The readiness of the ruling class to order killing, the small value the ruling class has ever set upon human life, is in marked contrast to the reluctance of all revolutionists to shed blood.1
One of the nurses working in the temporary Red Cross hospital in Dublin Castle, during and after the Rising, left an interesting account of Connolly’s time in their care:
The arrival of James Connolly caused an unusual stir. From the window I could see him lying on the stretcher, his hands crossed, his head hidden from view by the archway. The stretcher was on the ground and at either side stood three of his officers, dressed in the Volunteer uniform; a guard of about thirty soldiers stood around. The scene did not change for ten minutes or more; they were arranging where he should be brought, and a small ward in the Officers’ Quarters, where he could be carefully guarded, was decided upon. The nurses in charge of him acknowledged, without exception, that no one could have been more considerate, or have given less trouble.2
From the archway entrance, topped by the statue of Justice, he was carried directly across Upper Castle Yard and brought up the stairs to the first floor.
A Capuchin friar, Father Aloysius, noted on 1 May that he went to visit Connolly in Dublin Castle, where he was under armed guard. ‘The soldiers left and I was alone with Connolly. I told him I had given my word I would act only as a priest and not in any political capacity. “I know that, Father,” he said. “You would not get this privilege otherwise, and it is as a priest I want to see you. I have seen and heard of the brave conduct of the priests and nuns during the week and I believe they are the best friends of the workers.” I then heard Connolly’s confession.’
The following morning, Tuesday 2 May, he gave Holy Communion to Connolly. Although Connolly had not practised his faith for many years, he often insisted that religious and socialist beliefs were not mutually exclusive. However, we must be guarded against any claims by a Church hostile to socialism that Connolly found religion at the last minute.
Later, the same priest went to see Pearse in Kilmainham: ‘You will be glad to know that I gave Holy Communion to James Connolly this morning,’ he said to Pearse. ‘Thank God,’ replied Pearse, ‘it is the only thing I was anxious about.’3 Pearse, it appears, had very little to be anxious about, despite the fact that he was due to be executed the following day.
Nora, who visited Connolly in the castle, recorded that her father was clearly a dying man.
Gangrene had set in, and he had little chance of living. He could not even sit up, and was unable to lift more than his head from the pillow, and his shoulders a little bit. The gangrene began affecting his whole body.4
Most of the leaders of the Easter Rising were tried in Richmond Barracks, but Connolly had the dubious pleasure of having his court martial held around his bed in the hospital in Dublin Castle. The irony of being tended by British doctors and nurses so that he might get well enough to be shot was not lost on Connolly. Nor was it necessarily a new low within the British army to shoot a wounded man. In fact, Connolly mentioned to Nora the case of Gideon Scheepers, a sick Boer Commandant who was strapped to a chair and executed.5 Connolly was not given the benefit of a proper trial by jury with a defence council. In fact, the trials were held in camera and were, in reality, a foregone conclusion. Connolly pleaded not guilty, not in an attempt to save his life, but because he simply was not guilty of the charges that were brought against him. The following details are taken from the James Connolly trial file held in the British Public Records Office, Kew; it was released to the public only in 1999.6
The British had a typed ‘Form for Assembly and Proceedings of Field General Court Martial on Active Service’. This was signed the day before Connolly’s trial and was a requirement if ‘Ordinary General Court Martial’ was ‘not practicable’ or if the offence was of a major character. General Maxwell, who had arrived in Ireland towards the end of the Rising, was the commander of the forces in Ireland. He convened the Field General Court Martial of Connolly and appointed a president in the guise of Colonel D Sapte, who was joined by two members, Lieutenant Colonel AM Bent and Major FW Woodward.
James Connolly was prisoner number ninety and the court martial was convened around his bed on 9 May 1916 in the Red Cross Hospital, Dublin Castle. He was charged with two offences.
The first:
Did an act to wit did take part in an armed rebellion and in the waging of war against His Majesty the King, such an act being of such a nature as to be calculated to be prejudicial to the Defence of the Realm and being done with the intention and for the purpose of assisting the enemy.
The second:
Did attempt to cause disaffection among the civilian population of His Majesty.
Connolly entered a plea of ‘Not Guilty’ on both charges and the members of the court and witnesses were duly sworn in.
