Diary of Easter Week “Rising” by Joseph Holloway, class 1876

Joseph Holloway 1914 self-portrait

Joseph Holloway was a student in the College from 1874 to 1876. He was an Architect but is better known as Dublin's most famous example of "the first nighter", attending with incredible regularity the opening night of almost every theatrical production from 1895 until his death in 1944, and recording his impressions in a voluminous diary that occupies 55 feet of shelf space in the National Library. Below is his record of the fateful days of the Easter Rising, which was published in the 1966 Chronicle.

 

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EASTER MONDAY (first day of the Rising).

An eventful day in the history of English misrule in Ireland. I was in blissful ignorance of anything unusual happening in the city till I went out after dinner at 2 o'clock to attend the matinee at the Empire. Just as Ellen, the maid, called me to dinner, some trams stopped opposite the house as if there was a breakdown on the line, and the end of the string of cars reversed the trolly and the passengers got off, and it moved off towards Ballsbridge. I went in to dinner, and I thought no more about it. All trams were cleared ere I had finished my dinner.

When it was time to go into town I started to walk in. At Mount Street Bridge and down towards Grand Canal Street knots of people had collected and were chatting earnestly and excitedly, and a man inquired of a woman as he passed, "Is there anything up?" and she said: "It is them Sinn Feiners or whatever you call them are about!"

All down Mount Street people collected in groups and I began to notice no trams passed me, and many people with children and baskets of eatables passed me walking from the city. Dark, threatening, ominous clouds moved all around in the sky. Something oppressive was in the air and I couldn't tell what. Very few cars or motors were to be seen about and most people chatted in groups along the way. As I passed along Merrion Square a series of noises resembling the falling of corrugated iron from a great height lasted for about a minute and then ceased, and I thought for a time being it was something falling over at the new Science Building.

Now and again as I walked along Nassau Street I heard the same strange sounds. I knew, by this time, that there was something out of the common in the air. Towards Dame Street an odd soldier could be seen about, but never a policeman—and it was not till I came to George's Street corner did I enquire what was happening in the city, and a youth said firing was going on in many places, but I was safe where I was.

I went on and found the Empire doors closed and a few in front talking. I asked a man at the corner of a lane would there be any matinee and he said he didn't know. At Essex Street corner I saw three of the actresses chatting to people in an excited state.

From Anglesea Street I went on to the quays and almost found them deserted. No trams, no cars, and but few people about. I passed a hoarding and read a Proclamation pasted up which caught my eye at once. It was signed by seven names including T. C. Clarke (who headed the list), Thomas MacDonagh, Joseph Plunkett, P. H. Pearse of St. Enda's, James Connolly, and two others in Gaelic characters. The two Gaelic names were Sean MacDiarmada (John MacDermott) and Eamonn Ceannt (Edmund Kent). It was a long and floridly worded document full of high hopes.

Having read it I went on towards O'Connell Bridge, and saw great crowds up the street, especially near the G.P.O., and as occasional shots were to be heard, I did not venture up but went round by Marlborough Street. Seeing Ervine (Abbey Theatre director St. John Ervine) and Fred O'Donovan (Abbey actor) at a corner outside the Abbey, I went over to them. I had previously met Mr. Mannix and his wife and the hall porter and pit entrance keeper of the Abbey near the Metal Bridge and they it was who first told me of some, of the happenings of the day.

The Abbey was closed for the matinee, as "Kathleen Ni Houlihan" was to have been played and might incite the people. As we spoke, two men passed up Old Abbey Street leisurely, one with a pair of new ladies' bootees under each arm and the other with two boot-boxes under his. On seeing them we surmised looting was going on. (Afterwards I heard it was Tylers at the corner of Earl Street, and also Nobletts.). Ervine, before he went into the theatre again, said up North they proclaimed a provisional Government but they didn't carry it into operation like those in Dublin. Sean Barlow (Abbey Theatre carpenter) and others came out and they told me it was chiefly the Citizen Army who were out, and regretted that such a thing should have happened! The consequence to those headstrong boys would be dire. It was rumoured that the mysterious stranger who was taken in Kerry was Sir Roger Casement and that a cruiser full of Germans had been sunk off the coast.

Later I met Charles Dawson, Jr., and a big friend of his going in to see what was happening in the city. The big one said: "If they want to fight, why don't they go out and fight Germans?" I said: "Because they are Irish!" and he replied: "Anyone with a stake in the country is against the Germans. If they get uppermost, they would take everything!" I said: "It is only fighting for one plunderer to keep off another. Those who are ready to die today prefer to die on Irish soil for Ireland!" Of course, he couldn't see it in that light, being an Imperialist.

Later on I met Charley Hyland and he said his son was in the army out at Kingstown. Those taking part in this stand against the Government were silly, with all the troops in Ireland already on their way by train to Dublin. He thought it was the Citizen Army or rough elements who were only defying the law today, and blamed the mad Countess Markievicz for all of it. I said: "I blame the Government for allowing the North to defy them—the people saw there was no law for them and rebelled."

As I crossed over Mount Street bridge I met Tom Nolly (playwright, whose play was due to open at the Abbey during Easter Week) and his sister-in-law going in towards town and they crossed over to ask me "What was the news?" I told them of the rumours I had heard. Tom Nolly told me he saw the policeman shot at the Castle entrance and saw four or five Volunteers leave the Municipal Buildings opposite. He wondered what the fate of his play would be.

I walked back with them into town and heard shots now and then. Near Kildare Street we saw Miss Sarah Purser, who said to me: "I suppose you know as little as the others." And I said: "Quite so." Nollv had heard that McNeill was in a great state yesterday when he heard his name had been put to a document calling out the Volunteers which he hadn't signed. We parted at the corner of Westmoreland Street. Crowds were about at almost every door on the street and some dozen of police with an inspector stood against shops at either side of Earl Street and in Marlborough Street. Several priests—one a Franciscan—passed near the Cathedral, and a soldier chatted to three girls on the steps of a house near Foley Street.

