The following article by Mr. Francis Sheehy Skeffington is reprinted by permission of the Century Magazine Company. Four months after it appeared, the American newspapers published the startling news that the author was one of many civilians deliberately murdered by English troops and officers, during the uprising in Dublin of Easter week. As he was a pacifist, and had lent his best efforts to the quieting of the populace and the prevention of looting, this “Prussianization of Ireland created consternation” when the appeal of his widow for mercy for other innocent husbands was read in the House of Commons.

A scholar and a litterateur, Mr. Skeffington’s writing is the best portrait of the man, and is a fearful comment on the heavy hand of England in Ireland. (Century Magazine, February, 1916.)

ENGLAND has so successfully hypnotized the world into regarding the neighboring conquered island as an integral part of Great Britain that even Americans gasp at the mention of Irish independence. Home rule they understand, but independence ! “How could Ireland maintain an independent existence?” they ask. “How could you defend yourselves against all the great nations?” I do not feel under any obligation to answer this question, because that objection, if recognized as valid, would make an end of the existence of any small nationality whatever. All of them, from their very nature, are subject to the perils and disadvantages of independent sovereignty. I neither deny nor minimize these. But the consensus of civilized opinion is now agreed that they are entirely outweighed by the benefits which complete self-government confers upon the small nation itself, and enables it to confer on humanity. If the reader will not admit this, I will not stay to argue the matter with him. I will merely refer him to the arguments in vogue in favor of the independence of Belgium as against Germany, or of the Scandinavian countries as against Russia. [3]

Neither will I stop to argue with those who say that Ireland should he content with home rule. Ireland has not got home rule, and, unless England is sufficiently humbled in this war to make Ireland’s friendship worth buying, is not likely to get it. But what if it had? Bohemia has home rule within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Is Bohemia contented? It is notorious that the great mass of the Czechs are eagerly longing for the moment when Russia will inflict such a blow upon the Austro-Hungarian Empire as may enable Bohemia to become an independent central European state. Again, if Bohemia, why not Ireland?

There is an idea in some quarters, sedulously encouraged by England, with an eye on the friendship of the United States, that whatever may have been the case in the past, the English Government in Ireland has improved of late years. Let us therefore examine its conduct in Ireland during the months immediately preceding the war.

A Liberal Government was in office in England, pledged to give home rule to Ireland. On the strength of that pledge, Mr. John Redmond and his party kept that Government in power for over four years, and enabled it to pass not merely the act for curbing the power of the House of Lords, but other measures, such as the National Insurance Act, in which Ireland had no interest or which were actually detrimental to Ireland. In Ulster Sir Edward Carson led, armed, and drilled a body of 80,000 men, pledged to resist by force the enactment of home rule. Their drilling and arming were in themselves unlawful; their avowed object was still more so, involving defiance of the enactments of that imperial Parliament to which they professed the utmost loyalty. Nevertheless, the Liberal Government allowed this open propaganda of rebellion, this aristocratically led and financed movement, to proceed unchecked.

After two years of this, the Nationalists of the South awoke. After all, they said, we outnumber these Carsonites by about four to one. If they choose to introduce the factor of physical force, if they can employ it successfully to intimidate the English Government, so that its leading members say that the coercion of Ulster is “unthinkable,” then we, too, will cease to rely upon weapons of persuasion alone. We, too, will arm and drill, and will face the English Government with the only argument it appears to understand. And they formed the Irish Volunteers. [4]

That was in November, 1913. Within a month the Government, which for two years had allowed the Carsonites to get in all the arms they wished, issued an order prohibiting the importation of any arms or ammunition into Ireland.

When Ireland is taunted, as a New York evening newspaper has taunted it, with its “poltroonery” in not taking advantage of the present war to seize freedom, these facts have to be remembered. Anything in the nature of arming or drilling was sternly repressed in Ireland until Carson began it. The “Volunteers’* and the “Territorials” of England had no counterpart in Ireland, where the people were never trusted with arms. Carson and his followers were left untouched, because it was known that, however they might declaim against a particular English Government, in effect they stood for that English domination in Ireland which every Government, whether it calls itself Liberal or Tory, is careful to maintain as the very sheet-anchor of the British Empire. But the arming of Irish Nationalists, who were pledged to maintain the rights and liberties of Ireland only, was a different matter. The gravely perturbed English Government could not suppress the movement altogether - Carson’s immunity had made that impossible, - but, with an ingenious show of impartiality as between the two regions, it prohibited all import of arms. Carson’s men had been arming for two years; the Nationalists had just begun to organize. The strict impartiality of the order will appeal to those who now protest against any embargo on the export of munitions from the United States.

Both regions promptly started gun-running. In April, 1914, the biggest gun-running operation up till then was carried out by the Ulstermen. The Fanny, the yacht which brought the guns, was talked about in the press for a fortnight before it reached Ulster; the patrols of the English navy were watching the coasts; yet somehow the Fanny reached Larne, unloaded its cargo, and got away again without any interference from the gunboat patrols. At Larne it was met by a host of automobiles, which took away the rifles. To facilitate the operation, the Ulster Volunteers seized Larne harbor, imprisoned the harbor master and police, and took the entire control of the town into their hands. Another ship-load was disembarked on the same night at another Ulster port. Here a too-zealous customs official offered resistance; he died of heart disease. Nobody was identified, punished, or even prosecuted for this flagrant defiance [5] of the law, although the episode was described by Mr. Asquith in the House of Commons as an “unprecedented outrage” and pledges were given that due punishment would be meted out to its perpetrators. Nothing was done. After all, these were the faithful “English garrison in Ireland”; for the moment the politicians must pretend to oppose them, but in reality they were doing England’s work and helping to make more difficult, or perhaps impossible, any measure of home rule for Ireland.

Very different was the attitude of the Government and its officials toward Nationalistic gun-running. Here the utmost vigilance was displayed. Gunboats patrol ed the shores of Dublin and Wicklow, as well as the western coast, unceasingly. Even when Mr. Redmond, by order of the English Government (as is generally believed in Ireland) asserted his right to command the Irish Volunteers, which he had not founded; even when the founders of the organization yielded to Mr. Redmond and gave his nominees half the seats on their committee, still, Mr. Redmond could not persuade the Government to relax the ban on the importation of arms. Perhaps he did not try very hard. He was as much afraid of the Volunteers as the Government was; his only wish was to keep them under his control, lest they might become an instrument for those Nationalists who looked beyond Parliament sham battles to the complete liberation of Ireland.

