Rebel Sisters (21 page)

Thomas MacDonagh offered to do an interview with James Connolly for the
Irish Review
, the editorship of which had been taken over by Joe Plunkett. They wanted Connolly to give the workers' side of the story and his thoughts on how they could break the deadlock.

Tom Kettle, a professor friend of MacDonagh's, set up the Industrial Peace Committee, calling for a truce between the two sides. MacDonagh and Joe Plunkett joined him in his efforts to make peace. But Jim Larkin and William Martin Murphy were two stubborn, strong leaders and despite their best efforts, MacDonagh told Nellie, it was impossible to reach any kind of agreement.

At rallies and protests strikers and police clashed, and James Connolly suggested that the union set up an army of its own made up of the striking workers – a citizen's army, formed to provide self-defence. Captain Jack White, who had served in the British army, offered to train the men in the grounds of Croydon Park, which was used by the union as a recreation centre. Even though they were armed only with hurling sticks and bats, training and drilling kept the men active and gave them something to do.

Liberty Hall was open every day, thronged with the needy, and Nellie worked tirelessly alongside the countess and Hanna Sheehy-Skeffington, Larkin's sister Delia, Rosie Hackett and the other girls from Jacob's to help as many people as they could. Here she did not have to hide her feelings or pretend to be something she wasn't. Here she could put her training and experience to good use.

Grace frequently came to Liberty Hall to help too, but poor Muriel was unwell again and had been admitted to a nursing home, while John had been laid low with some awful kind of eye infection which left her hardly able to read a book or write.

‘Oh do tell me what happened today,' John would beg when Nellie arrived home, exhausted. Her sister was bored and desperate for news, wishing that she was well enough to work alongside them.

‘A young woman went into labour today in the queue and we worried that the baby would be born in Liberty Hall,' Nellie told her. ‘Fortunately, one of the women is a midwife and they managed to bring her to a nearby flat where she delivered a healthy baby boy – but what terrible times for a baby to be born into.'

‘How different your day was to mine,' John sighed enviously. ‘My eyes are too sore to even read a few words and Mother had one of her afternoons and insisted that I join them. All they do is gossip and complain about the Lockout. Not the same service in the shops and hotels. Impossible to get proper workmen or seamstresses. Do you know that they actually blame the workers?'

‘I'm presuming you tried to enlighten them?' teased Nellie.

‘Mother would have killed me. That awful friend of hers that lives in Dartry was saying what a wonderful man William Martin Murphy is; apparently they are neighbours. The worst thing was, they were all agreeing with her, including Mother. Can you believe it, Nellie?'

‘Unfortunately Mother and her friends do not take well to change – any change.'

‘Then Dorothy actually asked me if I had a beau in front of them all. She said a young woman my age should be giving consideration to marriage.'

Nellie burst out laughing.

‘It was terrible. I excused myself and said that it was time to bathe my eyes and put in my eye drops.'

‘Mother's friends are always the same when they see either Grace or me.'

‘Honestly, sometimes I think of going away to America like Ada and leaving all this nonsense behind.'

‘Well, at least wait until your eyes feel better,' Nellie cautioned.

‘Why are you always so sensible!' John declared, giving her a hug.

Nellie also visited Muriel as often as she could in the nursing home on Baggot Street, calling in quickly on her way home from Liberty Hall. Her sister hated being unwell and separated from her little boy and her husband. In November she was moved to a convalescent home near the sea in Sandycove. When the weather permitted, Nellie would cycle out to visit her.

‘You are looking much better,' she said encouragingly, relieved to see that the pale, gaunt look had given way to a healthier colour now that Muriel had more energy and a better appetite.

The two of them strolled arm in arm along the seafront by the beach and rocks, breathing in the iodine-scented sea air. They stopped to watch two seals.

‘They remind me of the stories of the selkies that Bridget used to tell us when we were young,' said Muriel.

‘She was always a great woman for the stories.'

‘I must show them to MacDonagh when he comes to see me on Sunday. Hopefully the day will be dry and we can take a stroll together.'

