Uncommon Valour (5 page)

In the day's fighting at the Union, both the Volunteers and the British military had suffered heavy casualties. Commandant Ceannt had also lost many of his posts within the Union, but had consolidated his position in the north of the complex.

On the British side the regimental history of the Royal Irish Regiment states: ‘The young soldiers of the battalion behaved in a splendid manner despite the trying conditions, and although to many it was their first experience of warfare.'
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Having driven the Volunteers back from their outlying posts, the British crown forces now occupied most of the Union.

The first British reinforcements began to reach Dublin city as the battle in the South Dublin Union raged. Colonel Portal arrived at Kingsbridge Station with the advance guard of the Curragh Mobile Column, from County Kildare. Portal's 3rd Reserve Cavalry Brigade consisted of 1,500 armed troops, made up of soldiers from the 8th Reserve Cavalry Regiment (16th/17th Lancers, King Edward's Horse, Dorsetshire, Oxfordshire Yeomanry); 9th Reserve Cavalry Regiment (3rd/7th Hussars, 2nd/3rd County of London Yeomanry); and 10th Reserve Cavalry Regiment (4th/8th Hussars, Lancashire Hussars, Duke of Lancasters/Westmorland/Cumberland Yeomanry). Having assessed the situation, Portal sent a third of his force by the loop railway line to the North Wall. He then set off to Dublin Castle with the remainder of his troops. The Irish Volunteers had failed to seal off a number of access routes to Dublin Castle and Colonel Portal moved his force in without meeting any serious opposition. The khaki noose was beginning to tighten.

Chapter 5

Tuesday 25 and
Wednesday 26 April 1916

At 3.45 a.m. on Tuesday, Brigadier General W.H.M. Lowe arrived at Kingsbridge Station with the 25th Infantry Reserve Brigade from the Curragh army camp in County Kildare. Upon his arrival Lowe took personal command of British crown forces in Dublin city. A veteran soldier, Brigadier General Lowe joined the army in 1881 serving in the Egyptian campaign of 1882 and the Burma expedition of 1886. During the Boer War in 1901, Lowe was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel and his offensive tactics during this conflict brought him to the attention of his superiors. By 1916 Brigadier General Lowe was the officer commanding the 3rd Reserve Cavalry Brigade, a training component located at the Curragh army camp in County Kildare. The force consisted of the 5th Battalion (extra reserve) Royal Dublin Fusiliers and the 5th Battalion (extra reserve), the Prince of Wales Leinster Regiment. The addition of Lowe's troops brought the total of British military forces in Dublin to 4,650 men.

In England, Major General A.E. Sandbach, CB, DSO, received orders to mobilise the 59th North Midland Division and move immediately to Ireland. This division consisted of three brigades: the 176th (2/5th, 2/6th, South Staffordshire Regiment, 2/5th, 2/6th North Staffordshire Regiment); 177th (2/4th, 2/5th Lincolnshire Regiment, 2/4th, 2/5th Leicestershire Regiment); and 178th (2/5th, 2/6th, 2/7th and 2/8th battalions of the Sherwood Forester Regiment). The first components of the North Midland Division would begin to arrive in Ireland by Tuesday evening.
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At 5.30 a.m. on Tuesday a barrage of rifle fire lasting ten minutes was opened up on the Volunteers' positions in the Union. Section Commander of ‘C' Company, Frank (Gobbon) Burke moved through the Nurses' Home as Volunteers stood to their posts. He took up position beside Volunteer Fogarty who had just lit his pipe. As Burke leaned over to light his cigarette from Fogarty's match, a shot rang out. A bullet came through the front window of the building, hitting Burke in the throat. Only moments before, Burke had warned his section to keep their heads down. As he slowly expired, his colleagues knelt and prayed by his side. Lieutenant Alfie Byrne entered the room and berated Fogarty stating, ‘You are responsible for that man's death.' Fogarty was so guilt-ridden by the accusation that he lost his mind and had to be disarmed and put under the care of another Volunteer. Fogarty remained in this deranged state for many weeks.
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Frank Burke was the brother of Joan Burke, the Irish contralto, and also the stepbrother of Lieutenant Cosgrave, who had got him involved in the Volunteers. Devastated at the loss, Cosgrave described Burke as, ‘one of the best Volunteers in the battalion, energetic, untiring and devoted to his comrades with whom he was most popular'. Cosgrave carried the guilt of involving his stepbrother in the Irish Volunteers for the rest of his life.
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From an upper window of the Nurses' Home Volunteer James Foran hoisted an improvised flag, an emerald harp, painted on a window blind. As the flag was raised the Volunteers stood to attention and sang ‘A Nation Once Again'. From their hard-won positions, the British crown forces could clearly see the flag flapping in the breeze. British positions opened fire. Fusillade after fusillade was directed at the flagpole. The fire was so intense that a number of stray shots killed some civilians. Mrs Heffernan, who lived in a large tenement building on James's Street called the Crimea House (so named because this is where shirts were produced for soldiers heading to fight at Balaclava in the 1850s), was killed in her room, and a visitor from Belfast, Mr Halliday, was shot dead as he walked along the South Circular Road. Yet still the British military failed to bring down the flag.