This portion in the Volunteers continued gun-running under the double disadvantage of having to deceive both the Government and their own Redmondite colleagues on the Joint Executive Committee. On July 26, just after the Austrian ultimatum to Servia, the famous gun-running exploit of Howth took place. The Dublin Volunteers made a Sunday route-march to Howth (nine miles), none but a few leaders knowing the object. As they entered the village, a yacht, steered by a woman, came alongside the pier. The English patrolboat was not in the neighborhood, a conveniently disseminated rumor of gun-running in Wexford having sent it off on a false scent. This yacht’s arrival had not been boomed in advance, like the Fanny’s, otherwise the vigilance of the patrol would not have been so easy to elude as the Ulstermen had found it. The Volunteers, following strictly the Ulster precedent, took possession of the pier, excluded the police and harbor officials, - they did not go so far as to imprison them in their own offices and barracks, as had been done, with only [6] a shadow of resistance, at Larne, - disembarked the guns, and marched off to Dublin with them. Meantime the wires had been humming, and Dublin Castle was on the alert. At Clontarf, in the outskirts of the city, the Volunteers, marching with unloaded rifles, were met by a combined force of police and soldiers. A parley took place. The Government’s official, Harrel, demanded the surrender of the rifles; the Volunteer leaders refused. Harrel ordered the police to take the rifles. Some of the police refused, and the remainder acted with evident reluctance, an unheard-of thing in Ireland, but a symptom of the general perception of the deliberate favoritism shown by the Government to the Ulstermen as compared with the Irish Volunteers. The soldiers, a company of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, were then ordered to charge the Volunteers with fixed bayonets. Some Volunteers were stabbed, and a massacre seemed inevitable, when a fresh parley was entered upon. By the time it was over, Harrel discovered that only the front rank of the Volunteers still stood their ground in front of him; the remainder, in obedience to a rapidly disseminated order, “Save the guns,” had executed a strategic retirement. Harrel then drew off his force, and the remnant of the Volunteers completed their march unmolested, no guns having been lost.

As the soldiers marched back to the barracks, the Dublin populace assailed them with curses and later with stones. The troops retaliated with a series of bayonet-charges, which further enraged the crowd, in which wild rumors of the fight at Clontarf had spread. The soldiers were undoubtedly peppered pretty severely with stones; but the assailants were all unarmed, and were largely composed of women and ohildren, The?e was no justification whatever for the action taken by the soldiery, They turned and fired at the crowd without giving any warning, without even firing a preliminary volley over their heads. Four people were killed) one man, two women, one boy. Several others were wounded, of whom one subsequently died, Nobody was punished; a whitewashing inquiry was held, but meantime the Scottish borderers had “distinguished themselves” by getting wiped out in the retreat from Mons, and no disciplinary measures were taken. Harrel, the assistant commissioner of the Dublin police, who had taken it upon himself to call out the soldiers in the first instance, was made a temporary scapegoat; but he is now again in the service of the Government in Ireland, helping in the secret [7] service department, which looks after political affairs.

I have dwelt upon this incident of the struggle at Clontarf and the shooting at Bachelor’s Walk because it happened before the war. Some people in America, I find, think that England’s present severity to Ireland is merely a result of the state of war. When the anniversary of Bachelor’s Walk came round this year, the people proposed to put up a commemorative tablet, but the military forbade.

A week after the Bachelor’s Walk massacre (the Irish Zabern, as we call it) the war against “German militarism” broke out. Mr. Redmond, in the House of Commons, had the incredible audacity to commit the Irish people to the support of this war. He and his party were returned to Parliament for one object only, to secure home rule. At no Irish election did any other question become an issue. Repeatedly had Mr. Redmond, when called upon to. help some progressive cause, sheltered himself behind his lack of “mandate”; his mandate, he declared, was for home rule only. Yet without any mandate he ventured to commit Ireland to the support of England in a European war. By doing so he missed the greatest opportunity that has ever come to an Irish statesman. Had he, on August 3, 1914, spoken as follows in the imperial Parliament: “I have no mandate from the Irish people as to what our attitude should be in the event of a European war; the question has never been discussed between us. My colleagues and I are now going home to Ireland to consult our constituents as to what Ireland’s attitude should be” - had he spoken thus, and followed up such a speech by walking out of the House and returning to Ireland, the English Government would have been on its knees to him within a fortnight, and he would have been able to command, as the price of his and Ireland’s aid, something much better than a mutilated home-rule act on the statute-book, which can never come into operation [itals. sic]. He should, in short, have acted after the fashion of those Balkan statesmen, who care nothing for either of the warring parties, but look with a single eye to the interest of their own country.

A period of storm and confusion followed Mr. Redmond’s betrayal of Ireland’s interests to England. The Government tried to avoid even putting the home-rule bill on the statute-book; Redmond, driven by public opinion, increasingly stormy in Ireland, was obliged to insist upon that as a minimum. But in passing the act, the Government [8] also passed a suspensory act, holding it up for a year, or longer, if so ordered by the Government at the end of the year; and they also declared that they would not in any circumstance “coerce Ulster.” With the “home rule for three-quarters of Ireland” in the form of a scrap of paper, Mr. Redmond tried to induce his followers to join the army. The immediate result was a split in the Irish Volunteers. The founders of the Volunteers, who had accepted Redmondite co-operation on the committee so long as no recruiting plank was adopted, now expelled the Redmondite nominees from the committee, seized the Volunteer offices in Kildare street, Dublin, barricaded and garrisoned them, and prepared to hold them against all comers. The Redmondite portion formed a new body, the “National Volunteers,” who never troubled much about drilling or arming, but were, and are, merely a branch of the Redmondite political machine. Their devotion to their leader, however, did not go so far as to induce them to follow his advice and enter the English army, as was shown when 30,000 of them paraded before Mr. Redmond last Easter (1915), men who, if they had taken Mr. Redmond’s words seriously, ought to have been in Flanders or at the Dardanelles.

Much confusion was introduced into the Irish situation by the case of Belgium, and by the unscrupulous use made by the English recruiting agencies of Ireland’s traditional and historic sympathy with that country and with France. Catholic Ireland must fight to save Catholic Belgium, was the cry. We countered that by asking why should we not fight for Catholic Galicia, which was then in possession of the anti-Catholic Russians. Mr. Ginnell, the only Irish member of Parliament who is not attached to any political machine, and also the only one who opposes recruiting, has repeatedly asked the Government to bring pressure to bear on its Russian allies, with a view to getting for the Cardinal Archbishop of Lemberg as good treatment as that accorded by the Germans to Cardinal Archbishop of Mechlin; but the Government has decided that it would not be proper to “interfere with the internal affairs of our ally.”

Louvain was the recruiters’ trump-card. “Remember,” the Irish were adjured, “that your priests went to Louvain to be educated when they could not get educated in their own land.” Some one with an inconvenient historical memory replied by a reminder that it was English persecution that prevented Catholic priests from getting education in Ireland and compelled them to go to Louvain. Similar [9] audacity was attempted in the case of France. Ireland was adjured to fight for France because France had of old helped Ireland - against England! Another cry was, “The brutal Germans are the descendants of those Hessian troops who helped to put down the rising of 1798.” But who brought the Hessians to Ireland and paid them? The English Government. In this fashion has every recruiting argument proved a boomerang. Despite the subsidizing of the daily and the suppression of the weekly press; despite the pressure exerted by all the political machines and all the influence of social and economic resources; despite the prosecution, under the Defense of the Realm Act, of any who venture to advise an opposite course; despite military law, suspension of trial by jury, arbitrary imprisonment, and deportation, the Irish people have stood fast. Four hundred thousand Irishmen of military age have stood their ground quietly and tenaciously, and have refused to be stampeded into a war in which they have no concern.*

*Note [by Hanna Sheehy Skeffington]. - In the autumn of 1917, two years after this article was written, it still remained true that approximately this number of Irishmen of military age have refused to Join in a war for democracy, as the issue has now come to be defined, while England continues to refuse democracy to Ireland, and governs there, as she always has, by conquest and without “the consent of the governed.”

