The Insurrection in Dublin Part 1

The Insurrection in Dublin.

by James Stephens.

FOREWORD

The day before the rising was Easter Sunday, and they were crying joyfully in the Churches "Christ has risen." On the following day they were saying in the streets "Ireland has risen." The luck of the moment was with her. The auguries were good, and, notwithstanding all that has succeeded, I do not believe she must take to the earth again, nor be ever again buried. The pages hereafter were written day by day during the Insurrection that followed Holy Week, and, as a hasty impression of a most singular time, the author allows them to stand without any emendation.

The few chapters which make up this book are not a history of the rising. I knew nothing about the rising. I do not know anything about it now, and it may be years before exact information on the subject is available. What I have written is no more than a statement of what pa.s.sed in one quarter of our city, and a gathering together of the rumour and tension which for nearly two weeks had to serve the Dublin people in lieu of news. It had to serve many Dublin people in place of bread.

To-day, the 8th of May, the book is finished, and, so far as Ireland is immediately concerned, the insurrection is over. Action now lies with England, and on that action depends whether the Irish Insurrection is over or only suppressed.

In their dealings with this country, English Statesmen have seldom shown political imagination; sometimes they have been just, sometimes, and often, unjust. After a certain point I dislike and despise justice. It is an attribute of G.o.d, and is adequately managed by Him alone; but between man and man no other ethics save that of kindness can give results. I have not any hope that this ethic will replace that, and I merely mention it in order that the good people who read these words may enjoy the laugh which their digestion needs.

I have faith in man, I have very little faith in States man. But I believe that the world moves, and I believe that the weight of the rolling planet is going to bring freedom to Ireland. Indeed, I name this date as the first day of Irish freedom, and the knowledge forbids me mourn too deeply my friends who are dead.

It may not be worthy of mention, but the truth is, that Ireland is not cowed. She is excited a little. She is gay a little. She was not with the revolution, but in a few months she will be, and her heart which was withering will be warmed by the knowledge that men have thought her worth dying for. She will prepare to make herself worthy of devotion, and that devotion will never fail her. So little does it take to raise our hearts.

Does it avail anything to describe these things to English readers? They have never moved the English mind to anything except impatience, but to-day and at this desperate conjunction they may be less futile than heretofore. England also has grown patriotic, even by necessity. It is necessity alone makes patriots, for in times of peace a patriot is a quack when he is not a shark. Idealism pays in times of peace, it dies in time of war. Our idealists are dead and yours are dying hourly.

The English mind may to-day be enabled to understand what is wrong with us, and why through centuries we have been "disthressful." Let them look at us, I do not say through the fumes that are still rising from our ruined streets, but through the smoke that is rolling from the North Sea to Switzerland, and read in their own souls the justification for all our risings, and for this rising.

Is it wrong to say that England has not one friend in Europe? I say it.

Her Allies of to-day were her enemies of yesterday, and politics alone will decide what they will be to-morrow. I say it, and yet I am not entirely right, for she has one possible friend unless she should decide that even one friend is excessive and irks her. That one possible friend is Ireland. I say, and with a.s.surance, that if our national questions are arranged there will remain no reason for enmity between the two countries, and there will remain many reasons for friendship.

It may be objected that the friendship of a country such as Ireland has little value; that she is too small geographically, and too thinly populated to give aid to any one. Only sixty odd years ago our population was close on ten millions of people, nor are we yet sterile; in area Ireland is not collossal, but neither is she microscopic. Mr.

Shaw has spoken of her as a "cabbage patch at the back of beyond." On this kind of description Rome might be called a hen-run and Greece a back yard. The sober fact is that Ireland has a larger geographical area than many an independent and prosperous European kingdom, and for all human and social needs she is a fairly big country, and is beautiful and fertile to boot. She could be made worth knowing if goodwill and trust are available for the task.

