CHAPTER 3

A Lost Republic: Liam Mellows and the 1916 Rising

Over 300 men were deported from Galway in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising when Liam Mellows led 600 Volunteers and Cumann na mBan in the east Galway countryside. The rebels attacked police at Athenry, Clarinbridge, Oranmore and Carnmore, traversing the countryside until Saturday morning. In the historiography of Easter Week, events outside Dublin have, until recently, received little attention and most studies have focused on events in Dublin. Historian Fergus Campbell has illuminated the remarkable attempts by Liam Mellows to foment armed insurrection in the west.¹ The national aspect of the Rising, however, has been neglected to the detriment of a full appreciation of the ambitions of the revolutionary leadership. A close analysis of events outside the capital illustrates the capacity for a wider rural dimension for Rebellion. The stark variety of responses to the events of the week shines a light on the complex nature of political allegiance in nationalist Ireland.

The events of Easter Week in Galway soured an already poisonous political atmosphere and the diversity of responses to the Rebellion, ranging from widespread support in some rural districts, indifference and hostility in larger towns, to outcry and panic in Galway city was indicative of the complexity of nationalist political allegiances during the revolutionary period. As this episode highlights, what is referred to as the nationalist political tradition concealed a spectrum of divergent allegiances, reflecting a cultural chasm between the rural countryside, where the tradition of agrarian secret societies still flourished, and the urban world of the towns, where the military barracks continued to play a central role reflected in cultural and political allegiances.

The plan for the Rising in Galway was predicated on the successful delivery of several thousand rifles from The Aud; however, when the arms landing off the Kerry coast failed, the prospects for a meaningful western dimension to the Rising ended. The force of over 650 that went out in Galway were armed with thirty .303 service rifles, a few miniature rifles and about three hundred shotguns. Volunteer officer Alf Ó Monacháin later recalled:

The Galway Volunteers, when they went out, did not hope to do anything big. Badly armed as they were, their only hope was to bottle up the British garrison and divert the British from concentrating on Dublin, and this they succeeded in doing. Outside the big town the Volunteers had absolute control of the County. There were about 600 square miles of Galway Free County, from Galway city to Ballinasloe, and from Tuam to Gort.²

The plan for the county had two phases with companies to be armed at central points, returning to their districts to attack police barracks, before proceeding as a larger group into the heavily garrisoned town of Galway. The plan was aspirational but the degree to which it reflected the capacity of the Volunteers for open revolt is unclear. Ó Monacháin explained, ‘It had been arranged that 3,000 of the rifles from The Aud were to reach Galway, and there was a man in Galway ready for each rifle. Everything had been planned with men on the railway to take the rifles at Kerry and distribute them all along the line right up to Galway.’³

Volunteer Michael Fogarty was first told of plans for the Rising when he attended a Volunteer meeting in Limerick on Palm Sunday.⁴ Fogarty worked as a railway signalman for the Great Western Railway Company and later stated that the Clare Volunteers were in charge of landing arms from two sloops at Carrigaholt, some of which were to be loaded onto a railway carriage and sent north to be used in Galway. Fogarty’s role was to make sure the railway lines were kept open and the train delivering the weapons arrived safely in Athenry. Volunteer John Hosty of Galway town recalled, ‘the information we had in Galway on Holy Thursday was that Companies were to move south of Galway, contact Clare and if the expected landing of arms matured, and at that stage there was no reason to doubt – to collect their share and move back again to Galway’.⁵ Local companies were then to mobilise to central depots along the railway line to receive their supply of weapons at the Gort, Athenry and Tuam stations. Volunteer Thomas Nohilly recalled, ‘the plans for the North Galway Volunteers, as far as I know, were that they would proceed to Athenry on Easter Tuesday night, or the following day. They were to be taken there on a train driven by Volunteer Sam Browne who was a loco engineer attached to the Great Southern and Western Railway Company.’⁶ Having carried out the initial phases of the plan, the Volunteers were to link up with Volunteer companies from the midlands, ‘along the line of the river Shannon’. Tomás Ó Maoileoin, commander of the Westmeath Volunteers, recalled ‘we were to wreck the rail link to the west and then we were to march to Shannon harbour and effect a link with Liam Mellows’ force holding Ballinasloe’.⁷

Larry Lardiner, Captain of the Athenry company and second in command to Mellows, was one of the few Galway officers to record personal doubts about the Galway Volunteers’ readiness. Lardiner believed that Mellows was informed at Christmas 1915 that a Rising was imminent, ‘however, he never mentioned a word of it to any of the Galway officers, but by suggestion and insinuation he gave them to understand that something was about to happen. The wisdom of his silence is doubtful but possibly he was acting under orders.’⁸ Lardiner concluded, ‘in going over my plans I discovered that the forces in Galway were entirely inadequate’.⁹ Volunteer Patrick Callanan recalled that a few months before the Rising, Pádraig Pearse visited Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) organiser Dick Murphy in Athenry:

In the course of the conversation Pearse told them that a Rising had been decided upon but he did not mention a date for it. Pearse asked Lardiner if he could hold a line on the river Suck near Ballinasloe. Lardiner said he could. Murphy then said they could not hold a position on the Suck for any length of time owing to the poor equipment and armament they had, and that the only chance they had was to attack the local RIC Barracks. Murphy also told me that Pearse seemed very disappointed, and that both Lardiner and he assured Pearse they would be in the fight whenever it took place, and do the best they could.¹⁰

When news reached the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) of the initial Volunteer mobilisation on Easter Tuesday, rural barracks were evacuated with the police flooding into central depots in larger towns including, Tuam, Loughrea and Ballinasloe. In Athenry, the police remained inside the barracks, despite the remarkable events going on around them. The rebel force was given the run of the east Galway countryside and the authorities later concluded:

That the Sinn Féin insurrection was so quickly put down and that it was confined to so few districts outside the metropolitan area must be ascribed to the fortunate arrest of Sir Roger Casement and the failure of the German ship to land the required arms and ammunition. There is no reason whatever to believe that if these arrangements had not miscarried, the Irish Volunteers in any County would not have held back. In fact, the evidence is all the other way.¹¹

