| TRACING THE'16 RISING: ONE MAN, ONE CAMERA, ON FOOT |
Part 3 in the Series ‘Tracing the Rising: Easter Week in Dublin 1916'
By Robert A. Mosher
 |
| Sackville (now O'Connell) Street, Dublin, after the 1916 Easter Rising. |
For a moment in time, the Easter Rising of 1916 promised everything
to everybody -- freedom to Ireland, a new successful front in Germany’s war with
Britain, and ruin to Great Britain. It was a hope born of the efforts of many
individuals over many years, and it died of the decisions made by a few,
including the misguided, the mistaken, the misinformed, and the miserable. Out
of the ashes of that ruin, though, arose as the phoenix of the ancients the
reality of modern Ireland and the legend of 1916.
In its grandest initial form, Easter 1916 proposed the
raising of some 13,000 Irish Volunteers, abetted by the Irish Citizen Army (300
men and women at its greatest strength) and the Hibernian Rifles (30-50
individuals), Na Fianna Éireann, and Cumann na mBan. Many of the older boys
within Na Fianna Éireann, with a membership aged 8-18, had already joined the
Volunteers. Cumann na mBan provided several hundred women, but not all were
armed. The British would hold 72 women prisoners after the rising ended.
 |
| Irish Citizen Army group outside Liberty Hall, Dublin |
For arms, they already had a mixed collection of perhaps
2,000 rifles and again as many shotguns, revolvers, and automatic pistols – and
they looked for the arrival of 20,000 captured Russian Mosin-Nagant rifles from
Germany (with 10 machine guns), supported by several thousand German troops.
The leaders expected this show of armed defiance to British rule to rally
thousands from among those 100,000 Irishmen from John Redmond’s 140,000
National Volunteers who did not join the British army. These men would have experience
of drill and at least some may have had their own weapons. It was a romantic
conception worthy of the Victorian age in which many of them were born and
raised.
Unfortunately, the onset in 1914 of the Great War had
rendered such romanticism obsolete in the face of the first modern industrial
war of the 20th Century. Germany would not or could not spare thousands of men
for such an adventure at a time when that many men were lost in a morning in
its nightmare war fought in both the Western trenches and on the Eastern
steppe. Germany did allow the English diplomatist and noted humanitarian Sir
Roger Casement to recruit a German-armed and German–equipped, 3,000-strong
Irish Brigade from among the captive British soldiers held by the tens of
thousands in Germany’s prisoner-of-war camps. But in the end, even his few
volunteers would not sail for Ireland in 1916 -- or ever.
 |
| The Aud, the German ship that attempted to land German arms in Cork, but was scuttled. |
Dublin is Ireland’s gateway and principal city, and
considered in the early 19th century “the second city” of the British Empire.
Dublin Castle was the center, in its turn, of British power and authority in
Ireland and was “home” to the Chief Secretary for Ireland as well as the Royal
Irish Constabulary’s (RIC) Inspector General and their staffs. The army’s Irish
Command was headquartered at Parkgate, in western Dublin, where the Grand
Canal, the Liffey River, and the major east-west rail line converged. Its
principal arsenal, Magazine Fort, was in Dublin’s Phoenix Park.
The rising in Dublin, in both the original proposal and in
the final plan, was to paralyze Britain’s leadership in Ireland and to pin in
place as many of the British troops in Ireland as possible. This would open the
way for the Germans to land in the south with their 20,000 troops and the
20,000 guns to be issued to the men raised by the Irish Volunteers in that
region.
When it became clear that there would be no German troops
coming, it would be up to the Volunteer columns in the South to raise and arm
the men who would march to the line of the Shannon before the British could
respond to the new threat. As noted, the planners expected that the arrival of
the rifles and the launching of the Rising would result in most of Redmond’s
National Rifles abandoning him and joining the rebellion.