‘He misses you terribly, you know,' Nellie said gently. ‘It must be hard for him managing with the baby and work and everything.'

‘Thank heaven he's found a lovely woman, Mrs Kelly, to mind Don while he is at the university. It is just that he is always so busy with the
Review
and his writing, and now he tells me he has joined up with Eoin MacNeill in the Irish Volunteers, a new group committed to Home Rule.'

‘Everyone is talking about the huge meeting they held in the Rotunda – apparently thousands of men turned up and enrolled. They could hardly fit them all in the building.'

‘MacDonagh had flu so he missed the meeting, but Eoin and his friends were all delighted by the response, with so many men from the Gaelic Athletic Association and all kinds of places and groups joining. The Irish Volunteers intend setting up more branches in different parts of the country. You know MacDonagh – he is already elected on to the committee.'

‘He's always a great man for organizing and doing things,' Nellie agreed.

‘He's excited, as this new Volunteer force will help protect Home Rule and ensure that it's implemented fairly with a proper Irish parliament here in Dublin, which he believes will be the first step towards Irish freedom. Edward Carson and his mob of Ulster Volunteers may be sworn to do all in their power to prevent it, but now they will have the Irish Volunteers to contend with.'

‘Will the Volunteers train and drill like the Citizen Army?'

‘I expect so.' Muriel shrugged. ‘I just wish that I was able to be of more help to him instead of being such a burden with my illness.'

‘Well you are getting better now,' Nellie consoled her, ‘and soon you will be home again.'

‘I feel my strength and energy returning and hopefully I might be home with MacDonagh and the baby in another week or so. Did I tell you that Mother has invited us for Christmas dinner?'

‘Well there is something for us all to look forward to.' Nellie smiled as she said goodbye to her sister and set off to cycle back to Rathmines.

THE GIFFORD FAMILY
enjoyed a traditional Christmas at Temple Villas, with everyone delighted to have Muriel, MacDonagh and baby Donagh join them for lunch. Don had just started to take his first baby steps and tottered around the house, holding on to couches, chairs, table edges and any available hand that was offered. Muriel, wearing a pretty new lace blouse, clapped with joy as he reached for her. She was still perhaps a little too thin, but to everyone's relief seemed to be almost herself again.

Nellie, unable to resist a wooden ark in the window of Lawrence's Toy Shop, had bought it for Donagh and knelt on the floor showing him all the wooden animals. Claude, Ethel and their son Eric had also joined them and Father was delighted to watch his two grandsons playing together.

The fire blazed and the table was laden with baked ham, a goose and a turkey, plum pudding, brandy butter and custard. Everyone was dressed up in their Christmas finery. As they sat around playing charades and singing their favourite carols, Father and Gabriel, Claude and MacDonagh argued about the passing of the Home Rule Bill in the coming year.

‘The British House of Commons and House of Lords can no longer delay it, and we will see it implemented next year, mark my words,' nodded Father.

‘Carson and his Ulster Volunteer Force will never accept it,' insisted Claude. ‘They are pledged to stop Home Rule and are armed and ready to fight if it is introduced. They will never accept a Dublin parliament.'

‘Well, the thing is that we have our own Irish Volunteers now,' MacDonagh reminded them, ‘and they are ready to defend Home Rule if necessary.'

Nellie knew that her brother-in-law was wisely keeping his deep involvement with the Irish Volunteers a secret from her parents and brothers.

‘Well, Home Rule or not, let us hope that 1914 will be a better year for everyone,' declared Father as they all raised their glasses in a toast.

The New Year brought heavy snow, the avenue of plane trees along Temple Road white, the paths and roads icy as freezing weather gripped the countryside. Nellie's thoughts turned to all the families that were locked out: how would they endure such terrible weather in the tenement buildings they lived in? She needed to get back to work.

Before leaving early in the morning, she grabbed a basket and began to fill it with jars, packets of tea, sugar and flour from their well-stocked pantry, praying that no one would notice what was missing.