Easter Week in Galway

Liam Mellows was arrested in the Athenry home of Julia Morrissey in late March 1916 and taken to Arbour Hill Prison. He was deported under the Defence of the Realm Act to Leek, Staffordshire, where he was he lodged in 10 Rose Bank Street.¹² The IRB arranged his safe return, however, and he was smuggled back through Glasgow and Belfast to Dublin – rather appropriately, dressed as a priest – by Nora Connolly and his brother Barney. He was spirited to Galway on Wednesday of Easter Week and hid out in Killeeneen. News that the Rising was to commence was brought to Athenry on Holy Thursday by Anna Fahy, wife of Volunteer leader Frank Fahy, vice commandant of the Four Courts garrison. The message was written by Pádraig Pearse and addressed to Larry Lardiner, Captain of the Athenry Company; it was written in a code agreed upon in advance: ‘collect the premiums at 7 pm on Easter Sunday evening’.¹³

With Lardiner making preparations to notify the Galway companies, Eoin MacNeill’s countermanding order calling off the Rising was delivered, causing much confusion. Éamonn Corbett, Captain of the Clarinbridge Company recalled, ‘We immediately proceeded to Killeeneen to tell Liam [Mellows] who was mystified with the news.’¹⁴ A second dispatch from Pearse was subsequently delivered to Athenry informing Lardiner that the Rising had merely been postponed until Monday. The confusion provoked Lardiner into making the journey to Volunteer headquarters in Dublin to ascertain the situation; he was unable to get a definitive answer, however, and returned to Galway none the wiser. The final notice to ‘come out’ arrived late on Monday night and following a ‘council of war’ held in Killeeneen, Mellows dispatched word that the rebels were to mobilise on Tuesday morning.

The first shots of the Galway Rising were fired at just after seven a.m. on the morning of Easter Tuesday when a group of Volunteers led by Mellows and numbering approximately 100 attacked the police barracks in the village of Clarinbridge. On reaching the village, the Clarinbridge and Killeeneen companies cut telegraph poles, blocked the main road and partially destroyed the main bridge in the town. Mellows selected a vanguard of younger men, some as young as 17, who rushed the door of the barracks, successfully gaining access to the building with four RIC defenders forcing a partial retreat. One Volunteer told the Connacht Tribune in 1966:

Mellows, a great believer in the élan and courage of youth, picked twelve fellows of about seventeen years of age from the many who offered themselves. He was to be proved wrong in his estimate. The élan and courage was there but not the craft of experience. Some of the older men suggested getting sledges and breaking down the door but Mellows was anxious to press on to Oranmore and vetoed the suggestion.¹⁵

During the course of the attack, Fr Michael Tully, who was saying mass in the village, pleaded with Mellows to call his men off. The group was unable to breach the barrack’s defences and after several hours of sniping, the main body of rebels departed, marching seven miles to the nearby village of Oranmore, leaving a small force to keep the building under intermittent fire. The rebels took with them three RIC who were caught unawares while on patrol.¹⁶

As the group approached Oranmore, they were joined by the Oranmore and Maree companies and when word reached the village of the rebels’ approach, the four police on duty barricaded themselves into the barracks. Once again Mellows selected a group of younger Volunteers who approached the building and tried to rush the door; however, as one veteran remembered, ‘the spirit of the men was high and, led by Lieutenant Costello, a party rushed up to Smyth’s doorway and tried to smash it in with a crowbar. The folly of this attack was seen when the police fired through the doorway and wounded one of the Oranmore Company. Both garrisons then began systematically firing at anything that moved.’¹⁷

Frustrated once again, the Volunteers kept the building under intermittent fire until a contingent of the Connaught Rangers arrived from Galway to relieve the beleaguered police. The force consisted of a party of police under County Inspector Clayton and a party of ten Connaught Rangers under Captain Sir Andrew Armstrong. A brief firefight ensued and the police and army charged down the main street, wounding one Volunteer.¹⁸ The rebels had commandeered a number of motorcars, vans and traps and rather than face the better-armed troops, they evacuated in the direction of Athenry. The group was a remarkable sight as it made its way through the east Galway countryside; as one veteran recalled, ‘Along the road to Athenry, Mellows led his men, some riding on the motley collection of carts, drays and sidecars. Riding on one of the cars were the Cumann na mBan who had accompanied them from Killeeneen.’¹⁹

At Athenry, Volunteers and Cumann na mBan from surrounding districts had been arriving throughout Tuesday, including companies from the Derrydonnell, Newcastle, Athenry, Cussaun, Rockfield, Kilconieron, Kiltulla and Killimordaly districts. Over 300 were busy preparing bombs and equipment, yet, no attempt to attack the RIC barracks was made. Volunteer Frank Hynes explained:

Anyone reading this account would be inclined to think that we were acting in a rather cowardly manner – why did we not attack the barrack in Athenry? Why did we keep retreating, etc, etc. The Volunteers who were out in Galway numbered between five and six hundred. We had about fifty full service rifles and about thirty rounds for each rifle, about one dozen pikes and a good many were not armed at all, so that if we wasted our ammunition on attacking the barracks, we had nothing to fight with after that; and as for bombs, we made some hopeless attempts at making bombs. ²⁰

As word reached Athenry that Mellows and his contingent were approaching from Oranmore, the large group, as Hynes later explained, ‘decided to retreat towards Oranmore and meet Mellows and his contingent and leave it to him to decide what was best to do’.²¹ As the group approached the Athenry Model Farm, they heard the first boom from the big guns of HMS The Laburnum in Galway Bay. The navy shelling of the coast between Oranmore and Castlegar continued all week, increasing the sense of drama. Many Volunteers believed their ‘gallant German allies’ had arrived in Galway Bay and the booming was the sound of a naval battle between German U-boats and the navy.

With Mellows and his group joining the large Athenry rebel contingent at the Model Farm, the camp was a hive of activity and morale was high: ‘Many men who had not been in the Volunteers at all joined up to fight and all were in the best of humour and full of pluck.’²² The Volunteers were accompanied by the women of Cumann na mBan, and as one recalled, ‘Even sleeping was no problem. The women lay in the beds normally used by the students and many of the leaders and men also found orthodox beds. For the others there was plenty of hay and straw to make cosy shakedowns.’²³ Liam Mellows later wrote:

The greatest enthusiasm prevailed amongst the Rebels. About thirty girls, members of Cumann na mBan, accompanied their brothers-in-arms the whole week. Their spirit and determination was wonderful. Nothing could dampen the spirits of all who were ‘out’. Songs and recitations could be heard on all sides when resting. Laughter and fun never deserted them. The police, in abandoning several of their barracks and huts, were in such a hurry that they left uniforms, clothing and boxes and kits behind them. Several of the irresponsible mirth makers amongst the Volunteers dressed in ‘peelers’ uniforms and strutted about imitating the authoritive airs of the sergeants – the little Caesars of their district.²⁴

