To the British, I am told, there was something uncanny about the suddenness with which the important centers of Dublin's life were quietly seized at noon on Easter Monday by groups of calm, determined men in green uniforms.

They were not merely surprised; they were frightened. The superstitious element in their fear was great, too. It had always been so. When Kitchener was drowned off the Irish coast, a man I know, an Irishman, spoke of it to an English soldier.

"Yes; you and your damned rosaries!" retorted the soldier, looking frightened even as he said it.

The British seem to feel we are in league with unearthly powers against which they have no protection. On Easter Monday they believed that behind this sudden decision, as it appeared to them, something dark and sinister was lurking. How else would we dare to revolt against the British Empire? It was as if our men were not flesh and blood, but spirits summoned up by their own bad conscience to take vengeance for many centuries of misrule. It must have been some such feeling that accounted for the way they lost, at the very outset, all their usual military calm and ruthlessness.

We recognized this feeling, and it made our men stronger in spirit. We were convinced of the justice of our cause, convinced that even dying was a small matter compared with the privilege we now shared of fighting for that cause. Besides, there was no traitor in our ranks. No one had whispered a word of our plans to the British authorities. That is one reason why our memory of Easter Week has in it something finer than the memory of any other rising in the past. You must bear in mind that the temptation to betray the rising must have been just as strong, that it had in it just as much guarantee of security for the future, as heretofore. Yet no one yielded to this temptation. Even more amazing was the fact that the authorities had not paid any heed to those utterances which for months past had been highly seditious. For instance, here is what Padraic Pearse stated openly in one of his articles:

I am ready. For years I have waited and prayed for this day. We have the most glorious opportunity that has ever presented itself of really asserting ourselves. Such an opportunity will never come again. We have Ireland's liberty in our hands. Or are we content to remain as slaves and idly watch the final extermination of the Gael?

Nothing could be more outspoken or direct. When it is remembered that England's enemies have always been regarded as Ireland's allies; that an English war, wherever fought, is a signal for us to rise once more, no matter how many defeats we have suffered, it might have been supposed the British, stationed in such numbers in and around Dublin, would not have been put to sleep by what must have seemed, to the wary observer, an acute attack of openness and a vigorous interest in military affairs. There were some, of course, among the police and officials who made their reports of "highly seditious" meetings and writings, but I suppose the authorities did not believe we would strike. From America they learned of aid to come by ship when Igel's papers were seized by United States authorities. It may have been this information that put the English patrol-boats on their guard in Tralee Harbor. It even may have been thought that when that ship went down the rising was automatically ended. So it might have been had our revolt been "made in Germany," but it must be remembered that it was the Irish who approached the Germans. Thus there was no anxiety in Dublin that Easter Monday except as to which horse would win the Fairview races.

As soon as our men were in position in St. Stephen's Green, I rode off down Leeson Street toward the Grand Canal to learn if the British soldiers were now leaving Beggar's Bush or the Portobello barracks. Everything remained quiet. That signified to me that our men had taken possession of the post-office for headquarters and of all other premises decided on in the revised plan of strategy adapted to a much smaller army.

The names of these places do not sound martial. Jacob's Biscuit Factory, Boland's Bakery, Harcourt Street Railway Station, and Four Courts are common enough, but each had been chosen for the strategic advantage it would give those defending Dublin with a few men against a great number. The Dublin & Southeastern Railway yards, for example, gave control of the approach from Kingstown where, it was expected, the English coming over to Ireland would land.

Again I was sent out to learn if the Harcourt Street Station had been occupied by our men. This had been done, and already telegraph wires there, as well as elsewhere, had been cut to isolate Dublin. Telephone wires were cut, too, but one was overlooked. By that wire word of the rising reached London much sooner than otherwise would have been the case. But here again, the wonder is not that something had been overlooked, but that so much was accomplished. By the original plan, volunteers were told off to do this wire-cutting and the hundred and one things necessary to a revolt taking place in a city like Dublin. When this work was redistributed to one third the original number of men, it was hard to be certain that those who had never drilled for the kind of task assigned them could do it at all. This insurrection had been all but rehearsed, during those months when it was being worked out on paper, by daily and weekly drills.

Upon my return, I found our men intrenching themselves in St. Stephen's Green. All carried tools with which to dig themselves in, and shrubbery was used to protect the trenches. Motorcars and drays passing the Green were commandeered, too, to form a barricade. Much to the bewilderment of their occupants, who had no warning that anything was amiss in Dublin, the men in green uniforms would signal them to stop. Except in one instance, they did so quickly enough. Then they were told to get out. An experienced chauffeur among our men would jump in at once and drive the car to a position where it was needed. The occupants would stand for a moment aghast, then take to their heels. One drayman refused his cart and persisted in his refusal, not believing it when our men told him this was war. He was shot. Two British officers were taken prisoners in one of the autos. We could not afford men to stand guard over them, but we took good care of them. Afterward they paid us the tribute of saying that we obeyed all the rules of war.

Commandant Mallin gave me my first despatch to carry to headquarters at the general post-office. As I crossed O'Connell Street, I had to ride through great crowds of people who had gathered to hear Padraic Pearse read the proclamation of the republic at the foot of Nelson's Pillar. They had to scatter when the Fifth Lancers—the first of the military forces to learn that insurgents had taken possession of the post-office—rode in among them to attack the post-office.