For it is the essence of the Irish case that Ireland has no concern in this war. The pretense that it was being waged in behalf of Belgium and of the principle of small nationalities imposed on a few, but not for long; the frank declaration of the London Times on March 8 that England is in this war for her own interests and for the preservation of her dominance over the seas, is generally recognized as stating the position accurately. Even if Belgium were the cause of the war instead of an incident in it, there would still be no reason why Ireland, of all countries, should plunge into the fray. Ireland is the most depopulated and impoverished country in Europe, thanks to the beneficent English rule of the last century, and has no blood or money to spare; and if Holland and Denmark and Sweden and Switzerland, all richer and more densely populated than Ireland, still feel that it is their duty to keep out of the war, a fortiori it is the duty of Irish statesmen to use every effort to keep their people out of it. Ireland’s highest need is peace and the peaceful development of her resources; not a man can be spared for any chivalric adventure. Belgium, hard pressed as it is, has not yet suffered a tithe of what has been endured by Ireland at the hands of England, and [10] Ireland is still bleeding at every pore from the wounds England inflicted. Thus even were the Belgian excuse true, there would be higher reasons of self-interest to keep Irish attention concentrated on our own problems.

Belgium apart, the other objects of the war - the real objects - have still less claim on Ireland. England’s domination of the seas has been used not accidentally, but of set purpose, to discourage Irish trade, to keep derelict Ireland’s magnificent harbors, the finest natural harbors in western Europe, and to prevent the growth of any mercantile marine in Ireland. Ireland has never been a partner in the empire or its advantages; she has been a Helot dragged at the chariot-tail of the empire. As it has been put, “Ireland belongs to the empire, and the empire belongs to England.”

The latest instance of deliberate English interference with an Irish trading interest, before the war, was the stoppage of the Queenstown call. Formerly all the great transatlantic liners called at Queenstown both on the eastern and western journeys, to the great benefit of mail service not merely from Ireland, but from some parts of Great Britain as well. The mail-carrying companies, one after another, stopped this call at Queenstown, with the assent of the English Government, despite unanimous protests from all Ireland, north as well as south. A committee of patriotic Irish people, which included Mrs. J. R. Green, widow of the eminent historian, and Sir Roger Casement, was formed for the purpose of pressing the Government to reestablish the Queenstown call. Failing in that, as a brilliant counterstroke, this committee induced the HamburgAmerican Line to arrange that its liners should call at Queenstown. The English Foreign Office was thunderstruck. Secret negotiations were at once entered upon to prevent Ireland from being thus restored to its proper place on the transatlantic highway. The German Government, naturally valuing England’s friendship more than that of poor, weak Ireland, intervened. The Hamburg-American liners never called at Queenstown, despite their publicly announced intention of doing so. This, by the way, may be added to the category of German diplomatic blunders. Had Germany thus dramatically intervened to grant Ireland a trading favor that England had refused, the way would have been much clearer before Irishmen when the war broke out. I have little doubt that the English Foreign Office, already foreseeing war, had this in mind when it exerted itself [11] to prevent Germany from showing Ireland this manifestation of favor.

” Without any illusions, then, about Germany, but with a clear vision of the English Empire as the incubus on Ireland, Irish Nationalists decided from the start of the war that it was Ireland’s interest and duty to remain neutral as far as possible. In these days of small nationalities Ireland’s right to take an independent line on the war cannot be contested, at all events by those who are fighting “German militarism.” Being held by force by the empire, and plentifully garrisoned both by troops and armed police, - the police have been refused permission to join the army, though many of them have volunteered, because the Government wants them to keep Ireland down, - it was not possible for Ireland to be neutral in the full sense. Irishmen who had joined the army in time of peace, through economic pressure for the most part, had to fulfil their duties as reservists; Ireland’s heavy burden of the war taxation could not be evaded. But, as one of Ireland’s best known literary men put it, Ireland preserved “a moral and intellectual neutrality”; and the individual sympathies of the people, while not “pro-German” in any positive sense, were and are, distinctly anti-English.

Mr. Bonar Law said that if Canada or Australia was disinclined to help the empire in this war, no English statesman would dream of compelling them to do so. But Ireland’s notorious and marked disinclination to help was treated from the first as a crime, and the sternest measures of repression were employed against those who claimed Ireland’s right, as a small nation, to settle the question for itself. Since the outbreak of the war, the regime in Ireland has been one of coercion tempered by dread of publicity. The English Government set two aims before itself: to suppress Irish discontent, and at the same time convince the world that no Irish discontent existed. These aims are not reconcilable, and the pursuit of both had led to an extraordinary series of inconsistent and muddle-headed actions. I cannot detail them all in this article.

The first attack was made on the independent press. The daily press was reduced to subserviency, negatively by fear of having its telegraphic supplies cut off, positively by huge sums paid for recruiting advertisements by the English war office. The various Nationalist weeklies had to be dealt with otherwise, as they could neither be bribed nor intimidated. The method adopted was to strike at the [12] printer - to march soldiers with fixed bayonets to the printing offices, dismantle the plant, seize the type and the essential portions of the printing machines, and carry them off to Dublin Castle without offering the smallest compensation to the printer. This was done without any process of law, on the mere arbitrary fiat of the military authorities in Ireland. Seven papers - one daily, one bi-weekly, four weeklies, and one monthly - were suppressed in Dublin by the actual use of this method or by the threat of it. In no case was any prosecution directed against any of the writers or editors of the papers. This was a case in which it was possible to achieve the maximum of suppression with the minimum of publicity.

I have been asked in America “Does not the Defense of the Realm Act, which confers such absolute power on the military authorities, apply to Great Britain as well as to Ireland?” It does; but the application is different. This is well illustrated by what took place in the case of one of the papers suppressed, the Irish Worker. After it had been stopped by a military raid on the printingworks, the proprietors got it printed in Glasgow. The military authorities did not dare to interfere with the Scottish printers; they simply waited until the copies of the paper arrived in Dublin for distribution, met the boat, and seized every copy.

A similar discrimination is shown in the stoppage of American newspapers from entering Ireland. They are freely admitted into England, - even the Irish World and the Gaelic American, - but are strictly censored in entering Ireland, and anything containing either news or opinions likely to “excite” the Irish people is not permitted to pass through. As it was put by Mr. P. H. Pearse, headmaster of St. Edna’s secondary school, Rathfarnham, at a meeting last May: “Our isolation from the rest of the world is now almost complete. Our books and papers cannot get out; the books and papers of other nations cannot get in.”

