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1. |
Bounded Territory
03:21
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Katie grew up at 17 North Richmond St., in Dublin. A house previously occupied by James Joyce and even mentioned in one of his short stories called ‘Araby’ (published in his ‘Dubliners’ collection). Along with three of her brothers and her sister Alice, she actively took part in the Easter rebellion. Katie was the first woman to enter the GPO on the day of the Rising. She spent most of that week tending to the wounded and running dispatches under fire. For this she earned herself the title of the Petticoat Heroine, for which she later received recognition, medals and a state pension. While Katie and her sister managed to evade being caught after the surrender, her brothers, Paddy and Jack were captured and sent to Frongoch Prison in Wales.
Katie’s father, Peter Byrne, concerned for the girls safety at the time decided it would be best if they got out of Dublin and went to Scotland. In a touching farewell letter to his daughters he encourages them to go to the ‘land of the stranger’ but trust in God and stay faithful to their country - a poetic display of patriotism and faith that encouraged a responsibility and sense of duty on the girls to be ‘true daughters of Eire’.
This kind of rhetoric clearly inspired and motivated Katie and her sister to be actively involved in the Irish republican movement, and like many other women involved at that time, constantly negotiating obstacles associated with gender and social expectation, they navigated and exploited the bounded territory between the private female figure and public male space, making the tactics of hiding, concealing and deceit all the more achievable. The subtle ‘small behaviours’ of these women (words, ideas and gestures), not only rebelled against foreign rule but also rebelled against the accepted norms for women in society - revealing a social change in process that would ripple through time over the next 100 years.
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2. |
Small Behaviours
04:22
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A sideways glance you played the dance to be in the game
A flick of your hair, a question, a stare, to bring you where
You have broken reign, you have spoken change
A bounded space in a borderland of heart and hand
A private life, a silent wife, a public ban
You have broken reign, you have spoken change
Small behaviours ripple through time
Through history’s failures, through the dirt and the grime
To feed us with wisdom, to bathe us in pride
Those infinite actions, that alter our lives
You have broken reign, you have spoken change
Small behaviours ripple through time
Through history’s failures, through the dirt and the grime
To feed us with wisdom, to bathe us in pride
Those infinite actions, that altered our lives
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3. |
Risky Business
02:51
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At the end of 1916, Katie and her sister Alice went to work in Glasgow where they attended the Irish clubs there. It wasn’t long before they were approached by Irish Volunteers and asked if they would smuggle ammunition back to Ireland.
"They warned us it would be a very risky business but we were very glad of the opportunity to visit home as we could not afford a trip to Dublin to see our mother since we left".
They met up with the boys after a ceili and walked along one of Glasgow’s main thoroughfares, Sauchiehall St. 'each pair arm in arm to throw off suspicion'. They stopped in a doorway and exchanged ammunition and gunpowder.
"We spent our nights sewing gelignite into canvas sugar bags. When our landlady found us keeping the light on nearly all night, she objected and we had to leave the digs".
Collecting one last parcel before leaving for Dublin Katie tried to board a busy tram at Central Station but was pushed off. She fell on her back and was knocked unconscious. Stiff and sore the next morning she strapped the gelignite to her body and wrapped her arm with fuse and cotton wool soaked in a strong smelling antiseptic and dressed in a sling as a disguise.
When she got to the station the train she was to board had been decommissioned for troops carrying soldiers to war, and no civilians were allowed onboard. Katie lied and told a story about how she was just out of hospital, with no one to look after her, and desperately needed to get home. She was eventually let on and got a seat in a carriage full of soldiers. The arm wrapped in the sling was really paining her and she was feeling the effects of the tram fall from the night before. Terrified that the soldier beside her would knock against her she held herself stiff, and when asked if she was in pain she truthfully replied ‘very much so’. The antiseptic used to soak the cotton wool around her arm was carbolic acid and had eaten into her skin leaving her scarred for life.
