Uncommon Valour Read online

  Sir Francis Fletcher Vane of the Royal Munster Fusiliers responded to Oates’ request for assistance. Vane assembled all the men not on duty, about fifty in all, many of them from the Royal Irish Rifles, with no fewer than six officers from five different regiments.31 Two members of the Royal Irish Constabulary, Constable Christopher Miller and Constable Martin Meany accompanied the soldiers. They were conspicuous in their uniforms as they wore army khaki breeches and the police cap and tunic. Both men were attending the school of instruction for non-commissioned officers at the barracks. They marched out of the barracks and found the convoy in great trouble about two miles away. The men were already suffering from battle fatigue after their engagement at Mount Street Bridge the day before and Lieutenant Colonel Oates was greatly distracted.

  Captain Martyn returned to the column having completed his task and received further orders from Oates:

  The advance guard to clear the Auxiliary Workhouse (3), and occupy as much as possible of the South Dublin Union, with a view to distracting the enemy’s attention whilst the transport crossed the bridge.32

  Lieutenant Colonel Oates handed over command of the assault on the Union to Sir Francis Fletcher Vane. Major Vane wore a soft peaked cap and carried a swagger stick that he used to direct his men to their positions. As the troops made ready, the column made contact with Lieutenant Monk Gibbon who was newly arrived from Kingsbridge Station with a number of men. As the lieutenant’s unit approached the bridge from the station direction they came under fire from a section of the Sherwood Foresters. As his men took cover, the lieutenant called out and the firing ceased. By mistakenly firing on their own soldiers the British troops showed that they were nervous and suffering from exhaustion. Approaching the column, Gibbon offered his services to Major Vane who was glad to have more experienced troops under his command. Vane directed the men to where he could see a rebel flag flying from the rooftop. That was to be their target. Entering the Union grounds, British soldiers moved north, spreading out in a skirmish line across the open ground. Advancing in short runs, about five sections of twenty men each moved towards the Nurses’ Home.

  Major Vane and Captain Martyn led the first wave that moved swiftly through the Auxiliary Workhouse (3) at the Rialto end, which they found unoccupied. In close support were Captain Oates and another section advancing in a series of rushes. Wave after wave of soldiers advanced through the Union gaining seven to eight yards in each advancing movement. As each section took up position they concentrated their fire on the windows of the buildings occupied by the Volunteers, enabling the other sections to move forward. Major Vane described the assault in a letter to his wife:

  Well I have been in some fights but never in such an odd one as this, for we commenced by open fighting in fields and so far as right flank was concerned fought up to literally three feet of the enemy. But everything was bizarre on that day for we advanced through a convent where the nuns were all praying and expecting to be shot poor creatures, then through the wards of imbeciles who were all shrieking – and through one of poor old people. To get from one door to another was a gymnastic feat because you had to run the gauntlet of the snipers.33

  Having passed through the chapel in the convent (8), the soldiers had 250 yards of open ground to negotiate. Lieutenant Gibbon and his unit remained in support, lying on the grass to the rear. When the advance troop reached an outcrop of buildings, they summoned the support group. Dashing through the grounds, Lieutenant Gibbon made his way into a small orchard near the rear of the Nurses’ Home. Volunteer sentries were the first to open fire on the khaki figures as the shout of ‘alarm, stand to’ was given by the Volunteer lookouts. As Gibbon’s men took cover, the air was filled with shattering noise and confusion. Men shouted to one another, gunfire rattled out from the buildings and explosions cracked throughout the complex. Lance Corporal Chapman, gamekeeper to the Duke of Newcastle, was shot and killed as he advanced towards the Volunteers’ position.

  A number of the Volunteer garrison had been engaged in wall-boring operations in the buildings between the front offices over the main gate at James’s Street (14) and the Nurses’ Home (10). When this was completed, the pierced walls enabled the Volunteers to move freely from the offices to headquarters at the Nurses’ Home. When they heard the shooting, they grabbed their rifles and rushed to their positions in the Nurses’ Home. A well-directed and concentrated fire was being maintained against all the windows to the rear of the building by the British. Many of the bullets entered the rooms diagonally, splitting the brickwork at the sides of the windows, preventing the Volunteers from returning fire. The machine-gunners on the roof of the Royal Hospital added to the intense fire that was now being directed into the Union complex.