The ‘Summary of Evidence’ details the evidence of the first witness for the prosecution. Second Lieutenant SL King of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers:
In Sackville Street Dublin about 11a.m. on the 25 April 1916, I was taken prisoner by the rebels upstairs in the General Post Office. There were two other officers confined in the same room. There were many armed rebels in the building. I saw firing from the Hotel Metropole. I saw the accused, in uniform and equipped with a revolver etc., going across to the Hotel Metropole. I saw him pointing out as if to order a window to be broken in the Hotel which was done, and fire opened from the window. I saw the accused on 3 or 4 occasions near the General Post Office.
King was cross-examined by Connolly, who was in no fit state to be defending himself, but was determined to have his say. Of course, his words were unrecorded, but we can get an idea of what he said from the replies to his questions.
Lieutenant King then stated:
I was in the Post Office from 25 to 28 April when I was marched out of it by one of the rebels. We were very well treated generally by the rebels. The window broken gave a good field of fire across Sackville Street. The uniform the accused wore was the green Volunteer uniform with rings on his arm, and a wideawake hat. I cannot remember any feathers in it.
The witness was clearly unable to identify Connolly’s darker green uniform as that of the Irish Citizen Army, but Connolly was more concerned with recording the fact that British soldiers fired on the POWs during the evacuation of the GPO.
King replied to this re-examination:
When we were put out of the Post Office we were told to run for our lives and we were fired on by the rebels, and two of us were hit. I cannot state whether the British troops were firing at the time.
The fact is that British prisoners were released and given the choice to either make a break for their own ‘lines’ or stick with their captors who were making a break for Moore Street. The POWs were taken to the Henry Street exit where The O’Rahilly bid farewell to them.
Connaught Ranger Private Peter Richardson told a newspaper reporter:
We were placed near the door where we could rush for our liberty. Then shaking hands with each one of us in turn, The O’Rahilly said, “Good-bye … I may never see you again. Good bye and good luck to you.” Then the door was pulled open. Lieutenant Chalmers led the party, with a Dublin Fusilier following close behind … He was running west towards Moore Street when a machine gun opened up and caught him in the thigh. Beside him the Dublin Fusilier fell dead with a bullet in his head.7
As it was only the British who had machine guns during the Rising, this was an unfortunate case of ‘friendly fire’, but Connolly wanted to make sure that it was recorded that the POWs were not abused, beaten or shot by the army of the Irish Republic, hence his reason for cross-examining the witnesses.
The second witness for the prosecution was Captain HE de Courcy Wheeler, who stated:
I saw the accused, James Connolly, in bed at the Dublin Castle Hospital on the 29 April 1916 between 3 and 4 p.m. I had previously seen the rebel leader P.H. Pearse surrender at the top of Moore Street off Great Britain Street. I produce a document which I brought to the accused from Pearse, which he signed in my presence.
This was the ‘Surrender Document’ which was ‘Marked X, signed and attached’, but is missing from the file in Kew. There is a note attached to the file which says: ‘Received from the Judge Advocate General a document signed P. H. Pearse, James Connolly and Thomas MacDonagh, which was attached as exhibit X to the proceedings of the FGCM held at Dublin on James Connolly on 9 May 1916.’ The note is dated 2 July 1918 and is signed by ‘J.G. Maxwell’.
The third witness for the prosecution called was Second Lieutenant SH Jackson of the Third Royal Irish Regiment who stated:
On the 1 May 1916 I searched the rebel John MacBride and found on him the document I produce to the court. It purports to be signed by James Connolly and I consider the signature the same as that shown to me by the Court.
This document, marked ‘Y’, is still on the Kew file; it was the communiqué issued by Connolly on Easter Monday afternoon – not that this was a crucial piece of evidence against Connolly, but the question remains as to why Mac-Bride, a man of great intelligence and military experience, would retain an incriminating document.
The fourth and final witness for the prosecution was Second Lieutenant AD Chalmers of the Fourteenth Royal Fusiliers. Chalmers stated:
About 12.10 p.m. on 24 April 1916 I was in the General Post Office Dublin when about 300 armed rebels entered and seized the Post Office and made me prisoner. I saw the accused present among them. The accused ordered me to be tied up in the telephone box. This was done. I was kept there about 3 hours. One of the rebels came and asked me how I was getting on.8 I replied I was about suffocated.