Inside the Union, the Volunteers worked tirelessly while their flag was being fired on. Brugha ordered that everything capable of holding water was to be filled in case the supply should be cut off and to safeguard against fire. Moreover, all foodstuffs were collected and handed over to Volunteer quartermaster, Peadar Doyle. The Volunteers located in the boardroom over the main entrance of the Union (14), completed their task of tunnelling through the walls, thus linking the main entrance structure with that of the rear yard of the Nurses' Home.

At headquarters, Commandant Ceannt directed that the front door of the Nurses' Home be reinforced. Once the main door was secure, boards were nailed across the porch doors. Two barricades were then erected to form a second line of defence a couple of yards behind the front entrance. The barricades were about five and seven feet high, one towering over the other, the hoardings of planks about a foot apart, and the space in between packed tightly with clay and rubble. Clothing belonging to the nurses was filled with clay and used to reinforce the windows. The building had become a fortress.

Local priests, Father Dillon and Father Gerhard, OCC, spent an hour visiting the Volunteers, hearing their confessions. Morale among the Volunteers remained high as supporters threw food parcels and personal messages over the wall. The Volunteers also had assistance from an unusual source: three officials of the Union, William Murphy, Patrick Smyth and Laurence Tallon were sympathisers of the republican cause and assisted the Volunteers during the week. Two of the men provided Ceannt with information and delivered messages, while William Murphy, a storekeeper clerk, took food supplies by horse and cart to the various departments. Accompanied by a young lady, Murphy used a white flag tied to a broom handle in order to distinguish himself from the warring factions. Ceannt asked for supplies of corned beef or bacon, but Murphy could only offer items such as tea, sugar and condensed milk, which were gratefully received by the Volunteers.
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The crown forces also demanded food, which the storekeeper supplied. The bakeries within the Union were manned throughout the week, supplying not only those within the Union but also the people in the local area with loaves of bread. Local priests braved the gunfire to bring assistance to their parishioners.

Returning from a day trip to Belfast on Monday, Assistant Matron of the South Dublin Union Annie Mannion found she could not gain entry to the complex. Although the main entrance was barricaded, she finally managed to gain access through the Rialto gate early on Tuesday morning. The Union was under constant fire as the matron made her way to her residence beside the mortuary (17). Donning her uniform she proceeded to the food stores, planning to give provisions to the mental patients in the wards nearby. Being careful not to be caught in the crossfire, she and a few others loaded supplies onto a horse and cart and, under a Red Cross flag, began deliveries around the Union. According to Miss Mannion, British crown forces had not taken up any permanent positions within the Union and continued to move from building to building. Casualties of the fighting were cared for in the hospital and Miss Mannion stated that those patients who died during the week were buried in temporary graves in the grounds until the hostilities ceased. British casualties were removed by ambulance.
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By Tuesday evening, British military forces had withdrawn from their positions within the South Dublin Union. Having almost taken the complex, the Royal Irish Regiment was unhappy with the order to withdraw. Their regimental history states:

The battalion, under orders from headquarters, re-mained in occupation of the Union for the night (Monday) and on the following morning, for some extraordinary reason, it was directed to evacuate the Union and concentrate at Kingsbridge Station. This was done under protest.
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The majority of the regiment moved to Kingsbridge Station to await further orders.

