Easter Thursday; The Wildest Rumours are Flying Now

Emily continues to make her way to Dublin. Martial law is declared.

The Wildest Rumours are Flying Now

Every sort of gun is coughing, spitting and stammering. There is a curfew regulation. Everyone must be indoors by six o’clock. No lights can be shown. Outside there is plenty light for Dublin is burning! The Post Office is burning, and so are the other buildings in the heart of Dublin. A red, a blood-red cloud is like a pall. The wildest rumours are flying now. “whole regiments of English soldiers have been held up, have been annihilated.” These are things that one wants to believe but with the terrible appearance of truth, other rumours like serpents forces themselves into one’s consciousness. “Connolly is wounded and dying. There is no general Rising outside Dublin”. “Pearse, O’Rahilly, and others have burst out of the flaming Post Office and have been massacred.”

GPO

GPO

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