Count Plunkett's house was
entered by the military who remained there for a very long time. Passing
home about two minutes after Proclamation hour I was pursued for the
whole of Fitzwilliam Square by bullets. They buzzed into the roadway
beside me, and the sound as they whistled near was curious. The sound is
something like that made by a very swift saw, and one gets the
impression that as well as being very swift they are very heavy.

Snipers are undoubtedly on the roofs opposite my house, and they are not
asleep on these roofs. Possibly it is difficult to communicate with
these isolated bands the news of their companions' surrender, but it is
likely they will learn, by the diminution of fire in other quarters that
their work is over.

In the morning on looking from my window I saw four policemen marching
into the street. They were the first I had seen for a week. Soon now the
military tale will finish, the police story will commence, the political
story will recommence, and, perhaps, the weeks that follow this one will
sow the seed of more hatred than so many centuries will be able to
uproot again, for although Irish people do not greatly fear the military
they fear the police, and they have very good reason to do so.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE INSURRECTION IS OVER.

The Insurrection is over, and it is worth asking what has happened, how
it has happened, and why it happened?

The first question is easily answered. The finest part of our city has
been blown to smithereens, and burned into ashes. Soldiers amongst us
who have served abroad say that the ruin of this quarter is more
complete than any thing they have seen at Ypres, than anything they have
seen anywhere in France or Flanders. A great number of our men and women
and children, Volunteers and civilians confounded alike, are dead, and
some fifty thousand men who have been moved with military equipment to
our land are now being removed therefrom. The English nation has been
disorganised no more than as they were affected by the transport of
these men and material. That is what happened, and it is all that
happened.

How it happened is another matter, and one which, perhaps, will not be
made clear for years. All we know in Dublin is that our city burst into
a kind of spontaneous war; that we lived through it during one singular
week, and that it faded away and disappeared almost as swiftly as it had
come. The men who knew about it are,