Colonel Portal's troops from the Curragh mobile column had established a line of posts from Kingsbridge Station to Trinity College via Dublin Castle by noon on Tuesday 25 April. This manoeuvre divided the Volunteer forces in two, giving a safe line of advance for British troops who now began to extend operations to the north and south.

In order to secure the area near Ceannt's position, crown forces occupied Number 98 James's Street, a building owned by the Guinness Brewery. From this post they were able to survey the local area. British soldiers positioned at the Royal Hospital and surrounding areas continued to keep up a steady rate of machine-gun and sniper fire into the Union grounds. Cathal Brugha and a couple of Volunteers continued to answer the sniper fire from the Royal Hospital and towards evening the British ceased fire.

At 8 p.m. on Tuesday evening, Ceannt and Brugha sent Volunteers Seán Murphy and Liam O'Flaherty to try to make contact with Captain Tom McCarthy's section at the outpost established at Roe's Distillery. Under the cover of darkness, the two men left the Union through a small wicket gate near the rear of the Nurses' Home and dashed out onto James's Street. Avoiding military patrols, they travelled up and down Mount Brown and Cromwell's Quarters, trying to locate Captain McCarthy's men. To their surprise they discovered that the post had been vacated leaving the flank of the Union exposed. The caretaker of the distillery stated that the Volunteers had vacated the position because they had no provisions and were unable to hold the building.
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Captain McCarthy had made the fatal error of withdrawing from his position instead of reinforcing the garrison in the Union.

Another of Ceannt's outposts was stationed at Watkins' Brewery at Ardee Street under the command of Con Colbert, who regarded this position as somewhat ineffective. Unable to make contact with Ceannt, Colbert sent for instructions to Major John MacBride who was stationed at Jacob's biscuit factory on Aungier Street. The Major directed him to reinforce the Volunteer garrison at the outpost in the Marrowbone Lane Distillery. At 6 p.m. on Wednesday evening, Colbert moved his force under the cover of darkness to support those at Marrowbone Lane. With the addition of Colbert's section, the garrison increased to over 100 Volunteers, with forty women of Cumann na mBan among its ranks. That afternoon at the Marrowbone Lane Distillery there had been a serious battle between Volunteers and British crown forces. Robert Holland and his colleagues within the distillery stopped a British attempt to storm the building. The crown forces suffered serious losses; their dead and wounded were strewn along the canal bank and the surrounds of the building.

Throughout the afternoon, however, British sniper fire increased in intensity and accuracy and Volunteer Mick Liston received a serious wound to the head. The continuous fire from the British positions surrounding the distillery forced Holland to evacuate his firing position temporarily. Later he resumed his post and attempted to counteract the British sniper fire. On the previous day Holland had noticed what he thought was a woman leaning from a window at a nearby house, an act he thought reckless due to the gunfire in the area. Holland remarked:

She had a hat, blouse and apron on her and I got suspicious. I told Mick Callaghan that I was going to have a shot at her. He said, ‘No.' I said it was a queer place for a woman to be and that it was queer she should have a hat on her, as she must have seen the bullets flying around but took no notice of them. I made up my mind. She was only thirty-five or forty yards away from me and I fired at her. She sagged halfway out of the window. The hat and small little shawl fell off her and I saw what I took to be a woman was a man in shirt sleeves.
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Throughout Wednesday, British sniper fire continued as Volunteers Holland and a bandaged Mick Liston returned fire from their concealed positions in the distillery. Liston fired at a British soldier sitting on the branch of a tree 200 yards from his position. The figure of the British soldier jerked as he was hit – his lifeless body slumped forward and hung from the tree for the remainder of the day. The Volunteers noticed that a group of enemy soldiers had taken up firing positions behind a number of tree stumps. Having fired a volley at the distillery, one soldier left cover and was promptly shot dead by Liston. The others, numbering about a dozen, broke cover and retreated along the canal bank. The Volunteers fired rapidly into the ranks of the retreating soldiers hitting all of them. Some collapsed and others staggered back towards the bridge at Rialto.

By 5.30 a.m. on Wednesday, British troops of the 59th North Midland Division disembarked at Kingstown harbour (Dún Laoghaire). While some of the division remained in reserve, the 178th Infantry Brigade (comprising the 2/7th and 2/8th battalions of the Sherwood Forester Regiment) under the command of Brigadier Colonel Maconchy followed the coast road through Ballsbridge towards Trinity College.