THE PROCLAMATION OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC

(All of its signers were executed)

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Nothing can give one a better idea of how demoralized the British were by the first news of the rising than to learn that they sent cavalry to attack a fortified building. Men on horseback stood no chance against rifle-fire from the windows of the post-office. It must be said in extenuation, however, that it probably was because this cavalry detachment had just convoyed some ammunition-wagons to a place not far from O'Connell Street, and so were sent to "scatter" men who, they supposed, could be put to flight by the mere appearance of regulars on horseback.

When I reached the open space in front of the post-office, I saw two or three men and horses lying in the street, killed by the first volley from the building. It was several days before these horses were taken away, and there was something in the sight of the dumb beasts that hurt me every time I had to pass them. It may sound harsh when I say that the thought of British soldiers being killed in the same way did not awaken similar feelings. That is because for many centuries we have been harassed by men in British uniform. They have become to us symbols of a power that seems to delight in tyranny.

Even while I was cycling toward the post-office, the crowd had reassembled to watch the raising of the flag of the Irish Republic. As the tricolor—green, white, and orange—appeared above the roof of the post-office, a salute was fired. A few days later, while it was still waving, James Connolly wrote: "For the first time in seven hundred years the flag of a free Ireland floats triumphantly over Dublin City!"

Mr. Connolly and a few of his officers came out to look at it as it waved up there against the sky. I saw an old woman go up to him and, bending her knee, kiss his hand. Indeed, the people loved and trusted him.

Inside the post-office our men were busy putting things to right after the lancers' attack. They were getting ready for prolonged resistance. Window-panes were smashed, and barricades set up to protect men who soon would be shooting from behind them. Provisions were brought over from Liberty Hall, where they had long been stored against this day. But what impressed me most was the way the men went at it, as though this was the usual sort of thing to be doing and all in the day's work. There was no sign of excitement, but there was a tenseness, a sense of expectancy, a kind of exaltation, that was almost more than I could bear.

I delivered my despatch, and was given another to carry back to Commandant Mallin. Crowds were still in O'Connell Street when I left on my errand. They were always there when bullets were not flying, and always seemed in sympathy with the men in the post-office. I found this same sympathy all over the city wherever I went. Even when men would not take guns and join us, they were friendly.

The soldiers from Portobello barracks were sent out twice on Monday to attack our position in St. Stephen's Green. The first time was at noon, before we were completely intrenched. They had gone only as far as Portobello Bridge, but a few rods from the barracks, when they were fired on from the roof of Davies's public-house just the other side of the bridge. Our rifle-fire was uninterrupted, and a number of the soldiers fell. They probably thought they were dealing with a considerable force, for they did not advance until the firing ceased or until word was brought to the three men on the roof that we were securely intrenched. Even then they did not come on to attack us, but went somewhere else in the city.

At six o'clock that evening, just when it was beginning to grow dusk, on my way back from the post-office I noticed that the crowd of curious civilians who had been hanging about the Green all day had quite disappeared. The next thing I saw was two persons hurrying away from the Green. These were Town Councilor Partridge and the countess. They came to a halt in the street just ahead of me. Then I saw the British soldiers coming up Harcourt Street!

The countess stood motionless, waiting for them to come near. She was a lieutenant in the Irish Volunteers and, in her officer's uniform and black hat with great plumes, looked most impressive. At length she raised her gun to her shoulder—it was an "automatic" over a foot long, which she had converted into a short rifle by taking out the wooden holster and using it as a stock—and took aim. Neither she nor Partridge noticed me as I came up behind them. I was quite close when they fired. The shots rang out at the same moment, and I saw the two officers leading the column drop to the street. As the countess was taking aim again, the soldiers, without firing a shot, turned and ran in great confusion for their barracks. The whole company fled as fast as they could from two people, one of them a woman! When you consider, however, that for years these soldiers had been going about Dublin as if they owned it; that now they did not know from what house or street corner they might be fired upon by men in green uniforms, it is not to be wondered at that they were temporarily demoralized.

As we went back to the Green, Madam told me of the attempt made that morning by herself, Sean Connolly, and ten others to enter Dublin Castle and plant the flag of the Irish republic on the roof of that stronghold of British power in Ireland. There always is a considerable military force housed in the castle, but so completely were they taken by surprise that for a few moments it seemed as if the small group would succeed in entering. It was only when their leader, Sean Connolly, was shot dead that the attempt was abandoned. It seemed to me particularly fitting that Madam had been a member of this party, for she belonged by "right of birth" to those who always were invited to social affairs at the castle. Yet she had long refused to accept these invitations, and had taken the side of those who hoped for the ultimate withdrawal of those Dublin Castle hosts.

Immediately after this gallant attempt, which might have succeeded had it taken place on Sunday with the number of men originally intended, Madam returned to St. Stephen's Green and alone and single-handed took possession of the College of Surgeons. This is a big, square, granite building on the west side of the Green. It was, as we later discovered, impregnable. For all impression they made, the machine-gun bullets with which the British soldiers peppered it for five days might have been dried peas.

The countess, fortunately, had met with no resistance. She walked up the steps, rang the bell, and, when no one answered, fired into the lock and entered. The flag we flew from the roof of the building was a small one I had brought on my bicycle from headquarters.

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