  The gunfire was so intense that the rooms in the Nurses’ Home soon filled with dense clouds of plaster dust. Bullets flew through the back windows, entered the rooms and exited through the front of the building. The Volunteers crouched low behind the granite walls of the building for cover. Volunteer James Coughlan, unable to return fire, moved out from the rear room to the first landing that overlooked the front entrance of the Nurses’ Home. Looking over the porch barricade, his field of fire covered the windows at the side of the front door. Taking cover behind a sand-bagged emplacement on the landing, he was joined by Douglas fFrench Mullen and Jack Doherty. Khaki figures darted across the front of the building and the Volunteers opened a rapid fire.

  Some British soldiers entered the wards (11) that were opposite the Nurses’ Home. The ward staff incorrectly reported that the Irish Volunteers numbered in the region of 200 men. After breaking the windows, the British soldiers opened fire in an attempt to cover a frontal assault on the Volunteer headquarters. The frontage of the Nurses’ Home was raked by a terrible concentration of rifle fire. A party of soldiers broke cover and charged across the square towards the Nurses’ Home. They were repulsed and retreated suffering heavy casualties, one of whom, Constable Meany, was severely wounded. This scenario was repeated a number of times.

  Volunteer Peadar Doyle noticed that the barricade at the front door had been tampered with and reported this to Commandant Ceannt. Both men made a desperate dash to the entrance. As they put their shoulders to the now open door in an attempt to close it, they felt a huge force pushing from the other side. Constable Miller of the Royal Irish Constabulary had seen the door open and was now forcing his way in. Constable Christopher Miller was thirty years old and originally from County Limerick. He had eight years and three months of service with the RIC. As he heaved on the door Ceannt and Doyle slid across the floor as they lost their footing. The RIC man was almost six foot tall and of a strong build. He was gaining the upper hand and the door was slowly opening. Then Ceannt stuck his automatic pistol out through the gap in the door and squeezed the trigger. The policeman was hit and he staggered backwards a few yards before collapsing. The Volunteers managed to close the door and secure the position.34 Lieutenant Monk Gibbon was called upon to give aid to the stricken policeman. He picked up a water bottle and darted across in front of the Volunteers’ position, but as soon as he reached Miller’s body he could see by his pallor that he was dead.

  Cathal Brugha, from his vantage point at the window on the first floor of the Nurses’ Home, directed fire into the advancing British troops. From their vantage point overlooking a warren of side streets, alleyways, windows and rooftops, the Volunteers fired on any soldier who moved into range.

  A squad of eight British soldiers moved across the square reaching the Bakehouse (18) between the Nurses’ Home and the Boardroom (14). One soldier was shot dead as he entered the building and another was severely wounded. Leaving two men to hold that position and provide covering fire, the remaining four crept out into a courtyard that flanked the Nurses’ Home. They gained cover by moving along the wall of the yard until they came to a barred window that was eight feet from the ground. Removing the pin from a hand grenade they dropped it through the window into the dormitory buildi
ng that was adjacent to the Nurses’ Home. Unknown to the soldiers a number of patients had taken refuge from the fighting there and as the missile exploded one Union patient was killed and eight others were wounded.

  Major Vane soon realised that a frontal assault on the Nurses’ Home was hopeless, as the building had been well barricaded. He ordered Captain Martyn to outflank the defenders by entering the long series of buildings (9) to the left of the Volunteer headquarters. This building housed a number of wards for the elderly. Entering the cold stone building he led his section into a labyrinth of corridors until they reached the dividing wall between the buildings. They were separated from the Nurses’ Home by a brick wall nine inches thick. Captain Martyn sent some of his men for tools to breach the wall and they returned with a small coal pick (an implement with a hammer at one end and pick at the other). The wall was soon breached and two soldiers began crawling through the narrow entrance. This action went unnoticed due to the din of battle.

