Redemption - Leon Uris [289]
A very dour chap, Eamon de Valera, an American-born schoolteacher with a house full of kids, commanded the third “battalion.” He took over Boland’s Flour Mill, which bisected a key route from the port of Kingstown into Dublin. It was expected that he could intercept British reinforcements only an overnight boat ride away.
In the few days of the Rising, two god-awful blunders occurred, which, if they had been successful, would have given us a momentary victory to emblazon our struggle to the world.
…In the first instance, a unit attacked the Magazine Fort in Phoenix Park containing a large British ammunition dump. Had it been blown, it would have become Lettershambo II. However, with no Conor Larkin or Dan Sweeney to lead them, the unit wired the wrong building for destruction and barely rattled the windows of the main storage dump.
…The second foul-up was far worse. Scan Connolly, a young actor who commanded a couple dozen men, had the key to the City Hall across the street from Dublin Castle.
Seeing the main gate to the Castle wide open and guarded by a single unarmed constable, he investigated. He entered, saw that it was undefended and his for the taking!
The entire history of British perfidy in Ireland lay within the Castle walls: all the intelligence, all the names of informers, all secret agents, records of secret trials, double-dealings, contracted murders, land steals…all the symbolism was there! This was the Irish “Bastille”! What could be more daring and brazen than the capture of Dublin Castle! In a single moment, the Gaelic myth could be reinvented!
Moreover, the Viceroy, Lord Nathan, was sitting in his office, ripe for capture.
Alas, a confused rebel commander who had never before fired a shot was aghast at having killed the constable at the main gate and retired from the Castle.
The rest of the day was filled with many such incidents as confused discussion followed the seizing of a variety of pubs, a biscuit factory, and the nurses’ quarters of the insane asylum because of its proximity to the Richmond Barracks. From Richmond Barracks one could hear the military band practicing. Among the things we failed to take was the telephone exchange, leaving the British with clear lines of communications. Another massive blunder.
The grand scheme was to storm the centerpiece of the rebellion, the great General Post Office building on the main boulevard, which the Irish called O’Connell Street and the British called Sackville.
A hundred and some Home Army in green uniforms and floppy hats, led by James Connolly the labor leader, were set into motion by the midday church bells.
His thin column was met by Padraic Pearse, Tom Clarke, a tobacconist and head of the Brotherhood, and Joe Plunkett, the chief of staff, a journalist.
This high command unit stormed the General Post Office, seized it, and barricaded themselves in. The moment of moments, reading a declaration of independence, was delayed when it was discovered that they had left the flag of the new republic back at Liberty Hall. The formality had to be delayed while one of the soldiers was sent by bicycle to retrieve and return the flag, which he carried in a brown paper bag.
The orange, white, and green banner was raised from the pediment alongside the traditional green flag with its golden harp and the words “The Irish Republic.”
Padraic Pearse stepped outside to a curious and baffled crowd of strollers.
“Irishmen and Irishwomen!” Pearse cried over the chattering. “In the name of God and dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.
“Having organized and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organization, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organizations…having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal herself, she now