1916 (30 page)

When the meeting resumed in the sitting room sometime after 8pm, Alice Cashel, a member of Cumann na mBan, arrived to receive orders from MacCurtain in relation to hiring a number of touring cars – ostensibly to drive groups of tourists around Killarney for the Easter weekend. In actual fact these were to be used to transport the arms that were due to be landed in Kerry. Once she had booked the cars she had been told to report back to MacCurtain in order to receive final instructions for Easter Sunday. When Eithne MacSwiney informed MacCurtain that Cashel was present he asked that she wait. Eventually, at around 11pm, Cashel became impatient and insisted on seeing the brigade commander. When Eithne MacSwiney went into the sitting room she was shocked by what she found:

Terry stood on one side of the fireplace, his elbow on the mantelpiece, his head resting on his hand. Tomás stood in a similar attitude on the other side. Facing him, Seán O’Sullivan sat on a sofa near the window, elbows on his knees, his head bowed between his hands. O’Connell sat on an arm-chair, looking as if he had been defending himself; the rather odd look on his face suggested that he was at variance with his three companions; it was a rather smug ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ expression. This vivid impression was registered in the one glance I gave from one to the other of the four. Without any knowledge of what they had been discussing, it was clear to me that something was very seriously wrong. Only some matter of the gravest import could have produced that atmosphere of anxiety, strain and heaviness of mind which was reflected on the faces and attitudes of the three, Terry, Tomás and Seán O’Sullivan; and I felt that ‘Ginger’ O’Connell was the cause of the trouble, whatever it was. I said, ‘Miss Cashel can’t wait any longer. It is after eleven. She wants you to give her her message.’ Tomás spoke: ‘Tell her there is no message.’ I returned and delivered Tomás’ answer. The reaction of Alice Cashel was a great surprise to us. She gasped. ‘No message,’ she repeated. ‘But that’s impossible. There MUST be a message. That is an extraordinary thing to say. There MUST be a message.’ ‘Well,’ I replied, ‘that is what Tomás said’, and my sister added, ‘Why not leave it ‘till tomorrow?’ ‘But that’s just it,’ said Alice. ‘I CAN’T leave it ‘till tomorrow, I MUST have the message tonight. It is an extraordinary situation to be in. I must get an answer tonight.’ ‘You had better go yourself and ask,’ I said, and she went in, to return in a few seconds, looking most upset and completely dumb-founded … She left us in a considerable state of anxiety and bewilderment. We suggested that one of the Volunteers on duty outside the house should see
her home, but she considered it safer to go alone. Most of the Volunteers were being watched and followed everywhere.
²⁰

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Fred Murray of the Cork City Battalion had been busy delivering copies of MacCurtain’s original mobilisation orders to both the Eyeries and Kenmare Companies. On his way back to Cork by train he discovered that Sir Roger Casement, who had returned to Ireland on board the German submarine
U19
in an effort to stop the rebellion, had been arrested and the
Aud
intercepted. When he arrived back in the city in the early hours of Saturday morning he raced to the Volunteer Hall in order to inform MacCurtain of these developments.
²¹
Aware of the potential for disaster which was now unfolding, MacCurtain immediately decided to go to O’Connell’s hotel and brief him. As he and MacSwiney were about to leave their headquarters, however, James Ryan arrived from Dublin with MacDermott’s latest dispatch, which confirmed that the rebellion would go ahead as planned. Faced with yet another change in plan, MacCurtain clearly felt that he had no other option but to follow standard military procedure by ‘obeying the last order’ and he told Ryan: ‘Tell Seán we’ll blaze away as long as the stuff lasts.’
²²

The following day, Easter Saturday (22 April), the situation changed again when MacNeill was informed of Casement’s arrest and the interception of the
Aud
. The chief of staff now had no doubts. Without German support, any armed rebellion was doomed to fail and would inevitably result in heavy loss of life. In order to save the Irish Volunteers from annihilation he immediately issued the following instructions, which cancelled all previous orders for mobilisation on Easter Sunday:

Volunteers completely deceived. All orders for special action are hereby cancelled and on no account will action be taken.

[Signed] Eoin MacNeill
Chief of Staff.
²³

Later that day he issued a more specific order, copies of which were dispatched to units throughout the country and placed in the following morning’s
Sunday Independent
:

Owing to the very critical position, all orders given to the Irish Volunteers for tomorrow, Easter Sunday, are hereby rescinded, and no parades, marches or
other movements of Irish Volunteers, will take place. Each individual Volunteer will obey this order strictly in every particular.

Chief of Staff.
²⁴

In order to ensure that the Volunteers understood that this order was issued by him as Chief of Staff, MacNeill also issued the following authentication note:

The order issued to the Irish Volunteers, printed over my signature in today’s
Sunday Independent
, is hereby authenticated. Every influence should be used immediately and throughout the day to secure faithful execution of this order, as any failure to obey may result in a very great catastrophe.