Later I met Jim Moran and his wife. They had been all around and walked quite close to the G.P.O. and saw the muzzles of the guns pointing out and mere youths of 15 or 16 behind each of them. They were also up at the Green, and spoke to a policeman at Store Street and he said they were not very likely going out with only batons to be shot. At Stephen's Green a woman asked one of the Volunteers what he was doing there, and he said simply "Defending Ireland."

On parting I met Father Dinneen at the corner of O'Connell Street, and while lamenting the course things had taken, he said they were more or less drawn to it by the action of the Government towards them. They were determined in what they said they'd do if goaded on to defend themselves, and they have done it. Carson was primarily to blame, and Redmond, and almost all the Government that tolerated the Orange sedition and tried to stamp out the others' love for Ireland.

I crossed Butt Bridge and, looking towards O'Connell Bridge, saw all the lights dancing gleefully in the water, and I thought of the slaying of good Irish youth on the morrow. The Queen's was closed, but the Brunswick Street Picture House was not. All was quiet along the way home.

WEDNESDAY (THIRD DAY OF THE RISING):

A day full of dread happenings, with firing kept up all during the night, and the terrible boomings of cannons was to be heard shortly after eight, with the whining, prolonged sound of the machine-guns.

Early in the morning O'Connell Street was cleared of all people, and soldiers fired on anyone who crossed over by Parnell Monument, and succeeded in taking down a poor woman at the foot of the monument, and also a man near the pathway. Two men rushed out and carried the woman off the street and an ambulance removed the man. As they did so I saw a man rush out and take a snapshot.

At 2.30 the Irish War News was called out at the Rotunda by a small boy. It was about the size of The Spark and had no printer's name to it, and was dated from noon Tuesday, one day after the Irish Republic had been proclaimed by the provisional committee with P. H. Pearse as the Commander of Forces in Ireland and James Connolly, Commander of Dublin Contingent.

A poor woman with boxes of looted articles sat on the doctor's steps and said aloud to herself as she listened to the sharp rattle of shooting: "Hurrah for Ireland!" crooning to herself the while. "God spare your health!" she said to a passer-by and again to another as he passed: "That's terrible!" She recalled to me one of the Fates as she sat and crooned and arranged her little "take" from the shops being looted. Then she shuffled off up the street.

The Republican flag floated over the G.P.O. through it all. When darkness came on the din of firing died down, and almost ceased altogether during the night.

THURSDAY (FOURTH DAY OF THE RISING):

Things were fairly quiet till close on the stroke of 12 and then came the most awful ten minutes or so of cannonading and shooting I am sure the ears of human beings ever heard. Afterwards, dead silence followed for a long time with occasional volleys of shots to penetrate the silence. Scarcely anything was astir in the street after the awful din, save a boy coming along passing the Rotunda whistling shrilly, and a pigeon alighted on the pathway in search of a meal.

The poster at the Rotunda had "Today" in a strip across the picture, but the building remained closed and silent all day and all night.

Oh! the horror and suspense of what was happening throughout the city.

Looking down the deserted O'Connell Street with the dead horse lying as it was shot under the lancer on Monday, desolation, one thought, had come on the city so gay and normal but a few days ago. It was awful to contemplate what was happening and which of your friends were in the thick of the fray.

A youth crossed over the roof at the back to ask for aid for Mr. Mackenzie, who was accidentally shot. Mr. Mackenzie escaped all the terrors of the Lusitania disaster, to be struck by a stray bullet falling at the back of the house. The doctor told us he saw poor old Fitzsimmon, the old Clontarf tram man, with a band on his left arm, walk up O'Connell Street, and by the aid of glasses saw him enter the G.P.O.—poor half-cracked fanatic, he entered the building to die with all the others. (He left the tram company after 30 years' service because someone made a complaint about him and he couldn't stand such an insult. He had a precise, somewhat affected way of calling out each road as he passed, and always called "St. Lawrence Road—the lodger's road," to the disgust of those who lived there.)

I write this as I sit in the parlour at No. 5 Cavendish Row, from the window of which I can command a view of O'Connell Street and can see the flag of the Irish Republic still floating at the G.P.O. Please God, out of all the carnage of destruction may come good and that it may open the eyes of England to the fact that there must be something rotten in the government of this country to make such a thing possible in the twentieth century, and in the midst of troubles abroad.

FRIDAY (FIFTH DAY OF THE RISING):

All was quiet in the streets and a sentry standing at the drinking fountain opposite shouted out "Far back out of that" to anyone coming down the square from Findlater's Church direction.

Shots were heard down the street as the soldiers had not been able to as yet gain an entrance to the G.P.O. A dog raced up O'Connell Street and a soldier fired and hit it.

About five o'clock the roof of the G.P.O. took fire and then the shooting began in real earnest. Regiments of soldiers had been passing through Parnell Street during the afternoon on their way to surround the Henry Street block for fear of any of those taking part in the G.P.O. might escape. When they saw some of those in the building hasten away as if to make their escape, the military instantly set to work to set the whole block on fire and succeeded in doing so. A fire the like of which was never seen in Ireland before was the result.

Some hours later the roof of the G.P.O. fell in with a crash, and a mighty cauldron of flames rushed up into the skies. All the while, through the smoke, every now and then the little green flag still waved from its post, defying the flames.

The glare from the G.P.O. lit up the heart of the city.

Just as darkness closed in I saw that the little flag had disappeared and the fire still burned freely within the grey stone shell of the ruined building.