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A Forgotten Small Nationality
By Francis Sheehy Skeffington
British Militarism As I Have Known It
By Mrs. Hanna Sheehy Skeffington
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Wilson Library
DEMOCRACY IN IRELAND
1913
SINCE
A Forgotten Small Nationality.
By Francis Sheehy Skeffington
Verbatim Copy of the Report of the Royal Commission to Par-
liament on the Murder of Francis Sheehy Skeffington and
others During Easter Week, 1916.
Postscriptum.
British Militarism as I Have Known It.
By Hanna Sheehy Skeffington
•WILS
346
DA 960
•D41cx
1918
THE DONNELLY PRESS
164 East 37th Street
New York City

F. SHEEHY SKEFFINGTON
AFU 2166
PHOTO BY FOLEY
A FORGOTTEN SMALL NATIONALITY
Ireland and the War
By F. SHEEHY SKEFFINGTON
The following article by Mr. Francis Sheehy Skeffington is reprinted by
permission of the Century Magazine Company. Four months after it ap-
peared, the American newspapers published the startling news that the
author was one of many civilians deliberately murdered by English troops
and officers, during the uprising in Dublin of Easter week.
As he was a
pacifist, and had lent his best efforts to the quieting of the populace and the
prevention of looting, this "Prussianization of Ireland created consternation”
when the appeal of his widow for mercy for other innocent husbands was
read in the House of Commons.
A scholar and a litterateur, Mr. Skeffington's writing is the best portrait
of the man, and is a fearful comment on the heavy hand of England in
Ireland.
(Century Magazine, February, 1916)
England has so successfully hypnotized the world into regard-
ing the neighboring conquered island as an itegral part of Great
Britain that even Americans gasp at the mention of Irish independ-
ence. Home rule they understand, but independence! "How could
Ireland maintain an independent existence?" they ask. "How could
you defend yourselves against all the great nations?" I do not feel
under any obligation to answer this question, because that objection,
if recognized as valid, would make an end of the existence of any
small nationality whatever. All of them, from their very nature, are
subject to the perils and disadvantages of independent sovereignty.
I neither deny nor minimize these. But the consensus of civilized
opinion is now agreed that they, are entirely outweighed by the béne-
fits which complete self-government confers upon the small nation
itself, and enables it to confer on humanity. If the reader will not
admit this, I will not stay to argue the matter with him. I will
merely refer him to the arguments in vogue in favor of the inde-
pendence of Belgium as against Germany, or of the Scandinavian
countries as against Russia.
Neither will I stop to argue with those who say that Ireland
should be content with home rule. Ireland has not got home rule,
and, unless England is sufficiently humbled in this war to make Ire-
5
land's friendship worth buying, is not likely to get it. But what if it
had? Bohemia has home rule within the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Is Bohemia contented? It is notorious that the great mass of the
Czechs are eagerly longing for the moment when Russia will inflict
such a blow upon the Austro-Hungarian Empire as may enable Bo-
hemia to become an independent central European state. Again, if
Bohemia, why not Ireland?
There is an idea in some quarters, sedulously encouraged by
England, with an eye on the friendship of the United States, that
whatever may have been the case in the past, the English Govern-
ment in Ireland has improved of late years. Let us therefore ex-
amine its conduct in Ireland during the months immediately pre-
ceding the war.
.
噜
​A Liberal Government was in office in England, pledged to
give home rule to Ireland. On the strength of that pledge, Mr.
John Redmond and his party kept that Government in power for
over four years, and enabled it to pass not merely the act for curbing
the power of the House of Lords, but other measures, such as the
National Insurance Act, in which Ireland had no interest or which
were actually detrimental to Ireland. In Ulster Sir Edward Carson
led, armed, and drilled a body of 80,000 men, pledged to resist by
force the enactment of home rule. Their drilling and arming were
in themselves unlawful; their avowed object was still more so, in-
volving defiance of the enactments of that imperial Parliament to
which they professed the utmost loyalty. Nevertheless, the Liberal
Government allowed this open propaganda of rebellion, this aris-
tocratically led and financed movement, to proceed unchecked.
After two years of this, the Nationalists of the South awoke,
After all, they said, we outnumber these Carsonites by about four to
one. If they choose to introduce the factor of physical force, if they
can employ it successfully to intimidate the English Government, so
that its leading members say that the coercion of Ulster is “unthink-
able," then we, too, will cease to rely upon weapons of persuasion
alone. We, too, will arm and drill, and will face the English Gov-
ernment with the only argument it appears to understand.
they formed the Irish Volunteers.
And
That was in November, 1913. Within a month the Government,
which for two years had allowed the Carsonites to get in all the arms
they wished, issued an order prohibiting the importation of any arms
or ammunition into Ireland.
THERE ARE SE
K
When Ireland is taunted, as a New York evening newspaper
has taunted it, with its "poltroonery" in not taking advantage of the
present war to seize freedom, these facts have to be remembered.
.
6
Anything in the nature of arming or drilling was sternly repressed
in Ireland until Carson began it. The "Volunteers" and the "Ter-
ritorials" of England had no counterpart in Ireland, where the peo-
ple were never trusted with arms. Carson and his followers were
left untouched, because it was known that, however they might
declaim against a particular English Government, in effect they stood
for that English domination in Ireland which every Government,
whether it calls itself Liberal or Tory, is careful to maintain as the
very sheet-anchor of the British Empire. But the arming of Irish
Nationalists, who were pledged to maintain the rights and liberties
of Ireland only, was a different matter. The gravely perturbed
English Government could not suppress the movement altogether-
Carson's immunity had made that impossible, but, with an ingenious
show of impartiality as between the two regions, it prohibited all
import of arms. Carson's men had been arming for two years; the
Nationalists had just begun to organize. The strict impartiality of
the order will appeal to those who now protest against any embargo
on the export of munitions from the United States.
Both regions promptly started gun-running. In April, 1914,
the biggest gun-getting operation up till then was carried out by
the Ulstermen. The Fanny, the yacht which brought the guns, was
talked about in the press for a fortnight before it reached Ulster;
the patrols of the English navy were watching the coasts; yet some-
how the Fanny reached Larne, unloaded its cargo, and got away
again without any interference from the gunboat patrols. At Larne
it was met by a host of automobiles, which took away the rifles. To
facilitate the operation, the Ulster Volunteers seized Larne harbor,
imprisoned the harbor master and police, and took the entire con-
trol of the town into their hands. Another ship-load was disem-
barked on the same night at another Ulster port. Here a too-zealous
customs official offered resistance; he died of heart disease. Nobody
was identified, punished, or even prosecuted for this flagrant de-
fiance of the law, although the episode was described by Mr. Asquith
in the House of Commons as an "unprecedented outrage," and
pledges were given that due punishment would be meted out to its
perpetrators. Nothing was done. After all, these were the faithful
"English garrison in Ireland"; for the moment the politicians must
pretend to oppose them, but in reality they were doing England's
work and helping to make more difficult, or perhaps impossible, any
measure of home rule for Ireland.
Very different was the attitude of the Government and its offi-
cials toward Nationalistic gun-running. Here the utmost vigilanc
was displayed. Gunboats patroled the shores of Dublin and Wick-
7
:
low, as well as the western coast, unceasingly. Even when Mr. Red--
mond, by order of the English Government (as is generally believed
in Ireland) asserted his right to command the Irish Volunteers,
which he had not founded; even when the founders of the organiza-
tion yielded to Mr. Redmond and gave his nominees half the seats
on their committee, still, Mr. Redmond could not persuade the Gov-
ernment to relax the ban on the importation of arms. Perhaps he
did not try very hard. He was as much afraid of the Volunteers as:
the Government was; his only wish was to keep them under his con-
trol, lest they might become an instrument for those Nationalists
who looked beyond Parliament sham battles to the complete libera-
tion of Ireland.
.
This portion in the Volunteers continued gun-running under the
double disadvantage of having to deceive both the Government and
their own Redmonite colleagues on the Joint Executive Committee.
On July 26, just after the Austrian ultimatum to Servia, the famous
gun-running exploit of Howth took place. The Dublin Volunteers
made a Sunday route-march to Howth (nine miles), none but a few
leaders knowing the object. As they entered the village, a yacht,
steered by a woman, came alongside the pier. The English patrol-
boat was not in the neighborhood, a conveniently disseminated rumor
of gun-running in Wexford having sent it off on a false scent. This
yacht's arrival had not been boomed in advance, like the Fanny's,
otherwise vigilance of the patrol would not have been so easy
to elude as the Ulstermen had found it. The Volunteers, following
strictly the Ulster precedent, took possession of the pier, excluded
the police and harbor officials,-they did not go so far as to imprison
them in their own offices and barracks, as had been done, with only
a shadow of resistance, at Larne, disembarked the guns, and
marched off to Dublin with them. Meantime the wires had been
humming, and Dublin Castle was on the alert. At Clontarf, in the
outskirts of the city, the Volunteers marching with unloaded rifles,
were met by a combined force of police and soldiers. A parley took
place. The Government's official, Harrel, demanded the surrender of
the rifles; the Volunteer leaders refused. Harrel ordered tre police
to take the rifles. Some of the police refused, and the remainder
acted with evident reluctance, an unheard-of thing in Ireland, but a
symptom of the general perception of the deliberate favoritism
shown by the Government to the Ulstermen as compared with the
Irish Volunteers. The soldiers, a company of the King's Own Scot-
tish Borderers, were then ordered to charge the Volunteers with
fixed bayonets. Some Volunteers were stabbed, and a massacre
seemed inevitable, when a fresh parley was entered upon. By the
4.
8
time it was over, Harrel discovered that only the front rank of the
Volunteers still stood their ground in front of him; the remainder,
in obedience to a rapidly disseminated order, "Save the guns,” had
executed a strategic retirement. Harrel then drew off his force, and
the remnant of the Volunteers completed their march unmolested, no
guns having been lost.
As the soldiers marched back to the barracks, the Dublin popu-
lace assailed them with curses and later with stones. The troops re-
taliated with a series of bayonet-charges, which further enraged the
crowd, in which wild rumors of the fight at Clontarf had spread.
The soldiers were undoubtedly peppered pretty severely with stones;
but the assailants were all unarmed, and were largely composed of
women and children. There was no justification whatever for the
action taken by the soldiery. They turned and fired at the crowd
without giving any warning, without even firing a preliminary volley
over their heads. Four people were killed, one man, two women, one
boy. Several others were wounded, of whom one subsequently died.
Nobody was punished; a whitewashing inquiry was held, but mean-
time the Scottish borderers had "distinguished themselves" by get-
ting wiped out in the retreat from Mons, and no disciplinary meas-
ures were taken. Harrel, the assistant commissioner of the Dublin
police, who had taken it upon himself to call out the soldiers in the
first instance, was made a temporary scapegoat; but he is now again
in the service of the Government in Ireland, helping in the secret-
service department, which looks after political affairs.
.
-
I have dwelt upon this incident of the struggle at Clontarf and
the shooting at Bachelor's Walk because it happened before the war.
Some people in America, I find, think that England's present
severity to Ireland is merely a result of the state of war. When the
anniversary of Bachelor's Walk came round this year, the people
proposed to put up a commemorative tablet, but the military for-
bade.
A week after the Bachelor's Walk massacre (the Irish Zabern,
as we call it) the war against "German militarism" broke out. Mr.
Redmond, in the House of Commons, had the incredible audacity to
commit the Irish people to the support of this war. He and his
party were returned to Parliament for one object only, to secure
home rule. At no Irish election did any other question become an
issue. Repeatedly had Mr. Redmond, when called upon to help
some progressive cause, sheltered himself behind his lack of “man-
date"; his mandate, he declared, was for home rule only. Yet with-
out any mandate he ventured to commit Ireland to the support of
England in a European war. By doing so he missed the greatest
9
opportunity that has ever come to an Irish statesman. Had he, on
August 3, 1914, spoken as follows in the imperial Parliament: "I
have no mandate from the Irish people as to what our attitude
should be in the event of a European war; the question has never
been discussed between us. My colleagues and I are now going home
to Ireland to consult our constituents as to what Ireland's attitude
should be"-had he spoken thus, and followed up such a speech by
walking out of the House and returning to Ireland, the English Gov-
ernment would have been on its knees to him within a fortnight, and
he would have been able to command, as the price of his and Ireland's
aid, something much better than a mutilated home-rule act on the
statute-book, which can never come into operation. He should, in
short, have acted after the fashion of those Balkan statesmen, who
care nothing for either of the warring parties, but look with a single
eye to the interest of their own country.
A period of storm and confusion followed Mr. Redmond's be-
trayal of Ireland's interests to England. The Government tried to
avoid even putting the home-rule bill on the statute-book; Redmond,
driven by public opinion, increasingly stormy in Ireland, was obliged
to insist upon that as a minimum. But in passing the act, the Gov-
ernment also passed a suspensory act, holding it up for a year, or
longer, if so ordered by the Government at the end of the year; and
they also declared that they would not in any circumstance “coerce
Ulster." With the "home rule for three-quarters of Ireland” in the
form of a scrap of paper, Mr. Redmond tried to induce his followers
to join the army. The immediate result was a split in the Irish
Volunteers. The founders of the Volunteers, who had accepted Red-
mondite co-operation on the committee so long as no recruiting plank
was adopted, now expelled the Redmondite nominees from the com-
mittee, seized the Volunteer offices in Kildare street, Dublin, barri-
caded and garrisoned them, and prepared to hold them against all
comers. The Redmondite portion formed a new body, the "National
Volunteers," who never troubled much about drilling or arming, but
were, and are, merely a branch of the Redmondite political machine.
Their devotion to their leader, however, did not go so far as to in-
duce them to follow his advice and enter the English army, as was
shown when 30,000 of them paraded before Mr. Redmond last Eas-
ter (1915), men who, if they had taken Mr. Redmond's words seri-
ously, ought to have been in Flanders or at the Dardanelles.
