Six days of the Irish Republic Part 12

"'Tis better to have fought and lost Than never to have fought at all."

In any case his att.i.tude remained exactly what it had been in 1909, when at the Manchester Martyr celebration he had appealed to his audience never to degrade themselves by entering the British Army, telling them that if ever they wished to fight they ought to wait for the prospect of a German invasion of Ireland.

One of the strangest figures in the rebel ranks was that of the famous Countess Markievicz--formerly a Miss Gore-Booth, daughter of Sir H. W.

Gore-Booth, the head of a well-known and respected Sligo family of Cromwellian descent.

It was while in Paris as an art student some fifteen years ago that she imbibed those extreme principles of democracy--almost, one might say, anarchy--with which her name became a.s.sociated on her return to Dublin after her marriage with a young Polish artist named Count Marckievicz.

Presented at Court, she was not fond of the conventional "society"

circles of the Irish capital, and lived for the most part a Bohemian life of her own, becoming notorious by her extreme socialistic opinions.

During the Larkin crisis, when the transport workers and dockers went out on strike, she opened a "soup kitchen" at Liberty Hall.

She was also responsible for the organization of the "National Boy Scouts," an Irish replica of the English original, with a political bias, of course; and these soon attracted hundreds of Dublin lads, and from time to time the Countess would give them lectures and hold reviews and inspections.

These formed a considerable portion of the Citizen Army, and were probably the most violent of those elements in the Republic who disgraced the otherwise remarkable "military" combat.

One remark of the Countess's is very typical of both her temper and her temperament, and in a way prophetic.

It was supposed to have been said to a local Dundalk man, and was to the effect that if she could only shoot one British soldier she would die happy--a wish she must certainly have realized, for she was continually seen with a small rifle in her hand, and, according to a rumour, actually did shoot one on Stephen's Green.

Eoin McNeill, the able editor of the _Irish Volunteer_, is another interesting character, not only in view of the part he had taken to raise the revolutionary army, but also for the way, to use the words of John Dillon, "he broke its back" when he found out that they were to rise on that fatal Easter Monday--though this did not save him from the vengeance of the law.

In striking contrast to the rather vapid sentimentalism and abstract theorizing of many of the periodicals controlled by the Sinn Feiners was his own sheet, the _Irish Volunteer_. It was the most practical of all the periodicals, and, beyond ordinary editorials and topical articles, always contained "Orders for the Week," which included night cla.s.ses and lectures and drills, while diagrams of trenches and earthworks appeared which covered the whole of Ireland.

It is only when looking back over past numbers, with their articles on night operations, local guides, reconnoitring, organization of transports, reserves, signalling, and so forth, that one sees how it is that they were able to hold up Dublin for a solid week; but Eoin McNeill owed his inspiration entirely to the men of Ulster.

Some of the men, on the other hand, were of the gentlest disposition. No one, for example, could be more the ant.i.thesis of the revolutionary in real life than P. H. Pea.r.s.e, President and Commander-in-Chief of the Republican Army. Indeed, according to one account he was to have replaced Dr. Mahaffy as Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, in the event of the rising proving successful. Pea.r.s.e was not even an Irishman, being the son of an English convert to Catholicism who had emigrated to Ireland, but he was an enthusiastic Gaelic scholar, and there was nothing he loved better than wandering among the peasantry of Galway and Connemara, while in his own establishment all the servants spoke Irish fluently.

Though he had at one time intended taking up journalism, and was even called to the Bar, he was both by profession and inclination an educationalist, being especially keen on the study of continental methods of education, such as those of Belgium and Germany.

He conducted a secondary boarding school for boys, where all the walls were decorated with the works of modern Irish artists, such as Jack Yeats and George W. Russell. He later, in order to give vent to his views, developed a gift for oratory, his oration at the grave of O'Donovan Rossa having stirred all Ireland. He was also the author of a charming little volume of short stories ent.i.tled "Josagan," or "Little Jesus," while his translations of Irish folk-lore and cradle songs were equally delicate.

Crowds of the victims, in fact, were men of character, talent, and eminence--numerous writers, journalists, poets, authors, professors; but all were cla.s.sed in the same category of felons.

Indeed, it has been said that the blow was aimed as much at the freedom of the Press and the liberty of thought as the actual rising in arms; but as the majority of the sentiments maintained were but repet.i.tions of the muzzled grievances of labour and thought in England, the effect will undoubtedly react through British democracy upon the heads of those who took advantage of the racial prejudice to crush out of opposition.