At first the Defense of the Realm Act altogether abolished trial by jury, substituted trial by court-martial for any offense under the Act. Thanks to protests by English constitutional lawyers, the Govrrmnent was obliged to modify this, and give to “British subjects” trird under the act the option of claiming trial by jury. But a clause was slipped in, saying, “This shall not apply in the case of offenses tried by summary jurisdiction.” The effect of this is that whenever the military authorities wish to avoid trial by jury, they have only [13] to decide, which they have absolute power to do, that the case shall be tried by “summary jurisdiction”; that is to say, by a paid magistrate, always a mere tool of Dublin Castle, without any jury or any right of appeal to a jury.

Only one man charged under the Defense of the Realm Act has been accorded trial by jury in Ireland. The history of his case is instructive. John Hegarty was a post-office official with long service and an excellent record. When the war broke out he was stationed in Cork. He was ordered, without any accusation being made against him, to leave Cork and take up a position in the postal service in England. He refused, pointing out that his home and friends were in Cork, and that there was no justification for arbitrarily turning him out. The answer of the postal department was to dismiss him from the service without pension or compensation. Immediately thereafter he was ordered by the military authorities to leave the city of Cork. He obeyed, and retreated to a remote spot in the Cork Mountains, in Ballingarry, where he proceeded to support himself by agricultural labor. Within a few weeks the military ordered him to leave the County of Cork, still without making any charge against him or giving him any chance to defend himself in court. He went to Enniscorthy, in the County of Wexford, and stayed with friends there. Last February he was arrested in Enniscorthy, dragged from his bed in the middle of the night, brought to Dublin, detained in a military barracks for a month, then transferred to the civil authorities and allowed trial by jury, but not by an Enniscorthy jury, which would have been his right under the ordinary civil law. A long series of charges was brought against him, including the writing of seditious notices and the possession of arms, ammunition, and explosives. He was tried three times (between) April and June by three different juries; in each case the Crown and the judge made great efforts to secure a conviction. Two of the juries acquitted him on two different charges, the third disagreed. Then the military authorities sent Major Price to Hegarty in Mountjoy Jail (I was in the same jail at the time, and Hegarty told me the facts in the exercise yard) and offered to release him if he would agree to go to America. Hegarty refused. Then Major Price offered to release him if he would agree to remain in some spot indicated by the military authorities, and never leave it. Hegarty replied that he was willing to go to Ballingarry, from which the military had driven him; and he was [14] finally permitted to return there, after refusing to sign an undertaking that he would not go ten miles from Ballingarry without leave.

One of the facts brought out in the Hegarty trial, which the press, duly intimidated or bribed, did not report, was that for many months no letter or parcel had reached Hegarty without being opened and examined by the secret police while passing through the mails. This process of “Grangerizing” has been carried to a fine art in Ireland; not even in Russia (happily the verb should now read “was”) there a more complete system of espionage on the correspondence of all persons even remotely suspected of disaffection toward the English rule of Ireland.

Hegarty’s was the first and last case in which the military authorities gave the option of trial by jury to any prisoner charged under the Defense of the Realm Act. The others were brought before the paid magistrates, and automatically convicted and sentenced. The sentences ranged from a fortnight (which was given to a Dublin boy for kicking a recruiting-poster!) to twelve months, six of them with hard labor, which was my sentence for making a speech “calculated to prejudice recruiting.” I went on hunger strike, and was out in six days, with a license under the Cat and Mouse Act, which renders me liable at any time for the rest of my life to rearrest and imprisonment for the balance of my sentence without further process of trial, a convenient method of getting rid of an opponent.*

*Note. - This Is the matter that rendered Mr. Skeffington persona non grata to the English Government and led to his murder finally.

Trial by jury had failed to get convictions; trial before paid magistrates got convictions, but also gave undesirable publicity. The batch of cases of which mine was one raised a storm not only in Ireland, but in England. In Dublin, meetings of protest were held outside the jail, and placards denouncing the sentences were posted all over the city. Mr. G. Bernard Shaw wrote a letter, declaring that if I deserved six months’ hard labor, Lord Northcliffe deserved about sixty years. Mr. Conal O’Riordan, the distinguished Irish dramatist and novelist, wrote dissociating himself from my point of view, but condemning my sentence; Mr. Robert Lynd, one of the ablest Irish journalists on the London press (literary editor of the “Daily News”) did the same; and the indignation was steadily growing, in range and intensity, throughout the English radical and labor press up to the moment of my release. [15]

One result of this was that the Dublin Castle authorities did not rearrest me under the Cat and Mouse Act, although I had ignored all the conditions of the license as to reporting my movements to the police, and they did not interfere with my departure to America. They made, however, an unsuccessful attempt, through Sir Horace Plunkett, to exact from me a pledge that I would not speak nor write anything against England in the United States. Another result was that even trials by paid magistrates were found to give too much publicity; accordingly, the next method tried was arbitrary deportation without trial or accusation. This had been adopted, in the form of orders to leave a certain county or district, in many cases besides Hegarty’s, but now a wider extension was given to the method. In July four organizers of the Irish Volunteers were ordered by the military authorities to leave Ireland within a week. They refused. The military then had to arrest them and try them; but to avoid undesirable publicity, they charged them with disobeying a military order, the grounds for the issue of such an order not being disclosed. The judicial tools of the castle duly sentenced these four men to three and four months’ imprisonment.

Even this has not stopped publicity, for the Redmondite party has been stung into protest against this latest arbitrary action, and has demanded throug Mr. Joseph Devlin, M. P., that these four men get a new and fair trial, and that the grounds for the deportation order be openly stated at that trial.

Meanwhile O’Donovan Rossa, the old Fenian, has been buried in Dublin with a great display of military force by the Irish Volunteers. The funeral oration, pronounced by Mr. Pearse, was a defiant assertion of Ireland’s unconquerable resolution to achieve independence. Recruiting for the English army, despite all kinds of pressure and advertising languishes, while the recruiting for the Irish Volunteers is so brisk that the headquarters of that body cannot keep pace with it.

And when peace comes, Ireland, with the other small nations, will stand at the doors of The Hague conference, and will claim her rights from the community of nations. Shall peace bring freedom to Belgium and Poland, perhaps to Finland and Bohemia, and not to Ireland? Must Irish freedom be gained in blood, or will the comity of nations, led by the United States, shame a weakened England into putting into practice at home the principles which are so loudly trumpeted for the benefit of Germany? [16; end.]

When first I learned the facts about my husband’s murder I made up my mind to come to America and tell the story to as many audiences in the United States as I could reach.

F. Sheehy Skeffington was an anti-militarist, a fighting pacifist. A man gentle and kindly even to his bitterest opponents, who always ranged himself on the side of the weak against the strong, whether the struggle was one of class, sex or race domination. Together with his strong fighting spirit, he had a marvelous, an unextinguishable good humor, a keen joy in life, a great faith in humanity and a hope in the progress toward good.

