THIS WEEK, our Voices section is dedicated to the men, women and children whose first-hand experiences contributed to the rich patchwork of testimony that chronicles the events of 1916.
Dr Kathleen Lynn, campaigner, feminist, doctor and TD, was born in Mayo to a family who moved to Longford when she was nine.
She got involved in the national movement “in a casual way”, through Constance Markievicz and Helena Molony, and went on to become interested in the women’s suffrage movement.
After the Citizen Army was founded in 1913, she attended Liberty Hall, where she gave lectures in first aid. She also lectured to the Cumann na mBan. She “knew and admired James Connolly”, and declared Countess Markiewicz “a grand soul”.
In the run-up to the Rising, she gave medical advice, while during the Rising she oversaw first aid at the City Hall. Here, she recalls being thrown into the centre of the bloody action on Easter Monday. [The full testimony can be read in full on the Bureau of Military History website.]
When I got to the City Hall, say sometime before 12, it was already occupied by Sean Connolly and his section of the Citizen Army. As I arrived there I saw the dead body of a big policeman lying on the ground – it seemed to be in front of the Castle gate.
Just then Sir Thomas Myles came up, evidently going into the Castle and I still remember the look of horror in his face when he saw the body. I don’t think he noticed me. He rushed off.
We had another casualty on the roof. A young boy, whose name I don’t remember, got a wound in the shoulder which I dressed immediately. His condition was not very serious, but he was nervous. He was brought downstairs and remained there until the evacuation. When he heard the others talk of trying to get out, he was afraid they would leave him behind alone. We reassured him on that point.
Sean Connolly, a Rising leader, led the second company of the Irish Citizen Army to City Hall. He was shot dead while trying to hoist the flag on the roof of the City Hall, becoming the first army casualty on the Irish side. Soon after that, British soldiers arrived.
A regiment of British soldiers arrived at the Castle, I think in the late afternoon. I did not see them, but I imagine the men on our roof and those on the roof of the Evening Mail end of the tailor’s shop opposite must have. I often thought afterwards that it was surprising that those soldiers were allowed to enter the Castle yard unmolested by our men.
I think that Sean Connolly’s death had a demoralising effect on the City Hall men. It was a pity some attack was not made on them because immediately after their arrival the fusillade started. The bullets fell like rain.
We had come down from the roof and were collected in the hall. The firing came from all sides and continued till after darkness fell. There was no way of escape although we discussed all possibilities. There was no electric light but there was a moon and we could see things where a beam of moonlight fell.
When the soldiers entered through a window at the back of the City Hall, the building was in darkness. Lynn was asked to raise her hands and say who was there – she said some women and a wounded man, but did not realise until afterwards that there were some men there too. They were marched through the Castle Yard to Ship Street Barracks.
We were the best part of a week in Ship Street. The first day, we had quite a good dinner. After that, the food got slacker and slacker until, in the end, we were getting ship’s biscuits and water. That was our diet for several days.
I think we were about eight days there. The old military sergeant advised us that, if we moistened a cloth with water and rolled the biscuits in it, it would be easier to eat them, and, we did that. He was really a kind old boy.
When the military were able to go around a bit, some of them broke into one of the houses nearby; and the sergeant came in one evening with his pockets full of oranges which he gave us. We thought we had never tasted anything so delicious as these oranges.
At Ship Street, the “lavatory accommodation was appalling”, said Lynn. They slept on mattresses called ‘biscuits’, and had grey blankets which were “crawling with lice”. After Ship Street, they were brought to Kilmainham Gaol.
At Kilmainham I remember we were given one basin of water for the three of us to wash in. It was more than we had in the other place. I, being the doctor, used it first, Miss ffrench Mullen second and Miss Molony was last. We all had some sort of a wash, so that was something. We had wardresses there and conditions were decidedly better.
It was a very trying time for us because Madame Markievicz was overhead in the condemned cell and we used hear reports that she was to be executed. We also heard about the other people that were being executed. We could hear the shootings in the mornings, and we would be told afterwards who it was. It was a very harrowing experience. We were there for about a week.
They were then removed to Mountjoy Prison, where they had cells to themselves. “We were not like ordinary criminals,” said Lynn.
We discovered that, when the suffragettes were there, they had made little holes in the plaster under the pipes so that, if one lay down on the floor, one could talk to the person in the next cell.
Countess Plunkett was in the next cell to mine. Of course, she was in a terrible state about her son having been executed, and she used get awfully lonely and upset at night. We would lie down on the floor and talk; and that would make her better.
After a while, we were allowed visitors and parcels, and then we were inundated with all sorts of presents of luxuries. The only thing we longed for was clean bread and butter… I think we were a very short time in Mountjoy when some American press representatives came to interview us. We were brought into a room and were asked all sorts of questions.
I remember there was a lady among them who asked us were we “diehards”. At that time I did not know what diehards meant. She said afterwards that she never came across such a stupid set as we were.
I think our brains were comatose after what we had been through and they refused to work for us. We were not at all up to the mark and as snappy as they would have liked us to be. They got the impression that we were a poor lot.
Lynn was deported to England, and her family made representations for her. She spent time with a family in Coltford, working as a doctor, while ffrench-Mullen was in London. Lynn went back to Ireland when her sister became ill with typhoid fever, then returned to England.
In 1918, she escaped arrest back in Dublin (as she was still under a deportation order), and after this pretended to be a war widow while out visiting patients. She was arrested again, but was allowed to remain in practice as a doctor if she didn’t leave Dublin. The hospital for infants was founded on Charlemont St soon after this, opening in 1919.
Kathleen Lynn became a TD for Sinn Féin in 1923. She and ffrench-Mullen shared a life and home together for 30 years. When Kathleen died, she was buried with full military honours.
The chaplain’s story: ‘Crying, terrified children came to us for shelter’>
The nurse’s story: ’John Healy, 14, a schoolboy, had his brain hanging all over his forehead’>
The printer’s story: ‘I knew it meant war but I was honoured to print the Proclamation’>
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