Thus John MacDermot, one of the signatories of the rebel proclamation, was editor of a paper called _Freedom_, and had already served a term of imprisonment for speeches which had been interpreted as prejudicial to recruiting. Edward de Valera, who commanded at Boland's mill, and who was sentenced to penal servitude for life, had been a professor in Blackrock College. W. O'Clery Curtis, who was deported, was a journalist, and Arthur Griffiths the able editor of the _Irish Year-book_.

Then came the disciples of the muses. Thomas MacDonagh seems to have been always more or less haunted with the vision of revolution, and as early as eight years ago produced a play ent.i.tled "When the Dawn is Come," though the insurrection it foretold was placed fifty years hence.

He, too, wrote poetry, like Pea.r.s.e, under whom he was at school, but he was better known and his verse of a higher standard. He seems almost to have had an inkling of his future fate, and might also be said to have deliberately chosen the lost cause of his heart, for, in one of his earlier poems, ent.i.tled "The War Legacy," we find the following:

Far better War's battering breeze than the Peace that barters the Past, Better the fear of our fathers' G.o.d than friendship false with their foe: And better anointed Death than the Nation's d.a.m.nation at last, And the crawling of craven limbs in life and the curse of the coward below.

Among his publications are "Songs of Myself" (Hodges, Figgis & Co.), "Thomas Campion" (Hodges, Figgis & Co.), and a larger volume of "Lyrical Poems," reprinted by the _Irish Review_.

At the time of his death he was Lecturer in English Literature at the National University.

Probably one of the most pathetic figures of the whole revolt was that of young Joseph Plunkett, the son of Count Plunkett, whose marriage upon the morn of his execution sent such a thrill of romance through the English-speaking world when it became announced.

He too was a poet, and at one time the editor of the _Irish Review_, now no more, and he was also a contributor to the _Academy_ and the _Dublin Review_.

A little volume ent.i.tled "The Circle and the Sword," published by Maunsel, is dedicated to his fellow-rebel, Thomas MacDonagh.

One poem among them is especially significant and is ent.i.tled "1867,"

but one feels inclined to call it 1916, for it might have been written yesterday, as he blindfold faced the levelled rifles:--

All our best ye have branded When the people were choosing them.

When 'twas death they demanded, Ye laughed! ye were losing them.

But the blood that ye spilt in the night Crieth loudly to G.o.d, And their name hath the strength and the might Of a sword for the sod.

In the days of our doom and our dread Ye were cruel and callous.

Grim Death with our fighters ye fed Through the jaws of your gallows.

But a blasting and blight was the fee For which ye had bartered them.

And we smite with the sword that from ye We had gained when ye martyred them!

It is probably by the romance of his last hours, however, that he will be most remembered.

"Late on Wednesday night," as Mr. Stoker, the Grafton Street jeweller already mentioned, told me the story, "just as I was about to go home, suddenly a taxi stopped at the shop door, and a beautiful young woman stepped out and asked me to show her some wedding-rings--'the best,' as she put it, 'that money could buy.'

"She had a thick veil, but I could see that her eyes were red with weeping, and, noticing continued convulsive sobs as she spoke, I ventured to ask her the reason.

"It was then that she revealed the terrible tragedy she was about to suffer.

"'I am poor Joe Plunkett's--the rebel's--fiancee,' she said, 'and we are to be married in prison to-morrow morning, an hour before his execution.'

"I tell you it was the most pathetic thing I had ever heard in my life,"

continued the jeweller; "and I felt inclined to break down myself when she added: 'Oh! I can't tell you how I love him and how he loves me; we belong to each other, and even if we are only to be together for a single hour I mean to marry him in spite of everybody, in order to bear his name through life.'"

The young woman at once stepped into the same category as Sarah Curran, poor Robert Emmet's sweetheart, in the heart of everyone in Dublin as the story went round like lightning, but no one knew who she was until the next day, when we heard that she was Grace Gifford, the beautiful and gifted young art student whose portrait by William Orpen, ent.i.tled "Young Ireland," had won the admiration of all London a few years before.

Not all the character and talent and romance of these leaders, however, would have been sufficient to launch Ireland into open rebellion had there not been some concrete grievance as well which gave their words objective worth.

Style alone makes no martyrs, and the best way to understand the influence these men had upon their followers is to study the concrete grievances which they preached in season and out of season, making revolution not only sound plausible but actually practicable; and for this we must turn to the literature, which explains the remoter home causes of the rebellion.

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

REMOTER CAUSES OF THE REBELLION