Headstone of an unknown soldier of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, Delville Wood Cemetery. Union of South Africa troops began the assault at Delville Wood on July 15, 1916. It was finally taken in September. On the headstone is superimposed the poem 'To My Daughter Betty, the Gift of God' by Lieutenant Tom Kettle of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, killed in action on September 9, 1916 at Guillemont, France, in the Battle of the Somme. He has no known grave. © 2013 John M. Shea

To My Daughter Betty, the Gift of God

In wiser days, my darling rosebud, blown

To beauty proud as was your mother's prime,

In that desired, delayed, incredible time,

You'll ask why I abandoned you, my own,

And the dear heart that was your baby throne,

To dice with death. And oh! they'll give you rhyme

And reason: some will call the thing sublime,

And some decry it in a knowing tone.



So here, while the mad guns curse overhead,

And tired men sigh with mud and couch and floor,

Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead,

Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor,

But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed,

And for the secret Scripture of the poor.



— Tom Kettle

In the field, before Guillemont, Somme, 4 September 1916

Other views: Front

Tuesday, April 25, 1916

"It appeared that everything claimed on the previous day was true, and that the City of Dublin was entirely in the hands of the Volunteers. They had taken and sacked Jacob's Biscuit Factory, and had converted it into a fort which they held. They had the Post Office, and were [building] baricades around it ten feet high with sandbags, cases, wire entanglements. They had pushed out all the windows and sandbagged them to half their height, while cart-loads of food, vegetables and ammunition were going in continually. They had dug trenches and were laying siege to one of the city barracks."

Quotation Context

Excerpt from his account of the second day of the Irish Easter Rising, Tuesday, April 25, 1915, by Irish poet and novelist James Stephens who was in Dublin throughout the insurrection. He went to work assuming the rebellion was over. One focus of his chapter for the day is 'rumour.' Rumor had it that Germans had landed weapons, which they had tried to do, and that German troops and Irish-American troops under German officers had landed, which they had not. Rumor had it that 8,000 British troops had landed, and indeed units were being moved from elsewhere in Ireland and from England to Dublin. There were no papers from the outside world. Many people on the streets were more sympathetic to the soldiers and horses than to the rebels. At St. Stephens Green, dead horses and rebels lay on the street and in the park. A wounded rebel could not safely be moved as British snipers were positioned in the Shelbourne Hotel overlooking the Green. The day was 'succeeded by a beautiful night, gusty with winds, and packed with sailing clouds and stars.' With some visitors, Stephens listened late into the night to the sounds of rifle and machine gun fire.

Source

The Insurrection in Dublin by James Stephens, page 22, copyright © 1978, 1992 Colin Smythe Ltd., publisher: Colin Smythe, publication date: 1992

Tags

1916-04-25, 1916, April, Easter Rising, Easter Rebellion, insurrection, Dublin, Ireland