t thank my publishers
and Mr. O'Keefe, of O'Keefe's Press-cutting Agency; and Mr. George
Atkinson, who designed the cover, and Mr. Crampton Walker; and also Mr.
Marsh, the manager of the Coliseum, with whom I had several dangerous
adventures while in Sackville Street; and lastly, those among my Sinn
Fein friends who enabled me to get an inner view of a movement to which
I have endeavoured to do the best of justice--that of a true statement
of their intentions.

L. G. REDMOND-HOWARD.
T.C.D.,
1916.

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION iii

CHAPTER THE FIRST

A BOLT FROM THE BLUE 1

CHAPTER THE SECOND

JUST BEFORE THE BATTLE 14

CHAPTER THE THIRD

BATTLE 27

CHAPTER THE FOURTH

SURRENDER--COLLAPSE 40

CHAPTER THE FIFTH

AFTERMATH 54

CHAPTER THE SIXTH

SINN FEIN--GERMAN GOLD 69

CHAPTER THE SEVENTH

MINDS AND MEN 82

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

REMOTER CAUSES OF THE REBELLION 98

CHAPTER THE NINTH

REFLECTIONS TOWARDS RECONSTRUCTION 120

SIX DAYS OF THE IRISH REPUBLIC

CHAPTER THE FIRST

A BOLT FROM THE BLUE

Those who were in Dublin on Easter Monday 1916 were privileged to
witness a scene which for dramatic setting and for paradoxical
conception is certainly the most extraordinary of any of the long line
of rebellions in Irish history, for at a time when it seemed almost
universally admitted that "Separatism" was from an economic, racial, and
military point of view utterly impossible, there suddenly arose without
warning, without apparent reason, and as if from nowhere, a body of men,
fully armed and completely organized, who within the space of a single
hour had captured every strategic point in the capital, and to its utter
amazement held it up in the name of a new "Republic," in much the same
way as a highwayman of old used to hold up coaches on Hounslow Heath.

It was in very deed a bolt from the blue. The first intimation that the
general public got of the rising was the sudden spread of the wildest
rumours--"Dublin Castle has just been taken by the Irish Volunteers,"
"The Post Office ha