Rebel Sisters (20 page)

‘I'm sorry to hold you up,' the officer apologized, stepping out of their way. ‘It's just that we are expecting a bit of trouble today with the strikers.'

‘My uncle and I wouldn't want to be caught up in that.' Nellie smiled weakly as a hotel porter took their luggage and she helped Larkin slowly to the desk, where she checked him in. Another DMP officer stood observing the desk as she dealt with the clerk.

‘We have reserved rooms,' she stated, doing her best to appear confident.

‘What is the name, please, madam?'

Nellie stood frozen with sudden panic. She had totally forgotten the name and she knew that Larkin dare not utter a word lest he gave himself away.

‘Sorry, madam – what name is your reservation booked under?' the clerk persisted politely, trying to be helpful.

She could see the policeman looking over towards them.

‘Reverend Donnelly and Miss Donnelly,' she blurted out, suddenly remembering.

Her heart was hammering as they went slowly up the stairs, Larkin holding her arm. Relief washed over her as a curly-haired porter opened first one door and then another to a room overlooking the street and deposited their luggage inside.

The door firmly shut, Larkin immediately went to the long, tall window to see the street below where the crowds were gathering. He went to open the balcony door to step outside, but the window wouldn't open fully as a large flower planter was positioned outside on the balcony.

‘This is no good!' he shouted. ‘I need to get into another room.'

Nellie watched as he ran frantically along the corridor to see if he could find an open room. At the far end was a dining room with windows that overlooked the street and a veranda-type balcony. Guests were partaking of Sunday lunch and coffees when Larkin rushed through. Realizing that he was too well disguised to be recognized by the crowd outside, he began to peel off his beard and whiskers and shake the powder from his hair as he went outside on to the balcony. Nellie slipped back into the bedroom in case he returned.

Watching from the window, she heard the crowd give an enormous roar as Jim Larkin stepped outside and began to address them.

‘Comrades and friends, the police have forbidden a meeting to take place on Sackville Street today, but I am here to speak and will remain till I am arrested …'

All traces of the elderly Reverend Donnelly were gone and Larkin's voice boomed as he spoke to the workers and poor of Dublin below.

Nellie grew alarmed when, from the window, she saw about a hundred members of the police armed with batons suddenly converging. A few ran directly towards the entrance of the hotel. A few minutes later she heard a huge commotion as Larkin was arrested, with people protesting and some cheering for the union leader.

She heard the sound of broken glass and watched, horrified, as the crowds below swelled with people coming from mass in the Pro-Cathedral. Suddenly they were surrounded by a huge group of policemen, who with raised batons began to charge. Appalled, she realized that many were just women and children out for a Sunday stroll. Panic ensued as they tried to run away to escape the riot and many innocent people were attacked and injured, beaten by the police until they lay down on the ground.

Nellie could not help shaking. She had never witnessed such a terrible thing – young and old screaming in terror, many left lying bleeding and wounded on the street. Fearing for her own safety, she hid the spectacles and shawl and fled from the room just as the police began a search of the hotel corridor for Larkin's accomplice. The stairs were blocked by policemen so she turned instead to join the crowd of guests on the dining-room veranda, hoping not to attract attention.

However, ten minutes later two policemen stopped her, saying they wanted to interview her about Larkin. Nellie tried not to give into the mounting panic she felt, but despite her protests of innocence she was led away for questioning.

There was sheer bedlam at the police station; crowds of people had been arrested. Sitting in a police cell, she was determined to give little away. When she was interviewed she gave her name, her employer's name and told them she was lodging in Meath at present. She suspected that if she gave her home address in Rathmines they might well connect her with John and the countess. She concocted a story that she had simply gone to the hotel to meet a friend for lunch when mayhem broke out below them on the street.

‘No wonder she left me high and dry – she must have been terrified, like we all were, by what happened,' she said tearfully.