While the main body of the Volunteers massed at the Athenry Model Farm, about six miles east of Galway town, the Claregalway and Castlegar companies, under the command of Thomas Ruane, had mobilised and billeted for the night in the small village of Carnmore, awaiting their orders from Mellows. When news of their position reached Galway town, a group of RIC formed a convoy and drove to confront them, leaving Galway early on Wednesday morning. Volunteer Mick Newell recalled the gun battle that took place:

The enemy advanced up to the cross roads and Constable Whelan was pushed by District Inspector Heard up to the wall which was about four feet high, the District Inspector standing behind Whelan and holding him by the collar of his tunic. Constable Whelan shouted, ‘surrender boys, I know ye all.’ Whelan was shot dead and the District Inspector fell also and lay motionless on the ground. They got back into the cars and went in the direction of Oranmore. The enemy then made an attempt to outflank our position but were beaten back. The enemy then retreated and continued to fire until well out of range of our shotguns. They got back into the cars and went in the direction of Oranmore.²⁵

Following the confrontation, the contingent made their way to Athenry to link up with their comrades. By now the group numbered almost 650, posing major problems in terms of food, sleeping accommodation and arms. Mellows took the decision to march to a more readily defendable location and the group marched in military formation from Athenry to Moyode Castle, located between Athenry and Loughrea, arriving late on Wednesday. One veteran later told the Connacht Tribune in 1966:

Life was grim in Moyode. There was only open fireplaces and small grates to cook upon and utensils were very scarce indeed. The provisions brought from Oranmore and the Farmyard were soon consumed and the potatoes, a new variety, proved uneatable, even to hungry men.

Only about one in four had an overcoat and during the cold April nights, they suffered severely from cold. Life was grim. Drinking was forbidden and the only amusement in the camp was provided in the drawing room of the mansion where the officers and ladies of Cumann na mBan danced for a few hours under the eye of Father Feeney.²⁶

The officers were unhappy with the capacity of the old mansion to withstand an assault, however, and they were beginning to have difficulty keeping the force motivated. Hunger affected morale, forcing Mellows to address his force on Thursday night, asking anybody who wasn’t happy to leave. Ailbhe Ó Monacháin recalled, ‘Some men, for whom there was no arms, decided to go home, and one whole company went away. This was at ten o’clock at night. The company that went away was back again about 3 o’clock next morning.’²⁷ With food becoming scarce, Mellows ordered the requisitioning of a bullock from a local farmer, as he later described in characteristically romantic fashion:

Commissariat and transport departments had to be organised. The former was put in the charge of Lieutenant Jack Broderick of Athenry. He took up his duties with a zeal and enthusiasm wonderful to behold. In a short while he had a staff of several butchers and other helpers. He organised commandeering parties and dispatched them for anything considered necessary. Cattle were slaughtered but no more than were absolutely needed. The girls of Cumann na mBan were set baking bread and rations were issued to the men. Each company appointed orderlies and cooks to draw rations and prepare meals. One of the cooks developed a genius for making stew and the quarters for the Athenry Corps, to which he belonged, was generally invaded about meal times by men from all the other corps, attracted there by the savoury smells. Officers, going about their duties were hailed on all sides by amateur cooks, with cries of ‘Ate a Bit of this Captain, tis Grand,’ ‘Try a little of the Castlegar mate’.²⁸

Mellows upbeat description of this episode is contradicted by the testimony of veterans given to the Connacht Tribune for the fiftieth anniversary of the Rebellion, and as one noted:

The slaughtering and cutting up [of the bullock] was done by Michael O’Connor, a butcher who had been captured with his van and was kept prisoner in the belief the campaign would be a lengthy one and his services would be required. But the cooks burned the meat badly, and no one was anxious for more beef after this experience.²⁹

Mellows was reticent to commandeer more livestock despite the efforts of IRB leader Tom Kenny to persuade him and one veteran later noted:

Strangely Mellows was reluctant to slaughter bullocks for his men and his reluctance was not entirely due to the poor cooking on the previous occasion. When [Tom] Kenny [Fenian leader] had ridden in with four bullocks, Mellows had given them back to the owner who had followed Kenny asking for his bullocks to be restored.³⁰

By Thursday, the initial euphoria of the week was fading and the sobering realisation sank in for many ordinary Volunteers that it was only a matter of time before they would have to face infinitely better equipped British troops. Mellows was determined to keep his force out, however, and one officer later recalled, ‘As far as I remember he said he could hold out for a month by moving south to the Clare hills.’³¹ Volunteer Michael Kelly recalled:

I remember that Mellows and some officers went out by car on Thursday night in the direction of Ballinasloe on reconnaissance as it was rumoured that British Military were advancing on Moyode. The rumours about the British advance and the uncertainty, along with the withdrawal of the two hundred men, had a disturbing effect on all the Volunteers at Moyode on the Thursday night. We got no sleep that night as we were called out a few times during the night and lined in our Companies for roll call.³²

The appearance of the influential Fenian leader Tom Kenny compounded Mellows’ leadership crisis, as the battle for hearts and minds was under way between the outsider, Mellows, and the old Fenian Kenny, as Frank Hynes explained:

This man did his best to get us to give up and go home and have sense. He brought one particular rumour that five or six hundred soldiers were marching on us from Ballinasloe. We called an officer meeting and I’m afraid that one or two of our officers were anxious to take him seriously and take his advice and go home. Liam [Mellows] got disgusted and said he would not disband his men. He handed over command to Larry [Lardiner] but Larry would not disband them. Liam, after about an hour took over again.³³

Mellows would not be moved by the arguments of his officers and Frank Hynes found, ‘that dedicated man, who made no secret of the fact that he had come back to offer up his life for Ireland, could not understand that anyone would wish to do less’:

They had been told they were to take part in a route march and now they found themselves in armed rebellion. They had been told too, that they would be away from home for only three days, now they were already four days gone and it was the intention of the leaders to carry on a prolonged campaign. Those of Athenry who stayed – and there were many of them – dragged their overcoats from those who were going away and were the lucky possessors of such garments. They needed them for the campaign to which they had committed themselves.³⁴

Once again, Mellows’ own account of the night represents a romanticised version of events:

On the night of the second last day of the Rising in Galway, things looked so black, that it was felt incumbent I should address the men and put the situation clearly before them so that it could not be said they had been led on in ignorance, made dupes of and fooled. Can I ever forget the scene. Several hundred men drawn up in the courtyard of a castle residence that was our headquarters, at two o’clock in the morning, a weird light cast on the assemblage by several torches of bog deal. They were armed with every conceivable type of weapon, rifles, shotguns and pikes. I spoke to them at length, putting the situation clearly before them, and ended by saying that any man that did not feel he could go further with us could go home and he would not be thought any worse of, he had risked everything in coming out and no man could do more. There was a dead silence for a few minutes and then a big powerful countryman, one of the simple, honest, and so many I know here would denigrate, uncouth and ignorant fellows, stepped to the front and said, ‘we came out to fight for an Irish Republic, and now, with the help of God we are not afraid to die for it.’³⁵

On Friday, Mellows took the decision to march the reduced force further south in the forlorn hope that the Clare Volunteers had risen. The group left Moyode, marching south in formation, eventually garrisoning at Limepark, an old shell of a big house near the small village of Peterswell, close to the Clare border. It was during the march to Limepark, that Mellows decided to disband the women of Cumann na mBan. One Volunteer recalled in 1966:

The Cumann na mBan were not in the column. Knowing the hardships that had to be faced it had been decided to leave them behind. But knowing too that these ladies would refuse to be left behind, a stratagem was employed to make them go home. They were sent to the Hynes home in Cregaturla on the pretext of being needed for some martial project and so were absent when the men marched away. Only Julia Morrissey remained with the rebels.³⁶

Fr Henry Feeney of Clarinbridge, who had been with the Volunteers all week, was joined on the march to Limepark by Fr Thomas Fahy of Maynooth College and the pair pleaded with Mellows to disband his men before the military encircled them. Revd Henry ‘Harry’ Feeney (1898–1945) was a native of Castlegar and served as curate in Clarinbridge. He acted as spiritual guide to the men throughout the week and was held in high regard by the Volunteers; he and Mellows developed a deep personal bond.³⁷ When Mellows refused the priests’ pleas, Fr Fahy persuaded him to allow them to put their case to a meeting of brigade officers. Volunteer Michael Kelly recalled:

I heard one of the priests telling all the officers assembled about the surrender in Dublin. A discussion then arose mainly between the priest and Mellows. The priest was trying to convince the meeting that, as the Volunteers in Dublin had surrendered, the Galway Volunteers should disperse as the position was hopeless in the circumstances. The priests asked Mellows whether he would be agreeable to put it to the men whether they would disperse or carry on. Mellows said that he had already put it up to the men in Moyode and that every man in Limepark had agreed to carry on. The priest said that as Dublin had been dispersed, the British Forces could concentrate fully on Galway. Mellows still refused to go to the men for a decision as he maintained it had been already taken. The priests asked him then if he would allow them to put it to the men and after some hesitation he agreed.³⁸

Fr Thomas Fahy left his own description of the final conclave:

Mellows said that it would be better to fight it out now as their lives were all forfeit anyhow. He also pointed out that the six local RIC prisoners would be able to identity every one of the Volunteers. After deliberation these six RIC men gave an undertaking they would give no information to their authorities, which undertaking I was glad to be afterwards authentically assured, was honoured. All the officers at the meeting with the exception of Liam Mellows and Alf Monahan voted for disbanding. I asked Mellows to convey the decision to the men. He begged myself to do so, saying that he was reluctant to ask a single one of them to go away. I then addressed the men, telling them the decision and advising them to break up immediately and save their equipment for another day. Mellows did not address the men. He was very depressed; the news from Dublin had upset him greatly.³⁹

Volunteer Frank Hynes recalled the disbandment:

I wouldn’t like to witness again the scene that was created by the disbandment. I saw big six-footers weeping. There was terrible confusion but in the midst of all of it, the rifles were thrown here and there on the ground. I went round and made my men take them up and bring them with them. They brought them and hid them on the way home.⁴⁰

The Galway Rising ended in the early hours of Saturday morning despite Mellows’ pleas to stay out. The group saw no prospect of making a realistic stand with so few rifles and the news that Dublin was falling into the hands of the Crown Forces. While Mellows, Patrick Callanan and Frank Hynes sought refuge in the Slieve Aughty Mountains, their men trudged wearily to their homes. Over the course of the following week over 400 were interned in Galway jail before being transported to Richmond Barracks in Dublin. Around 330 were deported to prisons across England and Scotland before being interned together in Frongoch.⁴¹

‘Our Citizen Army’: the conservative response

While the rebel force was massing in the east Galway countryside, events in Galway town were taking a very different turn. Cut off by rail and road from the rest of the country and with telegraph lines down, news of rebel activity created a sensation, with rumour and hysteria taking hold. The Connacht Tribune reported, ‘on a muggy day, [with a] dry atmosphere and serene sky’:

All in all, one had the sense, the vague sense that one was living through an historic hour. That for a day, the town was recalling the stirring days of Emmet and Lord Edward Fitzgerald and the men of ’67, with this taking of police barracks, these conjectural Risings and marchings and the same dependence on primitive methods, the dispatch rider and rumour, which characterised the happenings of those times, as if we were not living in the days of motorcar, telegraph and telephone.⁴²

Business premises closed their doors and work came to an immediate stop. Amid fears of a repetition of events in Dublin, the post office was placed under armed guard and a notice of martial law was posted stating all licensed premises in the urban district were to remain closed forthwith and all persons to remain indoors between the hours of five in the morning and eight at night.⁴³ Members of the Redmondite National Volunteers were explicitly exempt from the emergency regulations and the military curfew added to the sense of unease, as one reporter noted:

Men were no longer able to concentrate their minds on their business, and all and sundry fairly took to the streets. Comfortable merchants went about, and the streets were filled. Straight away shutters were seen to be going up. And other premises commenced to close of their own accord so that the town presented the appearance of a city preparing for an investment. Preparations were made for meeting and repelling the invasion and anxious people found themselves drifting towards the Square and looking in the direction of Oranmore and keeping a close eye on the opening from Foster Street.⁴⁴

On Tuesday afternoon, a public meeting was called by the urban district council attended by over one hundred people in the Town Hall. A resolution passed at the meeting noted:

That this public meeting declares the actions of ill-advised persons in the County of Galway, who have at a time when the valour of Irish troops had done so much to shed glory on the arms of Empire, chosen to shock and outrage public opinion by bloodshed and civil strife: that we declare our opinion that the advice of Mr John Redmond indicates the course which true political wisdom has shown to be right; and we call upon the authorities and people of Galway to co-operate to crush by every means possible the efforts of the disaffected fanatics and mischief-makers.⁴⁵