Apparently the man went to the accused. I then heard the accused say “I don’t care a damn what you do with him.” The words were obviously concerned with me. I was kept in the General Post Office until 28 April 1916. On the 25 and 26 April from the window of the room I was in, I saw the accused giving orders about firing from the Hotel Metropole. I heard him give orders for firing on more than one occasion.
Lieutenant Chalmers had been the author of his own misfortune. Desmond Ryan, who had fought in the GPO and wrote about his experiences during the revolutionary period, recalled that Chalmers, instead of making himself scarce, had ‘bandied indignant words with Plunkett, Brennan-Whitmore and Michael Collins outside on the very steps.’ He was brought into the GPO by a group of Volunteers and tied up by the future leader of the IRA, Michael Collins.
Connolly cross-examined him on the treatment of prisoners and seems to have enquired whether he had heard the accused ‘order the witness to be tied up’. Chalmers replied:
I think I last saw the accused on the 26 April. Up to that, I had frequently seen him. The rebels did their best for us whilst we were in the Post Office. The accused was in dark green uniform with a distinctive hat with cock’s feathers in it. The distinctive uniform was very noticeable from the other Volunteer uniforms. I saw the accused close while he was in the Post office. I did not actually hear the accused order me to be tied up in the box. One of the rebels went up to the accused and on his return I was tied up.
Connolly had prepared a written defence; the document is marked ‘Z’ and is in Connolly’s handwriting. He cleverly made another copy, which differs only slightly from this one, and is known as ‘Connolly’s Last Statement’, which he slipped to Nora on 11 May. Before Connolly read the document, he asked ‘that a copy of these proceedings shall be given to his wife.’ The president of the court martial directed him to make a formal application to Headquarters Irish Command – not an easy task for a prisoner lying in bed with a shattered ankle. He read out his defence:
I do not wish to make any defence except against charges of wanton cruelty to prisoners. These trifling allegations that have been made in that direction if they record facts that really happened deal only with the almost unavoidable incidents of a hurried uprising, and overthrowing of long established authorities, and no where show evidence of a set purpose to wantonly injure unarmed prisoners.
We went out to break the connection between this country and the British Empire and to establish an Irish Republic. We believe that the call we thus issued to the people of Ireland was a nobler call in a holier cause than any call issued to them during this war having any connection with the war.
We succeeded in proving that Irishmen are ready to die endeavouring to win for Ireland their national rights which the British Government has been asking them to die to win for Belgium. As long as that remains the case, the cause of Irish freedom is safe. Believing that the British Government has no right in Ireland, never had any right in Ireland, and never can have any right in Ireland, the presence in any one generation of even a respectable minority of Irishmen ready to die to affirm that truth makes that Government for ever a usurpation and a crime against human progress. I personally thank God that I have lived to see the day when thousands of Irishmen and boys, and hundreds of Irish women and girls, were equally ready to affirm that truth and seal it with their lives if necessary.9
Connolly was found ‘Not Guilty’ of the second charge, the less serious charge of causing disaffection among the civilian population. He was, however, found guilty of the first charge ‘in the waging of war against His Majesty’, being ‘for the purpose of assisting the enemy.’
The nurse that tended him was clearly quite taken with her patient.
About a week after his arrival he had an operation on his leg. All through, his behaviour was that of an idealist. He was calm and composed during the court-martial, and he is reported to have said: “You can shoot me if you like, but I am dying for my country.” He showed no sign of weakness till his wife was brought to say goodbye to him, the night he was to be shot.10
On Thursday, 11 May, at midnight, Nora Connolly and her mother, Lillie, were brought by ambulance to Dublin Castle to see James Connolly. Nora had a good idea why they were being brought there, but it seems Lillie was ever hopeful that some leniency might yet be shown to her wounded husband. Nora recalled that Connolly turned to them when they entered his room:
‘Well, Lillie. I suppose you know what this means?’
‘James, James. It’s not that – it’s not that,’ mama wailed.
‘Yes, Lillie,’ he said, patting her hand. ‘I fell asleep to-night for the first time. I was awakened at eleven and told I was to be shot at dawn.’