I believe that what is known as the "mastery of the seas" will, when the great war is finished, pa.s.s irretrievably from the hands or the ambition of any nation, and that more urgently than ever in her history England will have need of a friend. It is true that we might be her enemy and might do her some small harm--it is truer that we could be her friend, and could be of very real a.s.sistance to her.

Should the English Statesman decide that our friendship is worth having let him create a little of the political imagination already spoken of.

Let him equip us (it is England's debt to Ireland) for freedom, not in the manner of a miser who arranges for the chilly livelihood of a needy female relative; but the way a wealthy father would undertake the settlement of his son. I fear I am a.s.sisting my reader to laugh too much, but laughter is the sole excess that is wholesome.

If freedom is to come to Ireland--as I believe it is--then the Easter Insurrection was the only thing that could have happened. I speak as an Irishman, and am momentarily leaving out of account every other consideration. If, after all her striving, freedom had come to her as a gift, as a peaceful present such as is sometimes given away with a pound of tea, Ireland would have accepted the gift with shamefacedness, and have felt that her centuries of revolt had ended in something very like ridicule. The blood of brave men had to sanctify such a consummation if the national imagination was to be stirred to the dreadful business which is the organizing of freedom, and both imagination and brains have been stagnant in Ireland this many a year. Following on such tameness, failure might have been predicted, or, at least feared, and war (let us call it war for the sake of our pride) was due to Ireland before she could enter gallantly on her inheritance. We might have crept into liberty like some kind of domesticated man, whereas now we may be allowed to march into freedom with the honours of war. I am still appealing to the political imagination, for if England allows Ireland to formally make peace with her that peace will be lasting, everlasting; but if the liberty you give us is all half-measures, and distrusts and stinginesses, then what is scarcely worth accepting will hardly be worth thanking you for.

There is a reference in the earlier pages of this record to a letter which I addressed to Mr. George Bernard Shaw and published in the _New Age_. This was a thoughtless letter, and subsequent events have proved that it was unmeaning and ridiculous. I have since, through the same hospitable journal, apologised to Mr. Shaw, but have let my reference to the matter stand as an indication that electricity was already in the air. Every statement I made about him in that letter and in this book was erroneous; for, afterwards, when it would have been politic to run for cover, he ran for the open, and he spoke there like the valiant thinker and great Irishman that he is.

Since the foregoing was written events have moved in this country. The situation is no longer the same. The executions have taken place. One cannot justly exclaim against the measures adopted by the military tribunal, and yet, in the interests of both countries one may deplore them. I have said there was no bitterness in Ireland, and it was true at the time of writing. It is no longer true; but it is still possible by generous Statesmanship to allay this, and to seal a true union between Ireland and England.

THE

INSURRECTION IN DUBLIN

CHAPTER I

MONDAY

This has taken everyone by surprise. It is possible, that, with the exception of their Staff, it has taken the Volunteers themselves by surprise; but, to-day, our peaceful city is no longer peaceful; guns are sounding, or rolling and crackling from different directions, and, although rarely, the rattle of machine guns can be heard also.

Two days ago war seemed very far away--so far, that I have covenanted with myself to learn the alphabet of music. Tom Bodkin had promised to present me with a musical instrument called a dulcimer--I persist in thinking that this is a species of guitar, although I am a.s.sured that it is a number of small metal plates which are struck with sticks, and I confess that this description of its function prejudices me more than a little against it. There is no reason why I should think dubiously of such an instrument, but I do not relish the idea of procuring music with a stick. With this dulcimer I shall be able to tap out our Irish melodies when I am abroad, and transport myself to Ireland for a few minutes, or a few bars.

In preparation for this present I had through Sat.u.r.day and Sunday been learning the notes of the Scale. The notes and s.p.a.ces on the lines did not trouble me much, but those above and below the line seemed ingenious and complicated to a degree that frightened me.

On Sat.u.r.day I got the _Irish Times_, and found in it a long article by Bernard Shaw (reprinted from the _New York Times_). One reads things written by Shaw. Why one does read them I do not know exactly, except that it is a habit we got into years ago, and we read an article by Shaw just as we put on our boots in the morning--that is, without thinking about it, and without any idea of reward.