The officer looked rather sceptical and asked her if she had any involvement with Mr Larkin's union. ‘No, I'm not a member of the union or associated with it,' she replied truthfully.

With no proof of her wrongdoing, Nellie was eventually released.

When she returned home hours later she heard from her sisters that Jim Larkin was in jail and that there had been a huge amount of fighting and violence on the streets. Countess Markievicz, who had driven into Sackville Street, had got caught in it too and had been injured by a blow from a policeman and needed medical treatment.

The violence continued throughout the night, while the police raided homes all across the slum areas of the city. Hundreds of innocent people were hurt and two men died from injuries they received from the police. Many were calling it ‘Bloody Sunday'.

Nellie could not put the awful scenes she had witnessed from her mind. She feared greatly for Jim Larkin and the strikers, and for their families now caught up in this battle for fairness and justice.

NELLIE RETURNED TO
work in Athboy in County Meath the next week, lodging with a poor family who eked out an existence selling eggs; she felt glad that her rent payment would provide some income to them. She was still haunted by the sight of the charging police using their batons on unarmed civilians. So much blood and terror. The situation in Dublin was worsening, from what she could gather, as more workers decided to join the strike and the employers became even more entrenched in their opposition to the workers' union.

Nellie was called to a meeting with her supervisor. As she dressed in her green tweed suit and white blouse she wondered why she had been summoned. Perhaps he wanted her report on the new stove: it was proving much easier to use for her demonstration lessons than the previous model, which had been more cumbersome to move by cart from place to place and most definitely suffered temperature problems.

‘Miss Gifford, please sit down,' gestured her supervisor, Mr Hughes.

‘You will be glad to hear that my new stove is working perfectly,' Nellie smiled. ‘It is proving an excellent model.'

‘That is good to hear,' he said, making a note in his book. ‘However, I'm afraid that is not the issue I wanted to discuss with you.'

Of late her employers had complained that she was too familiar with the families with whom she lodged and she had been reprimanded for attending a local wake; it was considered inappropriate, given her position. They constantly reminded her that she must keep a professional distance from those she was instructing.

‘I'm afraid, Miss Gifford, the issue of providing free items of food to those that attend your demonstrations and classes must be raised again,' Mr Hughes said peevishly.

‘It is only tasting samples and leftovers,' Nellie defended herself stoutly. ‘Where am I to store this food, Mr Hughes? No family would thank me for storing it in my room and encouraging rodents. It's far better to distribute food remainders to those who have attended the class demonstration.'

‘But you are aware of our concerns over costs in this regard?'

‘Of course, and I will endeavour to reduce the ingredients I use.' She hoped the offer would satisfy them. Petty rules and regulations – how she hated them. At least her superiors could not reproach her about her work, for her classes and demonstrations were well organized and attended, and there were certainly no complaints from any of her students.

‘Miss Gifford, there is another matter I need to raise with you. A member of the DMP contacted us to verify your employment with us,' Mr Hughes continued ominously, tapping his fingers on the mahogany desk. ‘They said that you were considered a person of interest by the police in relation to the recent incident with James Larkin, the union leader in Dublin.'

Nellie's stomach turned over. She certainly had not expected this. Most of the newspapers had carried the story of Larkin's entry into the hotel and his arrest but had been unable to identify the young woman involved, some claiming it was an actress of his acquaintance from Liverpool, others suggesting Helena Molony.

‘Were you questioned about the said incident, Miss Gifford?'

‘Yes, I was interviewed, as were many other hotel guests,' she admitted, trying to make light of it. ‘I happened to be having lunch in the Imperial Hotel at the time and was questioned by the DMP. I assure you that I was released without any charge.'

‘Do you know this Mr Larkin and approve of his trade union?'

‘I approve of the union's stance,' she said resolutely. ‘But I fail to see what this has to do with my work.'

‘It is just another concern,' he responded pompously.

Nellie sighed as the meeting finished and she took her leave.