Much confusion was introduced into the Irish situation by the
case of Belgium, and by the unscrupulous use made by the English
recruiting agencies of Ireland's traditional and historic sympathy
with that country and with France. Catholic Ireland must fight to
1
10
save Catholic Belgium, was the cry. We countered that by asking
why should we not fight for Catholic Galicia, which was then in pos-
session of the anti-Catholic Russians. Mr. Ginnell, the only Irish
member of Parliament who is not attached to any political machine,
and also the only one who opposes recruiting, has repeatedly asked
the Government to bring pressuse to bear on its Russian allies, with
a view to getting for the Cardinal Archbishop of Lemberg as good
treatment as that accorded by the Germans to Cardinal Archbishop
of Mechlin; but the Government has decided that it would not be
proper to "interefere with the internal affairs of our ally."
1
Louvain was the recruiters' trump-card. "Remember," the Irish
were adjured, "that your priests went to Louvain to be educated
when they could not get educated in their own land." Some one with
an inconvenient historical memory replied by a remainder that it was
English persecution that prevented Catholic priests from getting
education in Ireland and compelled them to go to Louvain. Similar
audacity was attempted in the case of France. Ireland was adjured
to fight for France because France had of old helped Ireland-
against England! Another cry was, "The brutal Germans are the
descendants of those Hessian troops who helped to put down the
rising of 1798." But who brought the Hessians to Ireland and paid
them? The English Government. In this fashion has ever recruit-
ing argument proved a boomerang. Despite the subsidizing of the
daily and the suppression of the weekly press; despite the pressure
exerted by all the political machines and all the influence of social
and economic resources; despite the prosecution, under the Defense
of the Realm Act, of any who venture to advise an opposite course;
despite military law, suspension of trial by jury, arbitrary imprison-
ment, and deportation, the Irish people have stood fast. Four hun-
dred thousand Irishmen of military age have stood their ground
quietly and tenaciously, and have refused to be stampeded into a
war in which they have no concern.
.
For it is the essence of the Irish case that Ireland has no con-
cern in this war. The pretense that it was being waged in behalf of
Belgium and of the principle of small nationalities imposed on a few,
but not for long; the frank declaration of the London "Times" on
March 8 that England is in this war for her own interests and for
the preservation of her dominance over the seas, is generally recog-
nized as stating the position accurately. Even if Belgium were the
*
*Note. In the autumn of 1917, two years after this article was written,
it still remained true that approximately this number of Irishmen of military
age have refused to join in a war for democracy, as the issue has now come
to be defined, while England continues to refuse democracy to Ireland, and
governs there, as she always has, by conquest and without "the consent of
the governed."
11
cause of the war instead of an incident in it, there would still be no
reason why Ireland, of all countries, should plunge into the fray.
Ireland is the most depopulated and impoverished country in Europe,
thanks to the beneficent English rule of the last century, and has no
blood or money to spare; and if Holland and Denmark and Sweden
and Switzerland, all richer and more densely populated than Ireland,
still feel that it is their duty to keep out of the war, a fortiori it is
the duty of Irish statesmen to use every effort to keep their people
out of it. Ireland's highest need is peace and the peaceful develop-
ment of her resources; not a man can be spared for any chivalric ad-
venture. Belgium, hard pressed as it is, has not yet suffered a tithe
of what has been endured by Ireland at the hands of England, and
Ireland is still bleeding at every pore from the wounds England in-
flicted. Thus even were the Belgian excuse true, there would be
higher reasons of self-interest to keep Irish attention concentrated on
our own problems.
Belgium apart, the other objects of the war-the real objects—
have still less claim on Ireland. England's domination of the seas
has been used not accidentally, but of set purpose, to discourage
Irish trade, to keep derelict Ireland's magnificent harbors, the finest
natural harbors in western Europe, and to prevent the growth of
any mercantile marine in Ireland. Ireland has never been a partner
in the empire or its advantages; she has been a Helot dragged at
the chariot-tail of the empire. As it has been put, “Ireland belongs
to the empire, and the empire belongs to England."
The latest instance of deliberate English interference with an
Irish trading interest, before the war, was the stoppage of the
Queenstown call. Formerly all the great transatlantic liners called
at Queenstown both on the eastern and western journeys, to the
great benefit of mail service not merely from Ireland, but from some
parts of Great Britain as well. The mail-carrying companies, one
after another, stopped this call at Queenstown, with the assent of
the English Government, despite unanimous protests from all Ire-
land, north as well as south. A committee of patriotic Irish people,
which included Mrs. J. R. Green, widow of the eminent historian,
and Sir Roger Casement, was formed for the purpose of pressing the
Government to reestablish the Queenstown call. Failing in that, as
a brilliant counterstroke, this committee induced the Hamburg-
American Line to arrange that its liners should call at Queenstown.
The English Foreign Office was thunderstruck. Secret negotiations
were at once entered upon to prevent Ireland from being thus re-
stored to its proper place on the transatlantic highway. The Ger-
man Government, naturally valuing England's friendship more than
M
12
that of poor, weak Ireland, intervened. The Hamburg-American
liners never called at Queenstown, despite their publicly announced
intention of doing so. This, by the way, may be added to the cate-
gory of German diplomatic blunders. Had Germany thus dra-
matically intervened to grant Ireland a trading favor that England
had refused, the way would have been much clearer before Irishmen
when the war broke out. I have little doubt that the English Foreign
Office, already foreseeing war, had this in mind when it exerted itself
to prevent Germany from showing Ireland this manifestation of
favor.
Without any illusions, then, about Germany, but with a clear
vision of the English Empire as the incubus on Ireland, Irish Na-
tionalists decided from the start of the war that it was Ireland's in-
terest and duty to remain neutral as far as possible. In these days
of small nationalities Ireland's right to take an independent line on
the war cannot be contested, at all events by those who are fighting
"German militarism." Being held by force by the empire, and
plentifully garrisoned both by troops and armed police, the police
have been refused permission to join the army, though many of them
have volunteered, because the Government wants them to keep Ire-
land down,-it was not possible for Ireland to be neutral in the full
sense. Irishmen who had joined the army in time of peace, through
economic pressure for the most part, had to fulfill their duties as
reservists; Ireland's heavy burden of the war taxation could not be
evaded. But, as one of Ireland's best known literary men put it,
Ireland preserved “a moral and intellectual neutrality"; and the in-
dividual sympathies of the people, while not "pro-German" in any
positive sense, were and are, distinctly anti-English.
.
Mr. Bonar Law said that if Canada or Australia was disinclined
to help the empire in this war, no English statesman would dream of
compelling them to do so. But Ireland's notorious and marked dis-
inclination to help was treated from the first as a crime, and the
sternest measures of repression were employed against those who
claimed Ireland's right, as a small nation, to settle the question for
itself. Since the outbreak of the war, the regime in Ireland has been
one of coercion tempered by dread of publicity. The English Gov-
ernment set two aims before itself: to suppress Irish discontent, and
at the same time convince the world that no Irish discontent existed.
These aims are not reconcilable, and the pursuit of both had led to
an extraordinary series of inconsistent and muddle-headed actions.
I cannot detail them all in this article.
The first attack was made on the independent press. The
daily press was reduced to subserviency, negatively by fear of hav-
13
ing its telegraphic supplies cut off, positively by huge sums paid for
recruiting advertisements by the English war office. The various Na-
tionalist weeklies had to be dealt with otherwise, as they could neither
be bribed nor intimidated. The method adopted was to strike at the
printer to march soldiers with fixed bayonets to the printing offices,
dismantle the plant, seize the type and the essential portions of the
printing machines, and carry them off to Dublin Castle without of-
fering the smallest compensation to the printer. This was done with-
out any process of law, on the mere arbitrary fiat of the military
authorities in Ireland. Seven papers-one daily, one bi-weekly, four
weeklies, and one monthly-were suppressed in Dublin by the actual
use of this method or by the threat of it. In no case was any prose-
cution directed against any of the writers or editors of the papers.
This was a case in which it was possible to achieve the maximum of
suppression with the minimum of publicity.
I have been asked in America "Does not the Defense of the
Realm Act, which confers such absolute power on the military au-
thorities, apply to Great Britain as well as to Ireland?" It does;
but the application is different. This is well illustrated by what took
place in the case of one of the papers suppressed, the "Irish Worker."
After it had been stopped by a military raid on the printing-works,
the proprietors got it printed in Glasgow. The military authorities
did not dare to interfere with the Scottish printers; they simply
waited until the copies of the paper arrived in Dublin for distribu-
tion, met the boat, and seized every copy.
A similar discrimination is shown in the stoppage of American
newspapers from entering Ireland. They are freely admitted into
England, even the "Irish World" and the "Gaelic American,"-
but are strictly censored in entering Ireland, and anything contain-
ing either news or opinions likely to "excite" the Irish people is not
permitted to pass through. At it was put by Mr. P. H. Pearse,
headmaster of Et. Edna's secondary school, Rathfarnham, at a meet-
ing last May: "Our isolation from the rest of the world is now
almost complete. Our books and papers cannot get out; the books
and papers of other nations cannot get in.”
At first the Defense of the Realm Act altogether abolished trial
by jury, substituted trial by court-martial for any offense under the
Act. Thanks to protests by English constitutional lawyers, the Gov-
ernment was obliged to modify this, and give to "British subjects"
tried under the act the option of claiming trial by jury. But a clause
was slipped in, saying, "This shall not apply in the case of offenses
tried by summary jurisdiction." The effect of this is that whenever
the military authorities wish to avoid trial by jury, they have only
14
to decide, which they have absolute power to do, that the case shall
be tried by "summary jurisdiction"; that is to say, by a paid magis-
trate, always a mere tool of Dublin Castle, without any jury or any
right of appeal to a jury.
Only one man charged under the Defense of the Realm Act has
been accorded trial by jury in Ireland. The history of his case is
instructive. John Hegarty was a post-office official with long service
and an excellent record. When the war broke out he was stationed
in Cork. He was ordered, without any accusation being made
against him, to leave Cork and take up a position in the postal service
in England. He refused, pointing out that his home and friends
were in Cork, and that there was no justification for arbitrarily turn-
ing him out. The answer of the postal department was to dismiss
him from the service without pension or compensation. Immediately
thereafter he was ordered by the military authorities to leave the city
of Cork. He obeyed, and retreated to a remote spot in the Cork
Mountains, in Ballingarry, where he proceeded to support himself
by agricultural labor. Within a few weeks the military ordered him
to leave the County of Cork, still without making any charge against
him or giving him any chance to defend himself in court. He went
to Enniscorthy, in the County of Wexford, and stayed with friends
there. Last February he was arrested in Enniscorthy, dragged from
his bed in the middle of the night, brought to Dublin, detained in a
military barracks for a month, then transferred to the civil authori-
ties and allowed trial by jury, but not by an Enniscorthy jury, which
would have been his right under the ordinary civil law. A long series
of charges was brought against him, including the writing of sedi-
tious notices and the possession of arms, ammunition, and explosives.
He was tried three times (between) April and June by three dif-
ferent juries; in each case the Crown and the judge made great
efforts to secure a conviction. Two of the juries acquitted him on two
different charges, the third disagreed. Then the military authori-
ties sent Major Price to Hegarty in Mountjoy Jail (I was in the
same jail at the time, and Hegarty told me the facts in the exercise
yard) and offered to release him if he would agree to go to America.
Hegarty refused. Then Major Price offered to release him if he
would agree to remain in some spot indicated by the military authori-
ties, and never leave it. Hegarty replied that he was willing to go
to Ballingarry, from which the military had driven him; and he was
finally permitted to return there, after refusing to sign an under-
taking that he would not go ten miles from Ballingarry without
leave.
15
One of the facts brought out in the Hegarty trial, which the
press, duly intimidated or bribed, did not report, was that for many
months no letter or parcel had reached Hegarty without being opened
and examined by the secret police while passing through the mails.
This process of "Grangerizing" has been carried to a fine art in
Ireland; not even in Russia (happily the verb should now read
"was”) there a more complete system of espionage on the corre-
spondence of all persons even remotely suspected of disaffection
toward the English rule of Ireland.
Hegarty's was the first and last case in which the military
authorities gave the option of trial by a jury to any prisoner charged
under the Defense of the Realm Act. The others were brought
before the paid magistrates, and automatically convicted and sen-
tenced. The sentences ranged from a fortnight (which was given to
a Dublin boy for kicking a recruiting-poster!) to twelve months, six
of them with hard labor, which was my sentence for making a speech
"calculated to prejudice recruiting." I went on hunger strike, and
was out in six days, with a license under the Cat and Mouse Act,
which renders me liable at any time for the rest of my life to rearrest
and imprisonment for the balance of my sentence without further
process of trial, a convenient method of getting rid of an opponent.*
Trial by jury had failed to get convictions; trial before paid
magistrates got convictions, but also gave undesirable publicity. The
batch of cases of which mine was one raised a storm not only in Ire-
land, but in England. In Dublin, meetings of protest were held out-
side the jail, and placards denouncing the sentences were posted all
over the city. Mr. G. Bernard Shaw wrote a letter, declaring that if
I deserved six months' hard labor, Lord Northcliffe deserved about
sixty years. Mr. Conal O'Riordan, the distinguished Irish dramatist
and novelist, wrote dissociating himself from my point of view, but
condemning my sentence; Mr. Robert Lynd, one of the ablest Irish
journalists on the London press (literary editor of the “Daily
News") did the same; and the indignation was steadily growing,
in range and intensity, throughout the English radical and labor
press up to the moment of my release.
One result of this was that the Dublin Castle authorities did
not rearrest me under the Cat and Mouse Act, although I had ignored
all the conditions of the license as to reporting my movements to the
police, and they did not interfere with my departure to America.
They made, however, an unsuccessful attempt, through Sir Horace
Plunkett, to exact from me a pledge that I would not speak nor write
·
*Note. This is the matter that rendered Mr. Skeffington persona non grata
to the English Government and led to his murder finally.
16.
anything against England in the United States. Another result was
that even trials by paid magistrates were found to give too much
publicity; accordingly, the next method tried was arbitrary deporta-
tion without trial or accusation. This had been adopted, in the form
of orders to leave a certain county or district, in many cases besides
Hegarty's, but now a wider extension was given to the method. In
July four organizers of the Irish Volunteers were ordered by the
military authorities to leave Ireland within a week. They refused.
The military then had to arrest them and try them; but to avoid
undesirable publicity, they charged them with disobeying a military
order, the grounds for the issue of such an order not being disclosed.
The judicial tools of the castle duly sentenced these four men to
three and four months' imprisonment.