Mama was kneeling, her head on the bed, sobbing heartbreakingly.
Daddy laid his hand on her head.
‘Don’t cry, Lillie,’ he pleaded. ‘You’ll unman me.’
‘But your beautiful life, James,’ mama sobbed. ‘Your beautiful life.’
‘Hasn’t it been a full life, Lillie,’ he said. ‘And isn’t this a good end?’
Connolly slipped a piece of paper into Nora’s hand, the copy of his last statement that he read at his trial. An officer announced that they had five more minutes, which overwhelmed Lillie and she briefly collapsed. Connolly tried to clasp her in his arms but he was immobilised by his wounds. His daughter laid her head on his chest and he whispered, ‘Goodbye, Nora.’
The officer called out that the time was up. Nora went to Lillie but could not move her. ‘She stood as if turned to stone, and with white face looked at daddy.’ A nurse put her arm around Lillie and guided them towards the door. Nora and Lillie ‘stood on the threshold, taking a last look at him.’ They ‘would never see him again.’11
Sometime after 1am that morning, on Friday, 12 May, Father Aloysius arrived and heard Connolly’s confession and administered Holy Communion. Connolly was then given a final meal in his bed. As he was lifted into a stretcher, some of the nurses were in tears and one nurse in particular, Lucinda McDermott, held his hand as the guards carried him down the stairs to Upper Castle Yard.12 He was lifted into a waiting ambulance in a stretcher, which he lay on for the journey to Kilmainham Gaol. Father Aloysius and another Capuchin friar, Father Sebastian, accompanied him in the rear of the ambulance.13 When they reached Kilmainham a blindfold was placed around his head whilst he was still in the ambulance, but his hands were not tied.
The side entrance into the stone-breakers’ yard in the jail was opened wide enough to allow the ambulance to drive right in. Connolly was removed from the stretcher and, as he was unable to stand unaided, was placed in a chair, wearing only his pyjamas. His head was lolling backwards; the injection of morphine, which had been administered in Dublin Castle by the military doctor, affected his senses.
The firing squads used in Dublin in 1916 consisted of twelve men and one sergeant, under the direction of an officer who loaded the rifles for the men. Of the thirteen bullets used, one was a blank or ‘conscience’ round; therefore each man was left not knowing whether he had personally shot the victim or not.14
Ready. Present. Fire. These were the last words that Connolly heard.
Two shots hit his head and one shot entered his abdomen. The rest of the firing squad aimed for the piece of white paper pinned to Connolly’s chest. The intensity of their firing was such that a large chunk of the back of the chair was blown away.
Father Eugene McCarthy, who had attended Seán Mac-Diarmada, executed a half an hour earlier, anointed Connolly immediately after the shooting.
Although it would have provided some small comfort to his family, they were denied the right to bury Connolly after he was executed. He was buried in the cemetery attached to a British military prison at Arbour Hill.
Nora recalled that they would not even return any part of his uniform except for his blood-stained under-shirt. When Lillie spoke to the chief-of-intelligence, she was informed that they were keeping his clothes as evidence. She wryly enquired as to what evidence they required now that they had shot him.15
1 Workers’ Republic, 27 November 1915.
2 1916 Rebellion Handbook, p13.
3 The Capuchin Annual, 1966, p288.
4 Connolly O’Brien, We Shall Rise Again, p27.
5 Jooste, Graham & Webster, Roger, Innocent Blood, Capetown, Spearhead, 2002, pp149–164. Gideon Scheepers was executed in Graff-Reniet on 18 January 1902.
6 Public Records Office, Kew, England, PRO WO71/354.
7 Caufield, L Max, The Easter Rebellion, Dublin, Gill & Macmillan, 1963, p257.
8 It was The O’Rahilly who was concerned for the lieutenant’s well-being.
9 PRO WO71/354.
10 1916 Rebellion Handbook, p13.
11 Connolly O’Brien, Portrait of a Rebel Father, pp320–323.
12 Nevin, James Connolly, A Full Life, pp667–668.
13 The Capuchin Annual, 1966, p290.
14 War diary of Capt. A.A. Dickson, Sherwood Foresters Archives, England.
15 Connolly O’Brien, We Shall Rise Again, p34.