At the same time I cannot help blaming Irishmen as well for the catastrophe, for politicians of all parties have been tending towards isolating their followers in the old ancestral bigotries, instead of drawing them together in sympathy, as Mr. William O'Brien has been advocating for years, with the result that we are now threatened with permanent constitutional separation for another generation. It is a mistake which all the younger men deplore, and which could easily have been avoided by bringing in the men of Ulster into the national deliberations, as they have every right, in the name of their Southern followers, and then giving them the option to veto the application of any measure to their own districts--which would have been the best guarantee of justice which the Nationalists could have given and the most they had a right to expect of England, whose political position of dependence upon the Irish vote is a scandal of empire. These things, however, are beyond the scope of the present pages, and I shall confine myself with thanking those of my many friends who have helped me in compiling this volume--notably Councillor Keogh, who was with me during the Battle of Mount Street Bridge, and others, whose criticisms helped me considerably. Likewise I must 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