Even this has not stopped publicity, for the Redmonite party
has been stung into protest against this latest arbitrary action, and
has demanded through Mr. Joseph Devlin, M. P., that these four
men get a new and fair trial, and that the grounds for the deporta-
tion order be openly stated at that trial.
Meanwhile O'Donovan Rossa, the old Fenian, has been buried
in Dublin with a great display of military force by the Irish Volun-
teers. The funeral oration, pronounced by Mr. Pearse, was a defiant
assertion of Ireland's unconquerable resolution to achieve independ-
ence. Recruiting for the English army, despite all kinds of pressure
and advertising languishes, while the recruiting for the Irish Volun-
teers is so brisk that the headquarters of that body cannot keep pace.
with it.
And when peace comes, Ireland, with the other small nations,
will stand at the doors of The Hague conference, and will claim her
rights from the community of nations. Shall peace bring freedom
to Belgium and Poland, perhaps to Finland and Bohemia, and not to
Ireland? Must Irish freedom be gained in blood, or will the comity
of nations, led by the United States, shame a weakened England into
putting into practice at home the principles which are so loudly
trumpeted for the benefit of Germany?
.
1
17

HANNA SHEEHY SKEFFINGTON AND SON OWEN
&
BRITISH MILITARISM AS I HAVE KNOWN IT
(Being a Digest of Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington's Lecture)
When first I learned the facts about my husband's murder I
made up my mind to come to America and tell the story to as many
audiences in the United States as I could reach.
F. Sheehy Skeffington was an anti-militarist, a fighting pacifist.
A man gentle and kindly even to his bitterest opponents, who always
ranged himself on the side of the weak against the strong, whether
the struggle was one of class, sex or 1ace domination. Together
with his strong fighting spirit, he had a marvelous, an unextinguish-
able good humor, a keen joy in life, a great faith in humanity and
a hope in the progress toward good.
F. SHEEHY SKEFFINGTON'S LAST DAYS
At the beginning of the outbreak on Easter Monday, my hus-
band was in Dublin. At the assault on Dublin Castle, a British
officer (Captain Pinfield) was reported gravely wounded and lying
bleeding to death near the castle gate. As there was considerable
cross-firing no one dared to go to his aid. My husband, learning
this, persuaded a chemist to go with him to the rescue, and crossed
the square under a hail of fire. He found, however, that some of his
friends had managed to drag the officer inside the Castle gate, there
being left only a pool of blood. When I remonstrated that night
with my husband on his running such a terrible risk, he replied sim-
ply, "I could not let anyone bleed to death while I could help,”-
characteristic of his simple heroism, cool courage and horror of
bloodshed.
All Monday and Tuesday he actively interested himself in pre-
venting looting by British sympathizers. He saved various shops,
posted civic guards and enlisted the help of many civilians and
priests. He talked to the crowds and held them off. But by Tues-
day evening everyone was afraid. He called a meeting that evening
to organize a civic police. I met him about 5:30. We had tea to-
gether and I went home by devious routes, for I was anxious about
my boy. I never again saw my husband.
21
THE ARREST
Because of my husband's work in behalf of the freedom of Ire-
land his arrest was desirable, from a British standpoint, and his
description had been circulated at the bridges, which he would have
to pass on his way home. Accordingly, when, between 7 and 8 he
passed Portobello, Lieut. Morris, who was in charge, had him
arrested. He was unarmed, carrying a walking stick and was walk-
ing quite alone in the middle of the road. As he came to the bridge
some of the crowd shouted his name. He was arrested and taken,
without resistance, to Portobello Barracks, and was searched and
questioned. No papers of an incriminating character were found on
him. The Adjutant (Lieut. Morgan) reported the arrest, with that
of others, at headquarters, saying that there was no charge against
Skeffington, and asking whether he would release him, with others
against whom there was no charge, that night. Orders were given
to release the others, but to detain Skeffington. The charge sheet
was produced at the Simon Commission hearing, and I saw it.
Against my husband's name was entered, "no charge.”
When told he was detained, he specially asked that I should be
informed, but this was refused. No message was ever allowed to
reach me, no notification of his death, of his first or second burial
was ever issued, and every scrap of information with regard to his
murder has had ever since to be extracted bit by bit from the re-
luctant authorities.
-
HOSTAGE INCIDENT.
About midnight Capt. Bowen-Colthurst came to the captain of
the guard, Lieut. Dobbin, and got him to hand over his prisoner.
This was an illegal act. The captain of the guard is supposed to
hand over no prisoner under his care (in what they call the "King's
Peace") without a written order from the commanding officer. My
husband was taken out as a hostage, his hands bound behind him
with a rope. He was then taken out with a raiding party in charge
of Capt. Bowen-Colthurst and Lieut. Leslie Wilson. As they went
they fired at various houses along the Rathmines Road to prevent
anyone appearing at the windows.
Opposite Rathmines Catholic Church they saw two boys (one a
lad called Coade, 17 years of age). They had been attending church
that evening and were going home. The captain questioned them
and asked them did they not know that martial law had been pro-
claimed, and that he could shoot them "like dogs." As Coade turned
away, Colthurst said, "Bash him" and one of the underling officers
broke his jaw bone with the butt end of his rifle, knocking him sense-
22
less. Then Colthurst whipped out his revolver and shot him as he
lay. He was left lying in his bood (the stain marking the spot for
several days); later he was taken by the ambulance to the Barracks,
where he died that night without ever regaining consciousness. My
husband protested against this horrible murder, and was told by
Colthurst to say his prayers (Capt. Colthurst was a very religious
man), as he would likely be the next.
A few yards further down another murder was committed by
Capt. Colthurst, but we have not been able to elicit any facts. The
Simon report states, “The evidence of the different witnesses can
only be reconciled by inferring that more than one case of shooting
occurred during the progress of Capt. Colthurst's party." It goes
on, “None of the evidence offered to us afforded any justification for
the shooting of Coade; it is, of course, a delusion to suppose that
martial law confers upon an officer the right to take human life, and
this delusion had in the present case tragic consequences.”
ފ
The evidence as to the above atrocities was carefully omitted at
the military court-martial held in June on Colthurst. It was only
against the strongest protest from the military that Sir John Simon
insisted on this case being investigated at the Commission. We
have evidence that at least two other murders by Colthurst later in
the week were perpetrated, but this was ruled out at the Commission
as “not within their scope."
My husband was then taken as far as the bridge and left by
Colthurst in charge of Lieut. Leslie Wilson. Colthurst said a prayer
over him (0 Lord God, if it shall please thee to take this man's life,
forgive him, for Christ's sake) and left instructions that if his party
was sniped at during their expedition that Skeffington was to be
shot forthwith. Leslie Wilson testified that he saw “nothing
strange" in the order and would have carried it out, and it was in
fact a common practice with these parties engaged in suppressing
liberty in Ireland to take such "hostages."
Capt. Colthurst then bombed Alderman James Jelly's premises
(they mistook him for his namesake Alderman Tom Kelly, a Sinn
Feiner). They sacked the premises and took prisoners the shopmen
and two editors, Dickson and McIntyre, who had taken refuge there.
They flung live bombs into the house without warning and wounded
one of the men. I have seen the house; it bears the marks of the
bullets and bombs yet. As there was no resistance from the unhappy
people, my husband was escorted back alive to the Barracks with
the two other editors. Dickson was a cripple. He was the editor of
"The Eye-Opener," McIntyre, editor of "The Searchlight." By a
strange irony both had been loyalist papers and Alderman James
· 23
Kelly had helped to recruit for the army, but owing to the initial
mistake, protests were useless. The soldiers confused "The Search-
light" with a paper called "The Spark" (a volunteer organ) and
editors' lives were cheap during those days. Dead editors tell no
tales-though sometimes their wives may. Again my husband was
flung (according to some, still bound) into his cell. Whether he was
further tortured that night I shall never know. Capt. Colthurst
spent, according to himself, the rest of the night in prayer. At three
o'clock he found a Bible text which seemd to him an inspiration—
from St. Luke's "Those who will not acknowledge Me, go ye forth
and slay them." He interpreted Me to mean the British Empire,
the message as a divine command.
THE MURDER
Shortly before ten o'clock the next morning (April 26th)
Colthurst again demanded my husband from the guard, together
with the two other editors. Lieuts. Toomey, Wilson and Dobbin
were present in charge of the guard with 18 men. He stated that he
was going to "shoot Skeffington and the others, that he thought 'it
was the right thing to do.' They were handed over accordingly,
and the rest of the story we pieced together from the evidence of the
other unhappy civilian prisoners who were in the guardroom and
heard what was going on, for the military naturally do their best to
prevent anything being known.
ވ. މ
•
It seems, according to the account, that my husband was taken
out from his locked cell by Colthurst. As he walked across the yard
(the yard was only about 12 feet long by 6 feet wide) he was shot
in the back without any warning whatever by the firing squad. While
he lay, the two other editors were marched out also and murdered in
cold blood without warning. The other prisoners listened eagerly the
while, and as they heard volley after volley ring out, said, “Another
poor fellow gone"! and thought their own turn would be next. Then
(after the second volley) they heard Dobbin say, about my husband,
to Sergeant Aldridge, "That man is not dead." My husband moved
as he lay on the ground. Dobbin then reported this fact to Colthurst,
who gave orders to "finish him off." Another firing squad was then
lined up and my husband's body was riddled as he lay on the ground.
After that the other prisoners heard washing and sweeping going on
for about two hours and when they were allowed into the yard it still
bore the marks of the murder. The wall was bloodstained and rid-
dled with bullets. No surgeon was called to examine the bodies; one
stated that "about noon" (two hours later) he visited the mortuary
and they were transferred to the mortuary. Up to the present mo-
24
ment I have never been able to find out how long my husband may
have lingered in anguish, or whether the second volley did its work.
more effectively than the first.
·
}
The British were careful to prevent my seeing the body or hav-
ing it medically examined, and later, when I attempted to have an
inquest held, permission was refused. At eleven Major Rosborough
again communicated with the garrison adjutant at headquarters and
with Dublin Castle. He was told-to bury the bodies. Capt. Col-
thurst sent in his report (as ordered by Rosborough), but he was
kept in command, and no reprimand made to him.
OTHER MURDERS
On the same day Capt. Colthurst was in charge of troops in
Camden street, when Councillor Richard O'Carroll surrendered (one
of the labor leaders in the Dublin City Council). He was marched
with his bands over his head to the back yard and Capt. Colthurst
shot him in the lung. When a soldier pityingly asked was he dead,
Capt. Colthurst said, "Never mind, he'll die later." He had him
dragged out into the street and left there to be later picked up by a
bread van. Ten days later O'Carroll died in great agony. For
six days his wife knew nothing of him and when at last she was
summoned to Portobello, he could only whisper in her ear his dying
statement, which she repeated to me. Three weeks after his mur-
der, his wife bave birth to a son. The authorities, as usual, refused
all inquiry.
On the same day Capt. Colthurst took a boy, whom he suspected
of Sinn Fein knowledge and asked him to give information. When
the boy refused, he got him to kneel in the street and shot him in the
back as he raised his hand to cross himself. Inquiry into this case
has also been refused-it is but one of the many.
My husband was buried on Wednesday night, secretly—in the
Barracks yard-his body sewn in a sack.
MY SEARCH
Meanwhile, from Tuesday night, when he did not return, I had
been vainly seeking him. All sorts of rumors reached me-that he
had been wounded and was in a hospital, that he had been shot by a
looter, that he was arrested by the police. I also heard that he had
been executed, but this I refused to believe-it seemed incredible. I
clung to the belief that even if he had been condemned to die he
would have been tried first, at least before a jury, for martial law
did not apply to non-combatants-and that I would be notified, as
were some of the wives and families of the other executed men. Of
25
course, the reason of the silence is now clear. It was hoped that my
husband would "disappear" as so many others, that we could never
trace his whereabouts, and that it would be taken for granted that
he had been killed in the street. My husband's murder was but one
of the many-the only difference being that in his case the murder
could not be kept dark. On Tuesday, May 9th (13 days after) Mr.
Tennant stated in the House of Commons, in answer to a question,
that "
no prisoner had been shot in Dublin without a trial.”
.
All Wednesday and Thursday I inquired in vain, and on Friday
horrible rumors reached me. I tried to see a doctor connected with
the Barracks, but was stopped by the police, for by this time the
police had been restored and were helping the soldiers.
I was
watched, as I have since been, carefully under police supervision.
Houses were being raided and pillaged. Mme. Markievicz's house
was broken into on Wednesday, and all her pictures stolen, and other
valuables taken and the door was left broken open. Whole streets
were ransacked and the inhabitants terrified while the soldiers thrust
their bayonets through the beds and furniture.
.
On Thursday evening, about seven, I met Mrs. MacDonagh
(the wife of one of the Irish prisoners shot by the firing squad)
wheeling her two babies to her mother's house; the soldiers had
turned machine guns on her house. Soldiers sold their loot openly
in the streets-officers took "souvenirs." While the volunteers were
holding their stronghold their wives and families were thus tortured.
MY SISTER'S ARREST
On Friday, to allay my growing anxiety, my two sisters, Mrs.
Kettle and Mrs. Culhane, went to the Portobelle Barracks to in-
quire. They were at once put under arrest and a drumhead court-
martial was had upon them. They afterwards identified the officer
who presided as Colthurst. Lieut. Beattie and other officers were
also present. The crime they were accused of was that they were
"seen talking to Sinn Feiners" (to me, probably).
They were refused all information by Capt. Colthurst, who said
he knew nothing whatever of Sheehy Skeffington, and told them, "the
sooner they left the Barracks the better for them." They were
marched off under armed guard, and forbidden to speak till they
left the premises.
•
It being then clear that we had information, the next step was
to try and find my husband guilty on post facto evidence. That
afternoon I managed to see Coade, the father of the murdered boy.
I got his name from a doctor-and he told me that he had seen my
husband's dead body with several others in that mortuary when he
26
went for his son. This a priest afterwards confirmed, but he could
give me no other information.
I went home shortly after six and before seven was putting my
little boy to bed, when the maid noticed soldiers lining up around
the house. She got terrified and dashed out with Owen by the back
door. I went to call her back, for I knew that the house would be
guarded back and front, and feared the boy, especially, might be
shot if seen running. When I got to the foot of the stairs a volley
was fired in front of the house at the windows, followed almost
directly by a crash of glass which the soldiers shattered with the
butt-ends of their rifles.