  From their vantage point on the landing within the Nurses’ Home, the Volunteers saw a khaki cap appear through the hole in the wall. Jack Doherty opened fire and the British soldier slumped as he was hit. The other Volunteers opened fire, the intensity of their actions causing their rifles to overheat. Spent cartridges littered the floor.

  James Coughlan discarded his rifle and emptied the contents of his Webley revolver into the barricade. He shouted to fFrench Mullen to throw a grenade. The captain lit the fuse on a canister grenade, leaned over the landing and loudly counted ‘one, two, three’ before tossing the grenade towards the barricade. Coughlan cursed fFrench Mullen for unintentionally warning the enemy of the grenade. Both men took cover behind their sandbags as the grenade exploded.35 Major Vane shouted: ‘Who is there? I am Major Vane.’

  The only reply was: ‘Go to hell.’36

  During a pause in the firing, Captain Martyn, Corporal Walker and another soldier removed the body of the dead Sherwood Forester who was blocking the breach and crawled through the opening in the wall into the Nurses’ Home. They found themselves in the porch area facing a large barricade that almost reached the ceiling. The concussive thud of an exploding grenade showered Captain Martyn and the hallway with debris. The intervening ground between the breached wall and the barricade was swept by rifle fire from the landing. Cover could only be obtained immediately under the barricade. Captain Oates shouted through the breach, ‘Are you all right there?’

  ‘Yes, but we will need some bombs,’ came the reply.

  A satchel of hand grenades was handed through the breached wall. As Captain Oates came through the breach he could see an office doorway. Suddenly the soldier who had entered with Captain Martyn and Corporal Walker bolted and ran out from the doorway near the porch and back towards the hole in the wall. Captain Oates thought the soldier was running away, but as he turned to follow the man, the soldier stumbled and fell near the gap in the wall. Oates bent down and rolled the soldier over; the man had been shot through the heart and must have been dead as he came through the doorway.

  The scene Captain Oates stepped into was one of utter chaos. As his eyes grew accustomed to the smoke and dust of the battle he saw he was standing in a lobby. To his right side was the main door of the Nurses’ Home that had been barricaded shut. To his left was a wide doorway with an ornamental archway at its top that divided the lobby. Erected in the archway was a barricade that almost reached the apex of the arch. It was constructed of sandbags, stones, bedsteads, mattresses and office furniture. The top of this obstruction was almost in line with the lower landing of the stairway. Opposite to where he stood, he could see a doorway that led into an office. Captain Martyn and Corporal Walker lay on the floor just under the barricade, near the office door. Corporal Walker lobbed a grenade, but the missile failed to clear the top of the barricade and rolled back amongst the British soldiers. The grenade rolled across the floor, its seven-second fuse burning profusely. Martyn rushed forward, seized the bomb and threw it. The grenade cleared the barricade and exploded in the small hallway beyond with a deafening blast.

  Captain Oates armed with a Colt automatic pistol opened fire towards the Volunteer position on the landing. Plaster dust choked the men as defenders and attackers opened fire in the small hallway. The smell of cordite was suffocating. In an attempt to outflank the Volunteers’ barricade, Captains Martyn and Oates and Corporal Walker crawled on their stomachs into the room beside the lobby. Here Captain Martyn broke the window with his revolver but found it was barred from the outside. They realised they would have to crawl back to the hole in the wall and work their way around the outside of the building. The British officers loaded their weapons before attempting to move back to the breach in the wall.

  On the ground floor, Lieutenant Cosgrave opened fire on the British soldiers crouching behind the barricade. Grenades exploded inside the building showering the defenders with bricks and plaster. Cathal Brugha was on the second floor, in the front rooms of the Nurses’ Home. The Volunteers hung tenaciously to their position while Brugha urged them on. Walking between the rooms and the landing he continuously risked his life with the casual abandon of those who think they are invincible.

