The Rising
Easter Sunday, 23 April
From the National Library of Ireland:
They [the leaders] decided to go ahead with the Rising, but postponed it until noon the following day, Easter Monday, to give them time to send couriers throughout the country to inform the Irish Volunteers that the Rising was indeed taking place…Read more of the day by day account of the Rising on the National Library of Ireland’s website: http://www.nli.ie/1916/exhibition/en/content/rising/
Miles away on Achill Island life went on as normal. The Easter celebrations went on as normal for the population of the Island. Emily’s niece Enid (Siobhan) was on school holidays from school, Alexandra College in Dublin to spned her Easter holidays with her aunt. Little did she know that before she returned to the Capital that she would be on her way to Tullamore to ‘collect’ her aunt and that the Dublin she left days before would look a lot different to the one she left behind.
Clearys of O’Connell Street, seen from the GPO
Closer to Dublin City centre, at Rathmines, home to Ella Young, the stirring of things to come was detected by the writer:
Easter Sunday a day of uncertainty. Parades, manoeuvres and marches of the Irish Republican Army should have taken place today. We hear they have been called off. What does that mean? They were to signal for the rising after so much hope and preparation has the Rising fizzled out? No none seems to know. It is said that Eoin MacNeill himself has called off the manoeuvres. a slack, uncertain day filled with rumours.