to test dynamite. We were looking for some old wall to blow up, and found one on the side of a hill. After the hunters had disappeared, two of us were posted with field-glasses while Madam set off the explosive. It was a lonely place, so we were not disturbed. The great stones flew into the air with dust and thunder. Indeed, the country people round about, when they heard that rumble and saw the cloud of smoke, must have wondered at the sudden thunder-storm on the hill.

An Irishman told me once that, although he had hoped for a revolution and worked for it, he had never felt it would be a reality until one night when he and some friends, out cross-country walking in the moonlight, came upon Madam and her Fianna boys bivouacked in the open. They had come out for a drill. She was in uniform, with kneebreeches, puttees, and officer's coat, and the whole scene was martial and intense.

The Fianna were proud of the fact that they were the first military organization in Ireland, four years older than either the Irish Citizen Army or the Irish Volunteers. It was in 1909 that the countess heard of Baden-Powell coming to Ireland to organize his British Boy Scouts, where they might be useful later on to the empire. She tried to get people interested in organizing the same way for Ireland, and finally made this her own task, though she knew nothing of military tactics and as little of boys. There was virtually no money or equipment like that in Baden-Powell's organization, and naturally many blunders were made at the outset. But she studied both boys and tactics, and finally came to believe that to succeed, the spirit of old Ireland must be invoked. So the organization was given the historic Gaelic name, Fianna, with its flavor of romance and patriotic tradition. The boys saved up their money for uniforms and equipment, and from the beginning were aware of themselves as an independent, self-respecting body. They have stood well the test of the revolution.

One of the most popular actresses at the Abbey Theater in Dublin was Helen Maloney. Through her energy Mr. Connolly returned from America to organize the working-men of Ireland, and thus met the countess. From the friendship and coÖperation of these three persons, you can judge how all class distinction had gone down before the love of Ireland and the determination to free her.

James Connolly was a very quiet man at the time I met him, quiet and tense. He was short and thick-set, with a shrewd eye and determined speech. He proved a genius at organization, and this was lucky, for in Dublin there are no great factories, except Guinness's, to employ large numbers of men, and this makes organization difficult. To have managed such a strike as the Transport Workers' in 1913, after only half a dozen years of organization, is proof of his great ability. And then to organize a Citizen's Army!

Connolly is the answer to those who think the rising was the work of dreamers and idealists. No one who knew him could doubt that when he led his army of working-men into battle for the Irish Republic, he believed there was a good fighting chance to establish such a republic. He was practical, and had no wish to spill blood for the mere glory of it; there was nothing melodramatic about him. A north of Ireland man,—he originally came from the only part of Ireland I know well, County Monaghan,—he had many times given proof of sound judgment and courage. He was often at the house of the countess while I was visiting her, and one evening, just before I left, Madam called my attention to the fact that he was in better spirits than for a long time past. Word had come to him from America that on or near Easter Sunday a shipful of arms and ammunition would arrive in Ireland. This news determined the date of the rising, for it was all that was needed from without to insure success. We believed this then, and do still.

We were collecting and hiding what arms and ammunition we could. In proportion to the amount of courage of those in the secret, so the dynamite that they hid against the day soon to come grew and accumulated. Though the house in Leinster Road was always watched, the countess had it stocked like an arsenal. Bombs and rifles were hidden in absurd places, for she had the skill to do it and escape detection. A French journalist who visited Dublin shortly before the insurrection possibly came upon some of this evidence, or perhaps it was only the Fianna uniforms which impressed him, for he wrote:

"The salon of the Countess Markiewicz is not a salon. It is a military headquarters."

Despite this martial ardor, Madam found time to write poetry and "seditious" songs. This poetry would be in print now had not the house of Mrs. Wise-Power, where she left it for safekeeping, been blown to pieces by English gunners when they tried to find the range of the post-office. Their marksmanship would not have been so poor, perhaps, had they had the countess to teach them.

Many of the singers of our old and new lays are in prison, sentenced for their part in stirring up insurrection, even though they had nothing to do with the rising itself. The authorities seemed to take no notice of these patriotic concerts while they were being given, but afterward they paid this modern minstrelsy the tribute it deserved. For these concerts were full of inspiration to every one who attended. Though all were in the open, they were, as a matter of fact, "seditious," if that word means stirring up rebellion against those who rule you against your will.

One of the many things I recall gives a clear idea of the untiring and never-ending enthusiasm of the countess. She realized one day that the Christmas-cards usually sold in Ireland were "made in Germany," and since the war was on, had been supplanted by cards "made in England." She sat down at once to design Irish Christmas-cards for the holiday season of 1916. But when that Christmas came around she was in prison, and the cards were—no one can say where.

When I left Dublin to return to my teaching in Glasgow, they made me promise that I would come back whenever they sent for me, probably just before Easter.

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