The irony of Katie being on a train, surrounded by soldiers going to fight for a nation that she was wrapped in explosives to fight against - All of them, victims of war, just wanting to get home.
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4. |
Trouble Ahead
06:09
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Running up streets, so thin, my skin, my sister
Alice and me, we danced our way to blister
Arm in arm on Sauchiehall, yeah
Ceili’s on, we got the call
Oh, oh trouble ahead, tell and you're dead
Lover’s disguise, exchanging hands for parcels
Furtive eyes, with loaded gifts that sparkle
Through the shadowed streets of Glasgow
Powdered hands with burning cargo
Oh, oh trouble ahead, tell and you're dead…..You are so dead
All night long, those lights left on. Sowing strong the fire for your guns
So I could get home…And then the day it came
I’ve been waiting so long
Now I’m running for that train, I’m homeward bound again
I am willing, I am game, keep quiet, don’t complain
All wrapped up in gelignite
Go godspeed in broad daylight
Oh, oh trouble ahead, tell and you're dead
With a fuse I can’t refuse, I’m stiff and sore from trying
Slung in arm a burning bruise, my god I feel like dying
Searing skin, left all behind me
Except those scars that shall remind me
Oh, oh trouble ahead, tell and you're dead……You are so dead
One step wrong, I’m falling headlong, lying on my back on the ground
So I could be found…and go back where I belong
I’ve been waiting so long
On a carriage that awaits, a slip of hand, a twist of fate
No civilians allowed, I had to lie and beg and bow
Load the troops to war like freight
Smell of innocence sedates
Oh, oh trouble ahead, oh and you're dead
Soldier, oh soldier, you don’t know the half of it
I’m stronger and I’m bolder than you could ever imagine
The weight that I bear is the story I wear
On the arm that is wrapped up in all that is wrong
With the train that we’re on….Oh and the pain it burns long as we carry on
The pain it burns long as we roll on
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5. |
A Heavy Weight
05:15
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The sea was integral to the fight for independence. Both Scotland and Ireland were going through similar battles for home rule and a desire for change from within. The waters played an important part in this connection, from the Irish Sea to the North Channel, allowing not only for the crossing of ideologies but for the smuggling of guns and ammunition through the harbours of Glasgow, Belfast and Dublin. At the height of the activities during the War of Independence the waters were literally teeming with weapons and explosives and the harbours, where sea and land connect, were watched heavily by Police and Special Branch day and night. Tricks and manipulation were key elements of deceit, from falsely named yachts to boats painted black and male and female smugglers disguised as romancing tourists.
Katie stayed in Glasgow with her sister Alice until 1919. They made several trips back and forth to Dublin with guns and ammunition. After their last run Katie remained at home but Alice returned to Scotland where she continued to work for the IRA. On her final journey Katie recounts….
"We brought ammunition back to Ireland in the same way except this time we attached the stuff to our shoulders by straps. I was so thin that my hips had been skinned before by the heavy weight. We came by the North Wall on this occasion to avoid being spotted. We were driven straight home where we handed over the stuff to my father who dumped it safely in a hideout he had".
Large tracts of Dublin city centre and its iconic buildings – the Custom House, the GPO and the Four Courts – had been badly damaged or destroyed during the Rising and had not yet been fully rebuilt. In what was once called the second capital of the empire, one of the great boulevards of Europe, Sackville St. (now known as O’Connell St.) lay in ruins. The city was pounded with naval guns mounted on the HMY Helga, a royal Navy Ship stationed on the River Liffey, as well as from artillery positions along the river bank. This ancient river of Dublin, Abhainn Liphthe, embodied by James Joyce’s river spirit Anna Livia, had been exploited to bring destruction on the very banks she nourished and brought life to - with her soft, brackish waters “wave tossed and briney”.