Thomas Kenny of the Connacht Tribune began the meeting by decrying that ‘they had been plunged into a state of civil war in which armed people threatened and were threatening to invade the town’, before comparing the actions of the rebels with the bravery of the Irish soldiers at the Western Front. Of the Dublin Rising, he informed the audience:

A whole lot of men had, according to rumour, tried to hold up the public offices, the post office and places like that in Dublin. What on earth effect that could have in ten or twenty years as regards the government of this country? Was it not a million times better to allow things to go on the way they had been and not try and take the law into their own hands.⁴⁶

Another speaker told the gathering, ‘Irishmen as a rule are not fools but unfortunately a large number of young men throughout the country were led astray by gentlemen who should know better and he for one did not blame the ignorant countrymen.’⁴⁷ Another speaker agreed, adding, ‘they have been led into a trap and it is only afterwards when a settlement is reached, that they will realise what a mistake they have made in supporting the irresponsible hot heads of the country’.⁴⁸ Several speakers expressed the widespread sentiment that the rebels were a movement not ‘for the benefit of Ireland, but for Prussia, it seemed to be one not to free Ireland but to hand over the country to Prussia and that at a moment when the national prosperity of the country was greater than in any other country in Europe’.⁴⁹ T.C. McDonogh of the urban district council echoed the theme of the ingratitude of the farming community, ‘The Irish farmer just now had everything he wanted. They had the land purchased out and got good prices for their crops, and yet at the bidding of people who ought to know better they rose up in Rebellion and everything that had been done for their country was of no avail.’⁵⁰

A ‘Committee for Public Safety’ was formed to liaise with the Crown Forces and to organise a civilian response to the ‘crisis’. The meeting was addressed by Mártín Mór McDonogh and citizens were urged to offer themselves for enrolment as ‘special constables’ under the command of the regular RIC, or ‘in any way the authorities may consider, they may be useful in the present crisis’. The ‘specials’, acted as a reserve force for the police and the Galway Express thanked forty-seven men whom they claimed, ‘did much to relieve the police and give the latter a well-deserved and much needed few hours rest’.⁵¹ Throughout the week, meetings of the Committee for Public Safety were held at the Town Hall amid growing anger at the perceived isolation of the town and the fear of an impending ‘bread famine’.

Police who had evacuated the surrounding countryside poured into Galway town and their numbers were boosted with the arrival of over 100 RIC from Belfast. Dr Sandys, divisional surgeon, and Mr O’Dockery, superintendent, in conjunction with St Johns Ambulance Brigade, took over a number of houses and a full staff of trained nurses and assistants were placed in a state of readiness.⁵² Groups of National Volunteers under Captain J.P. McNeill donned their uniforms, marching around the town in military formation with rifles and bayonets provided by the military. In an article entitled ‘Our Citizen Army’ the Galway Express noted that, ‘one of the brightest spots in the present lamentable affair is the manner in which Galway civilians have risen to the occasion. A fine citizen army of special constables, dispatch riders, assistants in first aid, etc, have cheerfully given their service to the local authorities in their hour of need.’⁵³ Magistrate Joseph Kilbride later wrote to the Chief Secretary, ‘I swore in fifty reliable men as special constables. They performed their duties assigned to them well and willingly.’ Kilbride was less successful with the Catholic Bishops, however, noting, ‘I did all I could to induce the Catholic Bishop of Galway, Dr O’Dea, to assist in putting a stop to the outbreak without success. I induced one of his priests, Fr Davis, to attend the meeting and to speak. The whole body of public opinion was at all times perfectly sound and opposed to the Sinn Feiners.’⁵⁴

Known republicans in Galway town, including most Volunteer officers and senior IRB figures were arrested on Tuesday. Volunteer Thomas Hynes remembered:

There was great confusion. We did not know what to do and, as far as the city was concerned it was too late to do anything as RIC and military were already alerted. It was our intention to take a few prominent men – Martin McDonagh (Màirtin Mór), Joe Young, etc., and occupy the Post Office. This was George Nichols’ plan. He seemed to know more about what they intended to do in Dublin than the rest of us did.⁵⁵

Volunteer Thomas Courtney, who had been trying to organise the Volunteer companies in Moycullen and Spiddal found Volunteers were unwilling to obey his orders:

The police searched carts or large parcels. They would not let a bag of flour out of the town. The east end of the town leading to Oranmore, Athenry, Dublin was well guarded. The soldiers had a machine gun behind the wall at one spot. The town was full of special police. Everybody was talking of the rebel army which was supposed to be marching on the town. Rumours of a German landing, etc.⁵⁶

By Wednesday, the RIC aided by the special constables had arrested a motley crew of IRB suspects, Sinn Féin supporters and Volunteers. IRB organiser, Micheal Ó Droighnéain; solicitor and IRB centre, George Nichols; future MP Pádraic Ó Máille; and a German linguistics professor, Valentine Steinberger were among the most prominent. Volunteer Frank Hardiman recalled ‘as each prisoner’s name was called out, a charge of treason was read out by a naval lieutenant. He told us that the penalty if found guilty would be death, and warned us that any prisoner trying to escape would be immediately shot.’⁵⁷ The men were tied up and loaded onto open-top vehicles and paraded for the entertainment of hostile local people. Volunteer John Hosty recalled, ‘Mud, stones, etc., etc., were not good enough when the locals were leaving by boat.’⁵⁸ Micheal Ó Droighnéain recalled, ‘In that way they drove us to the Docks, our car leading. The second car was pelted with and off the streets by the mothers of men serving with the British Forces – [Frank] Hardiman and [Seamus] Carter receiving lumps of mud in their faces.’⁵⁹ The prisoners were transferred on board HMS The Gloucester. On Friday the prisoners were transferred to the sloop, The Snowdrop and brought to Cobh harbour.