They broke in simultaneously all over the house- some went on
the roof-and Capt. Colthurst rushed upon us-the maid, Owen and
myself with a squad with fixed bayonets, shouting "Hands up!"
to the boy and me. The boy gave a cry at the sight of the naked
steel, and I put my arm around him and said, "These are the
defenders of women and children." That steadied them a little. The
party consisted of about forty men and was in charge of Col. Allett
(an officer of 29 years' service), Capt. Colthurst (16 years' service)
and a junior officer, Lieut. Brown.
We were ordered all three to be removed "under guard" to the
front room and to be shot if we stirred, while they searched the
house. This was done: Soldiers with leveled rifles knelt outside the
house ready to fire upon us, and inside we were closely guarded by
men with drawn bayonets. This lasted over three hours. The
house was completely sacked and everything of any value removed-
books, pictures, souvenirs, toys, linen, and household goods. I could
hear the officers jeering as they turned over my private possessions.
One of the soldiers (a Belfast man) seemed ashamed, and said, “I
didn't enlist for this. They are taking the whole bloomin' house
with them." They commandeered a motor car in which were women,
and made them drive to the Barracks with the stuff-ordering the
men to keep a safe distance “in case of firing." They left an armed
guard on the house all night. Colthurst brought my husband's keys,
stolen from his dead body, and opened his study (which he always
kept locked). All my private letters, letters from my husband to me
before our marriage, his articles, a manuscript play, the labor of a
lifetime, were taken. After endless application I received back a
small part of these, but most of my most cherished possessions have
never been returned, or any attempt made to find them.
The regiment took with them to Belfast as a "souvenir," my
husband's stick, and an officer stole from his dead body my hus-
band's "Votes for Women" badge. For days my house was open to
27
any marauder, as none dared to come even to board up my windows.
Capt. Colthurst later falsely endorsed certain papers found on my
husband's body.
On Monday, May 1st, another raid was made during my ab-
sence, and this time a little temporary maid was taken under soldiers'
guard to the Barracks. She was detained in custody for a week, the
only charge against her being that she was found in my house. Why
I was not taken, I never knew, but one of the officers (Leslie Wilson)
publicly regretted "that they had not shot Mrs. Skeffington while
they were about it." It would have saved them (and me) much
trouble if they had. Colthurst continued in charge of raiding parties
for several days.
PROMOTION OF COLTHURST
On May 1st, Major Sir Francis Vane, the second in command
at Portobello, was relieved of his command by Lieut. Col. McCam-
mond, for his persistent efforts (unavailing) to get Colthurst put
under arrest. He was told to give up his post (that of commander
of the entire defenses of Portobello) and hand it over to Capt.
Bowen-Colthurst, who was thereby promoted six days after the
murders. Later (on May 9th) he was sent in charge of a detach-
ment of troops to Newry, and not until May 11th, the day of Mr.
Dillon's speech, was he put under "close arrest." I leave it to Ameri-
can intelligence to decide whether these facts once proved before a
Royal Commission were consistent with the theory of lunacy.
.
Sir Francis Vane is the only officer concerned who made a
genuine effort to see justice done. He went to Dublin Castle, finding
that the Portobello officers would do nothing. He saw Colonel
Kinnard and General Friend, as well as Major Price (head of the
Intelligence Dept.). All deprecated the "fuss" and refused to act.
Major Price said, "Some of us think it was a good thing Sheehy
Skeffington was put out of the way, anyhow." This was the
typical attitude of the authorities. On Sunday (May 7th), also
by order of Colonel McCammond, bricklayers were brought to
the yard to remove the blood-stained bricks, stained with the blood
of my murdered husband, and carefully replaced them with new
bricks.
Sir Francis Vane, thoroughly horrified at the indifference of
Dublin Castle to murders committed by an officer (they were busy
trying "rebels" for "murder"), crossed early in May to London,
interviewed the war office, and on May 3rd, saw Lord Kitchener and
the latter was reported as sending a telegram ordering the arrest
of Colthurst. This was disregarded by General Maxwell, then in com-
:
A
25
I
:
紧
​1
only result of Sir Francis Vane's efforts was that he, himself, was
dismissed from the service (“relegated to unemployment") by secret
report of General Maxwell, deprived of his rank of Major and
refused a hearing at the court-martial, although he had previously
been favorably mentioned in the dispatches by Brigadier McCono-
chine, his superior officer, for bravery.
SECOND BURIAL
On May 8th, my husband's body was exhumed and reburied in
Glasnevin, without my knowledge. That day I managed to see Mr.
Dillon and told him my story. I never saw a man more moved than
he by the tragedies of Easter Week. He read my statement in the
House of Commons on May 11th, and his wonderful speech on the
horrors he had seen compelled Mr. Asquith to cross at once to Ire-
land. Mr Asquith said of my statement, "I confess I do not and
cannot believe it. Does anyone suppose that Sir John Maxwell has
mand in Dublin. Instead of anything being done to Colthurst, the
any object in shielding officers and soldiers, if there be such, who
have been guilty of such ungentlemanlike, such inhuman conduct? It
is the last thing the British army would dream of!" I do not blame
him for his disbelief. He went to Ireland, found every word I said
was true, as verified at the Commission-he found there other horrors
-the North Kings Street atrocity, for instance-surpassing even
mine. Yet he did his best to help the military to shield the mur-
derers and hush all inquiries. In a few short days secret court-
martials had condemned to death no less than sixteen Irish leaders-
whose crime was that they had wished Ireland as free as is your
country, a "free republic." Early in May a Royal Commission was
appointed to inquire into the causes of the rebellion, but all inquiry
was refused into the atrocities committed by the troops while in
Dublin.
1
COURTMARTIAL
The courtmartial was presided over by Lord Cheylesmore and
consisted of twelve senior officers-a more wooden tribunal it is im-
possible to conceive. All the witnesses were military, and all were
drilled to tell a special tale. They were sworn, and yet at many
points their story later to the Commission flagrantly contradicted
the previous one--yet they have never been brought to book for
perjury. I was not allowed to present evidence. Mr. Healy said
of the courtmartial: "Never since the trial of Christ was there a
greater travesty of justice." Its findings were afterwards com-
pletely discredited by the Royal Commission; the evidence was
29
doctored and all legal forms violated, the prosecutor and defender
playing into each other's hands. Dr. Balch, who had refused to
certify Colthurst insane, was not questioned, and he was afterwards
sent to Sierra Leone, and would not be produced at the Commission.
Sir Francis Vane was not called, no evidence of the other murders
was given or of the part played by Dublin Castle in cloaking the
murderer. Colthurst was under no restraint during his trial. He
stayed at a well-known hotel in Dawson street with his family during
the days, and, though found insane later, was not shut up for several
weeks. Finally, when feeling ran high, he was transferred as a
"patient" to an asylum in England, and was allowed to continue to
hold his rank as captain and to draw half pay for several months.
Later he was "retired," but has not been dismissed from the service.
He is detained "during the King's pleasure" and will be released
when "cured." As has been the case of the perpetrator of the
Bachelor's Walk murders, in July, 1914, he will probably be given
some important post when this trouble blows over.
ASQUITH INTERVIEW
In July I went to London to interview editors and members of
Parliament to force the Government to administer justice. On
July 19th I was sent for by Mr. Asquith, who had, with his "wait to
see” policy, been shuffling and evading a direct answer for months-
I brought a witness with me, a well-known suffragist, Miss Muriel
Matters. Mr. Asquith saw me in the room where the Cabinet meets
(Downing street). The wily statesman explained to me the diffi-
culties in the way of keeping his pledge, regretted that no adequate
inquiry could be given. The House, he said, would refuse a sworn
inquiry, and that alone could be satisfactory. Would I be satisfied
with an inadequate inquiry, which was "the best they could do." I
told him I would not be satisfied with any inquiry that he told me in
advance would be unsatisfactory and inadequate, and that while I
must accept the best he could give-I would not be "satisfied."
said I would take further action if I wasn't--for even then I had
in view a visit to America to tell an honest country what British
militarism could do. When Mr. Asquith then carefully approached
the question of "compensation" in lieu of inquiry-proposals had
preivously been made to me, unofficially, from various sources (my
boy's future at stake, etc.). I was told that no inquiry could be
given—that the military wouldn't allow it--but that “adequate and
even generous" compensation would be assured. Mr. Asquith now
put this point ever so delicately (it was clearly his object in sending
for me) tapping his fingers on the green biaze table-he sat with his
30
secretary at the middle-and my friend and I at the end, and
glancing sideways at me, for he never looked me straight in the face
throughout the interview. He is mellow and hale, with rosy, chubby
face and silver hair, a Father Christmas air about him. He ex-
plained that the other injured people were asking for compensation,
would I not consider it, too? He said nothing could undo the past,
etc. I told him that the only compensation I would ask or take, was
the redemption of his promise, viz.: a full, public inquiry into my
husband's murder.
".
I inquired, "Were the military blocking him?" "No, no," he
replied, "the military court inquiry!" "In that case, Mr. Asquith,'
I said, "will you say yes or no? It is time that I had an answer.”
He would reply Thursday to Mr. Dillon, and so our interview ended.
He is an able, astute politician, the ex-Premier, but his pitiful little
traps and quibbles and his "hush money" suggestions were hardly
worthy of a great statesman.
He finally granted the Commission of Inquiry with Sir John
Simon at its head, and a judge and well-known lawyer to sit with
him. But Asquith, as usual, broke faith (unbroken record) as to the
scope of the inquiry, by narrowly restricting the terms of reference.
The court could not produce or examine Colthurst, the chief culprit,
because he was in England-evidence was voluntary, other atrocities
were carefully ruled out. The Military had purposely scattered
important witnesses. Several were at the front, some had been
killed in the interval, some were afraid of vengeance.
The Military refused to produce others, Colonel Allett had died
mysteriously in the interval, according to some he committed sui-
cide in Belfast when Colthurst was condemned, saying, "The game is
up." Every device was used by the Government and the Military
to defeat the ends of justice. Yet, in spite of all, the Inquiry
Report established many important facts-the promotion of Colt-
hurst, the failure to take any disciplinary measures against the other
officers, the dismissal of Sir Francis Vane, the raids on my house for
incriminatory evidence after the murder. Doubt was cast upon the
insanity of Colthurst and grave censure passed on the Military.
EXPOSE
As a public exposé the Commission had a great effect and the
attitude of the Military under the searching heckling of Mr. Healy
and Sir John Simon showed them at their worst. One officer actually
fainted in court and his cross-examination had to be suspended.
Francis Sheehy Skeffington could not have imagined any more damn-
ing exposé of the militarism he detested and under which he perished,
31
no writer of fiction could have imagined a more harrowing story of
unrelieved brutality than may be found in the cold and lawyer-like
language of the Simon Report. But all these officers still enjoy
favor. Major Price still rules in Dublin Castle.
A martyr fights in death more terribly than many warring saints.
He is entrenched, you cannot reach him with your heaviest shot.
My husband would have gone to his death with a smile on his lips,
knowing that by his murder he had struck a heavier blow for his
ideals than by any act of his life. And I am willing to give him
up on the altar of sacrifice, for I know that his death will speak
trumpet-tongued against the system that slew him.
Nor was it, as I have shown, the one mad act of an irresponsible
officer. It was part of an organized "pogrom." We possess evi-
dence, sworn and duly attested, of at least 50 other murders of
unarmed civilians or disarmed prisoners (some boys and some
women) committed by the soldiers during Easter Week. The North
Staffords murdered 14 men in North King street, and buried them in
the cellars of their houses.
A coroner's jury of the city brought a verdict of wilful murder
against these men who could be identified (Dublin's City Council)
but Sir John Maxwell refused to give them up, and they are in
Dublin at the present moment. Pits were dug in Glasnevin Cemetery
and bodies piled up were carted off and buried in a common trench.
In various cases the soldiers stated that they were under definite
orders to kill civilians and prisoners. In Trinity College they so
boasted.
.
Over three hundred houses were looted and sacked in the
suburbs and the city. Thousands of men, hundreds of women, were
arrested all over the country and deported in cattle boats to England,
some to jails, some to internment camps. Most of these had no part
whatever in the rising, but the police and soldiers had a free hand to
arrest all, and exercised their powers to the full. Time does not
permit me to dwell any longer on the treatment accorded to the
prisoners. In Kilmainham, in Richmond and later in England, they
were brutally ill-treated. Two instances, Mary O'Loughlin and
another, but it would need a separate lecture.
STATE OF IRELAND
Ireland is still under martial law, threatened with famine and
with conscription; death by hunger or in the trenches. But Ireland's
spirit was never stronger, never was it more clearly shown that no
nation can be held by force, that the aspiration after liberty cannot
be quelled by shot or shell.
:
32
•
THE VOLUNTEERS
A word as to the Irish Republicans. "Treason doth never
prosper. What is the reason? When treason prospers, none dare
call it treason." When the United States of America set up its
republic it declared its independence of Great Britain, it happily
won, and maintained its independence. But if it had lost-would
its leaders find quicklime graves? Surely.
I know the Irish Republican leaders, and am proud to call
Connolly, Pearse, Macdonagh, Plunkett, O'Rahilly and others.
friends-proud to have known them and had their friendship. They
fought a clean fight against terrible odds—and terrible was the price
they had to pay. They were sober and God-fearing, filled with a high
idealism. They had banks, factories, the General Post Office, the
lower courts, their enemies' strongholds for days in their keeping,
yet bankers, merchants and others testified as to the scrupulous way
in which their stock was guarded. A poet truly said, "Your dream,
not mine, And yet the thought, for this you fell, Turns all life's
water into wine." Their proclamation gave equal citizenship to
women-beating all records-except that of the Russian Revolu-
tionists.
It is the dreamers and the visionaries that keep hope alive and
feed enthusiasm—not the statesmen and politicians. Sometimes it is
harder to live for a cause than to die for it. It would be a poor
tribute to my husband if grief were to break my spirit. It shall not
do so. I am not here just to harrow your hearts by a passing thrill,
to feed you on horrors for sensation's sake. I want to continue my
husband's work so that when I meet him some day in the Great
Beyond, he will be pleased with my stewardship.
