Come Here To Me!

Crosses honour the dead of Bachelor’s Walk (Illustrated London News, 1914)

The version of events surrounding the violence on Bachelor’s Walk that made it to the United States in July 1914 was somewhat different from how things occurred. Readers of one New Jersey newspaper were informed that “some of the mob fired first with revolvers. The mob then pressed forward and threatened to sweep the soldiers with the revolvers.”

In reality, the 26 July had witnessed something different entirely. The King’s Own Scottish Borderers, confronted by a jeering crowd, opened fire on unarmed Dublin civilians on a day of considerable embarrasment for the authorities, as the nationalist Irish Volunteers successfully armed themselves. To The Times newspaper in London, those fired upon were “the sort of slum crowd which gave so much trouble during the Dublin strikes.” Three were killed on the day, with a fourth dying weeks later as a result of injuries sustained at Bachelor’s Walk. In Dublin, there were immediate scenes of mourning and anger, with recruitment into the Irish Volunteers swelling the ranks of the nationalist organisation, while the funerals of the victims became political spectacles. In its aftermath, Bachelor’s Walk loomed large over political discourse. When John Redmond and Prime Minister Asquith held a recruitment meeting at Dublin’s Mansion House months later, the signs of protestors urged those in attendance to “Remember Bachelor’s Walk, Don’t Join the Army!”

It is curious that this event remains uncommemorated today. A plaque honours the Asgard’s landing of arms at Howth earlier that same day, yet nothing marks the violent deaths of innocent civilians. A year on from the event, attempts to unveil a plaque there in July 1915 were stopped by the authorities, under the war-time Defence of the Realm Act. Dedicated “to the memory of innocent civilians slain by British soldiers”, the completed plaque was not unveiled, its location today a mystery.

American frontpage coverage of the deaths.

The King’s Own Scottish Borders, garrisoned in the Royal Barracks, maintained that they were responding to attack by a hostile crowd when the first shots rang out just after 6:30pm in the vicinity of the Ha’penny Bridge. Certainly, some stones were thrown, though Thomas Johnson of the Irish Trade Union Congress would later remark that he had seen “more stones thrown at a football match in Belfast without interruption of the game.” Professor Eoin MacNeill of the Irish Volunteers, in correspondance with Roger Casement, would try and outline what had happened:

The news from Howth and Clontarf soon got all over Dublin. The King’s Own Borderers had to bear the brunt of the disgrace…of the Castle regime. Even at Clontarf, a young girl cried out upon them for cowards and asked the women to line up before their bayonets. Half a mile further towards the city, at the North Strand, a jeering mob collected around them and reminded them of their prowess in South Africa. In Talbot Street they thrice charged the unarmed populace with their bayonets, and still the cry of ‘cowards’ followed them, all along O’Connell Street to Bachelor’s Walk. When they reached the metal bridge, they could stand it no longer.

MacNeill claimed “from Amiens Street to Liffey Street you could not find a missile of any kind, except orange or banana skins”, something contested by some first hand accounts, but the facts of history are that the crowd were unarmed and the King’s Own Scottish Borderers were never in any danger. Subsequent investigation of the incident was widely dismissed as a cover-up, and the end effect, as MacNeill noted, was a sea change in public feeling.

The dead were all working class Dubliners. Mary Duffy was a 56 year old widow whose son was serving with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. James Brennan, the youngest of the dead, was a teenage messenger boy. Patrick Quinn was a father to six children and employed as a coal porter. In September, the wounded Sylvester Pidgeon succumbed to his injuries, his death reigniting public outrage.

Luke Kelly wounded in hospital following the Bachelor’s Walk outrage.

There were dozens of other injured Dubliners too, including several children. One of the wounded was Luke Kelly, namesake and father of the ballad singer who would go on to achieve international fame as a member of The Dubliners. Luke Senior lived a remarkable life in his own right, and distinguished himself as a football player with Jacobs Football Club in the League of Ireland.

In the immediate aftermath of the events, soldiers were confined to Barracks across the city. As historian Pádraig Yeates notes, “one soldier with a Scottish accent who was foolish enough to venture out in civvies was thrown in the Liffey. The Lord Lieutenant, Lord Aberdeen, wanted to visit the injured in hospital but his officials refused to allow him risk his person, given the mood in the city.”

The funerals brought Dublin to a standstill, with the bodies of the three victims brought to the Pro Cathedral, before a procession through the city streets to Glasnevin Cemetery. The Irish Independentreported on 29 July that “The removal of the remains of the unfortunate victims of Sunday’s shooting in Dublin from the City Morgue to the Pro Cathedral last night was marked by scenes of the most impressive character. Seldom in the recent history of Ireland has a more poignant and dramatic scene been witnessed.”

Volunteers parade in the funerlal procession for the victims of Bachelor’s Walk (National Library of Ireland)

Mary Duffy’s son marched in British Army dress uniform, but for the most part it was the uniforms of nationalist Ireland which were on display during the great procession. The words of Duffy’s grieving son, who condemned those who shot down “helpless women and children in my native city”, had a deep impact. Likewise, the first hand account of a former British soldier who witnessed the carnage was also widely reprinted in the press:

I heard the officer, a young man, give the order to load. I tried to get a couple of women and a girl out of the way. I got the little girl clear, and the women lay down on the pavement. I saw the soldiers load their rifles with ball cartidge. They seemed to be very excited. They were within ten yards of me, and I saw one man fire. He reloaded, and as he put in his second cartridge he pointed his rifle downwards without taking aim. He pulled the trigger, and I was shot in the leg.

There were scenes of mourning during the funeral procession, in particular at Bachelor’s Walk, where the Freeman’s Journal reported that “the assembled thousands became overwhelmed by grief…Hundreds wept and sobbed aloud.”

In the days following the shootings, there were sporadic protests, one of the most remarkable of which was in Liverpool, where a Dublin GAA team were taking on Merseyside opposition. Frank Thornton recounted in his Bureau of Military History Witness Statement:

It was decided in Liverpool that we would mark the occasion by making a strong protest in the streets of Liverpool against the shootings at Bachelor’s Walk. The Volunteers were paraded on Sunday afternoon, headed by the O’Toole Pipers Band and a large banner in front with the words “Remember Bachelor’s Walk”, “Bullets for Dublin”, “Support the Volunteer Defence Fund”. Hundreds of collectors accompanied the demonstration through the city and a large amount of money was collected, all of which went to purchase arms at a later date.

Bachelor’s Walk, In Memory (Jack B. Yeats)

The painter Jack B. Yeats would capture something of what the tragedy came to mean for Dubliners in Bachelor’s Walk, In Memory, painted in 1915. Jack was moved to paint this from something he had seen at the site of the killings, noting in his diary “a flower girl placing her own offering on the scene of a killing.”

The historian George Dangerfield, writing in The Strange Death of Liberal England in 1935, captured something of why Bachelor’s Walk became the turning point moment it did, putting it in context by comparing it with the indifference – and sometimes tactical support – of the authorities for the UVF arming itself: “Under these circumstances, it matters very little whether three thousand civilians were slaughtered, or three hundred, or thirty, or three: there are stains in Bachelor’s Walk which nothing will ever quite wash away.”

‘Remember Bachelor’s Walk’, whether chalked on walls, printed on handbills or carried on banners, was a rallying cry for nationalist Ireland in the years of the Irish revolution. While commemoration of the civilian dead was disgracefully prevented by the authorities in 1915, we have now passed the centenary of this event without marking the lives cut short on that day. They deserve more.