On Tuesday afternoon, a navy vessel, The Laburnum, began bombarding the Galway coastline at Maree and Oranmore and the sound of the shells increased the sense of anxiety in the town. The shelling provoked unease in the communities living around Galway Bay and people began to move to the perceived safety of the town. The Galway Express reported, ‘Even as we write, streams of peasant refugees are fleeing from their once peaceful homes in the tranquil countryside from Oranmore to Castlegar and vicinity to seek the shelter denied to them by the folly of their own friends and neighbours.’ The paper later reported that the village of Oranmore, ‘is being gradually deserted until now it is a veritable wilderness’.⁶⁰ The Connacht Tribune assured their readers, ‘citizens can now rest in perfect security, should it ever have been broken, it is of course, obvious that this vessel could easily turn her guns, not only on Oranmore, but on Athenry, with the most effective results’.⁶¹

Lack of solidarity for the country ‘refugees’ in the ‘besieged’ town was evident and the Galway Express noted, ‘A new type of blockade has been established in Galway. Country people coming from the direction of the recent Volunteer activities have been forbidden to bring any provisions or household supplies home, lest any of these commodities would find their way to the enemy’s camp. The procedure appears to be an effective one.’⁶² As the week progressed, more naval vessels arrived in the Bay and on Wednesday, a man-of-war carrying a company of Royal Munster Fusiliers was given an official welcome by the urban council.⁶³

By Friday life began to return to normal as the rebel threat failed to materialise and the market resumed as usual in Eyre Square. On Saturday, public houses were given permission to open and schools were ordered to resume. At Saturday’s meeting of the ‘Committee for Public Safety’ a telegram of thanks from the military was read and the committee updated on the progress of the round-up of suspects. A relieved Thomas Kenny declared, ‘In this matter considered civil opinion will weigh with the authorities, for the civil element in the city has stood loyally by law and order.’⁶⁴

Aftermath

Local newspapers were uniform in their condemnation of the Rising. In an editorial entitled, ‘Poisoning the Wells’, the Connacht Tribune explained, ‘The reason we are not all rebels is that we are fortunately sane enough to see that the dreams of Ireland as a sovereign state is hopeless. About five per cent of the nation has not seen it. That is a matter for regret. But surely an occasion for the other 95 per cent of the public to treat them as if they had sold their soul to the devil. Attached to England, we must remain.’⁶⁵ The Tuam Herald described the week’s events as ‘a melancholy exhibition of midsummer madness’ and the rebels as, ‘degenerate sons’.⁶⁶ The paper published a verse, The Stay at Home Soldiers mocking the Volunteers:

Content in vile ease at his country’s mishap,

Refuses to budge and fill up a gap,

Leaves Erin’s battalion’s to fight on alone,

All thoughts of his fathers, all spirits hath flown,

Tho’ tales of their doings in Belgium is told.⁶⁷

Support for the authorities during Easter Week was not limited to Galway town and at Craughwell, Turloughmore and Loughrea, the National Volunteers – ‘the true Irishmen, not rebels and pro-Germans’ – as the Galway Express noted, came out to support the RIC.⁶⁸ In Loughrea, the Tuam Herald reported that:

But for the National Volunteers, the town would have been handed over to the crowd for mischief and worse. Their conduct is eminently credible, for it was a trying and courageous act on their part. Great credit is due to Mr William Duffy MP and his local and patriotic helpers for having got his men to show themselves true National Volunteers and not the advance guard of looting and murderous Germans.⁶⁹

National Volunteers manned the police barracks in the village of Craughwell and the Tuam Herald commended, ‘the Craughwell men’s loyalty to Ireland’, especially since, ‘they knew well little mercy would be shown some of them, if those lunatics got into the village’. The paper specifically praised those men who ‘tore themselves away from a fond and loving wife, whose kisses were still on their lips’. ‘Cowardice,’ the paper concluded, ‘would not allow those German hirelings enter where they knew a warm reception awaited them.’ The paper was surprised at this turn of events, noting that Craughwell was, ‘previously considered a hell on earth by men who knew it not’.⁷⁰ At Turloughmore, an area ‘not noted for its loyal sentiment’ the Galway Express reported, ‘notwithstanding its reputation, the village and district of Turloughmore were quiet during the Rising. The local National Volunteers armed themselves and placed their services at the disposal of the police.’⁷¹

There were several casualties of the Galway Rising that, to varying extents, remained obscure family tragedies. Martin Reaney, a Volunteer from the Weir, in the Kilcolgan district, took part in the Rebellion but appears to have suffered a mental breakdown during the course of Easter Week necessitating the care of Cumann na mBan.⁷² Returned to his parents, he took his own life a week later.⁷³ He was 23 years of age and a boat builder and small farmer’s son. At the inquest into his death it was reported that events of Easter Week ‘had clouded his mind’ and that, ‘returning from the Rising, he was strange in his manner’.⁷⁴ He left his home early on the morning of 16 May, tied himself to an anchor and threw himself into the ocean.

Valentine Steinberger, professor of romance languages in University College Galway was arrested during the Rebellion and briefly deported to England. He was one of a handful of staff and students including Dr Thomas Walsh and student Cornelius O’Leary to be arrested.⁷⁵ A cultural nationalist, Steinberger was not a member of the Volunteers but actively supported the movement at public meetings. Following the outbreak of the Rebellion, then aged over seventy years, he was seized by police in his home and deported to England. Already weakened by poor health, he developed pneumonia during his two week confinement. The University lobbied for his return and he was released in the last week of May but died in November. A Galway student who had been imprisoned alongside him claimed, ‘he treated with calm contempt the gibes and jeers, the insults and indignities he had to undergo and was never in the least afraid of the worst that could be done to him’. His coffin was carried through the town by students who printed an angry obituary in the college magazine:

Treated like the vilest criminal as a prelude to much further treatment of a similar sort. We need not ask why this was done – we know and we will not forget. His health at the time was poor and the treatment he received then and during the weeks that followed weakened him considerably and left him easy prey to pneumonia which carried him off a few months after his release.⁷⁶

Constable Patrick Whelan, who was shot dead by the Volunteers at Carnmore, was a native of Whitewall, Kilkenny, and was formerly a member of the Irish Guards.⁷⁷ District Inspector George B. Heard stated at the inquest into his death that Whelan was one of thirteen police, along with a party of soldiers, sailors and civilians, who accompanied him to Carnmore on 3.15 a.m. on Wednesday morning.⁷⁸ He was buried with military honours in Bohermore Cemetery in Galway town on 27 April accompanied by detachments of the Connaught Rangers and Royal Marines.

