The day before the rising was Easter Sunday, and they were crying joyfully in the Churches "Christ has risen." On the following day they were saying in the streets "Ireland has risen." The luck of the moment was with her. The auguries were good, and, notwithstanding all that has succeeded, I do not believe she must take to the earth again, nor be ever again buried. The pages hereafter were written day by day during the Insurrection that followed Holy Week, and, as a hasty impression of a most si

This has taken everyone by surprise. It is possible, that, with the exception of their Staff, it has taken the Volunteers themselves by surprise; but, to-day, our peaceful city is no longer peaceful; guns are sounding, or rolling and crackling from different directions, and, although rarely, the rattle of machine guns can be heard also. Two days ago war seemed very far away—so far, that I have covenanted with myself to learn the alphabet of music. Tom Bodkin had promised to present me with a mus

A sultry, lowering day, and dusk skies fat with rain. I left for my office, believing that the insurrection was at an end. At a corner I asked a man was it all finished. He said it was not, and that, if anything, it was worse. On this day the rumours began, and I think it will be many a year before the rumours cease. The Irish Times published an edition which contained nothing but an official Proclamation that evily-disposed persons had disturbed the peace, and that the situation was well in han

It was three o'clock before I got to sleep last night, and during the hours machine guns and rifle firing had been continuous. This morning the sun is shining brilliantly, and the movement in the streets possesses more of animation than it has done. The movement ends always in a knot of people, and folk go from group to group vainly seeking information, and quite content if the rumour they presently gather differs even a little from the one they have just communicated. The first statement I hear

Again, the rumours greeted one. This place had fallen and had not fallen. Such a position had been captured by the soldiers; recaptured by the Volunteers, and had not been attacked at all. But certainly fighting was proceeding. Up Mount Street, the rifle volleys were continuous, and the coming and going of ambulance cars from that direction were continuous also. Some spoke of pitched battles on the bridge, and said that as yet the advantage lay with the Volunteers. At 11.30 there came the sound

This morning there are no newspapers, no bread, no milk, no news. The sun is shining, and the streets are lively but discreet. All people continue to talk to one another without distinction of class, but nobody knows what any person thinks. It is a little singular the number of people who are smiling. I fancy they were listening to the guns last night, and they are smiling this morning because the darkness is past, and because the sun is shining, and because they can move their limbs in space, a

This morning also there has been no bread, no milk, no meat, no newspapers, but the sun is shining. It is astonishing that, thus early in the Spring, the weather should be so beautiful. It is stated freely that the Post Office has been taken, and just as freely it is averred that it has not been taken. The approaches to Merrion Square are held by the military, and I was not permitted to go to my office. As I came to this point shots were fired at a motor car which had not stopped on being challe

The Insurrection has not ceased. There is much rifle fire, but no sound from the machine guns or the eighteen pounders and trench mortars. From the window of my kitchen the flag of the Republic can be seen flying afar. This is the flag that flies over Jacob's Biscuit Factory, and I will know that the Insurrection has ended as soon as I see this flag pulled down. When I went out there were few people in the streets. I met D.H., and, together, we passed up the Green. The Republican flag was still

The Insurrection is over, and it is worth asking what has happened, how it has happened, and why it happened? The first question is easily answered. The finest part of our city has been blown to smithereens, and burned into ashes. Soldiers amongst us who have served abroad say that the ruin of this quarter is more complete than any thing they have seen at Ypres, than anything they have seen anywhere in France or Flanders. A great number of our men and women and children, Volunteers and civilians

There is much talk of the extraordinary organising powers displayed in the insurrection, but in truth there was nothing extraordinary in it. The real essence and singularity of the rising exists in its simplicity, and, saving for the courage which carried it out, the word extraordinary is misplaced in this context. The tactics of the Volunteers as they began to emerge were reduced to the very skeleton of "strategy." It was only that they seized certain central and stragetical districts, garrison

Meanwhile the insurrection, like all its historical forerunners, has been quelled in blood. It sounds rhetorical to say so, but it was not quelled in peasoup or tisane. While it lasted the fighting was very determined, and it is easily, I think, the most considerable of Irish rebellions. The country was not with it, for be it remembered that a whole army of Irishmen, possibly three hundred thousand of our race, are fighting with England instead of against her. In Dublin alone there is scarcely a

No person in Ireland seems to have exact information about the Volunteers, their aims, or their numbers. We know the names of the leaders now. They were recited to us with the tale of their execution; and with the declaration of a Republic we learned something of their aim, but the estimate of their number runs through the figures ten, thirty, and fifty thousand. The first figure is undoubtedly too slender, the last excessive, and something between fifteen and twenty thousand for all Ireland wou

There is truly an Irish question. There are two Irish questions, and the most important of them is not that which appears in our newspapers and in our political propaganda. The first is international, and can be stated shortly. It is the desire of Ireland to assume control of her national life. With this desire the English people have professed to be in accord, and it is at any rate so thoroughly understood that nothing further need be made of it in these pages. The other Irish question is diffe