  Commandant Ceannt had seen the military occupy the Bakehouse (18) and knew that his line of retreat was in danger of being cut off. Hurrying out the rear door of the Nurses’ Home, Ceannt’s intention was to call up the sixteen Volunteers positioned over the James’s Street entrance (14) as reinforcements. As he left the building, panicky shouts of ‘the British are in’ filled the air, causing many of the Volunteers to withdraw from their positions. Explosions tore gaps in the roof and amidst the din of battle, the shouts of soldiers and Volunteers echoed throughout the building. These shouts were mistaken for an order to retreat and the Volunteers began to withdraw. In disbelief some retreated down the stairs, firing as they went. As he attempted to cross the hall, a bomb splinter hit Captain fFrench Mullen, wounding him in the leg. Assisted by the other Volunteers, fFrench Mullen and the section withdrew to the back rooms of the Nurses’ Home and then on towards the boardroom to join forces with Ceannt. They met in the dormitory between the two buildings and prepared for what they believed would be the final assault on their position.

  The barricade at the front door of the Nurses’ Home had been left without cover when the Volunteers began to retreat. However, Cathal Brugha had not heard the shouts and he remained on the second floor. Gun at the ready, Brugha moved out onto the landing on the second floor and began to descend the stairway towards the hall.

  Chapter 8

  Thursday, 27 April 1916

  The Final Hours

  Lying on the floor behind the barricade on the ground floor of the Nurses’ Home, Captain Martyn pulled the pin on a hand grenade and catapulted it over the top towards the Volunteers’ now vacated position. The grenade landed on the stairway and began to roll. He could hear it amidst the din of battle as it rolled down the wooden stairs. As the fuse expired, Cathal Brugha, crossing the lower landing, walked into the explosion. His body convulsed as he was thrown against the wall by the force of the blast. He started to collapse on the stairs, his body torn by pieces of shrapnel. Captain Oates then opened fire with his automatic pistol, hitting Brugha as he fell.

  Dazed and confused, Brugha began to crawl down the remaining steps in an attempt to get out of range of the British. The smoke and plaster dust covered his descent. He dragged his shattered body down the remaining steps and across the hallway, leaving a trail of blood smeared on the floor. He hauled himself into a small kitchen off the hallway, propping himself against the wall directly facing the barricade. He raised his ‘Peter the Painter’ automatic pistol and fired wildly into the barricade and at the ceiling. Bullets ricocheted off the walls. From his position, Brugha prepared to hold off the military single-handed.

  Captain Martyn could hear a scraping on the other side of the barricade as Brugha dragged himself along the floor. This was followed by a tremendous blast of gunfire that force
d the British officers to lie prone. Pinned down by Brugha’s inaccurate but intense fire, Captain Martyn was unable to breach the barricade.

  The Volunteers who had withdrawn into the dormitory at the rear of the Nurses’ Home prepared for the final assault on their position and a fight to the death. From the top floor of the Nurses’ Home, Volunteer J.V. Joyce fired into the ranks of the British soldiers who had taken up position in the Bakehouse. Running short of ammunition he moved from room to room in order to replenish his bandolier. He was amazed to find that he was the last Volunteer on the top storey of the building. As Joyce descended the stairs, he saw Brugha lying on the ground, a mass of wounds, firing at the British soldiers on the other side of the barricade. Joyce moved to Brugha’s side and exclaimed, ‘Good God, what’s happened?’ Brugha extracted his pocket watch and requested that it be given to his wife. He then asked for a drink of water. Pocketing the watch, Joyce entered the small kitchen and brought a cup of water back to Brugha. The wounded vice-commandant sipped the water and then told Joyce to get back to the others.37

  A shout of ‘Surrender’ came from the far side of the barricade. Brugha said, ‘Tell Ceannt I will hold out as long as I can.’ Brugha raised his gun and opened fire on the barricade shouting defiantly to the British to come forward and attack. Crouching low, Joyce moved around the foot of the stairs and out into the open courtyard at the rear of the Nurses’ Home. Across the yard, a hole had been bored through the wall that led to the offices over James’s Street (14). Entering the breach, Joyce found the remainder of the 4th Battalion gathered there.