F. Sheehy Skeffington’s Last Days
At the beginning of the outbreak on Easter Monday, my husband was in Dublin. At the assault on Dublin Castle, a British officer (Captain Pinfield) was reported gravely wounded and lying bleeding to death near the castle gate. As there was considerable cross-firing no one dared to go to his aid. My husband, learning this, persuaded a chemist to go with him to the rescue, and crossed the square under a hail of fire. He found, however, that some of his friends had managed to drag the officer inside the Castle gate, there being left only a pool of blood. When I remonstrated that night with my husband on his running such a terrible risk, he replied simply, “I could not let anyone bleed to death while I could help,” — characteristic of his simple heroism, cool courage and horror of bloodshed.

All Monday and Tuesday he actively interested himself in preventing looting by British sympathizers. He saved various shops, posted civic guards and enlisted the help of many civilians and priests. He talked to the crowds and held them off. But by Tuesday evening everyone was afraid. He called a meeting that evening to organize a civic police. I met him about 5:30. We had tea together and I went home by devious routes, for I was anxious about my boy. I never again saw my husband. [17]

The Arrest
Because of my husband’s work in behalf of the freedom of Ireland his arrest was desirable, from a British standpoint, and his description had been circulated at the bridges, which he would have to pass on his way home. Accordingly, when, between 7 and 8 he passed Portobello, Lieut. Morris, who was in charge, had him arrested. He was unarmed, carrying a walking stick and was walking quite alone in the middle of the road. As he came to the bridge some of the crowd shouted his name. He was arrested and taken, without resistance, to Portobello Barracks, and was searched and questioned. No papers of an incriminating character were found on him. The Adjutant (Lieut. Morgan) reported the arrest, with that of others, at headquarters, saying that there was no charge against Skeffington, and asking whether he would release him, with others against whom there was no charge, that night. Orders were given to release the others, but to detain Skeffington. The charge sheet was produced at the Simon Commission hearing, and I saw it. Against my husband’s name was entered, “no charge.”

When told he was detained, he specially asked that I should, be informed, but this was refused. No message was ever allowed to reach me, no notification of his death, of his first or second burial was ever issued, and every scrap of information with regard to his murder has had ever since to be extracted bit by bit from the reluctant authorities.

Hostage Incident
About midnight Capt. Bowen-Colthurst came to the captain of the guard, Lieut. Dobbin, and got him to hand over his prisoner. This was an illegal act. The captain of the guard is supposed to hand over no prisoner under his care (in what they call the “King’s Peace”) without a written order from the commanding officer. My husband was taken out as a hostage, his hands bound behind him with a rope. He was then taken out with a raiding party in charge of Capt. Bowen-Colthurst and Lieut. Leslie Wilson. As they went they fired at various houses along the Rathmines Road to prevent anyone appearing at the windows.

Opposite Rathmines Catholic Church they saw two boys (one a lad called Coade, 17 years of age). They had been attending church [18] that evening and were going home. The captain questioned them and asked them did they not know that martial law had been proclaimed, and that he could shoot them “like dogs.” As Coade turned away, Colthurst said, “Bash him” and one of the underling officers broke his jaw bone with the butt end of his rifle, knocking him senseless. Then Colthurst whipped out his revolver and shot him as he lay. He was left lying in his blood (the stain marking the spot for several days) ; later he was taken by the ambulance to the Barracks, where he died that night without ever regaining consciousness. My husband protested against this horrible murder, and was told by Colthurst to say his prayers (Capt. Colthurst was a very religious man), as he would likely be the next.

A few yards further down another murder was committed by Capt. Colthurst, but we have not been able to elicit any facts. The Simon report states, “The evidence of the different witnesses can only be reconciled by inferring that more than one case of shooting occurred during the progress of Capt. Colthurst’s party.” It goes on, “None of the evidence offered to us afforded any justification for the shooting of Coade; it is, of course, a delusion to suppose that martial law confers upon an officer the right to take human life, and this delusion had in the present case tragic consequences.”

The evidence as to the above atrocities was carefully omitted at the military court-martial held in June on Colthurst. It was only against the strongest protest from the military that Sir John Simon insisted on this case being investigated at the Commission. We have evidence that at least two other murders by Colthurst later in the week were perpetrated, but this was ruled out at the Commission as “not within their scope.”

My husband was then taken as far as the bridge and left by Colthurst in charge of Lieut. Leslie Wilson. Colthurst said a prayer over him (0 Lord God, if it shall please thee to take this man’s life, forgive him, for Christ’s sake) and left instructions that if his party was sniped at during their expedition that Skeffington was to be shot forthwith. Leslie Wilson testified that he saw “nothing strange” in the order and would have carried it out, and it was in fact a common practice with these parties engaged in suppressing liberty in Ireland to take such “hostages.”

Capt. Colthurst then bombed Alderman James Kelly’s premises (they mistook him for his namesake Alderman Tom Kelly, a Sinn [19] Feiner). They sacked the premises and took prisoners the shopmen and two editors, Dickson and Mclntyre, who had taken refuge there. They flung live bombs into the house without warning and wounded one of the men. I have seen the house; it bears the marks of the bullets and bombs yet. As there was no resistance from the unhappy people, my husband was escorted back alive to the Barracks with the two other editors. Dickson was a cripple. He was the editor of “The Eye-Opener,” Mclntyre, editor of “The Searchlight.” By a strange irony both had been loyalist papers and Alderman James Kelly had helped to recruit for the army, but owing to the initial mistake, protests were useless. The soldiers confused “The Searchlight” with a paper called “The Spark” (a volunteer organ) and editors’ lives were cheap during those days. Dead editors tell no tales — though sometimes their wives may. Again my husband was flung (according to some, still bound) into his cell. Whether he was further tortured that night I shall never know. Capt. Colthurst spent, according to himself, the rest of the night in prayer. At three o’clock he found a Bible text which seemed to him an inspiration — from St. Luke’s — “Those who will not acknowledge Me, go ye forth and slay them.” He interpreted Me to mean the British Empire, the message as a divine command.

The Murder
Shortly before ten o’clock the next morning (April 26th) Colthurst again demanded my husband from the guard, together with the two other editors. Lieuts. Toomey, Wilson and Dobbin were present in charge of the guard with 18 men. He stated that he was going to “shoot Skeffington and the others, that he thought ‘it was the right thing to do.’ “ They were handed over accordingly, and the rest of the story we pieced together from the evidence of the other unhappy civilian prisoners who were in the guardroom and heard what was going on, for the military naturally do their best to prevent anything being known.

It seems, according to the account, that my husband was taken out from his locked cell by Colthurst. As he walked across the yard (the yard was only about 12 feet long by 6 feet wide) he was shot in the back without any warning whatever by the firing squad. While he lay, the two other editors were marched out also and murdered in cold blood without warning. The other prisoners listened eagerly the [20] while, and as they heard volley after volley ring out, said, “Another poor fellow gone” ! and thought their own turn would be next. Then (after the second volley) they heard Dobbin say, about my husband, to Sergeant Aldridge, “That man is not dead.” My husband moved as he lay on the ground. Dobbin then reported this fact to Colthurst, who gave orders to “finish him off.” Another firing squad was then lined up and my husband’s body was riddled as he lay on the ground. After that the other prisoners heard washing and sweeping going on for about two hours and when they were allowed into the yard it still bore the marks of the murder. The wall was bloodstained and riddled with bullets. No surgeon was called to examine the bodies ; one stated that “about noon” (two hours later) he visited the mortuary and they were transferred to the mortuary. Up to the present moment I have never been able to find out how long my husband may have lingered in anguish, or whether the second volley did its work more effectively than the first.

