Thursday, April 27th, 1916
08.40hrs - The sound of overnight digging in Fairbrother’s Field at the back of the South Dublin Union has revealed scores of slit trenches. British soldiers from mixed battalions have now opened fire on the Marrowbone Lane Distillery from its west. The Republican sharpshooters are returning fire.
An attack in force to clear the rebels from this thorn in the British side seems to be building.
10.00hrs - Apparently Commandant McDonagh has received word that the Volunteers of the 3rd Battalion holding Westland Row train station are hard pressed. Accordingly it appears that a sortie by bicycle from Jacob’s factory has been organised to relieve the pressure and deliver much needed ammunition. Twenty men have just sped away towards Stephen’s Green on bicycles; each man carrying a rifle and revolver.
10.35 hrs - Marrowbone Lane Distillery under infantry attack. An attack in force has just been repulsed from the western flank of Marrowbone Lane Distillery. Earlier this morning several platoons assaulted the position from its west. There was heavy firing as covering fire was laid down to cover the assault. The covering fire seemed to serve its purpose, as the rebels struggled to reply in kind. When the troops reached the outer wall of the distillery, however, they were met with a barrage of home-made bombs which were hurled over the wall. Forced to retreat momentarily they then came under fire from the distillery windows, eventually being forced back. The attack has since been called off.
10.30hrs - The bicycle patrol from Jacob’s to Westland Row has been met with a hail of lead from the Staffordshire battalions positioned around Merrion Square. They are retreating under fire. Westland Row’s detachment of rebels will have to seek support from elsewhere.
10.45hrs - The bicycle patrol has made Stephen’s Green on their way back to Jacob’s. A machine gun has opened up. One man has been hit – his comrades have come to a halt, firing back at the source of fire. Their comrades from the Citizen Army in the Royal College of Surgeons are also firing in support. The noise in the green once again is deafening.
11.35hrs - British artillery blasting Sackville Street. British 18-pound field artillery is blasting the block of buildings between Lower Abbey Street and Eden Quay with both high explosive and shrapnel shells. The noise is deafening. Machine gun and rifle fire is constant. To set foot on open ground is to invite a bullet.
11.45hrs - A report just in from the Boland’s Bakery / Mills area. Several British probing attacks have been repulsed along the railway line by Volunteers under the command of Captain Joe O’Connor. The South Staffordshire Regiment has relieved the Sherwood Foresters and their snipers are making the Volunteers’ lives very difficult. An assault on the railway workshops was repulsed when rebels launched a desperate bayonet charge. Artillery has also been used in the area.
13.15hrs - Unrelenting sniper fire is being aimed at the Four Courts. A Vickers gun has been placed on the roof of Jervis Street Hospital. Its sights are being trained on the huge dome on the roof to the deafening background noise of increasingly intense shellfire. The British appear to be planning something big, but for now information is scant.
15.02hrs - Assault repulsed in Sackville Street – huge casualties. A short time ago, an assault was attempted from Lower Abbey Street into Sackville Street by the Ulster Composite Battalion. It has ended in failure. The entire block between Lower Abbey Street and Eden Quay is ablaze. The infantrymen emerged from the burning street, and attempted to cross Sackville Street through a burning section of barricade. It appears that their enemies allowed them to traverse the barricade, holding their fire until they were within full view before unleashing a torrent of fire, which then drove the infantrymen back to the narrow point at the barricade, desperate to seek cover. At this point the rebels might as well have been shooting fish in a barrel. The Ulstermen were desperate to escape, but were decimated.
16.35hrs - Close quarter combat in the South Dublin Union. Just a short time ago the headquarters of 4th Battalion Irish Volunteers came under a sustained attack by elements from the Sherwood Foresters’ and Royal Irish Regiment. The claustrophobic courtyards surrounding the Nurses’ Home, where the rebels have set up their HQ, are in complete chaos. The attacking troops have gone to ground, unable to penetrate their enemies’ fortified building. Machine gun fire is belching from the Royal Hospital in support of the attack, but it looks like it might not be enough to dislodge the tenacious Volunteers.