A week later, much to her dismay, she received an official letter to say that her services as a rural domestic instructress were no longer required. Packing her bags, she returned home to Dublin.

NELLIE FOUND DUBLIN
a changed place, with poverty-stricken men and women roaming the docks and factories looking for work that would help to feed and keep their families.

William Martin Murphy and most of the city's employers, determined to break the union, had come together to form a Federation of Employers that agreed to ‘lock out from working' any of their employees who joined the transport union. Guinness's Brewery, Jacob's Biscuit Factory and Eason's, Dublin's large newsagent and bookseller, closed their doors firmly against their own workers unless they totally renounced membership of Larkin's union. Nellie considered it disgraceful, shameful behaviour by privileged, powerful men and their companies against the weak, vulnerable and poor. They were all using temporary scab labour, protected by the police, to break the strike, as their workforce stood firm and refused to back down.

In only a few short weeks ‘the Lockout' had had a profound effect on Dublin as fear, hunger and poverty gripped the strikers and their families. Nellie volunteered immediately to help in the union headquarters, Liberty Hall, working alongside Countess Markievicz in the soup kitchens that had been set up by James Connolly and Larkin's sister Delia to feed those who were destitute and ‘locked out' from work.

‘Thank you, dear girl, for joining us,' Countess Markievicz welcomed her, attired in a long apron as she helped to mix up a stew of meat, vegetables and potatoes in an enormous cauldron for the strikers and their families. ‘I was sorry to hear from John about the loss of your position,' she sympathized. The countess was in charge of the Women and Children's Relief Fund and Nellie had heard rumours that she was covering some of the costs of the soup kitchen from her own allowance from the Gore-Booth family estate in Sligo and by selling some of her valuable collection of jewellery. She was full of her usual energy and enthusiasm, her hair pinned up, smoking one cigarette after another as she organized food for those that needed it.

Nellie set a young woman named Rosie Hackett and the girls locked out of Jacob's and other factories to cutting up ingredients in the union's kitchen. The crowds that attended seemed to grow day by day as people became even more desperate. All their meagre possessions – chairs, tables, blankets, bedding, clothes and what little else they had – they had pawned or sold to raise some cash, but now that too was gone.

Every day in Liberty Hall Nellie saw gaunt, worn-out women trying not to eat in order to pass on their own food to their husbands and children.

‘What can we do?' she fretted. ‘I saw Annie Lynch almost fainting with hunger, passing her bowl of stew to her three sons.'

‘We must have a separate area for mothers to sit and eat on their own to ensure that they receive adequate nourishment,' insisted Countess Markievicz.

Jim Larkin was in prison, but James Connolly, a committed socialist born to Irish parents in Scotland, was equally devoted to the cause of workers' rights and had assumed Larkin's mantle, determined to help the twenty-five thousand striking workers and their desperate situation.

‘A fair day's wage for a fair day's work is all the workers want,' Connolly complained angrily.

But the employers continued to harden their hearts to their demands, determined to break the men, women and their union.

Following an appeal by the Irish transport union, their comrades in the British trade unions sent much-needed funds; they also generously sent ships over from Liverpool with food parcels to aid the strikers. It was a sight to see, the crowds gathered all along the quays in Dublin, cheering as the ships docked and they were each issued with a docket to receive a food parcel, everyone bolstered by the fact that their fellow workers on the other side of the Irish Sea were demonstrating support for their stance.

As autumn turned to winter, conditions for the strikers and their families worsened. Ragged children ran barefoot in the streets searching for food scraps or lumps of coal for the fire; for in the tenements and slums there was no fuel to warm them, no food to feed them and very little clothing to keep out the chill of winter days.

The union had plans to bring the children of strikers to stay with the families of English union workers for a holiday, but the Catholic Church had come out forcefully against the scheme. The opposition came from bishops and priests fearful of Protestant influence, so the children were prevented from boarding trains to the Dublin docks and the ships that could take them to England.