A Galway girl recounts the Rising

 

Snippet from the Tuam Herald 20 May 1916

 

Snippet from the Galway Express 20 May 1916

Galway girl recounts the rising

‘A Galway girl, a daughter of Mr Scott, editor of the “Galway Observer,” (wife of Mr Richard Smith, lately operator in the Galway Cinema) gives her experiences of the awful week in Dublin she had to put up with and what she saw.  She says:-

“On Tuesday, the second day, I was down in Sackville Street, watching the looters, when bang goes a bullet right into the side of my head, another inch and I was killed, as it went near the skull.  So I was taken to the Jervis St. Hospital, and it went in so far, that after trying his best to get it out, he (the doctor) had to open my head with a scissors.  Such pain I never went through.  We weren’t sure of our lives two minutes.  Bullets flying all directions, into the rooms, etc.  The noise of the cannons was terrible.  There is no Sackville Street there now.  It took them a week to bury the dead.  I was going down Sackville Street on Thursday night last with another girl, so there was a drunken followed us, a Sinn Feiner, I suppose.  He demanded to know where we were going, so the girl said “what business is it of yours,”  so with that he says, pointing a pistol, “do you see that.”  So with that we took to our heels.  I think only for the military we would all have been killed or starved, as the Sinn Feiners were taking every bit of food there was to be got.  Dare any one look crookedat them while they had their guns, but it was short work.  God help them; they couldn’t last a week.  The cannon frightened the life in them.’

From Tuam Herald, 20 May 1916

Belfast police drafted into Galway

‘The last of the Belfast police, to the number of 50, who were drafted into Galway on the rising, left on Saturday morning by the 9.40 train and got a great send-off.  Cigarettes, the kindly gift of the County Court Judge Doyle, Recorder of Galway, were distributed among the men, who gave hearty cheers for the Recorder as the train steamed out.’

From Galway Express, 20 May 1916