On Easter Friday Emily is is almost half way to Dublin but, that is a far as she gets. Somewhere on the road near Rochfordbridge she was intercepted by the police. What she did or how she got caught is lost in time. Only a brief transcription from Tullamore Prison Register book tells of her arrest. Only her vital statistics and her conviction: Suspected of an Offense against the Defense of the Realm Act 1914, are listed. No further notes or even a brief explanation of the suspected offense. No other record remains not even a court listing. Nevertheless the authorities believed her to be dangerous in some way and she was sent to nearby Tullamore Prison until the Rising was well and truly over.

The prison sentence must have been more frustrating than frightening to intrepid Emily, her mission to fight for her country scuppered. Her dreams of freeing Ireland from British Rule, put on hold. She would get her chance again but for now she would bide her time until her seventeen year old niece Enid could make her way from Achill to Tullamore to get her aunt out of prison.

Tullamore Gaol

In Dublin, the place Emily could not get to, her friend Ella Young was kept informed on the progress of the rebels. She was also noted as a subversive.

City Hall Dublin

They must Burn to the Bone or Surrender

Phyllis MacMurdo came to see me. Since she is the niece of General Sir William MacMurdo, and strongly pro-British in sympathy, she is in touch with the military here. She has authentic news: Pearse, Clarke, Connolly, The O’Rahilly and others are still in the charred Post Office, they must burn to the bone or surrender. A small column of the citizen army, under Sean Connolly, almost captured Dublin Castle. Emear [Helena] Moloney and Dr. Kathleen Lynn were with that column that barricaded itself inside of City Hall. They are prisoners now. Sean Connolly is dead. Sheedy-Skeffington, the noted pacifist (who had nothing to do with the Rising), was shot in Portobello Barracks on Wednesday. The English arrested him on O’Connell Street on Tuesday night when he was trying to stop the looting of the big shops. It is pandemonium there, unchecked and even encouraged by the soldiery. Plate-glass splintered on the sidewalk, men, women and children staggered under fur coats, damask armchairs, and bales of silk. Diamond rings and jeweled watches are sold in the streets for little more than the price of a drink. Phyllis came to warn me that I must leave Dublin at once. She has information that my name is on a “black list”.

Portobello now Cathal Brugha Barracks

I shall stay, but will be advisable to take my pistol to my fathers house (he is pro-British).The ammunition I can hide. Rodger Casement is in the hand of the English. They will hang him.

Sources

Irish Prison Registers 1790-1924 Transcriptionhttp://search.findmypast.ie/record

Young, Ella, and Stephen Griffin. Flowering Dusk: Things Remembered Accurately and Inaccurately. New York, Toronto: Longmans, Green and Co., 1945.

By Easter Wednesday Emily is well on her way to Dublin to fight for her country. How she traveled is impossible to say,  as Dublin was in lock down by then. All modes of transport to the Capital had screeched to a halt. She may have made her way by coach, horse and cart or on foot, which ever way she was determined to get to the heart of the fighting and play her part…

In Dublin however, Ella Young keeps in touch with the events as best she can. She gets firsthand account from her mother’s servant girl, whose sweetheart came up from the country to fight in Jacob’s Factory. The girl had to see him just in case he did not survive. She made some excuse about a sick mother that she had to visit and the soldier on duty at Portobello Bridge let her through. She was able to return with more news for Ella, and most importantly got to see her sweetheart.

Portobello Bridge

“Every Little servant Girl can get Across.

A sound of heavy guns fro the river, accompanied b heavy guns from another point, the English are shelling some important position. It must, by the direction, be Liberty Hall.

No one can get into Dublin City across any canal bridge without a pass signed by a a British officer. But every little servant girl can get across she has only has to sidle up to one of the Tommies marching up and down there with a rifle on his shoulder and a general look of boredom. After a little conversation, she tells him her sick mother or something of equal importance and slips through to town… “

Sources

Flowering Dusk; Thing Remembered Accurately and Inaccurately, Young Ella, Longmans, Green & Co. New York, Toronto. 1945

Easter Monday 1916 on Achill dawned and closed with it’s inhabitants being blissfully unaware of the events unfolding in Dublin. The GPO was taken over by the Rebels and no communications were getting through. Any news would have taken time to reach that far west. Slowly rumors of the Rising were making their way down the country, but it was not till the following day that the news reached Achill.

In Dublin things were different. From the vantange point of Rathmines close to the scenes of Rising Ella Young kept a vigil form a safe distance, not that she chose safety but the city was closed off at checkpoints such as Portobello Bridge.

“It is terrible and splendid.”
Easter Monday the sun is shining, but it seems to have the only brightness. Nothing is happening. It does not seem that anyone expected anything to happen. Sounds of shots! Everyone is tense and alert, something is happening. I hurry from my lodgings in Leinster road to the town hall at Rathmines. People are standing there wondering. From Rathmines one can see as far as Portobello Bridge. One can see the Portobello Barracks, where for some time the English “Tommies” have been leaning over the back walls and trading rifles, blankets and other equipment for bottles of whiskey pressed on them by ear patriots. There is a stir in the barracks, soldiers are marching out from the barracks along the canal bridge into Dublin City. More and more shots! “Must be a riot of some kind”, mutters a bystander. “It is more than that it is a rising of sorts”.

More shots further off now, dull and muffled. News begins to creep along the knot of bystanders. “They say that Pearse is in the General Post Office, that they have taken half of the city. That the Volunteers held up ta train load of soldiers. “ They’ll win with the help of God”. It can’t be! “They cant hold out more than a day, do their best!”

Seumas O’Sullivan and Estella Solomns come up to me as I stand listen with all my ears to every shot, to every rumour. “The telegraph wires are cut!. Railway stations are in the hands of the Volunteers” says Seumas. “It is terrible and splendid. If it could true that they are rising everywhere in Ireland.”

The trams are not running. No one can get across the Canal Bridge at Portobello. English soldiers are posted there. People who like in Rathmines are turned back from the bridge, and wander aimlessly, telling each other news that they have heard or invented. “The English have a warship in the Bay!” “They are sending gunboats up the Liffey.” “The Irish are rising everything. God bless them.”

Portobello Bridge over the Canal, as it is today.

Sources

Figgis, Darrell. A Chronicle of Jails. Dublin: The Talbot Press, 1917

Young, Ella, and Stephen Griffin. Flowering Dusk: Things Remembered Accurately and Inaccurately. New York, Toronto: Longmans, Green and Co., 1945.