At eleven o’clock the rain ceased, and to it succeeded a beautiful night, gusty with wind, and packed with sailing clouds and stars.  We were expecting visitors this night, but the sound of guns may have warned most people away.  Three only came, and with them we listened from my window to the guns at the Green challenging and replying to each other, and to where, further away, the Trinity snipers were crackling, and beyond again to the sounds of war from Sackville Street.  The firing was fairly heavy, and often the short rattle of machine guns could be heard.

One of the stories told was that the Volunteers had taken the South Dublin Union Workhouse, occupied it, and trenched the grounds.  They were heavily attacked by the military, who, at a loss of 150 men, took the place.  The tale went that towards the close the officer in command offered them terms of surrender, but the Volunteers replied that they were not there to surrender.  They were there to be killed.  The garrison consisted of fifty men, and the story said that fifty men were killed.

CHAPTER III

Wednesday

It was three o’clock before I got to sleep last night, and during the hours machine guns and rifle firing had been continuous.

This morning the sun is shining brilliantly, and the movement in the streets possesses more of animation than it has done.  The movement ends always in a knot of people, and folk go from group to group vainly seeking information, and quite content if the rumour they presently gather differs even a little from the one they have just communicated.

The first statement I heard was that the Green had been taken by the military; the second that it had been re-taken; the third that it had not been taken at all.  The facts at last emerged that the Green had not been occupied by the soldiers, but that the Volunteers had retreated from it into a house which commanded it.  This was found to be the College of Surgeons, and from the windows and roof of this College they were sniping.  A machine gun was mounted on the roof; other machine guns, however, opposed them from the roofs of the Shelbourne Hotel, the United Service Club, and the Alexandra Club.  Thus a triangular duel opened between these positions across the trees of the Park.

Through the railings of the Green some rifles and bandoliers could be seen lying on the ground, as also the deserted trenches and snipers’ holes.  Small boys bolted in to see these sights and bolted out again with bullets quickening their feet.  Small boys do not believe that people will really kill them, but small boys were killed.

The dead horse was still lying stiff and lamentable on the footpath.

This morning a gunboat came up the Liffey and helped to bombard Liberty Hall.  The Hall is breeched and useless.  Rumour says that it was empty at the time, and that Connolly with his men had marched long before to the Post Office and the Green.  The same source of information relates that three thousand Volunteers came from Belfast on an excursion train and that they marched into the Post Office.