The first shot of the
rebellion was fired in Laois.
The first
shots came from the Volunteers of Laois, who destroyed a section of railway
track at a place called Colt Wood on the night of April 23rd – the day before
the Rising began in Dublin. A monument to the event was erected near Colt Wood
in 1996, in an area called Clonadadoran on the N8 between Portlaoise and
Abbeyleix. The monument bears three plaques: a copy of the proclamation; a
picture of a derailed train; and a dedication which names the Volunteers and
reads: “On Easter Sunday night, 23rd April, 1916, acting under the direct
orders of Patrick Pearse, the Laois Volunteers participated in the demolition
of a section of the Abbeyleix-Portlaoise railway line at a location near here.
The purpose of this exercise was to prevent British military reinforcements
from reaching Dublin via Waterford after the Rising had started. This
demolition was followed by the firing of the first shot of the 1916 Rising.”
Other activities engaged in by the Laois Volunteers included an attempted
similar demolition of the Carlow-Kildare railway line and a raid on the
Wolfhill RIC Barracks.
24th April 11.30 - 12.30:
rebels occupy various buildings around the city, including Jacob’s factory, the
Four Courts, St Stephen’s Green, the South Dublin Union (now St James’s
Hospital), Jameson Distillery, and the GPO. The Proclamation is read.
The rebels were responsible
for the world’s first ever radio broadcast.
In 1916 wireless communication was in its infancy and, in
general, signals were targeted to particular receiving stations. The idea that
a signal might be just broadcast into the atmosphere in the hopes that someone
might pick it up was a fairly radical one. On Easter Monday, however, rebel
leader Joseph Mary Plunkett sent seven men from the GPO across O’Connell Street
to occupy the Dublin Wireless School of Telegraphy. The school had been shut
down and sealed by the authorities at the start of the war, and the equipment
was dismantled. By Tuesday morning, however, the rebels managed to get a
damaged transmitter working, and they began to send out messages in morse code:
“Irish Republic declared in Dublin today. Irish troops have
captured city and are in full possession. Enemy cannot move in city. The whole
country rising.” From then until the building had to be abandoned under
machine-gun and sniper fire the next day, the message was broadcast at regular
intervals. This is widely accepted as being the world’s first radio broadcast
and, although it was indeed intercepted by several receivers, the rebels never
knew if their message was being picked up because they couldn’t get any
receiving equipment to work.
A Swede and a Finn fought
with the Irish in the GPO. They were crewmen on a foreign ship and felt
solidarity with the Irish.
A 1916 participant who
remembered the men stated he saw the two trying to enter the GPO. “There were
two strange looking men outside and I went to the window and I saw two
obviously foreign men. Judging by the appearance of their faces I took them to
be seamen. I asked what they wanted.
"The smaller of
the two spoke. He said: 'I am from Sweden, my friend from Finland. We want to
fight. May we come in?' I asked him why a Swede and Finn would want to fight
against the British.
"I asked him how
he had arrived. He said he had come in on a ship, they were part of a crew and that
his friend, the Finn, had no English and that he would explain.
"So I said: 'Tell
me why you want to come in here and fight against England.' He said: 'Finland,
a small country, Russia eat her up.' Then he said: 'Sweden, another small
country, Russia eat her up too. Russia with the British, therefore, we
against.'
"I said: 'Can you
fight. Do you know how to use a weapon?' He said: 'I can use a rifle. My friend
– no. He can use what you shoot fowl with.' I said: 'A shotgun.'
"I decided to
admit them. I took them in and got the Swede a rifle, the Finn a shotgun. I put
them at my own windows."
25th April 05.30: British
troops at the Shelbourne Hotel and nearby machine-gun rebels at Stephen’s
Green, who fall back to the Royal College of Surgeons.
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