His article angered me exceedingly. It was called "Irish Nonsense talked in Ireland." It was written (as is almost all of his journalistic work) with that _bonhomie_ which he has cultivated--it is his mannerism--and which is essentially hypocritical and untrue. _Bonhomie_!

It is that man-of-the-world att.i.tude, that shop att.i.tude, that between-you-and-me-for-are-we-not-equal-and-cultured att.i.tude, which is the tone of a card-sharper or a trick-of-the-loop man. That was the tone of Shaw's article. I wrote an open letter to him which I sent to the _New Age_, because I doubted that the Dublin papers would print it if I sent it to them, and I knew that the Irish people who read the other papers had never heard of Shaw, except as a trade-mark under which very good Limerick bacon is sold, and that they would not be interested in the opinions of a person named Shaw on any subject not relevant to bacon. I struck out of my letter a good many harsh things which I said of him, and hoped he would reply to it in order that I could furnish these acidities to him in a second letter.

That was Sat.u.r.day.

On Sunday I had to go to my office, as the Director was absent in London, and there I applied myself to the notes and s.p.a.ces below the stave, but relinquished the exercise, convinced that these mysteries were unattainable by man, while the knowledge that above the stave there were others and not less complex, stayed mournfully with me.

I returned home, and as novels (perhaps it is only for the duration of the war) do not now interest me I read for some time in Madame Blavatsky's "Secret Doctrine," which book interests me profoundly.

George Russell was out of town or I would have gone round to his house in the evening to tell him what I thought about Shaw, and to listen to his own much finer ideas on that as on every other subject. I went to bed.

On the morning following I awoke into full insurrection and b.l.o.o.d.y war, but I did not know anything about it. It was Bank Holiday, but for employments such as mine there are not any holidays, so I went to my office at the usual hour, and after transacting what business was necessary I bent myself to the notes above and below the stave, and marvelled anew at the ingenuity of man. Peace was in the building, and if any of the attendants had knowledge or rumour of war they did not mention it to me.

At one o'clock I went to lunch. Pa.s.sing the corner of Merrion Row I saw two small groups of people. These people were regarding steadfastly in the direction of St. Stephen's Green Park, and they spoke occasionally to one another with that detached confidence which proved they were mutually unknown. I also, but without approaching them, stared in the direction of the Green. I saw nothing but the narrow street which widened to the Park. Some few people were standing in tentative att.i.tudes, and all looking in the one direction. As I turned from them homewards I received an impression of silence and expectation and excitement.

On the way home I noticed that many silent people were standing in their doorways--an unusual thing in Dublin outside of the back streets. The glance of a Dublin man or woman conveys generally a criticism of one's personal appearance, and is a little hostile to the pa.s.ser. The look of each person as I pa.s.sed was steadfast, and contained an enquiry instead of a criticism. I felt faintly uneasy, but withdrew my mind to a meditation which I had covenanted with myself to perform daily, and pa.s.sed to my house.

There I was told that there had been a great deal of rifle firing all the morning, and we concluded that the Military recruits or Volunteer detachments were practising that arm. My return to business was by the way I had already come. At the corner of Merrion Row I found the same silent groups, who were still looking in the direction of the Green, and addressing each other occasionally with the detached confidence of strangers. Suddenly, and on the spur of the moment, I addressed one of these silent gazers.

"Has there been an accident?" said I.

I indicated the people standing about.

"What's all this for?"

He was a sleepy, rough-looking man about 40 years of age, with a blunt red moustache, and the distant eyes which one sees in sailors. He looked at me, stared at me as at a person from a different country. He grew wakeful and vivid.

"Don't you know," said he.

And then he saw that I did not know.

"The Sinn Feiners have seized the City this morning."

"Oh!" said I.

He continued with the savage earnestness of one who has amazement in his mouth:

"They seized the City at eleven o'clock this morning. The Green there is full of them. They have captured the Castle. They have taken the Post Office."