Chief of Staff.
²⁵

In the meantime Ryan had reported back to MacDermott and informed him that his mission to Cork had been successful, whereupon MacDermott appointed him to his personal staff with orders to parade at Liberty Hall the following morning. But at around ten o’clock that night Ryan was summoned to a house on Rathgar Road where he discovered the Volunteer executive in conference:

After some time the door of the meeting room opened and Eoin MacNeill appeared. He asked me if I had carried a dispatch to Cork the previous day and if I knew where to find the leaders there. I answered yes to both questions. Good! Well, I was now to go to Cork again, this time by motor car. It was urgent and I must deliver these dispatches as soon as possible. In his hand he held five or six slips of paper, each in identical terms and signed by him. They were orders cancelling the Sunday manoeuvres. I was to deliver one to Pierce McCann in Tipperary, one to MacCurtain in Cork, one to the OC Tralee, if possible the remainder to officers of any groups of Volunteers I might see on parade on the journey … Eoin MacNeill’s brother, James, was to come with me driving his own car.
²⁶

M
OBILISATION

Whether the Cork Brigade would mobilise as previously ordered by Mac-Dermott, and face the possibility of an armed conflict with the British army, now depended literally on how soon Ryan could get back to Mac-Curtain. Time was critical because that very afternoon many Volunteers
of the Cork Brigade were already beginning to mobilise. Across the city all arms, ammunition and supplies were moved into the Volunteer Hall, which was under armed guard. The first rural Volunteers to mobilise were fifteen men from the Cobh Company commanded by Captain Michael Leahy. This group made their way to the hall on Saturday evening and took over guard duty from the city Volunteers. They were later joined by twenty seven men from the Dungourney Company under the command of Captain Maurice Ahern, and that night all of them slept on the floor of the hall lying on beds made from straw provided by the brigade quartermaster.

Then, as dawn broke on Easter Sunday, Volunteers from all over the county arose, had breakfast, said farewell to their loved ones, and set out for their designated assembly points. In the Volunteer Hall Seán Murphy spent the morning distributing first aid kits and other items of equipment. Speculation was rife about the precise objectives of the ‘Manoeuvres’ upon which they were about to embark but when Volunteer Dan Donovan from C Company saw the first-aid kits being distributed, followed by tins of Oxo cubes, he turned to a comrade and remarked: ‘This looks like the real thing.’
²⁷

When all supplies had been issued, 163 Volunteers from the Cork City Battalion, together with those from Cobh and Dungourney, formed up outside their headquarters and, after a final address by MacCurtain, marched off to the Capwell railway station where they boarded a train for Crookstown. MacCurtain had arranged to travel to west Cork by car but just as he was about to leave the Volunteer Hall James Ryan arrived and delivered a copy of McNeill’s latest order.

The brigade commander was now in an impossible position. All over the county his men were marching to their concentration points as ordered. He was also acutely aware that, in the absence of a national uprising, any possible confrontation with Crown forces was guaranteed to fail. The situation was now fraught with danger but when he weighed up his options MacCurtain decided his only possible course of action was to permit the men to concentrate as ordered, and once that was complete he would then order them all to ‘stand down’. His only consolation was that the plan for rebellion had not been disclosed to his unit and this would at least enable him to justify the day’s activity as a ‘training exercise’.

Then, as heavy rain began to fall, MacCurtain, accompanied by Terence MacSwiney and Bob Hales, set off by car for west Cork. His first stop was near Crookstown, where he dispatched orders for the column marching to Macroom to stand down upon arrival. He next moved on to Bweeing in
north Cork, where he met T.J. Golden, the commander of the Courtbrack Company, who later recalled that:

Tomás MacCurtain appeared to be in a great hurry. He addressed the whole parade and said that the exercises were cancelled. The men were to return quietly to their homes and keep their arms safely. They may soon be wanted again, he said, and may be called upon in the near future. We were to remain alert and ‘stand to arms’ until further notice.
²⁸

MacCurtain then carried on to Inchigeela and stood down the Volunteers concentrated at this location. The officers in charge of the other concentration points had already been told to stand down if no further instructions were forthcoming.

So it was that the Volunteers of the Cork Brigade demobilised and returned home confused, dismayed and soaked to the skin with green dye from their Volunteer hats running down their faces.

According to Seán Murphy ‘between 1100 and 1200 men had been mobilised in County Cork for Easter Sunday’,
²⁹
but Florence O’Donoghue provided the following, more detailed information regarding the number of Volunteers who assembled at the eight designated concentration points:

By late afternoon MacCurtain was completely frustrated with what had turned out to be a totally wasteful exercise and he decided to go to Ballingeary in an attempt to evaluate the situation with Seán O’Hegarty, the senior IRB officer in the county. The headlights on his car failed, however, and MacCurtain, MacSwiney and Hales were forced to spend Sunday night at Carrigadrohid instead. At first light on Easter Monday morning
they finally set off for Ballingeary and spent the day discussing developments with O’Hegarty, who proved no wiser than they were. Eventually, and with nothing resolved, they began the return journey to Cork a little after six o’clock that evening.

At this point MacCurtain and MacSwiney were completely unaware that any rising had started in Dublin. It was only the officers back in the city, Seán Murphy and Seán O’Sullivan, who had heard a variety of unconfirmed reports and received a note delivered by Mary Perolz from the Dublin Cumman na mBan. Written on the fly-leaf of a pocket notebook the words read: ‘We start at noon today’, and it was signed ‘P.H.P.’
³¹
Unsure what action to take these officers decided their best option was to barricade themselves into the Volunteer Hall. They also posted scouts at several strategic points around the city in order to report the movements of the army and police, and Volunteer Tadhg O’Leary was dispatched on the train to Macroom in an unsuccessful attempt to find their commanding officer and his deputy.

N
EGOTIATIONS

When the brigade commander eventually arrived back in Cork at around 9pm on Easter Monday night the first inkling he received that anything was afoot came by way of information received from Volunteer Denis Breen, whom he encountered on the outskirts of the city. When he finally arrived at the Volunteer Hall he was first amazed at the level of activity that was going on, and then became seriously concerned when handed the note from Mary Perolz. While this clearly did not constitute another order it did indicate that at least some Volunteer elements in Dublin were about to embark on military action.