The lesson of the Irish Rising and its suppression is that our
small nation, Ireland, has a right also to its place in the sun. We
look to the United States particularly to help us in this matter. The
question of Ireland is not, as suggested by England, "A domestic
matter." It is an international one, just as the case of Belgium,
Serbia and other small nationalities is. We want our case to come
up at the Peace Conference, if not before-to the international trib-
unal for settlement.
1
The United States Government has declared that it is entering
this war for the democratization of Europe. We do not want democ-
racy to stop short of the Irish sea, but to begin there. If Great
Britain is in good faith in this matter, she can begin now, by freeing
our small nation, and this can be done without the shedding of a
33
:
!
:..
single drop of American blood, and the whole world would applaud
the deed.
We look, therefore, to America to see that her allies live up to
their professions and that the end of the war will see all small
nations of Europe free. As my husband said, in an article in the
Century Magazine, February, 1916, on a "Forgotten Small Nation-
ality," "Shall peace bring freedom to Belgium, to Poland, perhaps
to Finland and Bohemia, and not to Ireland?" It is for America
to see that Ireland is not excluded from the blessings of true democ-
racy
and freedom. In this respect America will be but paying back
the debt she owes to Ireland. In the day of her struggle for inde-
pendence, before she set up her republic, she was aided by Irish
citizens-many of whom gave their lives for her freedom. And in
the Civil War thousands of Irishmen died that your negroes might
be free men. The record of the Fighting 69th of New York is famous
in your history; it was a regiment of Roman Catholic Irish who were
wiped out so that the regiment disappeared for a time till it could
be practically recruited entirely afresh, and to-day it is allowed to
keep its name of (the 69 N. Y. N. G.) in parenthesis after the new
name given it in drafting it into the Federal army for service in
France, the 165th Infantry of the N. Y. National Guard Army. It
is for their descendants, the beneficiaries of those old war of yours
for freedom in '76 and 1861, now to pay back that debt, and to help
us set up an Irish republic, as independent of Great Britain as is
your own.
At the end of the war we hope to see a "United Europe" on the
model of your own United States, where each state is free and inde-
pendent, yet all are part of a great federation. We want Ireland to
belong to this united Europe, and not to be a vassal of Great Britain,
a province of the British Empire, governed without consent. Unless
the United States is as whole-heartedly in favor of the freedom of
Ireland as she is for the emancipation of Belgium, she cannot be
true to her own principles. Her honor is involved and we look par-
ticularly to the Irish in America to remember the claims of the land
of their fathers, when the day of reckoning comes.
I shall conclude by quoting from William Rooney's poem,
"Dear Dark Head," which embodies in poetic form Ireland's life-
long dream for freedom. Speaking of the men who died for Ireland,
he says:
"And though their fathers' fate be theirs, shall others
With hearts as faithful still that pathway tread
Till we have set, Oh Mother Dear of Mothers,
A nation's crown upon thy Dear, Dark Head?"
34
REPORT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION
!
}
REPORT OF COMMISSION
Presented to Both Houses of Parliament by Command of His
Majesty.
ROYAL COMMISSION
George R. I.
George the Fifth, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond
the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, to
Our right trusty and well-beloved Counsellor Sir John Allsebrook
Simon, Knight Commander of Our Royal Victorian Order, one
of Our Counsel learned in the Law;
Our right trusty and well-beloved Counsellor Thomas Francis
Molony, one of the Ordinary Judges of Our Court of Appeal
in Ireland; and
R
Our trusty and well-beloved Denis Stanislaus Henry, Esquire, one
of Our Counsel learned in the Law; Greeting:
Whereas, We have deemed it expedient that a Commission
should forthwith issue to inquire into and report upon the facts.
and circumstances connected with the treatment of Mr. Francis
Skeffington, Mr. Thomas Dickson and Mr. Patrick J. MacIntyre
upon and after their arrest on the Twenty-fifth day of April last:
Now know ye, that We, reposing great trust and confidence
in your knowledge and ability, have authorized and appointed, and
do by these Presents authorize and appoint you, the said Sir John
Allsebrook Simon (Chairman); Thomas Francis Molony and Denis
Stanislaus Henry to be Our Commissioners for the purpose of said
inquiry.
And for the better effecting the purpose of this Our Commis-
sion, We do by these Presents give and grant unto you full power
to call before you such persons as you shall judge likely to afford
you any information upon the subject of this Our Commission; and
also to call for, have access to, and examine all such books, docu-
ments, registers and records as may afford you the fullest informa-
tion on the subject, and to inquire of and concerning the premises
by all other lawful means and means whatsoever.
And We do by these Presents will and ordain that this Our
Commission shall continue in full force and virtue, and that you,
Our said Commissioners, may from time to time proceed in the exe-
36
cution thereof, and of every matter any thing therein contained,
although the same be not continued from time to time by adjourn-
ment.
F
And We do further ordain that you have liberty to report
your proceedings under this Our Commission from time to time if
you shall judge it expedient so to do.
And Our further will and pleaure is that you do, with as little
delay as possible, report to Us, under your hands and seals, your
opinion upon the matters herein submitted for your consideration.
Given at Our Court at Saint James's, the seventeenth day of
August, one thousand nine hundred and sixteen, in the seventh
year of Our Reign.
By His Majesty's Command.
1
REPORT.
May it Please Your Majesty:—
Herbert Samuel.
TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.
!
1. In accordance with Your Majesty's Command, signified
by your Royal Commission dated the 17th day of August, 1916,
we have conducted an inquiry into "the facts and circumstances con-
nected with the treatment of Mr. Francis Sheehy Skeffington, Mr.
Thomas Dickson, and Mr. Patrick J. McIntyre upon and after their
arrest on the 25th day of April last."
2. We held the first sitting for the examination of witnesses
on Wednesday morning the 23rd day of August, 1916, at 11 o'clock,
at the Four Courts, Dublin. The Inquiry was then opened and
Your Majesty's Commission was read in open court.
3.
The following Counsel appeared:-
(1) The Right Hon. J. H. M. Campbell, K. C., Attorney-
General, and Mr. Cusack, on behalf of His Majesty's
Government.
(2) Mr. T. M. Healy, K. C., and Mr. P. A. O'C. White,
and Mr. R. J. Sheehy, on behalf of the family of Mr.
Sheehy Skeffington and also on behalf of the family
of Mr. Thomas Dickson.
(3) Mr. J. B. Powell, K. C., and Mr. Swayne, on behalf of
the Military Authorities.
(4) Mr. T. W. Brown on behalf of Major Rosborough
and Lieutenant Morgan.
:
37
(5) Mr. J. A. Rearden, on behalf of Alderman J. J.
Kelly.
Mr. Brennan, Solicitor, appeared on behalf of the
family of Mr. P. J. McIntyre.
4. Our sittings closed on the 31st day of August, 1916, hav-
ing occupied six days, during which the evidence of 38 witnesses
was taken.
5. The Barracks of Portobello were, on the 24th day of
April last, occupied by the 3rd Reserve Battalion of the Royal Irish
Rifles. The battalion was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Mc-
Cammond, but he was unfortunately on sick leave from the 22nd
to the 29th April, and in his absence the command devolved upon
Major Rosborough.
G
6. The insurrection broke out early on the 24th of April, and
at noon on that day many buildings and places in the city were
occupied by the rebels. When the knowledge of the rising spread
through the city officers and soldiers on leave repaired to the nearest
barracks and reported for duty, and consequently at Portobello
Major Rosborough had under his command many officers and men
who were quite unknown to him, but of whose services he was
glad to avail himself in the restoration of order.
77. The Portobello Barracks lie outside the city boundary of
Dublin on the south side, being bounded on the north by the Grand
Canal, on the east by the Rathmines Road, and on the south by
the suburb of Rathmines. The barracks cover a very large area
(about 40 acres) and were built for the accommodation of two
Infantry Battalions, but at the time of the insurrection not more than
600 men were quartered there, and of these quite half would be
on duty outside the barracks. On the 24th and 25th April, various
alarming rumors were current as to an impending attack on the
barracks and as to various alleged successes of the rebel forces, and
undoubtedly at the time both officers and men thought that they
were in serious peril, which could only be averted by taking strong
measures for the safety of the troops and the barracks. In con-
sidering the events of the week we think it very necessary that the
position of the military at the time should be borne in mind and their
conduct should be viewed in the light of the abnormal circumstances:
then prevailing.
We now proceed to describe in order of time the events into
which we have been directed to inquire.
8. Mr. Sheehy Skeffington was the first of the three individ-
uals to be arrested; his arrest had no connection with the arrest
38
of Mr. Dickson and Mr. McIntyre, which occurred some three hours
later.
9. Mr. Francis Sheehy Skeffington was a well-known figure.
in Dublin, and shortly before 8 p. m. on April 25th he was walking
from the city in the direction of his home, which was situated at 11,
Grosvenor Place, Rathmines. His way led over Portobello Bridge,
and about 350 yards further on he would have passed the turning
which leads to the main entrance of Portobello Barracks.
10. *It was conceded on all hands before us that Mr. Sheehy
Skeffington had no connection with the Rebellion; his views were
opposed to the use of physical force; and it appears that he had
been engaged that afternoon in making some public appeal to pre-
vent looting and the like. Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington gave evidence of
this fact, and her evidence is confirmed by a document which was
found on him when he was searched and which contained a form of
membership of a proposed civic organization to check looting. As
he approached Portobello Bridge he was followed by a crowd, some
of the members of which were shouting out his name.
11. It was about dusk and the disturbances had now contin-
ued for some thirty hours. A young officer named Lieutenant M. C.
Morris, who was attached to the 3rd Battalion of the Royal Irish
Rifles at Portobello Barracks, had taken up duty an hour before in
command of a picket at Portobello Bridge, occupying premises at
the corner known as Davy's Public House. His orders were to do his
utmost to avoid conflict but to keep the roadway clear as far as
possible. Lieutenant Morris heard people in the street shouting
out Mr. Sheehy Skeffington's name, and he determined to detain
him and send him to the barracks. Lieutenant Morris did not him-
self leave his post for many hours afterwards. He sent Mr. Sheehy
Skeffington under an escort of two men to the barracks.
12. We consider that there is no good ground of complaint
against the action of Lieutenant Morris in causing Mr. Sheehy Skef-
fington to be detained and sent to the barracks. He told us that
he had taken the same course with one or two others who seemed
likely to cause a crowd to congregate; his picket had been fired at
from time to time from houses close by; there was no police force
in the streets; and it was obviously better to require pedestrians who
appeared to be attracting notice to go to the barracks rather than
run the risk of altercations in the roadway. No charge was made
against Mr. Sheehy Skeffington and he went quite willingly. Many
*Note. The italics throughout are not in the original, and are inserted
there for the purpose of bringing out the atrocity of these murders which a
cold-blooded legalism appears to veil.
+
39
other civilians against whom no charge was made were sent, in the
course of the disturbances, to the barracks in similar circumstances,
and the fact that they were innocent of all complicity in the rebellion
does not necessarily imply that their temporary detention cannot
be explained or justified. The really important matter in such
cases is not the fact of detention but the subsequent treatment of
the individuals detained.
13. On arrival at the barracks Mr. Sheehy Skeffington was
taken to the main guard-room; three young officers, named Dobbin,
Tooley and Alexander Wilson, were sharing duty there, Mr. Dobbin
being the senior of the three. Mr. Dobbin was only eighteen years
of age, having left school in the previous year, and he had held his
Commission only a few months; he had at that time seen nothing of
fighting. He and the other two second lieutenants arranged among
themselves spells of duty, and it was not clearly established before
us which of them was in actual charge when Mr. Sheehy Skeffington
was brought in. Sergeant Maxwell, who was in the guard-room,
was ordered to take Mr. Sheehy Skeffington across to the orderly-
room to be interrogated, and he was there interviewed by the Adju-
tant of the Battalion, Lieutenant Morgan, who is an officer of expe-
rience. Evidence as to the interrogation is not quite precise or
consistent, but the witnesses agreed that Mr. Sheehy Skeffington
stated that he was not a Sinn Feiner, but that he was in favor of
passive resistance and opposed to militarism. Since there was no
charge of any sort against Mr. Sheehy Skeffington Lieutenant
Morgan thought it best to communicate by telephone with the Garri-
son Adjutant for instruction as to whether Mr. Sheehy Skeffington
should be further detained or not. Orders having been received
that he should be detained for further inquiries, he was brought
back to the guard-room.
14. Mr. Sheehy Skeffington was searched by Captain Bowen-
Colthurst. This gentleman was an officer of sixteen years' service.
He belonged to the Royal Irish Rifles, and had considerable experi-
ence of warfare. He had been with his battalion of the regiment at
the front when he was seriously wounded and invalided home. At
the time of the Dublin disturbance he was attached to the 3rd Bat-
talion at Portobello Barracks. Having searched Mr. Sheehy Skef-
fington, Captain Bowen-Colthurst about 9 o'clock handed over to
the Adjutant what he had found upon him. The Adjutant made
copies of these documents and produced them before us; they were
few in number, and none of them had anything to do with the dis-
turbances save the document already referred to, which was a
draft form of membership for a civic guard.. There was nothing
40
of an incriminatory nature found on Mr. Sheehy Skeffington. When
we come to deal with the cases of Mr. Dickson and Mr. McIntyre,
it will again be seen that nothing of consquence was found upon
them, and the absence of compromising documents in all three cases
is, in the light of a report subsequently made by Captain Bowen-
Colthurst, a fact of considerable importance.
15. Later, on the same evening, Captain Bowen-Colthurst
went out of the barracks in command of a party under orders to
enter and occupy the premises at the corner of Camden Street and
Harrington Street, occupied by Mr. James Kelly for the purposes
of his tobacco business. Mr. Kelly is an Alderman of the City
and a Justice of the Peace, and had recently held the office of High
Sheriff of the City. There is no question that the suspicion enter-
tained against Mr. Kelly's loyalty was due to a misunderstanding,
and that Mr. Kelly was, in fact, quite innocent of any connection
with the outbreak. Mr. Kelly's premises are some 300 yards on the
city side of Portobello Bridge, and the route for Captain Bowen-
Colthurst's party therefore lay from the main gate of the barracks
along the lane leading into the Rathmines Road, and then along the
Rathmines Road over Portobello Bridge past Davy's Public House.