Katie’s journey home through the docklands, up along the Liffey and into the heart of North Inner City Dublin symbolised her deepening journey into the undercurrent activities of subterfuge and espionage, secret meetings, raids and ambushes. Her home at 17 North Richmond St., honeycombed with secret hide-outs, where arms and explosives were stored, became a safehouse and HeadQuarters for members of Michael Collins’ squad, called The Guards. Her mother, Mrs. Catherine Byrne, known as the ‘Mother of The Guards’, actively smuggled and hid guns, fed and looked after men on the run and helped prisoners escape from jail.
"When the first Thompson gun was brought into Dublin, it was transferred to our house to be examined and assembled. Those present were Michael Collins, Emmet Dalton, and Paddy Daly…..My task was to go out on the street and keep watch and one of my brothers was posted at the back door. After some time the men left and went out to the Casino in Marino where they tried it out. Some of the Christian Brothers warned them that they could be heard all over the place. They said they did not care, they had a Thompson Gun".
Many tunnels and subterranean passageways were exploited by the volunteers as a way to move around the city unnoticed. The dark and damp network of Dublin’s underground rivers, flowing beneath the city and feeding into the Liffey, was a source of numerous escapes during raids and prison breaks. Ever since the rebels Red Hugh O'Donnell and the O'Neills, centuries beforehand, escaped from Dublin Castle through the drains into the River Liffey, the route to freedom was driven underground.
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6. |
Abhainn Liphthe
03:55
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On and Off
I go back and forth
Through the harbours of refuge I shall not falter
Safe past the North Wall
My father unburdened the load
From a body stitched and sewed
Farewell to my sister, I shall not go
Back across the waves untold
Oh Abhainn Liphthe, spirit of old
Through the rubble of Dublin City you’ve flowed
Shipwrecked and hollow
But your wisdom knows of the currents that flow
Underworld in the secret tunnels below
And what was and what is and what’s destined to be
A Joycean tribute under siege
In the womb of North Richmond Street
Hush the sounds of a faint heartbeat
Cradled in arms with the Mother of Guards
Flow the woes of a blood stained dream
Oh Abhainn Liphthe, spirit of old
Through the rubble of Dublin City you’ve flowed
Shipwrecked and hollow
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7. |
All Is Not What You See
04:31
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Katie’s story from 1919 - 1921 occurs during one of the most violent periods in modern Irish History. IRA activity throughout the country was increasing and many of the women who played active roles in the 1916 Rising, now became crucial intelligence agents. The whole operation could not have worked without a network of daring women - mothers, spies, couriers and carers. Most of the Dublin safe houses used were run by women, whose commitment, during and after the Rising helped to bring the Irish nation to support the separatist movement, often filling the voids in leadership and ensuring Irish independence did not die with their loved ones.
They treated wounds and provided food and shelter. They faced interrogation and the ransacking of their homes. They did this day in and day out, and in most cases brought up their young families as if this were the normal way of life. During this time both Katie and her mother played active roles in the delivery of dispatches and weaponry, including the hiding of guns during several raids at the house in North Richmond St.
"We used to collect ¼-lb Cocoa tins, or any tins of similar size, to make grenades".
In addition to this they were also involved in a number of prison breakouts and ambushes. On the 29th March 1919 twenty one republican prisoners made a spectacular escape from Mountjoy in broad daylight, via a rope ladder thrown over the wall of the exercise yard.
"The escaped prisoners come to our house. We were warned days before that they would want our help. The night before the escape we were told to be ready and have the back and front doors open".
During the escape the prison wardens were held down in the yard by prisoners who weren’t armed but had large wooden spoons wrapped in handkerchiefs in their pockets to look like they had guns. As the last prisoner climbed over the wall, before jumping to freedom, he shouted ‘‘stone walls do not a prison make’’.
In a separate event, the Byrnes were involved in the escape of two of Collins’ men who were put in jail after the burning of the Custom House. The prisoners gave false names to their captors and were pretending to be brothers.
