“I am an Irishman, and (pointing to the shells that were bursting through the windows in front of us) I hate to see that being done to other Irishmen.”

He had come from some part of the country to spend the Easter Holidays in Dublin, and was unable to leave town again.

The labouring man—­he was about fifty-six years of age—­spoke very quietly and collectedly about the insurrection.  He was a type with whom I had come very little in contact, and I was surprised to find how simple and good his speech was, and how calm his ideas.  He thought labour was in this movement to a greater extent than was imagined.  I mentioned that Liberty Hall had been blown up, and that the garrison had either surrendered or been killed.  He replied that a gunboat had that morning come up the river and had blown Liberty Hall into smash, but, he added, there were no men in it.  All the Labour Volunteers had marched with Connolly into the Post Office.

He said the Labour Volunteers might possibly number about one thousand men, but that it would be quite safe to say eight hundred, and he held that the Labour Volunteers, or the Citizens’ Army, as they called themselves, had always been careful not to reveal their numbers.  They had always announced that they possessed about two hundred and fifty men, and had never paraded any more than that number at any one time.  Workingmen, he continued, knew that the men who marched were always different men.  The police knew it, too, but they thought that the Citizens Army was the most deserted-from force in the world.

The men, however, were not deserters—­you don’t, he said, desert a man like Connolly, and they were merely taking their turn at being drilled and disciplined.  They were raised against the police who, in the big strike of two years ago, had acted towards them with unparallelled savagery, and the men had determined that the police would never again find them thus disorganised.

This man believed that every member of the Citizen Army had marched with their leader.

“The men, I know,” said he, “would not be afraid of anything, and,” he continued, “they are in the Post Office now.”

“What chance have they?”

“None,” he replied, “and they never said they had, and they never thought they would have any.”

“How long do you think they’ll be able to hold out?”

He nodded towards the house that had been bombarded by heavy guns.

“That will root them out of it quick enough,” was his reply.

“I’m going home,” said he then, “the people will be wondering if I’m dead or alive,” and he walked away from that sad street, as I did myself a few minutes afterwards.

CHAPTER IV.

Thursday.

Again, the rumours greeted one.  This place had fallen and had not fallen.  Such a position had been captured by the soldiers; recaptured by the Volunteers, and had not been attacked at all.  But certainly fighting was proceeding.  Up Mount Street, the rifle volleys were continuous, and the coming and going of ambulance cars from that direction were continuous also.  Some spoke of pitched battles on the bridge, and said that as yet the advantage lay with the Volunteers.