Redemption - Leon Uris [290]
“We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and undefea table….”
Pearse continued to denounce the centuries of British misrule, six highly overstated Irish rebellions, and finally declared a republic and provisional government and, of course, petitioned God to our side. It was signed by Tom Clarke, Padraic Pearse, James Connolly, Eamonn Ceannt, and Joseph Plunkett.
Padraic Pearse was to be the provisional president and our various units renamed the Irish Republican Army.
I had looked over the declaration in advance for a legal opinion, which was neither wanted nor accepted. I certainly did not agree with the high state of readiness and skill of our forces, the support of America and, for God’s sake, referring to the Germans as our gallant allies.
Nonetheless it was a most moving and powerful expression of human longing for justice and liberty, and it was clearly destined for immortality, providing the Rising succeeded.
Success meant holding out long enough to bring world opinion to our cause.
I was over the way on O’Connell Street barely able to hear Pearse, trying to calculate the impact on the gathering. They did not seem impressed. A few made hurrahs, others shrugged, some laughed, most thought it was part of Home Army maneuvers.
As the news spread, a hundred more Home Army made their way to the GPO, then a flash ran through the Liberties, whose long and tortured history made it Europe’s most horrible slum. The Liberties erupted! Thousands of the wretched poured from its confines into O’Connell Street and engaged in a storm of looting and rioting that was an outburst of pent-up outrage and frustration.
In actual fact, it was Home Army lads who finally stopped the rampage of smashed windows and thefts.
It is said for future generations that everything was broken into except for bookstores. This was Irish pride saying, “We love the written word so much as to hold it sacred.” In truth, most of the poor devils from the Liberties were illiterate and saw no value in lifting books.
Up to this point the British hadn’t put two and two together. What brought out their first unit, a squadron of Lancers, was the rioting. When the Lancers trotted down O’Connell Street in a state of ignorance, they were hit by a fusillade from the rebel guns in the GPO.
Assembled hastily at Dublin Castle, Lord Nathan and his commanders were finally able to figure out that this was not a maneuver.
Assessing their own forces, the British had some five thousand troops in or within quick range of Dublin. Among these were Irish Fusiliers and Irish Rifles of the British Army. They were sent into battle immediately to demonstrate their loyalty to the Crown and infer that this was all about good British-Irish against bad Irish.
British reinforcements were only an overnight boat ride away and they had something else…CANNONS. There were sufficient artillery, up to sixteen-pounders, to contain every building that was seized.
With our lack of knowledge of basic military tactics, we in the Home Army had closed ourselves into barricaded positions. We had no training or leadership to launch any kind of offensive. For the British it was a case of surrounding each of these buildings to cut off escape and then cannonading it.
* * *
By midnight the huge main floor of the GPO bounced eerily in a profusion of candlelight. Padraic Pearse went up to the roof and gazed at a flaming Dublin being battered by point-blank cannon fire.
The British occupied and fortified positions to engulf the rebels with rifle and machine-gun fire….
Was it over before it began? Was our true destiny that of eternal subservience to the British Crown? All of my father’s life and all of Conor Larkin’s life was going up in flames! All of my mother’s life seemed for naught! Dear God! Why have