The British were careful to prevent my seeing the body or having it medically examined, and later, when I attempted to have an inquest held, permission was refused. At eleven Major Rosborough again communicated with the garrison adjutant at headquarters and with Dublin Castle. He was told — to bury the bodies. Capt. Colthurst sent in his report (as ordered by Rosborough), but he was kept in command, and no reprimand made to him.

Other Murders
On the same day Capt. Colthurst was in charge of troops in Camden street, when Councillor Richard O’Carroll surrendered (one of the labor leaders in the Dublin City Council). He was marched with his hands over his head to the back yard and Capt. Colthurst shot him in the lung. When a soldier pityingly asked was he dead, Capt. Colthurst said, “Never mind, he’ll die later.” He had him dragged out into the street and left there to be later picked up by a bread van. Ten days later O’Carroll died in great agony. For six days his wife knew nothing of him and when at last she was summoned to Portobello, he could only whisper in her ear his dying statement, which she repeated to me. Three weeks after his murder, his wife gave birth to a son. The authorities, as usual, refused all inquiry.

On the same day Capt. Colthurst took a boy, whom he suspected [21] of Sinn Fein knowledge and asked him to give information. When the boy refused, he got him to kneel in the street and shot him in the back as he raised his hand to cross himself. Inquiry into this case has also been refused — it is but one of the many.

My husband was buried on Wednesday night, secretly — in the barracks yarn [sic for yard] — his body sewn in a sack.

My Search
Meanwhile, from Tuesday night, when he did not return, I had been vainly seeking him. All sorts of rumors reached me — that he had been wounded and was in a hospital, that he had been shot by a looter, that he was arrested by the police. I also heard that he had been executed, but this I refused to believe — it seemed incredible. I clung to the belief that even if he had been condemned to die he would have been tried first, at least before a jury, for martial law did not apply to non-combatants — and that I would be notified, as were some of the wives and families of the other executed men. Of course, the reason of the silence is now clear. It was hoped that my husband would “disappear” as so many others, that we could never trace his whereabouts, and that it would be taken for granted that he had been killed in the street. My husband’s murder was but one of the many — the only difference being that in his case the murder could not be kept dark. On Tuesday, May 9th (13 days after) Mr. Tennant stated in the House of Commons, in answer to a question, that “no prisoner had been shot in Dublin without a trial.”

All Wednesday and Thursday I inquired in vain, and on Friday horrible rumors reached me. I tried to see a doctor connected with the Barracks, but was stopped by the police, for by this time the police had been restored and were helping the soldiers. I was watched, as I have since been, carefully under police supervision. Houses were being raided and pillaged. Mme. Markievicz’s house was broken into on Wednesday, and all her pictures stolen, and other valuables taken and the door was left broken open. Whole streets were ransacked and the inhabitants terrified while the soldiers thrust their bayonets through the beds and furniture.

On Thursday evening, about seven, I met Mrs. MacDonngh (the wife of one of the Irish prisoners shot by the firing squad) wheeling her two babies to her mother’s house; the soldiers had turned machine guns on her house. Soldiers sold their loot openly [22] in the streets — officers took “souvenirs.” While the volunteers were holding their stronghold their wives and families were thus tortured.

My Sister’s Arrest
On Friday, to allay my growing anxiety, my two sisters, Mrs. Kettle and Mrs. Culhane, went to the Portobello Barracks to inquire. They were at once put under arrest and a drumhead courtmartial was had upon them. They afterwards identified the officer who presided as Colthurst. Lieut. Beattie and other officers were also present. The crime they were accused of was that they were “seen talking to Sinn Feiners” (to me, probably).

They were refused all information by Capt. Colthurst, who said he knew nothing whatever of Sheehy Skeffington, and told them, “the sooner they left the Barracks the better for them.” They were marched off under armed guard, and forbidden to speak till they left the premises.

It being then clear that we had information, the next step was to try and find my husband guilty on post facto evidence. That afternoon I managed to see Coade, the father of the murdered boy. I got his name from a doctor — and he told me that he had seen my husband’s dead body with several others in that mortuary when he went for his son. This a priest afterwards confirmed, but he could give me no other information.

I went home shortly after six and before seven was putting my little boy to bed, when the maid noticed soldiers lining up around the house. She got terrified and dashed out with Owen by the back door. I went to call her back, for I knew that the house would be guarded back and front, and feared the boy, especially, might be shot if seen running. When I got to the foot of the stairs a volley was fired in front of the house at the windows, followed almost directly by a crash of glass which the soldiers shattered with the buttends of their rifles.

They broke in simultaneously all over the house — some went on the roof — and Capt. Colthurst rushed upon us — the maid, Owen and myself — with a squad with fixed bayonets, shouting “Hands up!” to the boy and me. The boy gave a cry at the sight of the naked steel, and I put my arm around him and said, “These are the defenders of women and children.” That steadied them a little. The party consisted of about forty men and was in charge of Col. Allett [23] (an officer of 29 years’ service), Capt. Colthurst (16 years’ service) and a junior officer, Lieut. Brown.

We were ordered all three to be removed “under guard” to the front room and to be shot if we stirred, while they searched the house. This was done: Soldiers with leveled rifles knelt outside the house ready to fire upon us, and inside we were closely guarded by men with drawn bayonets. This lasted over three hours. The house was completely sacked and everything of any value removed — books, pictures, souvenirs, toys, linen, and household goods. I could hear the officers jeering as they turned over my private possessions. One of the soldiers (a Belfast man) seemed ashamed, and said, “I didn’t enlist for this. They are taking the whole bloomin’ house with them.” They commandeered a motor car in which were women, and made them drive to the Barracks with the stuff — ordering the men to keep a safe distance “in case of firing.” They left an armed guard on the house all night. Colthurst brought my husband’s keys, stolen from his dead body, and opened his study (which he always kept locked). All my private letters, letters from my husband to me before our marriage, his articles, a manuscript play, the labor of a lifetime, were taken. After endless application I received back a small part of these, but most of my most cherished possessions have never been returned, or any attempt made to find them.

The regiment took with them to Belfast as a “souvenir,” my husband’s stick, and an officer stole from his dead body my hus band’s “Votes for Women” badge. For days my house was open to any marauder, as none dared to come even to board up my windows. Capt. Colthurst later falsely endorsed certain papers found on my husband’s body.