16. Captain Bowen-Colthurst adopted the extraordinary, and
indeed almost meaningless, course of taking Mr. Sheehy Skeffington
with him as a "hostage." He had no right to take Mr. Sheehy
Skeffington out of the custody of the guard for this or any other
purpose, and he asked no one's leave to do so. Captain Bowen-
Colthurst's party consisted of a junior officer (Second Lieutenant
Leslie Wilson) and about forty men. Before they left the Barracks,
Mr. Sheehy Skeffington's hands were tied behind his back and Cap-
tain Bowen-Colthurst called upon him to say his prayers. Upon
Mr. Sheehy Skeffington refusing to do so Captain Bowen-Colthurst
ordered the men of his party to take their hats off and himself
uttered a prayer, the words of it, according to Lieutenant Wilson's
evidence, being: “O Lord God, if it shall please thee to take away
the life of this man forgive him for Christ's sake."
·
17. The party proceeded from the main gate of the barracks
to the turning into the Rathmines Road, where a shooting incident
occurred which we thought it right to investigate since Mr. Sheehy
Skeffington was present and since it was suggested (though not
proved) that it might have led to some protest on his part, or might
have had some bearing upon his subsequent treatment. We find it
impossible to reconcile all the testimony given on this matter, but it
was established that a youth named Coade with a friend named
Laurence Byrne were in the Rathmines Road when Captain Bowen-
41
Colthurst's party came by. Captain Bowen-Colthurst asked what
business they had to be in the road at that hour and warned them
that martial law had been proclaimed. The evidence as to what
next happened is not consistent, but there is no suggestion that
either of the young men showed any violence, and it was clearly
established before us that Captain Bowen-Colthurst shot young
Coade, who fell mortally wounded and was subsequently taken by an
ambulance to the hospital in the barracks. Lieutenant Leslie Wilson
testified that Captain Bowen-Colthurst fired with a rifle, but two
civilian witnesses-whose good faith there is no reason to doubt-
asserted positively that they saw Captain Bowen-Colthurst (whose
identity was unmistakable, since he is a man of exceptional stature)
brandish and fire a revolver. There was admittedly other firing as
Captain Bowen-Colthurst's party marched down the road, which
Lieutenant Leslie Wilson told us was for the purpose of securing
that people at the windows should keep indoors. The evidence of
the different witnesses can only be reconciled by inferring that
more than one case of shooting occurred during the progress of
Captain Bowen-Colthurst's party.
.
18. None of the evidence offered to us afforded any justifica-
tion for the shooting of Coade; it is, of course, a delusion to suppose
that a proclamation of martial law confers upon an officer any right
to take human life in circumstances where this would have been
unjustifiable without such a proclamation, and this delusion in the
present case had tragic consequences.
19. On reaching Portobello Bridge Captain Bowen-Colthurst
divided his party into two and left half of in charge of Lieutenant
Leslie Wilson; while going forward with the rest to attack Alder-
man Kelly's shop he also left Mr. Sheehy Skeffington at the bridge,
giving Lieutenant Leslie Wilson orders that, if he (Captain Bowen-
Colthurst) and his men were "knocked out," Lieutenant Leslie Wil-
son was to take command, and if they were fired upon Lieutenant
Wilson was to shoot Mr. Sheehy Skeffington. (!)
20. The advance party then went on its way and was absent
about twenty minutes. They threw a bomb into Alderman Kelly's
shop and met with no resistance there. Alderman Kelly was absent.
Mr. McIntyre, who was a friend of Alderman Kelly, had been on
the premises some time and Mr. Dickson, who lived close by, took
refuge there when he heard the soldiers firing as the approached.
Miss Kelly, who is a sister of Alderman Kelly, gave us a detailed
account of the raid on her brother's premises. It is evident from
her account that Captain Bowen-Colthurst was in a state of great
excitement. Dickson and McIntyre, together with two other men
42
who were shortly afterwards released, were taken into custody, and
Captain Bowen-Colthurst returned to barracks with them, picking up
Mr. Sheehy Skeffington and the other section of his party on the way.
21. Meanwhile, the news of Mr. Sheehy Skeffington having
been taken out of the barracks reached the ears of the Adjutant,
who fixed the time when he heard this from Sergeant Maxwell at
about 10.20 p. m. The Adjutant saw Lieutenant Dobbin and asked
him for a written report; this document was produced, and runs as
follows:
"April 25th, 11:10 p. m.
"An armed party under Captain J. C. Bowen-Col-
thurst has just passed through my guard, demanding
and taking with him the last captured prisoner,
Sheehy Skeffington."
It is important to observe that the terms of this document,
while they show that Lieutenant Dobbin realized that the prisoners
were in his custody and under his control, record a "demand” made
upon him by an officer of superior rank and vastly greater experi-
ence. The report does not state that Captain Bowen-Colthurst was
taking out Mr. Sheehy Skeffington as a "hostage," and both the
Adjutant and Lieutenant Dobbin assured us that they were ignorant
of Captain Bowen-Colthurst's object.
22. When Captain Bowen-Colthurst returned to barracks he
made a verbal report in the presence of the Adjutant to Major Ros-
borough in the course of which, according to the Adjutant, he men-
tioned that he had taken Mr. Sheehy Skeffington with him and had
arrested Dickson and McIntyre. The Adjutant was unable to
give us a fuller account of the interview and he had no recollection of
any reprimand being administered to Captain Bowen-Colthurst.
Major Rosborough himself had no recollection of the interview at
all, and explained that he was working at great pressure and under
extreme anxiety and that whatever Captain Bowen-Colthurst said
it never conveyed to his mind that Mr. Sheehy Skeffington had been
taken out in the way and for the purpose described. Nothing was
said as to the shooting of Coade.
23. We are satisfied that the seriousness of the irregularity
committed by Captain Bowen-Colthurst in his treatment of Mr.
Sheehy Skeffington on this Tuesday night was not fully realized
by those under whose commands he was supposed to be acting.
Whether from the lateness of the hour or from the strain and anxiety
caused by events outside the barracks and the apprehension of even
graver trouble, this officer was not effectively reprimanded, and
the civilians detained under the main guard were not rendered more
蓄​写
​43
1
Į
1
secure, with the result that Captain Bowen-Colthurst was at liberty
the next morning again to over-ride or disregard the officer of
the guard, and to deal with civilian prisoners as he pleased.
24. Mr. Dickson and Mr. McIntyre were searched but nothing
material was found on them. They spent the night in the detention
room along with some other civilians. Mr. Sheehy Skeffington, as
being of a superior social position, was put into a separate cell and
was made as comfortable as possible.
25. Mr. Dickson was the editor of a paper called "The Eye-
Opener," and Mr. McIntyre was the editor of another paper known
as "The Searchlight." So far as there was any evidence on the
point before us, it appears that the only reason for arresting either
of these men was the circumstance that they were found on Alder-
man Kelly's premises, and, as we have already stated, the suspicion
entertained against this gentleman was without any foundation.
Mr. Dickson was a Scotchman, and deformed. Neither he nor Mr.
McIntyre had any connection with the Sinn Fein movement.
26. On Wednesday morning, April 26, the officers in charge
of the main guard were the same as on the previous evening-namely,
Lieutenants Dobbin, Tooley, and Alexander Wilson. The sergeant
of the guard was Sergeant John W. Aldridge, then of the 10th
Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Sergeant Aldridge was on leave at the
commencement of the rebellion and on returning to Dublin reported
himself (like many other soldiers at this time) at the nearest bar-
racks; he was in consequence new to his surroundings at Portobello
and the officers at the barracks were not known to him by sight.
He mounted guard at 9 a. m. on Wednesday morning.
.
27. Shortly after 10 a. m. Captain Bowen-Colthurst came to
the guard room. He appears on his first arrival to have entirely
ignored Lieutenant Dobbin, who was standing in the barracks
square near to the guard room entrance, and having passed into the
guard room itself to have given his orders direct to the sergeant.
These orders were to the effect that he required the three prisoners,
Skeffington, Dickson and McIntyre in the yard for the purpose of
speaking to them. The yard in question is within the guard room
block of buildings, being reached by a short passage from the guard
room. It comprises a space less than forty feet in length and some
fifteen feet in width and is surrounded by high brick walls.
28. Sergeant Aldridge had not seen Captain Bowen-Colthurst
before and was not aware of what position he occupied in the bar-
racks save that his uniform showed him to be a captain. Owing
to the sergeant having mounted guard only an hour previously he
did not know who were the officers of the guard, and there was
44
consequently nothing which appeared to him to be unusual in Cap-
tain Bowen-Colthurst entering the guard room and giving orders.
The orders were complied with. Mr. Sheehy Skeffington was called
from his cell and Messrs. Dickson and McIntyre from the deten-
tion room, and all three were ordered out into the yard which was
but a few paces away.
29. During the few moments that were occupied by the calling
out of the three prisoners Captain Bowen-Colthurst stepped out of
the guard room to the spot where Lieutenant Dobbin was still
standing and informed that officer that he was taking the three
prisoners out for the purpose of shooting them, as he thought "it
was the best thing to do." Lieutenant Dobbin's recollection is not
clear as to whether the three men were mentioned by name, but
there is no doubt that their number and the purpose for which
Captain Bowen-Colthurst was taking them out were distinctly con-
veyed to his mind. Captain Bowen-Colthurst immediately re-entered
the guard room, while Lieutenant Dobbin called to Lieutenant
Alexander Wilson who was nearby and dispatched him with an
urgent message to the Adjutant. Lieutenant Wilson had his bicycle
with him; he mounted it and rode off to the orderly room in which
the Adjutant was working and which is some 500 yards distant from
the guard room.
30. Lieutenant Wilson's recollection.of these vital incidents has
varied from time to time, but we think there is no reason to ques-
tion the sincerity of the witness in ultimately arriving at a conclu-
sion as to what took place differing materially from his earlier im-
pressions. Even so, his recollection of the message he delivered does
not altogether agree with the Adjutant's memory on the point;
the latter's version is corroborated by the evidence of Sergeant
Campbell.
31.
Lieutenant Dobbin's own statement is that he told Lieu-
tenant Wilson to inform the Adjutant that Captain Bowen-Colt-
hurst was taking the prisoners out of the guard-room. He does
not recollect stating in the message for what purpose they were
being taken out. We think it probable that Captain Bowen-Colt-
hurst's purpose was present to the mind of Lieutenant Wilson
when he conveyed the message, but we are satisfied that the mes-
sage itself as received by the Adjutant contained no mention of the
fact that the prisoners were about to be shot. The impression
made on the Adjutant's mind by the receipt of the message was
that Captain Bowen-Colthurst was engaged in repeating his irregu-
lar proceeding of the evening before, and the message he returned
by Lieutenant Wilson was that Major Rosborough was out, that
45
!
he (the Adjutant) could give no authority for any prisoners to be
taken out of the guard-room, and that in taking them out Captain
Bowen-Colthurst would be acting on his own responsibility. Lieu-
tenant Wilson returned with this message on his bicycle, and, while
he was giving it to Lieutenant Dobbin just outside the guard-room,
the shots of the fatal volley rang out from the adjoining yard.
32. When Captain Bowen-Colthurst returned into the guard-
room after his brief statement to Lieutenant Dobbin he ordered
some of the guard with their rifles out into the yard, where the
three prisoners had preceded them. All the men on duty had their
magazines already filled, and seven of the guard, who appear to
have been merely those that happened at the moment to be nearest
the yard passage, accompanied by Sergeant Aldridge, followed
Captain Bowen-Colthurst out into the yard. What then occurred
took place so rapidly that we have little doubt that none of the three
victims realized that they were about to meet their death. We
are confirmed in this view by the fact that all the witnesses, including
civilian prisoners in the detention room, to whom everything that
took place in the yard was audible, agree in stating that no sound
was uttered by any of the three.
.
"
33. While the soldiers were entering the yard Captain Bowen-
Colthrust ordered the three prisoners to walk to the wall at the
other end, a distance, as we have stated, of only a few yards. As
they were doing this the seven soldiers, entering the yard, fell into
line along the wall adjoining the entrance, and immediately received
from Captain Colthurst the order to fire upon the three prisoners
who had then just turned to face them. All three fell as a result
of the volley. Captain Bowen-Colthurst left the yard, and the firing
party began to file out.
34. Immediately upon hearing the volley, Lieutenant Dobbin
(who was engaged in receiving the Adjutant's message outside)
hastened through the guard room and entered the yard. On looking
at the bodies he saw a movement in one of Mr. Sheehy Skeffington's
legs which gave him the impression that life was not yet extinct,
and he exclaimed to Sergeant Aldridge, who was still in the yard,
"Sergeant, that man is not dead." It is Sergeant Aldridge's im-
pression (and we are inclined to accept the evidence of this witness,
who was both experienced and candid) that death had, nevertheless,
been instantaneous in all three cases, and that what Lieutenant
Dobbin saw was a muscular contraction of the unfortunate gentle-
man's limb. As a result, however, of what he saw, Lieutenant Dob-
bin dispatched one of the other officers of the guard, Lieutenant
Tooley, to the orderly room to report and obtain instructions. At,
4.6
or in the neighborhood of, the orderly room Lieutenant Tooley met
Captain Bowen-Colthurst, and received from him the order to "fire
again." Lieutenant Tooley returned with this message, and there-
upon four soldiers of the guard (not all members of the first firing
party) were ordered into the yard by Lieutenant Dobbin, and upon
his directions fired a second volley into the body of Mr. Sheehy
Skeffington.
35. Certain civilian witnesses who were in the detention room
during the course of these events spoke to having heard a shot, or
volley, in addition to, and separated by a distinct interval of time
from, the two volleys spoken of by the military. If their evidence
be correct (and there is no reason to doubt their good faith) this
third shot, or volley, was heard at a moment antecedent to Messrs.
Dickson and McIntyre reaching the yard, and the question was
raised by those appearing for the relatives of Mr. Sheehy Skeffington
whether the latter had not been shot separately from the other two
prisoners. We are quite satisfied on the evidence as a whole that
the three prisoners were shot together in the way we have described,
and that the earlier report by those in the detention room had no
connection with any shooting in the yard. It may perhaps be
explained by the accidental discharge of a rifle in the neighborhood
of the guard room, which was the impression conveyed to at least
one of those in the detention room.