Leslie Edmonds, who was alleged to have directed the shelling of the Oranmore coastline, was shot dead by the Anti-Treaty IRA on 23 July 1922. The Irish Times noted the killing and speculated that Edmonds was unlucky to have driven into an IRA ambush set up for the National Army and mistakenly killed in the belief that he was an army officer.⁷⁹ He was killed at the wheel of his vehicle along with Jack Jordan, aged 19, a driver for the National Army.⁸⁰ A native of Birmingham, he was chief inspector of the Congested Districts Board (CDB) for Counties Clare and Galway.⁸¹ Material alleging that Edmonds was an informer was deposited in the archives of University College Galway by TD Gerald Bartley in 1967.⁸²

Following their confinement in Galway jail the Galway prisoners were brought to Richmond barracks in Dublin. A number were court-martialled and sentenced to between one and ten years’ penal servitude. Following the court-martials, over 320 were deported to eight prisons across England and Scotland. Two groups were sent to Wandsworth Prison in south west London on 9 May and 2 June. Two batches were interned in Wakefield Prison, West Yorkshire on 13 May and 2 June. The prison was used as a home office work camp during the War and housed soldiers held on criminal charges. Another group was sent to Stafford Prison in Staffordshire on 13 May. The republican prisoners were among the last to be housed in the prison and the decrepit facility was closed for several decades following their departure. Three batches of prisoners were sent to Knutsford Prison in Cheshire on 2, 15 and 21 June. A group was sent to a temporary detention barracks in Woking, Surrey on 20 May. Another group was sent to Lewes Jail in East Sussex on 20 May, along with several prominent leaders of the Rising including, Éamon de Valera and Harry Boland. Two groups were dispatched to Scotland on 20 May with one group sent to Perth Barracks and another to Barlinnie Prison, north east of Glasgow City.⁸³

Michael Kelly recalled a mixture of defiance and anxiety among the prisoners as they crossed the Irish Sea:

We were a gay party singing and dancing. Some more serious-minded of the prisoners were of the opinion that the British were taking us out to sea to sink us, and others said we were put on the cattle boat so that the Germans, if they sank the boat, would take it for what it was and would not make any attempt to rescue us.⁸⁴

The hostility of onlookers was remarked upon by many. Volunteer Michael Newell from Castlegar recalled:

We were surrounded by a very hostile crowd of both men and women, who jeered us, called us nasty names: they also spat at us. One of the soldiers dropped his rifle to the trail position and struck three of the hostile crowd, knocking them out. He then shouted ‘Up Carraroe, Up Connemara’. He was John Keane, a native of Carraroe. I heard afterwards that he was tried for this assault and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment, but instead was sent with a draft to the Dardanelles. He was not heard of again.⁸⁵

The prison routine came as a shock to many. Tom B. Cleary from Athenry described the daily routine in Stafford Prison in a letter to his wife Mary:

We are very well. Just as well as one could expect under the circumstances. There is very little time for thinking during the day. All bustle … congregation almost as thick as you would see in an ordinary church on Sunday. Everyone with his own story. All the newspapers that are in print in England or Ireland. Letters and parcels continuously going and coming. Writing, reading, singing, marching, praying, bathing, sweeping, mopping, card playing, smoking, yarning. Bed at ten. Up at 5.30. Every hour has its excitements and its strict duties.⁸⁶

The majority of the Galway prisoners were released throughout late 1916 and early 1917. In many other parts of the country, returning prisoners were received with a rapturous welcome in an Ireland utterly transformed. In Galway, many of the men and their families suffered genuine hardship and there were few celebrations. Thomas Ruane, who led the Volunteers in their fatal clash with the police at Carnmore, was granted early release from Lewes Prison on the grounds of ill health and his police file noted, ‘there was no one to meet him off the train in Oranmore, just a couple of family members but no supporters’.⁸⁷ Gilbert Morrissey, of the Athenry Company put the subsequent inactivity of his area during the War of Independence down to demoralisation following the Rising:

Many of the Volunteers in Co. Galway suffered a great deal of hardship subsequent to the Rising of 1916. At that time, a great many of them were in poor circumstances. Many of them were bread-winners for their families and, when they were imprisoned after the Rising, the families suffered. The neighbours at that time were not as sympathetic as they became as the fight progressed, and there were no funds out of which any provision could be made towards the amelioration of their conditions. Many of the interned Volunteers belonged to the farming class. At that time, they were not as well-off as they became two or three years later. They could not afford to pay hired men and their crops were left unattended until the general release in December, 1916. They and their families underwent a great deal of hardship which might have affected their later service in the Irish Volunteers and Irish Republican Army, only for the fact that the general public became imbued with their spirit, and the general morale of army and people alike was raised to a high level.⁸⁸

Mellows in exile

Following the events of Easter Week, Liam Mellows made his way to New York via a circuitous route that involved hiding out in the south Galway and Clare countryside before making his way to Liverpool dressed as a priest and earning his fare as a seaman. His time in the United States represented a torturous exile that had a profound impact on his political and personal development. While in exile in New York he became involved in Irish-American political activism and spoke at many Clan na Gael, and subsequently, Irish Progressive League meetings. He was to remain in New York for four unhappy years, returning home following the death of his father in October 1920.⁸⁹ Irish Citizen Army veteran Frank Robbins recalled, ‘He was recognised by all the 1916 Exiles, as we were termed, as our leader.’⁹⁰ Mellows made an immediate impact on John Devoy, the leader of the New York Fenians. Pat ‘the Hare’ Callanan introduced Mellows to Devoy and recalled, ‘He was very pleased with Mellows and said he was the most capable man who had so far arrived in America.’⁹¹ Devoy employed Mellows in the Gaelic American newspaper and he was in demand as a speaker, as one admirer noted, ‘Though not a high-flown orator, he was such a powerful and convincing speaker that he could hold an audience of Americans, many of whom had no connection with Ireland, spellbound during an hour’s speech.’⁹² The Gaelic American was the main American conduit for information about the activities of Clan na Gael and the Irish Volunteers. Devoy gathered a cadre of émigré revolutionaries around the newspaper, including Mellows, Frank Robbins and Patrick McCartan.