On Monday, May 1st, another raid was made during my absence, and this time a little temporary maid was taken under soldiers’ guard to the Barracks. She was detained in custody for a week, the only charge against her being that she was found in my house. Why I was not taken, I never knew, but one of the officers (Leslie Wilson) publicly regretted “that they had not shot Mrs. Skeffington while they were about it.” It would have saved them (and me) much trouble if they had. Colthurst continued in charge of raiding parties for several days. [24]

Promotion of Colthurst
On May 1st, Major Sir Francis Vane, the second in command at Portobello, was relieved of his command by Lieut. Col. McCammond, for his persistent efforts (unavailing) to get Colthurst put under arrest. He was told to give up his post (that of commander of the entire defenses of Portobello) and hand it over to Capt. Bowen-Colthurst, who was thereby promoted six days after the murders. Later (on May 9th) he was sent in charge of a detachment of troops to Newry, and not until May 11th, the day of Mr. Dillon’s speech, was he put under “close arrest.” I leave it to American intelligence to decide whether these facts once proved before a Royal Commission were consistent with the theory of lunacy.

Sir Francis Vane is the only officer concerned who made a genuine effort to see justice done. He went to Dublin Castle, finding that the Portobello officers would do nothing. He saw Colonel Kinnard and General Friend, as well as Major Price (head of the Intelligence Dept.). All deprecated the “fuss” and refused to act. Major Price said, “Some of us think it was a good thing Sheehy Skeffington was put out of the way, anyhow.” This was the typical attitude of the authorities. On Sunday (May 7th), also by order of Colonel McCammond, bricklayers were brought to the yard to remove the blood-stained bricks, stained with the blood of my murdered husband, and carefully replaced them with new bricks.

Sir Francis Vane, thoroughly horrified at the indifference of Dublin Castle to murders committed by an officer (they were busy trying “rebels” for “murder”), crossed early in May to London, interviewed the war office, and on May 3rd, saw Lord Kitchener and the latter was reported as sending a telegram ordering the arrest of Colthurst. This was disregarded by General Maxwell, then in command in Dublin. Instead of anything being done to Colthurst, the only result of Sir Francis Vane’s efforts was that he, himself, was dismissed from the service (“relegated to unemployment”) by secret report of General Maxwell, deprived of his rank of Major and refused a hearing at the court-martial, although he had previously been favorably mentioned in the dispatches by Brigadier McConochine, his superior officer, for bravery. [25]

Second Burial
On May 8th, my husband’s body was exhumed and reburied in Glasnevin, without my knowledge. That day I managed to see Mr. Dillon and told him my story. I never saw a man more moved than he by the tragedies of Easter Week. He read my statement in the House of Commons on May 11th, and his wonderful speech on the horror he had seen compelled Mr. Asquith to cross at once to Ireland. Mr. Asquith said of my statement, “I confess I do not and cannot believe it. Does anyone suppose that Sir John Maxwell has any object in shielding officers and soldiers, if there be such, who have been guilty of such ungentlemanlike, such inhuman conduct? It is the last thing the British army would dream of!” I do not blame him for his disbelief. He went to Ireland, found every word I said was true, as verified at the Commission — he found there other horrors — the North Kings Street atrocity, for instance — surpassing even mine. Yet he did his best *o help the military to shield the murderers and hush all inquiries. In a few short days secret courtmartials had condemned to death no less than sixteen Irish leaders — whose crime was that they had wished Ireland as free as is your country, a “free republic.” Early in May a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the causes of the rebellion, but all inquiry was refused into the atrocities committed by the troops while in Dublin,

Courtmartial
The courtmartial was presided over by Lord Cheylesmore and consisted of twelve senior officers— a more wooden tribunal it is im» possible to conceive. All the witnesses were military, and all were drilled to tell a special tale. They were sworn, and yet at many points their story later to the Commission flagrantly contradicted the previous one—yet they have never been brought to book for perjury. I was not allowed to present evidence. Mr. Healy said of the courtmartial: “Never since the trial of Christ was there a greater travesty of justice.” Its findings were afterwards completely discredited by the Royal Commission; the evidence was doctored and all legal forms violated, the prosecutor and defender playing into each other’s hands. Dr. Balch, who had refused to certify Colthurst insane, was not questioned, and he was afterwards sent to Sierra Leone, and would not be produced at the Commission. [26]

Sir Francis Vane was not called, no evidence of the other murders was given or of the part played by Dublin Castle in cloaking the murderer. Colthurst was under no restraint during his trial. He stayed at a well-known hotel in Dawson street with his family during the days, and, though found insane later, was not shut up for several weeks. Finally, when feeling ran high, he was transferred as a “patient” to an asylum in England, and was allowed to continue to hold his rank as captain and to draw half pay for several months. Later he was “retired,” but has not been dismissed from the service. He is detained “during the King’s pleasure” and will be released when “cured.” As has been the case of the perpetrator of the Bachelor’s Walk murders, in July, 1914, he will probably be given some important post when this trouble blows over.

Asquith Interview
In July I went to London to interview editors and members of Parliament to force the Government to administer justice. On July 19th I was sent for by Mr. Asquith, who had, with his “wait to see” policy, been shuffling and evading a direct answer for months — I brought a witness with me, a well-known suffragist, Miss Muriel Matters. Mr. Asquith saw me in the room where the. Cabinet meets (Downing street). The wily statesman explained to me the difficulties in the way of keeping his pledge, regretted that no adequate inquiry could be given. The House, he said, would refuse a sworn inquiry, and that alone could be satisfactory. Would I be satisfied with an inadequate inquiry, which was “the best they could do.” I told him I would not be satisfied with any inquiry that he told me in advance would be unsatisfactory and inadequate, and that while I must accept the best he could give — I would not be “satisfied.” I said I would take further action if I wasn’t — for even then I had in view a visit to America to tell an honest country what British militarism could do. When Mr. Asquith then carefully approached the question of “compensation” in lieu of inquiry — proposals had previously been made to me, unofficially, from various sources (my boy’s future at stake, etc.). I was told that no inquiry could be given — that the military wouldn’t allow it — but that “adequate and even generous” compensation would be assured. Mr. Asquith now put this point ever so delicately (it was clearly his object in sending for me) tapping his fingers on the green baize table — he sat with his [27] secretary at the middle — and my friend and I at the end, and glancing sideways at me, for he never looked me straight in the face throughout the interview. He is mellow and hale, with rosy, chubby face and silver hair, a Father Christmas air about him. He explained that the other injured people were asking for compensation, would I not consider it, too? He said nothing could undo the past, etc. I told him that the only compensation I would ask or take, was the redemption of his promise, viz.: a full, public inquiry into my husband’s murder.

I inquired, “Were the military blocking him?” “No, no,” he replied, “the military court inquiry!” “In that case, Mr. Asquith,” I said, “will you say yes or no? It is time that I had an answer.” He would reply Thursday to Mr. Dillon, and so our interview ended. He is an able, astute politician, the ex-Premier, but his pitiful little traps and quibbles and his “hush money” suggestions were hardly worthy of a great statesman.

He finally granted the Commission of Inquiry with Sir John Simon at its head, and a judge and well-known lawyer to sit with him. But Asquith, as usual, broke faith (unbroken record) as to the scope of the inquiry, by narrowly restricting the terms of reference. The court could not produce or examine Colthurst, the chief culprit, because he was in England — evidence was voluntary, other atrocities were carefully ruled out. The Military had purposely scattered important witnesses. Several were at the front, some had been killed in the interval, some were afraid of vengeance.