36. It should be clearly understood that the events we have
been recording, from the arrival of Captain Bowen-Colthurst at the
guard room, ocupied but a very few minutes.
The guard room,
detention room, detention cells, and yard all closely adjoin one
another in the same block, and a very few steps suffice to take a
person from one into another.
37. Not long after the shooting had taken place, and before
10.30 a. m., Captain Bowen-Colthurst reported verbally to the Aḍju-
tant at the orderly room that he had shot Mr. Sheehy Skeffington
and the editors of the "Eye Opener" and "Searchlight." Either then
or later, he gave as his reason for so doing the fear that they
would escape or might be rescued by armed force. There was no
foundation whatever for any apprehension as to the escape of these
prisoners, and no sane person who honestly entertained such a
possibility as a rescue would have seen in it any ground for distinc-
tion between these three prisoners and the other detained persons.
At or about the same time, Captain Bowen-Colthurst verbally re-
ported his action to Major Rosborough, adding that he had shot the
three prisoners on his own responsibility and that he possibly might
be hanged for it. Major Rosborough told him to make his report
1
47
i
in writing, and instructed the Adjutant to report the matter to the
Garrison Adjutant at Dublin Castle.
38. Lieutenant Morgan, after going over to the guard room
and seeing the three bodies carried out, telephoned, in accordance
with his instructions from Major Rosborough, a report of the circum-
stances, as far as they were then known to him, to the Garrison
Adjutant Headquarters, Irish Command, and, in view of the seri-
ousness of the occurrence, the Adjutant, under Major Rosborough's
directions, did not confine himself to the usual channel, but also made
a direct communication by telephone to Headquarters, Irish Com-
mand. Major Rosborough had, in the meanwhile, given directions
that Captain Bowen-Colthurst should not be detailed for duty out-
side the barracks. No further action was taken as regards Captain
Bowen-Colthurst until May 6th,* when orders were received from the
superior military authorities to place Captain Bowen-Colthurst under
open arrest. Major Rosborough's directions as to his duties do not
see mto have placed any effective check upon his movements in the
meantime.
.
1
39. Later in the day, Lieutenant Morgan telephoned again to
the Garrison Adjutant in order to ask for directions as to the dis-
posal of the bodies (which were lying in the mortuary), and was
ordered to bury them in the barrack yard that evening. Lieutenant
Morgan, accordingly, after consultation with the Medical Officer,
Major Balch, and also the Engineer Officer, had the bodies wrapped
up in sheets and buried in the barrack square. It should be remem-
bered that, in the then state of the city, coffins were difficult, if not
impossible, to secure, and the same mode of burial had to be
adopted in the case of soldiers whose bodies were brought into the
barracks. We are satisfied that Lieutenant Morgan carried out ais
duties in connection with the burial as decorously and reverently as
was possible in the circumstances at the time. He ascertained that
all three of the deceased were Roman Catholics and the religious
rites were carried out by Father O'Loughlin, the Roman Catholic
chaplain of the barracks. At a later date, at the request of the rela-
tives and by permission of Sir John Maxwell (who had arrived in
Ireland some days after these shootings), the bodies of all three
men were exhumed and re-interred in consecrated ground. Mr.
Sheehy Skeffington, Senior, was present at the exhumation of his
son's body.
40. From time to time during the course of Wednesday,
April 26th, Major Rosborough pressed Captain Bowen-Colthurst
for the written report which he had directed him to make; it was
1
*Note-Ten days later.
:
48
ultimately received at a late hour in the afternoon, and, so far as it
is material to our inquiry, it reads as follows:
"Sir,
"I have to report for your information that yesterday even-
ing, about 11 p. m., according to your orders, I proceeded with
a party of twenty-five men to Kelly's tobacco shop in Har-
court Road.
C
"Some shots were fired at them, but whether from this
shop or not I cannot say. Two men were seen standing in
conversation outside the shop, who at once bolted inside. An
entrance was effected and four men were made prisoners, two
of these were subsequently released, and two men were detained.
The two men detained were McIntyre, Editor of the 'Search-
light,' and Dickson, Editor of the 'Eye-Opener.'
"Sniping was going on, and I lodged the two men de-
tained in the Portobello guard room. I may add that I was
informed that all of the tobacco had previously been removed.
This morning at about 9 a. m. I proceeded to the guard room to
examine these two men, and I sent for a man called Skeffington,
who was also detained.
"I had been busy on the previous evening up to about
3 a. m. examining documents found on these three men, and I
recognized from these documents that these three men were all
very dangerous characters. I, therefore, sent for an armed
guard of six men and ordered them to load their rifles and keep
their eyes on the prisoners. The guard room was full of men
and was not a suitable place, in my opinion, in which to examine
prisoners. I ordered, therefore, the three prisoners to go into
the small courtyard of the guard room. I regret now that
I did not have these three men handcuffed and surrounded, as
the yard was a place from which they might have escaped.
When I ordered these three men into the yard I did not, how-
ever, know this. The guard was some little distance from the
prisoners, and as I considered that there was a reasonable
chance of the prisoners making their escape; and knowing the
three prisoners (from the correspondence captured on them the
previous evening) to be dangerous characters, I called upon the
guard to fire upon them, which they did with effect, the three
men being killed. The documents found on these three men
have been forwarded to the orderly room."
41. It is to be noted that, although this report purports to
give an account of the raid on Alderman Kelly's tobacco shop, no
mention is made of Mr. Sheehy Skeffington having been taken out as
49
a "hostage" on that occasion, or of the shooting of the young man
Coade. The account of the events which took place on Wednesday
morning is entirely untrue. Captain Bowen-Colthurst's object in
going to the guard room was not to examine the prisoners, but, as
he stated to Lieutenant Dobbin at the time, to have them shot. The
armed guard was not ordered out for the purpose of preventing the
prisoners' escape, but for the purpose of shooting them. There was
no possibility of the prisoners making their escape from the yard,
a fact which is obvious to anyone who has seen it. No documents
or correspondence whatever were found on the prisoners which
showed them to be "dangerous characters"; and any documents
found on them could be thoroughly examined in a few minutes.
42. At a later date, and after he had been placed under arrest,
viz., on May 9th, 1916, Captain Bowen-Colthurst forwarded a
further report addressed to the Officer Commanding 3rd Battalion
of the Royal Irish Rifles. This report reads as follows:
"Sir,
}
"In accordance with your instructions, I have the honor
to forward for your information a more detailed account of
the circumstances connected with the shooting of three rebels in
Portobello Barracks, Dublin.
"On Tuesday evening, 25th ultimo, I was officially in-
formed that martial law was declared in Dublin. There were
three leaders of the rebels in the guard room in Portobello Bar-
racks. The guard room was not safe for these desperate men
to be confined in, their rescue from outside would be very easy.
"On Tuesday and up to Wednesday morning rumors of
massacres of police and soldiers from all parts of Dublin were
being constantly sent to me from different sources. Among
others the rúmor reached me that 600 German prisoners at
Oldcastle had been released and armed and were marching on
Dublin. I also heard that the rebels in the city had opened up
depots for the supply and issue of arms, and that a large force
of rebels intended to attack Portobello Barracks, which was
held only by a few troops, many of whom were recruits ignorant
as to how to use their rifles, and a number of the others were
soldiers and sailors who had taken refuge in the barracks. We
had also in the barracks a considerable number of officers and
men who had been wounded by the rebels and whose protection
was a source of great concern to me. I believed that it was
known that these leaders were confined in the barracks and that
possibly the proposed attack on the barracks was with a view
to their release. Rumors of risings all over Ireland and of a
50
large German-American and Irish-American landing in Galway
were prevalent. I had no knowledge of any reinforcements
arriving from England, and did not believe it possible for troops
from England to arrive in time to prevent a general massacre.
I knew of the sedition which had been preached in Ireland for
years past and of the popular sympathy with rebellion. I
know also that men on leave home from the trenches, although
unarmed, had been shot down like dogs in the streets of their
own city, simply because they were in khaki, and I had also
heard that wounded soldiers home for convalescence had been
shot down also. On the Wednesday morning the 26th April
all this was in my mind. I was very much exhausted and un-
strung after practically a sleepless night, and I took the
gloomiest view of the situation and felt that only desperate
measures would save the situation. When I saw the position
described in my previous report I felt I must act quickly, and
believing I had the power under martial law, I felt, under the
circumstances, that it was clearly my duty to have the three
ring-leaders shot. It was a terrible ordeal for me, but I nerved
myself to carry out what was for me at the time a terrible
duty."
43. So far as this second report repeats the previous explana-
tion as to the shooting having taken place with the object of pre-
venting escape or rescue, the observations we have already made on
this point apply to it. With the reference to martial law and the
powers which this officer claimed to exercise under it, we deal in a
later paragraph of this report. He is at present, as was proved
to our satisfaction, confined in Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum
consequent upon the sentence of a Court Martial (which found him
guilty of murder but insane at the time of committing the crime),
and we have therefore felt ourselves debarred from taking his evi-
dence.
44. The disturbance continued throughout the week, and on
Friday (April 28th) Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington, who had last seen her
husband in Westmoreland Street on the previous Tuesday afternoon,
was still without definite information as to what had happened to
him. As a result of alarming rumors about him which reached
her from various sources her two sisters, Mrs. Culhane and Mrs.
Kettle, on the morning of Friday, went to the police station at Rath-
mines to make inquiries. The police had no information to give,
but suggested that the two ladies might inquire at Portobello Bar-
racks, where they accordingly went.
45.
To appreciate what followed it is necessary to say a word
51
as to Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington and her two sisters. They are the
daughters of Mr. David Sheehy, M. P. Their brother, Lieutenant
Sheehy, of the Dublin Fusiliers, was engaged in the fighting which
was still taking place in Dublin. The husband of Mrs. Culhane,
then recently deceased, had been a highly placed and responsible
official in the Irish Courts of Justice, while, Mrs. Kettle's husband,
Lieutenant T. M. Kettle (who since our sittings has gallantly given
his life for his country in France) was with his battalion. In such
circumstances Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington not unreasonably expected
that whatever fate had overtaken her own husband, her two sisters
would at least be treated with candor and consideration at the bar-
racks, and would be able to obtain such information as was avail-
able about their brother-in-law.
46. Mrs. Kettle and her sister arrived at the barracks at
about 1 p. m., and after some slight delay were admitted past the
first and second gates. A junior officer, Lieutenant Beattie, came
up to inquire as to their business. This gentleman was not called
before us, but as regards both this and the subsequent events to
which Mrs. Kettle and Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington speak, we were
expressly informed by those representing the military authorities,
that the accuracy of the evidence given by these ladies was not called
in question. Indeed, Lieutenant Beattie was present at the inquiry,
and we were told that his evidence was unnecessary, since it would
in no way controvert what Mrs. Kettle stated. Mrs. Kettle and her
sister thought it well to commence their inquiries by asking in the
first place as to their brother, Lieutenant Sheehy. To this they
received a courteous reply. They then asked as to their brother-
in-law, Mr. Sheehy Skeffington, whereupon the young officer with
whom they were conversing betrayed some confusion, and asked them
to excuse him, and went away to consult. with some other officers.
On returning he informed the two ladies that he regretted that he
would have to place them under arrest, giving as his reason that
they were Sinn Feiners and had been seen speaking to Sinn Feiners.
Mrs. Kettle and her sister pointed out the absurdity of the allega-
tion, and referred to the position of Lieutenant Kettle and of the
late Mr. Culhane; they were, however, placed in charge of some sol-
diers and marched across the barrack square to the orderely room,
outside which they remained standing, surrounded by soldiers, while
a consultation of officers appears to have taken place, within. After
some minutes Captain Bowen-Colthurst emerged from the guard-
room and questioned them. They repeated their inquiries as to
Lieutenant Sheehy and as to Mr. Sheehy Skeffington. Captain Colt-
hurst, in reply to the latter inquiry, said, “I know nothing whatever
52
2,
about Mr. Sheehy Skeffington." Mrs. Culhane referred to some of
the rumors which had reached them, and Lieutenant Beattie, who
was the only other officer actually present at this interview, made
some remark to Captain Bowen-Colthurst in an undertone. Cap-
tain Bowen-Colthurst then said, "I have no information concerning
Mr. Skeffington that is available, and the sooner you leave the
barracks the better." There was then an order given to have the
ladies conducted back, and, by Captain Bowen-Colthurst's direction,
they were forbidden to speak to one another. The guard was dis-
missed at the gate and the two ladies were conducted to the tram-
way line by Lieutenant Beattie.
47. It is obvious to us that throughout the incidents recorded
in the last paragraph Lieutenant Beattie acted under superior
orders, and the evidence satisfied us that the part he was called upon
to play was extremely distasteful to him.
48. About four o'clock on the afternoon of Friday, after
receiving her sisters' report of what had just taken place in the
barracks, Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington got into touch with the father of
the young man Coade to whose death we have referred. Father
O'Loughlin, the Chaplain of the barracks whom we have already
mentioned, knew young Coade as a member of the religious sodality
of which he (Father O'Loughlin) was spiritual director, and at a
meeting of which Coade had been present on the night he met his
death. The father of Coade was informed of his son's fate by
Father O'Loughlin and was permitted to visit the dead body in
the mortuary at the barracks. Here the unfortunate man saw the
body of Mr Sheehy Skeffington laid out beside that of his son, a fact
which on Friday afternoon he communicated to Mrs. Sheehy Skef-
fington. Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington, on Mr. Coade's suggestion, at
once sought out Father O'Loughlin and besought him for particulars
as to her husband. She was told that he was dead and already
buried.
49. At 7 p. m. on this same Friday evening Mrs. Sheehy Skef-
fington was putting her little son, aged seven, to bed, when a body
of soldiers from Portobello barracks headed by Captain Bowen-Colt-
hurst and Colonel Allett (an officer of advanced years who had
returned to service after the outbreak of the war and who was
killed during the later stages of the rebellion) arrived at the house.
Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington was alone in the house save for her boy and
a young maid-servant. Before any attempt was made to obtain an
entrance into the house a volley was fired through windows. A body
of soldiers with fixed bayonets under Captain Bowen-Colthurst
then burst in through the front door. No request for the door to be
1
53
:
opened was made nor was any time given to those in the house to
open it. Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington and her boy had bayonets pointed
at them and were ordered to hold their hands over their heads.
