One of the many things I recall gives a clear idea of the untiring and
never-ending enthusiasm of the countess. She realized one day that the
Christmas-cards usually sold in Ireland were "made in Germany," and
since the war was on, had been supplanted by cards "made in England."
She sat down at once to design Irish Christmas-cards for the holiday
season of 1916. But when that Christmas came around she was in prison,
and the cards were--no one can say where.
When I left Dublin to return to my teaching in Glasgow, they made me
promise that I would come back whenever they sent for me, probably just
before Easter.
IV
When I told my mother on my return of the plans for Easter, she shook
her head.
"There never was an Irish rising that some one didn't betray it," she
said. "It was so in '67, and before that in 1798."
But she did not appreciate the spirit I had found in Dublin. I told her
that all were united, rich and poor, dock-workers, school-teachers,
poets, and bar-tenders. They were working together; I believed they
would stand and fight together. And I was right.
It was not easy to go quietly back to teaching mathematics and hear only
now and then what was going on in Dublin. Fortunately, Glasgow is two
fifths Irish. Indeed, there are as many Irish there as in Dublin itself,
and the spirit among the younger generation is perhaps more intense
because we are a little to one side and thus afraid of becoming
outsiders.
In February, when conscription came to Scotland, there was nothing for
members of the Irish Volunteers in Glasgow to do but to disappear. I
knew one lad of seventeen whose parents, though Irish, wanted him to
volunteer in the service of the empire. He refused, telling them his
life belonged to Ireland. He went over to fight at the time of the
rising, and served a year in prison afterward.
Whenever an Irish Volunteer was notified to report for service in the
Glasgow contingent of the British army, he would slip across the same
night to Ireland, and go to Kimmage, where a camp was maintained for
these boys. While the British military authorities were hunting for them
in Scotland and calling them "slackers," they were drilling and
practising at the target, or making ammunition for a cause they believed
in and for which they were ready to die.
Presently news came from Dublin that James Connolly had written a play
entitled, "Under which Flag?" We heard also that when it was produced,
it had a great effect upon the public. In this play the hero, during the
last act, chooses the flag of the republic and the final curtain falls.
Some one told Mr. Connolly he ought to write another act to show what
happened afterward. His reply was that another act would have to be
written by "all of us together."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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