Pearse and St.Enda's

When did you go to St.Enda's?

... It must have been about [sounds like '99 but he means 1909]. I came up to Dublin from Limerick in that year and I was delighted to hear I was being sent to an Irish school. It turned out to be the first school that Pearse built, in Oakley Road, Ranelagh. ...

Then I moved to the boarding school in Rathfarnham. That was a completely different sensation to anything I had ever experienced at school before, because we were left to ourselves, our honour. We were told it was up to us to be honest and straight, tell the truth – ideal qualities generally. And to give us our due I think we really kept fairly reasonably near that. ...

I remember one time when I put up a fight about a bit of treatment we got in connection with I think it was breaking into the orchard and stealing fruit. Anyhow the culprit wouldn't give himself up, so the whole school was held in for a day.

I proceeded to try and organise a strike. And as usual [given human nature] I found I was the only one on strike in the end. So I proceeded to stay out for the day.

Next morning I was told to go in and see Pearse. Pearse talked to me like a father, as he always did. That was the outstanding quality really he possessed. That he looked upon us as his children. He didn’t think of us at all as just pupils paid by the father and mother to go there. He really helped us every way that anyone could have helped a boy. ...

He spoke to me like a father and said I’ll leave it to you now. You know you did wrong – I'll leave it to you to fix your own punishment. ...

That shows the mentality he had when he actually dealt with a boy. He put it up to the boy himself to realise where he was at fault. ...

He also of course instructed us in shooting, BSA .22 rifles. I remember out in the back garden firing at targets. Con Colbert of course was the man that really got us into that. He was the drill sergeant there. He was a man we all admired. He was a great athlete, sturdy, and, as you know, afterwards he gave his life in the very cause that he always spoke to us about. We never visualised that happening in the end, but he always did speak as if there was going to be some time in Ireland a fight for our freedom. ...

[Pearse as a teacher] was absolutely outstanding. That’s a thing that I don’t think was ever really taken into account by people. You fell for his words. He had a magnetic quality. And he had a lovely voice. And he had of course absolute logic. ... If you listened to him you couldn’t deny everything he said was what you should do and what your aim in life should be.

Of course we none of us visualised that he was himself going to die on the very type of buildup and mind and training that he was trying to install in us.

Well was it apparent that he was building you up for anything?

Oh definitely. It was afterwards we realised it. At least I realised it afterwards. And everyone that was at St Endas. And of course he brought St Enda’s boys down into the Post Office himself. I wasn’t with them because unfortunately my parents [he says parents even though no father], as the years went on, decided that it wasn’t worldly enough, that Pearse was too idealistic. That he actually was putting the wrong things first from the point of view of the world. Like his poem, "The Fool".

Running away from Clongowes

But in any case I was taken away from school and an effort made to send me to another school, from which I ran away and spent three days up in the Wicklow Hills. And certainly that was an experience, because I had only a very light water-proof, no blanket or anything else of course and it was September. Of course it shouldn’t have been cold, but up in the mountains at night I never slept a wink for the two nights I was up there.

On the third night I came down to [the gardener of St.Enda’s] and explained what I was doing. And the school didn't open for 3 days after the school I was to go to. So I had to fill in the 3 days. That's why I was up the mountains.

[St.Enda's could not take him back without parental consent. He had to go back to Clongowes.]

Pearse in the 1916 Rising

You didn't meet Pearse again then until you went in to the Post Office?

No, I didn’t meet him until the famous Monday, Easter Monday. ... The O’Rahilly had sent me up to one of the upstairs rooms in the Post Office and later on Pearse came round as he was examining the various outposts and he saw me and he was delighted. His eyes lit up and he said "I'm glad to see another St Enda’s boy back again with us!" And he alluded to the Proclamation - had I seen it - and I said Yes, because I had come up through the streets and I had seen the people gathering around looking at it and excited talk going on. ...

What was he like as a commander inside in the Post Office?

I think he was more propagandist. He came around twice to us giving us pep talks. One of them ... raised our hearts. We heard that there were 3 different bands of Volunteers marching on Dublin and that there'd been a big battle out at Ashbourne and ... there was supposed to be help coming by air, whether that was true or not - a Zeppelin or something of that kind; a rumour going round amongst us. ...

I had the motor car, O’Rahilly’s motor car, and I’d been driving that around for a couple of days collecting goods – but of course when it came to the final point we had to leave it as a barricade in Prince’s Street. But I had been appointed to help Desmond Fitzgerald, who was a Commissariat man. And we moved back down with some of the wounded into [some place] .. broke through walls.

I wasn’t actually in Moore St. And I heard of my uncle’s death only 2 days later when I was in the Castle. A Tommy mentioned about one of the leaders, O’Rahilly, being killed. And it was a frightful shock because I knew they’d got out alright. I didn’t know that any of them had been killed at the time.

When did you meet Joe Plunkett first?

... A few days before the Rising actually ... [Joe Plunkett] sent me a message ... to bring our family car to the Post Office on the Monday morning. But he didn’t know at the time that we hadn’t a car of our own. It was half and half jointly owned between O’Rahilly and Humphreys. So of course O’Rahilly had already brought the car into the Post Office, so I wasn’t able to do that bit of work for him.

McDonagh at St.Enda's

MacDonagh was another of those outstanding teachers ... you didn't sit in the desk and not listen to him. Because he was an out and out poet himself. And he explained everything ...

I remember reading an article of his ... about 3 or 4 weeks before the Rising. ... It was a marvellous bit of work, building one up for a Rising which was obviously coming up at the time. It was in the air. ....

I think as schools went, St.Enda's managed to get on with very little [corporal] punishment. I most definitely was never punished there. Although I did some things that would warrant it at times. ...

More on Pearse at St.Enda's

Pearse was that type of educationalist that he wanted to bring out every side of your character. He had music of course. For anyone who could play the piano or the violin. He had the art classes with his brother doing both sketching, painting, and sculpture if you were interested in it – to give you a chance. In regard to the plays – he himself of course had 2 or 3 plays he wrote, but he also had a wonderful passion play at Easter one year. ... And I’ll never forget Willie Pearse as Pontius Pilate in it. You really felt you were back in the past, living the whole thing through. ...

[Dick remembers a day out at a pageant.] We went up by train, then we had the usual feed that boys look forward to, and then we went out in the field and fought with weapons - wooden weapons and wooden shields. Generally it was a marvellous experience. ...

Would you see much of [Pearse]?

Well no, you wouldn't of course. He used to turn up always though, as far as I remember, at night time for the Rosary. [You would] say the Rosary in Irish. ... Boys would get different turns saying the decades every time so that you’d know your Irish prayers anyhow! ...

I’ve often thought afterwards how he got so much done in his life, his short life. ...