THE NAME “Blackadder” is now indelibly linked to the BBC comedy series in which Rowan Atkinson’s cynical anti-hero sent up several generations of English courtiers and military buffoons, from the Wars of the Roses to the Western Front.
But as a book called Dublin in Rebellion: A Directory 1913-1923reminds us, a soldier called Blackadder played a real role in the 1916 Rising, and he was anything but comic. As the brigadier general who presided over the courts martial of the leaders, he merits two mentions in the book, both suggesting a man troubled by what military duty required of him.
In her memoirs, the Countess of Fingal recalled him arriving for dinner one night, "greatly depressed" by a task he had performed. "I have had to condemn one of the finest characters I have ever come across," he explained. "There must be something very wrong in the state of things that makes a man like that a rebel." The man was Pádraig Pearse. And elsewhere, Blackadder is also quoted admiring another of the condemned, the "vainglorious lout" to whom Yeats would later apologise in verse. "All the men behaved well," wrote Blackadder, "but the one who stands out and the most soldierly was John MacBride. He, on entering, stood to attention facing us and in his eyes I could read: 'You are soldiers. I am one. You have won. I have lost. Do your worst'." The general's comments hinted that although the leaders of the Rising had indeed lost their battle, they might yet win the war: a point made explicitly a few days later by George Bernard Shaw. In a letter – also included in the book – to the Daily News, Shaw refuted an editorial that had suggested the lack of public protest amounted to support for the executions.
“As the government shot the prisoners first and told the public about it later, there was no opportunity for effective protest,” he wrote.
And describing the rebellion as “a fair fight in everything except the enormous odds my countrymen had to face”. Shaw also made a far-sighted prediction: “The shot Irishmen will now take their place beside Emmet and the Manchester Martyrs in Ireland, and beside the heroes of Poland and Serbia and Belgium in Europe; and nothing in heaven or earth can prevent it.” Dublin in Rebellion is a sprawling but engaging book, which its author, Joseph EA Connell Jnr wisely advises against reading from cover to cover. It is more of a compendium to dip into, at random: featuring as it does letters, speeches, lists of those who fought, and even a Dublin street directory from modern Ireland’s most turbulent decade, the years starting with the 1913 Lockout.
The haphazard nature of the material is most evident in the 220-page street directory. Its format justifies itself occasionally in such nuggets as “Rebel Road”, the nickname given to Belgrave Road, Rathmines, where Joseph Mary Plunkett once lived at No 3, Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington at No 7, Kathleen Lynn and Madeleine ffrench Mullen at No 9, and IRB members Robert and Una Brennan at No 10.
Also under B, the book informs us, entertainingly, that Toner’s of Baggot Street was the only Dublin pub Yeats ever entered; notwithstanding the large number of licensed premises that now feature his portrait. But then you have the N section, where among the one- and two-line entries for North Circular Road (No 422: “Last Dublin home of Sean O’Casey”), we suddenly stumble upon Mountjoy Jail, which
detains us for the next four pages.
A US lawyer, Connell admits to a certain amount of “hero-worship” in his accumulation of such detail of Ireland’s revolutionary period, while resisting the fiction that more than a few of the protagonists had a common purpose, or even a firm idea of what they intended to do.
There was much passion involved, he rightly says, but most people were merely “feeling their way toward a revolt”. And maybe the randomness with which the author presents his research reflects the chaos of the period. In any case, even the most well-worn of his material still carries a lot of emotional power.
However weary you are of the subject, you may struggle not to be moved by the eve-of-execution letter of Michael Mallin to his family. A little less soldierly than MacBride, and less in love with martyrdom than Pearse, he admits to being unmanned by the recent visit of his children, and especially by thoughts of the two-year-old son – “my little man, my little man” – he will never hold again.
Yet, even then, he spares a thought for his supposed enemies. “I find no fault with the soldiers or police,” he writes. “I forgive them all from the bottom of my heart. Pray for all the souls who fell in this fight, Irish and English.”
The 1913 Lockout will surely feature in exchanges at the Larkin Hedge School, which begins tonight in Liberty Hall, Dublin, and continues all day tomorrow. But the event, organised by the Clé Club of traditional musicians and singers, is particularly designed to mark the centenary of the ITGWU, founded by Jim Larkin in 1909. A single fee of €10 gains admission to any or all of the weekend’s events, which range from political discussions to fiddle classes, with a concert each night. More information is available from www.cleclub.wetpaint.com.
fmcnally@irishtimes.com