Addendum: Britain’s Imperial Presence
The unarmed, 1,100 men of the Dublin Metropolitan Police were soon pulled off the streets, as they were defenseless against the Volunteers, suffering, in fact, one of the first casualties at the entrance to Dublin Castle. The armed Royal Irish Constabulary was not present in Dublin. The Royal Navy in Ireland was primarily represented by a series of lightly manned signal stations -- bases at Dublin, Queenstown, Lough Foyle, Larne, and Malahide. During the Easter Rising, there was no effective Royal Flying Corps presence.
The British Army had some 2,400 officers and men in Dublin
itself. Other army units were based elsewhere in Ireland, though almost all of
these were training formations significantly below their authorized strength:
 |
| World War I British recruitment poster |
British Order of Battle – Ireland 1916
Dublin Garrison – Col. Henry Kennard
Marlborough Barracks, Phoenix Park
6th Reserve Cavalry Regiment (ex-3rd Reserve Cavalry Brigade)
5th/12th Lancers, City of London/1st County of London Yeomanry
– 35 officers, 851 other ranks
Portobello Barracks
3rd (Reserve) Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles – 21 officers, 650 other ranks
Richmond Barracks
3rd (Reserve) Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment (Lt Col. R.L. Owens)
– 18 officers, 385 other ranks
Royal Barracks
10th (Service) Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers – 37 officers, 430 other ranks
(Ironically, many of these men were former Irish Volunteers
who had sided with John Redmond and followed his call for them to enlist in the
British Army for World War I)
Miscellaneous Units
Trinity College, OTC (Officers Training Corps, made up of staff and students of Trinity College Dublin. At first only eight men were present, but they were later joined by regular British army personnel and units.)Detachment, Army School of Musketry – Dollymount - Maj. J.F. Somerville
Home Defence Force – “Georgius Rex” (about 120 strong on Easter Monday, this was an auxiliary force of civilian-garbed veterans and volunteers raised to provide for home defense, supplanting the armed forces serving on the continent.)
The Curragh Camp, County Kildare (32 miles / 51 km from Dublin Castle, responsible for garrisoning Dublin and for the center of the country)
– Col. (temp. Brig.) W.H.M. Lowe
25th Reserve Infantry Brigade (elements – 1,000 men) 5th (Extra Reserve) Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers
5th (Extra Reserve) Battalion, The Prince of Wales’s Leinster Regiment
3rd Reserve Cavalry Brigade – Col. Bertram Percy Portal, 1,600 men
8th Reserve Cavalry Regiment (16th/17th Lancers, King Edward’s Horse, Dorsetshire/Oxfordshire Yeomanry)
9th Reserve Cavalry Regiment (3rd/7th Hussars, 2nd/3rd County of London Yeomanry)
10th Reserve Cavalry Regiment (4th/8th Hussars, Lancashire Hussars, Duke of Lancaster’s/Westmoreland/Cumberland Yeomanry)
Athlone, County Westmeath (78 miles / 125 km from Dublin Castle)
5th Reserve Artillery Brigade – eight 18- pdr field guns (only 4 serviceable)
(standard British quick-firing gun, 84mm, firing an 18-pound
projectile or a 23-pound anti-personnel round; only four of these cannon were
serviceable, the brigade’s normal 800-man complement was at significantly
reduced strength.)
Composite Infantry Battalion (elements of 15th Reserve Infantry Brigade) – 1,000 all ranks
Templemore, County Tipperary (88 miles / 142 km from Dublin Castle)
4th (Extra Reserve) Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers (Ex-25th Reserve Infantry Brigade)
| More From WG on the Easter Rising: * Dublin, Easter Monday, 1916: 1,700 Take On the British Empire * Unspoken Tales of the Women in Ireland's Freedom Struggle |
Irish Order of Battle – Ireland 1916
 |
| Irish Volunteers in the GPO |
Commandant General and Commander-in-Chief of Irish Volunteers – Padraig H. Pearse
Commandant General and Commander Dublin Division Irish Volunteers – James Connolly
Commandant General – Joseph M. Plunkett
(The above all marched with Composite Headquarters Battalion.)