"In a plan to secure their release my mother was told she would have to act the part of their dying mother and a doctor would call unannounced to the house with police to examine her. On the day they arrived she was, as usual, baking when a rather loud knock was heard. My father and I quickly pushed my mother, who was then about 16 stone, out of the scullery upstairs to the top of the four-storey house. I had only time to pull off her shoes and blouse and roll her into bed with the floured hands. By that time she was a real hard case panting for breath, just suited to our purpose. She was examined by a ‘friendly’ doctor who said she was a ‘bad case’ and had not long to live and she was immediately transferred to the Mater Nursing Home. The two boys were let out on parole and never went back to jail. The following day my mother - the dying woman - walked out of the nursing home and into a car provided by the IRA lads. That night we all drank to the health of the ‘dead woman’".
All is not what you see hidden in the seams of things.
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8. |
Seams of Things
03:30
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Hold them open, front and back, keep them coming through those doors
Overthrown, ropes and falls, do not a prison make stonewalls
Wooden spoons and cocoa tins, we’ll bake a war for me and you
All is not what you see hidden in the seams of things
Vanished into the unknown by strength beyond their own
And she was there, a silent prayer in darkness, not alone
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9. |
The Joy
03:44
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Other encounters with prison included Katie assisting in the attempted escape of General Seán MacEoin, from Mountjoy in 1921. At that time he was the leader of an IRA Flying Column. She visited the prison on several occasions, smuggling notes and whiskey inside the jail.
"I wore a pair of glasses as a disguise and carried two bottles of whiskey and some sweets. The sweets were for the woman searcher. I had the bottles inside my mother’s knickers with straps on the end to keep them from falling out. She asked me had I anything, I said “no, except some sweets, would you like them?” She took them and told me to go ahead. Inside I released the bottles and handed them to a prisoner while a warden turned his back. The whiskey was to dope the guards".
On the day of the attempted escape Katie acted as a decoy, to hold up the closing of the gates at the entrance to Mountjoy. She took orders from Collins to play the part of a sister attempting to deliver a parcel to her brother inside the prison. He specifically instructed her to have no name written on the parcel so the gate-keeper would insist she label it, all the while delaying proceedings in order to allow a stolen armoured car inside the prison to break out. Unfortunately however, the plan backfired and the volunteers were discovered before they could free MacEoin and had to shoot their way out. When the gatekeeper heard firing he tried to shut the gate but Katie bravely stuck her foot on the step to prevent it closing. Although the escape of the prisoner failed, she put herself in direct danger to ensure the gate remained open so the boys helping could still get out. Seán McEoin was eventually released from prison and went on to have a long political career in later years, serving as both Minister for Justice and Minister for Defence in the new Irish Government.
Katie was also involved in numerous staged vigil protests outside the gates of Mountjoy during prisoner hunger strikes to gain media attention. In 1921, she assisted in the burning of Raheny RIC Barracks and partook in a number of IRA operations including the disarming of British soldiers near the Parnell Monument in Dublin.The stories of many of the women who assisted Collins are told in witness statements and pension applications. Repeated accounts of deceit and subterfuge, in a war of intelligence where women’s deeds, the small but crucial behaviours, went completely under the radar.
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10. |
Under The Radar
04:37
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A pair of glasses, two bottles of whiskey and some sweets
All eyes averted, sugared blind from deceit
‘Cos everybody wants something
Now don’t get frisky, oh it's risky with all that whiskey
Close to my thighs, a blooming disguise to make the guards sleepy
With all of the dreamers and all of the visionaries gone
Just nobody’s sister helping somebody’s brother get home
Under the radar, behind the burning car
Fueling the flames, always game from the start…oh heart
A foot in the gateway, a parcel with no name addressed to delay
Oh sway, sway, sway to dissuade and byplay - you know the way!
Bold and brave, no place for the liberated here
Hooked and fastened and tethered to the shadow sphere
Under the radar, behind the burning car
Fueling the flames, always game from the start…oh heart
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11. |
Invisible Army
02:37
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Countess Markievicz said how proud she was 'of the girls who stood in the gap of danger during a time of stress and war'. Women were the invisible army of the Irish revolutionary movement and when the conflict was over they were the ones who lost the most in the new Irish State.