The Military refused to produce others, Colonel Allett had died mysteriously in the interval, — according to some he committed suicide in Belfast when Colthurst was condemned, saying, “The game is up.” Every device was used by the Government and the Military to defeat the ends of justice. Yet, in spite of all, the Inquiry Report established many important facts — the promotion of Colthurst, the failure to take any disciplinary measures against the other officers, the dismissal of Sir Francis Vane, the raids on my house for incriminatory evidence after the murder. Doubt was cast upon the insanity of Colthurst and grave censure passed on the Military.

Expos[é]
As a public exposé the Commission had a great effect and the attitude of the Military under the searching heckling of Mr. Healy [28] and Sir John Simon showed them at their worst. One officer actually fainted in court and his cross-examination had to be suspended. Francis Sheehy Skeffington could not have imagined any more damn ing expose of the militarism he detested and under which he perished, no writer of fiction could have imagined a more harrowing story of unrelieved brutality than may be found in the cold and lawyer-like language of the Simon Report. But all these officers still enjoy favor. Major Price still rules in Dublin Castle.

A martyr fights in death more terribly than many warring saints. He is entrenched, you cannot reach him with your heaviest shot. My husband would have gone to his death with a smile on his lips, knowing that by his murder he had struck a heavier blow for his ideals than by any act of his life. And I am willing to give him up on the altar of sacrifice, for I know that his death will speak trumpet-tongued against the system that slew him.

Nor was it, as I have shown, the one mad act of an irresponsible officer. It was part of an organized “pogrom.” We possess evidence, sworn and duly attested, of at least 50 other murders of unarmed civilians or disarmed prisoners (some boys and some women) committed by the soldiers during Easter Week. The North Staffords murdered 14 men in North King street, and buried them in the cellars of their houses.

A coroner’s jury of the city brought a verdict of wilful murder against these men who could be identified (Dublin’s City Council) but Sir John Maxwell refused to give them up, and they are in Dublin at the present moment. Pits were dug in Glasnevin Cemetery and bodies piled up were carted off and buried in a common trench. In various cases the soldiers stated that they were under definite orders to kill civilians and prisoners. In Trinity College they so boasted.

Cher three hundred houses were looted and sacked in the suburbs and the city. Thousands of men, hundreds of women, were arrested all over the country and deported in cattle boats to England, some to jails, some to internment camps. Most of these had no part whatever in the rising, but the police and soldiers had a free hand to arrest all, and exercised their powers to the full. Time does not permit me to dwell any longer on the treatment accorded to the prisoners. In Kilmainham, in Richmond and later in England, they were brutally ill-treated. Two instances, Mary O’Loughlin and [29] another, — but it would need a separate lecture.

State of Ireland
Ireland is still under martial law, threatened with famine and with conscription ; death by hunger or in the trenches. But Ireland’s spirit was never stronger, never was it more clearly shown that no nation can be held by force, that the aspiration after liberty cannot be quelled by shot or shell.

The Volunteers
A word as to the Irish Republicans. “Treason doth never prosper. What is the reason? When treason prospers, none dare call it treason.” When the United States of America set up its republic it declared its independence of Great Britain, it happily won, and maintained its independence. But if it had lost — would its leaders find quicklime graves? Surely.

I know the Irish Republican leaders, and am proud to call Connolly, Pearse, Macdonagh, Plunkett, O’Rahilly and others friends — proud to have known them and had their friendship. They fought a clean fight against terrible odds — and terrible was the price they had to pay. They were sober and God-fearing, filled with a high idealism. They had banks, factories, the General Post Office, the lower courts, their enemies’ strongholds for days in their keeping, yet bankers, merchants and others testified as to the scrupulous way in which their stock was guarded. A poet truly said, “Your dream, not mine, And yet the thought, for this you fell, Turns all life’s water into wine.” Their proclamation gave equal citizenship to women — beating all records — except that of the Russian Revolutionists.

It is the dreamers and the visionaries that keep hope alive and feed enthusiasm — not the statesmen and politicians. Sometimes it is harder to live for a cause than to die for it. It would be a poor tribute to my husband if grief were to break my spirit. It shall not do so. I am not here just to harrow your hearts by a passing thrill, to feed you on horrors for sensation’s sake. I want to continue my husband’s work so that when I meet him some day in the Great Beyond, he will be pleased with my stewardship.

The lesson of the Irish Rising and its suppression is that our small nation, Ireland, has a right also to its place in the sun. We [30] look to the United States particularly to help us in this matter. The question of Ireland is not, as suggested by England, “A domestic matter.” It is an international one, just as the case of Belgium, Serbia and other small nationalities is. We want our case to come up at the Peace Conference, if not before — to the international tribunal for settlement.

The United States Government has declared that it is entering this war for the democratization of Europe. We do not want democracy to stop short of the Irish sea, but to begin there. If Great Britain is in good faith in this matter, she can begin now, by freeing our small nation, and this can be done without the shedding of a single drop of American blood, and the whole world would applaud the deed.

We look, therefore, to America to see that her allies live up to their professions and that the end of the war will see all small nations of Europe free. As my husband said, in an article in the Century Magazine, February, 1916, on a “Forgotten Small Nationality,” “Shall peace bring freedom to Belgium, to Poland, perhaps to Finland and Bohemia, and not to Ireland?” It is for America to see that Ireland is not excluded from the blessings of true democracy and freedom. In this respect America will be but paying back the debt she owes to Ireland. In the day of her struggle for independence, before she set up her republic, she was aided by Irish citizens — many of whom gave their lives for her freedom. And in the Civil War thousands of Irishmen died that your negroes might be free men. The record of the Fighting 69th of New York is famous in your history ; it was a regiment of Roman Catholic Irish who were wiped out so that the regiment disappeared for a time till it could be practically recruited entirely afresh, and to-day it Is allowed to keep Its name of (the 69 N. Y. N. G.) in parenthesis after the new name given it in drafting it into the Federal army for service in France, the 165th Infantry of the N. Y. National Guard Army. It is for their descendants, the beneficiaries of those old wars of yours for freedom in ’76 and 1861, now to pay back that debt, and to help us set up an Irish republic, as independent of Great Britain as is your own.

At the end of the war we hope to see a “United Europe” on the model of your own United States, where each state is free and independent, [31] yet all are part of a great federation. We want Ireland to belong to this united Europe, and not to be a vassal of Great Britain, a province of the British Empire, governed without consent. Unless the United States is as whole-heartedly in favor of the freedom of Ireland as she is for the emancipation of Belgium, she cannot be true to her own principles. Her honor is involved and we look particularly to the Irish in America to remember the claims of the land of their fathers, when the day of reckoning comes.

I shall conclude by quoting from William Rooney’s poem, “Dear Dark Head,” which embodies in poetic form Ireland’s lifelong dream for freedom. Speaking of the men who died for Ireland, he says:

“And though their fathers’ fate be theirs, shall others With hearts as faithful still that pathway tread Till we have set, Oh Mother Dear of Mothers, A nation’s crown upon thy Dear, Dark Head?” [32]