They were then, by orders of Captain Bowen-Colthurst, placed in
the front room together with the maid-servant and kept guarded
while the house was searched. All the rooms in the house were
thoroughly ransacked and a considerable quantity of books and
papers were wrapped up in the household linen, placed in a passing
motor car, and taken away. Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington has been her-
self a teacher of foreign languages while Mr. Sheehy Skeffington
was at the time the editor of a paper known as "The Irish Citizen,"
and a large part of the material removed seems to have consisted of
text-books both in German and other languages, as well as political
papers and pamphlets belonging to Mr. Sheehy Skeffington. The
search lasted until a quarter past ten when the soldiers departed;
Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington together with her boy and maid-servant
remained under arrest up to that hour.
50. On Monday, May 1st, Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington's house
was again visited by soldiers betwen 11 a. m. and 1 p. m., but Cap-
tain Bowen-Colthurst had nothing to do with this second visit.
Neither Mrs. Skeffington nor her boy were in the house at the
time, the only occupant being a temporary maid-servant, Margaret
Farrelly by name, a girl aged nineteen or twenty. Mrs. Skeffing-
ton's previous servant had been terrified by her experiences on the
Friday and had left, and the maid Farrelly had been obtained from
one of Mrs. Skeffington's sisters. Sergeant Claxton told us that
he received a message, transmitted through the police, that an
unknown person had been seen entering the house. Consequently,
two soldiers in charge of this sergeant went there and the maid-
servant was arrested and taken to Rathmines Police Station. She
was detained until the following Saturday when by the efforts of
Mrs. Skeffington's sisters her release was effected. Nothing else
appears to have taken place on the occasion of this visit to the
house.
51. Mr. Dickson's house at 12, Harrington Street was visited
by a military search-party during the course of Wednesday, April
26th, and a bag with some documents in it was taken away and
left temporarly with the picket which was still in occupation of
Alderman Kelly's tobacco shop near by. It was suggested before
us that this was done with the object of attaching suspicion to
Alderman Kelly, but we are satisfied that this was not the case
and that the incident must be judged merely as an ineffectual attempt
to obtain evidence which might justify or excuse the shooting which
54
had already taken place at Portobello Barracks.
52. Before the outbreak of the rebellion in Dublin, much atten-
tion had been attracted to a printed pamphlet entitled, “Secret Orders
Issued to the Military." This pamphlet had been widely circulated
with a view to creating the impression that its contents represented
the text of confidential directions issued by the military authorities
with the object of an attack upon the Sinn Fein organization and
its supporters. The document was a forgery from beginning to
end, and the false representations it contained as to the orders
actually issued, no doubt, played some part in precipitating the
outbreak of the rebellion. A copy of this document was produced
before us with the following note attached to it in red ink and in
the writing of Captain Bowen-Colthurst:-"I certify that I found
this document on the person of F. Sheehy Skeffington.-J. W.
Bowen-Colthurst, Captain R. I. R., Portobello Barracks, 25/4/16."
Lieutenant Morgan, who took a careful copy of all the documents
found on Mr. Sheehy Skeffington on the night that he was arrested,
satisfied us that this document was not among them, and, moreover,
that it was not attached to Captain Bowen-Colthurst's report written
on the day of the shooting. It is quite certain that Captain Bowen-
Colhurst added this document, together with the above note appended:
to it, to those documents actually found on Mr. Sheehy Skeffington
at a later date than that which the note bears, and that the certi-
ficate endorsed upon it was untrue. The document itself was
probably found by Captain Bowen-Colthurst at Mr. Sheehy Skef-
fington's house at the search after his death, and the false certificate
was added later. It was conceded before us that some copy of the
printed document could have hardly failed to have come into the
hands of any Dublin journalist. We think it right to state explicitly
that no other person is in any way implicated in this misrepresenta-
tion, and the matter is only of importance as a further instance of the
endeavors made by Captain Bowen-Colthurst, after the event, to
excuse his action.
1
53.
As a result of a communication to the military authorities:
in London, made by Major Sir Francis Vane (one of many officers
who had reported at Portobello Barracks at the commencement of the
outbreak) Captain Bowen-Colthurst was placed under "open" arrest
upon May 6th, and subsequently on May 11 under "close" arrest.
Major Sir Francis Vane was not an officer of the regiment stationed
at the barracks and had no responsibility for any of the events we
have described. On the 6th and 7th of June, Captain Bowen-
Colthurst was tried by court-martial in Dublin for the murder of
the three men and was found guilty but insane.
55
54. We have thought it formed no part of our duty to conduct
any inquiry of our own into the state of Captain Bowen-Colthurst's
mind at the time he committed the offense of which he has already
been found guilty, or to hear any evidence upon the point. The
court-martial pronounced on this matter, and its conclusion is on
record. Apart from the defense of insanity, there can be no excuse
or pilliation for his conduct from first to last, a state of things which
was frankly recognized by those who appeared before us on behalf
of the military authorities.
55. We have now set out all the relevant facts and circum-
stances as they appear to us and as we were able to ascertain them.
We desire to add the following general observations which those
facts and circumstances suggest to us:-
.
(1) In order to form any fair judgment of the conduct of the
officers and men at Portobello Barracks during Easter week, the
very exceptional character of the circumstances in which they were
placed must carefully be borne in mind. The garrison of the bar-
racks, insufficient as it was for the purpose of resisting any serious
assault that might have been made, was reinforced by a medley of
soldiers from different regiments, together with some sailors who
had reported at the commencement of the week. The officers, too,
came from different units and were in many cases unknown to one
another. It is not to be wondered at that this state of things pro-
duced a considerable laxity of control and cohesion within the
barracks. It was in such novel and disturbing conditions that the
battalion stationed at the barracks found itself deprived of its Com-
manding Officer, Colonel McCammond, through his serious illness.
Captain Bowen-Colthurst was the senior captain in the barracks,
and, although not the equal in rank, was of longer standing and of
greater experience in the army than Major Rosborough. The lat-
er officer, as well as the Adjutant, Lieutenant Morgan, were fully
occupied with the many important duties to which the emergency
had given rise. Messages of an alarming character were constantly
being transmitted to them from outside, and the exercise of effective
control over an officer in Captain Bowen-Colthurst's position was
rendered doubly difficult. We are satisfied that the state of things
which rendered Captain Bowen-Colthurst's conduct possible was
largely caused by the unfortunate but inevitable absence of Colonel
McCammond, the only officer in the barracks whom Captain Colt-
hurst would not have considered himself at liberty to ignore. The
officers in charge of the guard were young men who had recently
left school, and, of necessity, were without military experience; and
this fact, combined with Captain Colthurst's masterful character
56
and superior rank, does much to excuse their failure to offer any
effective opposition to his treatment of prisoners who were under
their charge.
(2) No evidence as to the raid on Mrs. Sheehy Skeffington's
house on Friday evening, April 28th, was tendered to us on behalf
of the military, save that Major Rosborough denied that he had
given any orders for it—a statement which we accept. A large
number of soldiers took part in the raid, and it is impossible to sup-
pose that the facts as to it remained unkown to all not actually
enaged in it, though we cannot believe that the methods employed
were either authorized or approved. The discreditable character
of the proceeding is intensified by the circumstances that a few
hours before, when inquiries were made at the barracks on Mrs.
Sheehy Skeffington's behalf, information was refused by the officer
responsible for her husband's death, who himself then headed the
raid. We think it right to say that, in our opinion, it is a circum-
stance highly regrettable and most surprising that, after the events
of Wednesday, Captain Bowen-Colthurst should have found him-
self free to act, in company with a body of soldiers, as he did on
the following Friday.
(3) The effect, so far as the powers of military authorities
are concerned, of a proclamation of martial law within the United
Kingdom has often been expounded, but nevertheless, in the crisis
which evokes such a proclamation, is not always remembered. Such
a proclamation does not, in itself, confer upon officers or soldiers
any new powers. It operates solely as a warning that the Govern-
ment, acting through the military, is about to take such forcible
and exceptional measures as may be necessary for the purpose of
putting down insurrection and restoring order. As long as the
measures are necessary, they might equally be taken without any
proclamation at all. The measures that are taken can only be justi-
fied by the circumstances then existing and the practical necessities.
of the case. Yet Miss Kelly told us that when Captain Bowen-
Colthurst entered her brother's premises he warned those present
that “as martial law had been proclaimed" he could shoot them as
he had shot someone in the street; Captain Bowen-Colthurst, in his
second report on the shootings, claims to have acted under the
belief that he was exercising powers conferred on him by martial
law; and we heard from the young officer who was left with Mr.
Sheehy Skeffington at Portobello Bridge while Captain Bowen-Colt-
hurst went forward, that he saw nothing "strange" in the order that
he was to shoot Mr. Sheehy Skeffington in the event of anything
happening to Captain Bowen-Colthurst's party three hundred yards
57
off. The shooting of unarmed and unresisting civilians without trial
constitutes the offense of murder, whether martial law has been
proclaimed or not. We should have deemed it superfluous to point
this out were it not that the failure to realize and apply this elemen-
tary principle seems to explain the free hand which Captain Bowen-
Colthurst was not restrained from exercising throughout the period
of crisis.
56. We desire to state that we have had every assistance from
the military authorities in obtaining all the documents and evidence
at their disposal which we required for the purposes of our inquiry,
and that we are indebted to all who appeared before us for their
help in elucidating the course of these lamentable events.
57. Finally, we desire to express our cordial appreciation of
the valuable services rendered to us by our Secretary, Mr. Harold
L. Murphy, both during our Sittings and in the preparation of this
Report.
All which we humbly submit and report for Your Majesty's
gracious consideration.
(Signed) JOHN SIMON.
CC
HAROLD L. MURPHY,
Secretary.
September 29th, 1916.
CC
THOMAS F. MOLONY.
DENIS S. HENRY.
58
POSTSCRIPTUM
THE RELEASE OF SHEEHY SKEFFINGTON'S
MURDERER
To the Editor:
Sir: The London Morning Post of February 7th contains the
following brief announcement in its editorial page: "We are glad
to be able to announce that Captain Bowen Colthurst who, since
his trial in the Sheehy Skeffington case, has been confined at Broad-
moor, obtained his release last week and is now in a private hospital.”
.
I have never desired this man's life, because I believe that
bloodshed cannot wipe out bloodshed, and because I have always
regarded Captain Bowen Colthurst as a tool and a scapegoat of the
higher authorities, fulfilling the policy which Mr. Austin Harrison
has called that of "The Unseen Hand"—namely, terrorism in Ire-
land. May I point out (a) that the release that gladdens the Tory
organ took place just as Parliament had risen so that no inquiries
could be made by members interested in the case, and (b) that it
synchronizes with the renewed attempts on the part of the author-
ities to stir up trouble in Ireland?
The officer, in whose release the Morning Post rejoices, was
tried and found guilty by Court-martial in June, 1916, of the
murder of three Dublin editors,-Francis Sheehy Skeffington,
Thomas Dickson and Patrick McIntyre. A plea of insanity was
set up and he was confined as a lunatic in Broadmoor "during the
King's pleasure." In the brief space of nineteen months, he is now
adjudged sufficiently "cured" to be once more set at liberty, and,
as the Morning Post specifically mentions his title, aparently re-
stored to his rank as Captain in the Royal Irish Rifles. Thus the
authorities virtually acknowledge as correct the contention held by
many members of Parliament, and by organs of liberal opinion such
as the Manchester Guardian, The Nation, Truth, the New Witness,
The New Statesman, The Labor Leader, The London Herald,—that
the plea of insanity was made by arrangement and was merely a
pretext to cover with the mantle of irresponsibility the murders
already alluded to, as well as the other murders which were dis-
closed at the subsequent inquiry made by the Royal Commission,
presided over by Sir John Simon, although carefully concealed at the
original court-martial,-the murders, namely: of the lad Coade, of
the labor representative Richard O'Carroll, a surrendered prisoner
61
and of at least two unidentified civilians. Captain Bowen Colt-
hurst seems to have had indeed throughout the patronage of powerful
personages. At the commission investigation it was shown that after
these atrocities, he was actually promoted and for some time held a
higher and more important command, he was given the place held
by the officer, Major Sir Francis Vane, who had complained of the
atrocities to Lord Kitchener, and had vainly attempted to have him
put under restraint pending a trial.
It is unprecedented in British law that one held in the charge
of homicidal insanity should be unconditionally liberated in so short
a time. No doctor would assume the responsibility for such a release.
We are driven then to the conclusion that the authorities put forward
insanity merely as a formal plea, and had every confidence in the
officer's soundness of mind. The British Government, by this action,
only more officially recognizes that the murder of Irishmen in
groups, not less that nine by responsible officers, is scarcely more
than a misdemeanor, and the Morning Post, the Organi of British
Imperialism, does not conceal its "gladness" that Captain Bowen
Colthurst of the Skeffington "case" is restored to liberty and rank.
The release of this murderer recalls another episode in recent
Irish history. In July, 1914, some weeks before the outbreak of
the War, British soldiers shot down women and children in Bachelor's
Walk, Dublin. The usual Royal Commission "investigated" that
outrage and made Mr. Harrell (Assistant Police Commissioner) the
scapegoat and deprived him of his command. A few months after-
wards, Mr. Harrell was quietly restored and given a post in the
Admiralty. The analogy between the two cases need not be labored.
Ireland is under martial law and there are many signs of un-
rest and disturbance: at any moment there may be riots followed
by repression. The release of Captain Bowen Colthurst "pour en-
courager les autres" at such a time is significant,—it is an indication
that officers whose bloodlust exceeds their discretion may reply on
that officers whose bloodlust exceeds their discretion may rely on
equal immunity.
C
The cynical lawlessness that condones such atrocities is char-
acteristic of the perverse discrimination made by the British Govern-
ment in its dealings with Irishmen. It is the continuance and the
ascendency of this policy that has caused Irishmen to abandon as
futile constitutional agitation, and to insist that the case of Ireland
be dealt with no longer by Great Britain, but by an International
Tribunal.
HANNA SHEEHY SKEFFINGTON.
April 2, 1918.
62
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