16.42hrs - Capel St Bridge stormed by Sherwood Foresters – rebel forces cut in two. For the Sherwood Foresters in Dublin city, necessity has become the mother of invention. It appears that the lessons learned from the slaughter at Mount Street Bridge yesterday have not been wasted on their sister battalion, the 2/6th. Sensing a deluge of enemy fire from the Four Courts two armoured cars were brought forward. Having been assembled in Inchicore Railway Works by coach-building teams, these improvised armoured vehicles can each fit 19 men and transport them in relative safety. As the assault across the bridge progressed each vehicle was loaded with infantry. They then leapfrogged from position to position, clearing buildings which stood in their way, before they were followed by infantrymen on foot, who then came under ferocious fire from the Courts. Machine guns now fire incessantly in the area. Many civilians have been turfed out of their homes by the infantrymen, who are taking no chances when securing the buildings they seek to occupy.
18.40hrs - The destruction of Sackville Street is under way. Buildings are being blown to pieces. The destruction seems almost systematic. The brief shrieks of incoming shells are followed by ear-shattering bursts, flying metal, concrete and glass.
20.06hrs - Capel Street has been secured. It is under British control. A wedge has been driven between the Volunteer Headquarters in the GPO, and their 1st Battalion in the Four Courts.
20.25hrs - Rebel leader James Connolly now a casualty. The Commandant General of the Republican forces has been wounded, possibly more than once, but details are sketchy. Buildings in imminent danger of collapse.
Alerted by a runner to the recent British capture of Capel Street, the rebel commander was supervising the positioning of some Volunteer sections in Abbey Street and Princes Street. It is here, in the latter, that he was wounded. As he crawled towards the sanctuary of his HQ, some men rushed to his aid and carried him inside the building. According to a source inside he is being treated by a captured British Army doctor, and appears to be in good spirits.
Meanwhile Sackville Street is being pulverised. Rebels will soon need to evacuate the Imperial Hotel and Clery’s Department Store as the entire block appears in imminent danger of collapsing.
21.10hrs - Dramatic rescue of trapped lancers. As soon as the Sherwood Foresters had secured Capel Street a mission was launched to rescue the beleaguered lancers who had been trapped in the Medical Mission next to the Four Courts since Easter Monday. An armoured truck, fresh from having transported troops across Capel Street Bridge under fierce fire, lumbered its way through Charles Street backed up by supporting fire from an accompanying platoon. The truck came under a deluge of fire, but succeeded in its mission. Surrounding rebels subjected the vehicle to a hailstorm of bullets.
21.50hrs - Dublin’s heart is being torn out in Sackville Street. Hoytes Oil Works opposite the GPO has caught fire. It now resembles a blast furnace. Oil drums are exploding, sending many others flying through the air. These in turn are blowing up as they land or while still airborne, spraying the surrounding buildings with more of the scorching fluid. The seemingly insatiable fires on Lower Sackville Street have now begun to spread as far as North Earl Street and are threatening to completely engulf the Imperial Hotel. The back of the building is burning fiercely and its hard-pressed rebel occupants will soon be forced to evacuate.
22.30hrs - The net is closing in. As midnight approaches the Volunteers from Kelly’s Fort have retreated from the ruins of their vantage point overlooking O’Connell Bridge, and together with rebels from some of the surrounding smaller outposts, including those on Henry Street, are filtering into the GPO. As they hurry inside, they are being greeted with scenes of panic and chaos.
Their headquarters is under a sustained artillery assault and is now in serious peril. Volunteers all around them are rushing to its huge basement carrying home-made canister bombs, seeking shelter from the rain of sparks and oily flames now cascading through the numerous holes in its roof. Luckily for all inside the wind recently picked up and changed direction, averting a potential disaster and allowing a brief collective sigh of relief from the torrential shower of burning embers.
This relief has been short-lived, however, as just across the road the end beckons for their positions in Clery’s and the Imperial Hotel. The interiors of both buildings are burning with such intense heat that the pavement outside is being showered with molten glass.
This will be a long and exhausting night, no respite will be allowed as the machine guns blaze relentlessly away and the artillery lends its deafening support. The net is closing in.
When The Clock Struck in 1916 – Close-Quarter Combat in the Easter Rising by Derek Molyneux and Darren Kelly, is published by the Collins Press, at €17.99.