In October, Mellows was arrested and imprisoned in the Tombs Prison, New York for entering the United States without correct documentation. He endured confinement for twenty-two hours a day until his release in November when supporters pledged a bond of $7,000.⁹³ Fellow Irish exile John Brennan believed that Clan na Gael deliberately left Mellows to languish in jail: ‘Mellows and McCartan were left in prison in the Tombs and the story was put out by the Clan na Gael that they did not want to be released on bail.’⁹⁴ Brennan noted that Nora Connolly, daughter of James Connolly and a close friend of Mellows, visited senior members of the Clan and ‘asked them to put up the bail, and they had given her the same answer which we had got that he did not wish the bail to be raised’.⁹⁵

Mellows’ relationship with the American Fenian movement was fraught and the stress of his absence from Ireland damaged his health. He resented the insipid infighting and personality clashes that characterised the Irish-American movement and found the absence from the rapid advance of the republican movement at home traumatic. Mellows wrote to Fenian leader Joe McGarrity in 1920:

I feel too disgusted with the situation in the Friends of Irish Freedom to mention it but Mrs O’Brennan will give you a picture of how things really are. At a meeting organised by me here the other night $5,000 was raised in a few minutes but there are hundreds of people here who will not touch the bond issue if it is handled by the men who have grabbed the funds of the Friends of Irish Freedom.⁹⁶

John Brennan formed a close alliance with Mellows when he eventually fell out with Clan na Gael over the issue of conscription. Brennan claimed that:

it was as a direct result of Mellows’ determined stand on the conscription question that he was called up by the heads of Clan na Gael. He was offered the alternative of ceasing his connection with these [Clan na Gael] meetings or losing his post on the Gaelic American. Without hesitation he made the choice. He would continue his propaganda for the Irish cause on the streets of New York.⁹⁷

Mellows was subsequently expelled from the American Fenian movement and for a period, ceased his involvement in republican politics entirely. Brennan recalled, ‘After this, he went out in search of a job and, after failing to find a suitable one, had to accept the heavy work of an unskilled labourer, for which he was not fit. One day he collapsed at his job. His weakness was due to starvation.’⁹⁸ According to his close friend Frank Robbins, ‘Mellows was subject to spells of despondency and was inclined to be neglectful of himself.’⁹⁹ Mellows possibly suffered a bout of anorexia brought on by depression or nervous tension, but Robbins was anxious to discount the rumours that Mellows had starved himself:

This starvation story was the product of imaginative-minded women, had no basis or foundation and was a terrible libel on our good Irish folk living in New York, not one of whom, no matter how strongly they might have disagreed with him, would [not] have done everything possible to help him during his illness … Finally, a Mrs. McCarthy who was a member of the New York Cumann na mBan and a nurse, did learn about his illness and from that onwards helped to bring him back to good health.¹⁰⁰

Despite his personal torment, Mellows described the Rebellion in Galway in heroic terms in the Gaelic American in January 1917, while privately he felt profound anguish. Robbins recalled Mellows’ anguish over the morality of the actions of the secret military council that planned the Rebellion, blaming Mellows’ change of mind on the influence of Volunteer leader Patrick McCartan:

I noticed that he [Mellows] was in very low spirits and I jokingly said to him, ‘A penny for your thoughts Liam, or are they even worth that much’, to which Mellows replied in a very despondent manner, ‘If I had known as much in Easter Week as I know to-day I would never have fired a shot’.

With that he told me that the Revolutionary Military Council had taken unto themselves powers to which they had no right; they had usurped the authority of the Supreme Council of the IRA which was the only authority with power to declare the Insurrection, and they had set themselves up as a military junta and ignored everyone else.¹⁰¹

Mellows finally arrived back in Ireland in October 1920 after working his passage as a stoker aboard the Philadelphia. Return to Ireland was not the exhilarating release he had hope for and the death of his father in August added to the urgency of his return. His experience of the United States advanced his emerging socialist analysis, developed his ability as a leader while his absence from the formative early events in the Independence struggle at home strengthened his determination to give all in the fight for the Republic.

The complexity of wartime allegiances in rural Ireland

The Galway Rebellion was doomed once the Aud failed to land her cargo of rifles and ammunition off the Kerry coast. Liam Mellows faced an impossible task and the Rising in the Galway can only be understood in this context. Mellows’ achievement in keeping so many of his followers out for so long was a reflection of his abilities as a leader. Looking back after forty years, his deputy still believed the county could have been taken and ‘if the original plans had been carried out, it is probable that all the barracks in the County could have been taken without a fight’.¹⁰² The Galway Volunteers’ actions during Easter Week, however, suggest that the force would have faced considerable obstacles even if the planned arms had arrived. A successful campaign would have demanded effective communications over a very wide area, including districts that had no Volunteer companies. The group was unsuccessful in the attacks they carried out and the lack of detailed planning, the unpreparedness of ordinary Volunteers and the ambiguity, and even outright hostility, of the rural community, stymied Mellows’ plans. In this respect, the traditional orthodoxy that the confusion caused by Eoin MacNeill’s countermand order prevented a nationwide rising from erupting, should be treated with caution.

The events of Easter Week in Galway shine a light into the complex political allegiances of rural Ireland and the sheer variety of responses to the Rebellion attests to disparate political traditions. Historian Martin Dolan interviewed many veterans of Easter Week for the fiftieth anniversary of the Rebellion on behalf of the Connacht Tribune. He concluded:

The Galway Rebellion differed from that in Dublin in one important respect. It was not a ‘rising’ of intellectuals, of teachers, of poets, of scholars. In it there was only one teacher, there was only one priest, there was a rate collector, and a shopkeeper’s son. The rest of the rebels were farmers and sons of labourers and tradesmen of all descriptions. It was a Rising of common men who had learned their patriotism from their parents, from patriotic teachers, from those who were steeped in the traditions of secret societies that had always existed …¹⁰³

If the men and women who came out with Liam Mellows in 1916 were indeed the ‘common’ people of the countryside, then equally, the young men and women who rallied to the call of the Committee of Public Safety, who cheered the navy and RIC, and who gathered to throw mud at republican prisoners, were for the most part, ‘common’ working people also. Republicans did not have a monopoly on the political imagination of the poor and the hostility of so many ‘common people’ during Easter Week exposed republican ideologues’ idealisation of themselves as the embodiment of the downtrodden. The political chasm between the rural and urban political milieus in Galway was profound and nationalism in 1916 encompassed diverse strands that reflected the rural tradition of violent defiance of the authorities, alongside an urban tradition that constituted a distinctly western variety of empire nationalism.

The rhetoric of both nationalists and republicans during Easter Week was characterised by bombast, exaggeration and bluff. The degree to which the Committee for Public Safety genuinely believed that an ‘invasion’ of Galway town was imminent is open to question and their verbose pronouncements should be treated with scepticism. Local commentary on the Rebellion was flavoured with a heavy dollop of social snobbery and the nature of insult employed on both sides is revealing. While the elites of the Parliamentary Party were firmly represented by Galway’s mercantile elite – the so-called ‘shoneens’ of republican propaganda – the latters’ depiction of their republicans rivals as ‘dupes’, ‘degenerates’, ‘lunatics’, ‘Huns’, ‘peasants’, ‘fools’, ‘penniless wanderers’ and ‘desperadoes’, reflects the inherent class bias of those for whom the Rebellion represented a challenge, not simply to the military authorities, but to the old political leadership and the social order of local society itself.