Composite Headquarters Battalion
Muster Point – Liberty Hall (Beresford Place) then General Post Office, Sackville Street
Muster – 150 men (late arrivals and stragglers reportedly make a total of 350 men)
Objective – The GPO on Sackville Street
1st (Dublin City) Battalion Irish Volunteers (less D Company)
Commandant – Edward Daly
Vice-Commandant – Piaras Beaslai
Muster Point – Blackhall Street
Muster – 250 men
Objective – The Four Courts and surrounding area northwards to Phipsboro, to block British coming from Marlborough and Royal Barracks
D Company, 1st (Dublin City) Battalion Irish Volunteers
Commandant – Seán Heuston, Captain, D Company but later acting under orders of James Connolly
Muster Point – Mountjoy Street
Muster – 12 men
2nd (Dublin City) Battalion Irish Volunteers
Commandant – Thomas MacDonagh, Commander Dublin Brigade Irish Volunteers
Vice-Commandant – John MacBride, Major
Muster Point – St. Stephen’s Green (changed from Father Matthew Park in Fairview)
Muster – 200 men
Objective – Jacobs Biscuit Factory, Bishop Street
3rd (Dublin City) Battalion Irish Volunteers
Commandant – E. de Valera, Adjutant Brigade Irish Volunteers
Muster point – Brunswick Street (Also Earlsfort Terrace and Oakley Road)
Muster – 130 men
Objective – the area of the South Dublin Union south of Kilmainham in order to neutralize the British in Beggars Bush Barracks in Cranmer Street and to block any reinforcements coming up from the Kingstown naval base
4th (Dublin City) Battalion Irish Volunteers
Commandant – Éamonn Ceannt
Vice-Commandant – Cathal Brugha
Muster point – Emerald Square (near Dolphin’s Barn)
Muster – 100 men
Objective – to defend against the expected counterattack from The Curragh camp in County Kildare
5th (Dublin City) Battalion Irish Volunteers
Commandant – Thomas Ashe
Muster point – Knocksedan (near Swords, 8 miles / 13 km from the GPO)
Muster – 60 men
Irish Citizen Army
Commandant – Michael Mallin
Deputy to Michael Mallin – Constance, Countess Markievicz
Muster point – Liberty Hall (Beresford Place)
Muster – 100
Objective – St. Stephen’s Green, to link the 2nd and 3rd Battalions and pressure both Dublin Castle and Trinity College
Irish Citizen Army (detachment)
Captain – Sean Connolly
Muster point – Liberty Hall (Beresford Place)
Muster – 30 men
Objective – the area around City Hall to interdict British forces attempting to use the Castle’s main gateway or the entrance to the Ship Street Barracks (this is the group that found the gates to Dublin Castle’s upper and lower yards closed in their faces.
Kimmage Garrison
Captain – George Plunkett
Muster point – Kimmage, Plunkett family estate. The
garrison’s 56 men traveled to Dublin part way by tram. Captain Plunkett waved
down a tram at Harold's Cross, ordered on his men, who were armed with
shotguns, pikes, and homemade bombs, and then uttering what might be the wryest
comment of the Rising, took out his wallet and said "Fifty-two tuppenny
tickets to the city centre, please." From there they mustered at Liberty
Hall.
Objective – GPO
Author’s Note: There are generally accepted estimates as to
the numbers that participated in the Rising, but the nature of the forces
brought by both sides to Dublin and the hasty manner in which they were
gathered and dispatched means that no one can state an exact head count. That
said, there has apparently been and continues to be a great deal of energy and
scholarship committed to proving that this person or that person was in the
GPO, or somewhere in Dublin for the rising. Several of my sources do offer such
lists but I do not believe that anyone can guarantee that these lists include
everyone that was there. – Robert A. Mosher
No comments:
Post a Comment