‘Ahhemm …' She looked around to discover Father watching her quietly from the door.

She froze – caught in the act … She wondered if she should return the items.

Suddenly Father stepped into the pantry beside her and began to take more jars and cans from the shelf: potted shrimp, Bovril, vegetable broth, corned beef, tinned sardines and herrings. He put them in another basket along with a fruit cake, a small plum pudding, oaten crackers and a freshly baked brown loaf.

‘Wait here a minute,' he told her.

He returned with a large block of cheese and two pieces of smoked bacon. ‘Take these too.'

Nellie pulled on her boots and heavy, fur-trimmed wool coat and hat, then grasped the baskets tight as she gingerly walked through the snow to the tram stop. She would call at the Lynchs and the Murphys before she went to work at Liberty Hall for the day.

The children were playing on the step outside the run-down tenement building, making snowballs with their hands, chasing each other, their breath hanging in clouds in the cold air. Nellie trudged up flight after flight of the rickety stairs, her nose wrinkling at the awful smells of humanity. She knocked on one door and delivered half the food to Annie Lynch and her family. Behind another door, Lil Murphy lay in bed in the corner of the room with a bad chest infection; her husband thanked Nellie for thinking of them as she handed him a basket.

She shivered with the cold despite her warm coat as she walked back down through the building with its broken windows, peeling plaster and hole in the roof, and she wondered how much longer these people could hold out against the Federation of Employers.

Snow, cold and hunger made for bad bedfellows, and Larkin and Connolly also worried how much longer the strikers could possibly endure such misery. Even the union's ability to continue strike pay was now in jeopardy. The food shipments from Britain's unions were about to end and the British Trades Union Congress had refused to sanction and implement the sympathetic strike policy that the ITGWU had hoped for.

Everyone in Liberty Hall knew that Larkin and Connolly were desperately trying to negotiate better terms with Mr Murphy and the city's other employers, but their efforts were to no avail. A special meeting was held in mid-January in Croydon Park and Nellie's heart broke as Jim Larkin, trying to control his own emotions, addressed the huge crowd of workers and advised them that the time had come for them to accept that they must return to work. After that, he told them, they should try to negotiate a fairer deal with their employers. Shocked, they listened, aware that the fight was over – for they could continue it no longer. They had been beaten by poverty, hunger and cold.

In dribs and drabs they returned to work, many feeling defeated and let down, but with no other option. Nellie watched, relieved, as the numbers attending the soup kitchen in Liberty Hall finally fell and as February passed most had resumed their jobs in Dublin's warehouses, factories, trams and docks. A few employers agreed to some improvements in conditions and pay, but many insisted that on their return the workers give up their union membership.

The union was nearly broken, but James Connolly believed that a new spirit had been born between the workers: they had shown a strength, courage and sense of unity never seen before, something they could build on for the future.

‘Hold your heads high,' he told Rosie Hackett and the other girls from Jacob's as they put away their aprons and went back to Dublin's huge biscuit factory.

As the men returned to work, membership of the Citizen Army decreased and by spring it was decided to disband it as it was no longer necessary. But Larkin and Captain White decided that it might yet have a new role, so they reorganized it to become an army for the people of Ireland, open to all who believed in fighting for equal rights.

It seemed strange to see the kitchen nearly empty, the large dining halls no longer in use. Nellie was aware that she too must begin the search for a new job for herself. She was surprised when James Connolly asked her to consider working in Liberty Hall, giving cookery lessons to teach women and young wives how to feed their families with nutritious, low-cost meals. This time it would be a proper job with a rather modest salary, giving two or maybe three classes a week.

Nellie didn't have to give the matter any consideration, for she knew that she would relish the chance to continue working in Liberty Hall. She had come to love the old building on Beresford Place overlooking the River Liffey. She was pleased to accept and thanked James Connolly for this unexpected opportunity.

MURIEL FINALLY FELT
that she was returned to good health, and MacDonagh told her every day that he loved her and cared for her and that she was even more beautiful than ever. He also bought her a present – a wonderful box camera.