Largely written out of history, women were more often than not referred to as stereotypes not characters in their own right - always wives, mothers, daughters, mistresses - sexualised and fantasised, and only ever making up 0.5% of all recorded history. In a story largely told by men, women need to be written back into consciousness through collective memory. Deeds must be told and written as much as they are lived, instead of intimate histories that die when we do, forgotten milestones lived and dissolved on a final breath, as living keepers of lore and memory only to succumb to the instance of death…..
The daring ones
The silent ones
The nameless ones
The brave to come
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12. |
Hidden Histories
05:37
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It matters what was said, it matters what was written
For if it is not there, it never really happened
Never really stirred, never really altered
Never really ran, never really faltered
Bolder bolder be, a brave unknown
Hidden from truth and images shown
Safe from the world, safe from the knowledge
Save for the truth and all that was swallowed
For there’s no place here in this holy land
Bodies taken here by God’s own hand
You carried more for this, fearless
You hoped for more than this
Histories that die when we do
Lived through the blood and the bones of you
Dissolving lore on a final breath
Swallowed whole by the instance of death
The silent ones, the nameless ones, the brave to come, the daring ones...
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13. |
The Domain of War
02:41
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On the 21st of November 1920 the IRA assassinated sixteen undercover British intelligence agents working and living in Dublin, known as the Cairo gang. Later that afternoon, in retaliation, members of the RIC and the Auxiliary Division opened fire on a crowd at a Gaelic football match in Croke Park, killing or fatally wounding fourteen civilians and injuring at least sixty others. This day was referred to as Bloody Sunday.
Katie’s home was used as a first aid station for injured members of The Squad.
"I was told on the Saturday afternoon that they wanted the back parlour and we had to put a few mattresses on the floor and clear out some of the furniture. Mother was warned to have some grub ready. We had to go to a very early Mass that Sunday as my father was told this job would take place early in the morning".
In the afternoon, Katie went to Croke Park and was searched by the Black and Tans in the aftermath of the shootings.
"The crowd had cleared out and we were the only five people left sitting there. Hogan was standing near the goal post at the canal end - The Black and Tans, having shot him, kicked him and emptied their guns into him. We waited until it was safe to get away. They searched us and made me put my hands up and felt my pockets".
Later that night, papers that had been found on the bodies and in the luggage of the British officers who had been killed earlier that morning were brought to 17 North Richmond St.
"They found a queer collection among the papers including some love letters. My mother and father and I had the job of sorting the papers and putting aside anything of importance to show to Collins. We put the rest in the fire".
From empires deplored to nations ignored, sides shall remain the domain of war.
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14. |
Only Love
05:22
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Deep in lined pockets, split with a crease
Smudged confessions of a love deceased
Warm and stained, a blood valentine
Lost to a battle, lost to time
Who wept for this body, who carried the grief
Who mourned for the loss, who cursed the thief
Who tenderly folded the clothes once worn
And thanked God for the day they were born
It’s only love that soldiers on
Only love when the rest is gone
So gently written, held close to the heart
Words for the living, torn apart
And there in the flaming heat of the hearth
Letters to ashes, to dust depart
Who’s left to remember, who's left to recall
The love of the fallen, not that which they fought
From empires deplored to nations ignored
Sides shall remain the domain of war
It’s only love that soldiers on
Only love when the rest is gone
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15. |
Infinite Actions
02:27
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The story ends with Katie ceasing her activities after the truce on the 11th of July, 1921. The following year, at the age of twenty five, she got married in a joint wedding ceremony with her sister Alice. Surrounded by their family and close friends, including their brothers and several members of the Squad dressed in army uniform.
Neither Katie nor Alice played an active role in the Civil War that followed, or apparently in any IRA activities after they got married, although their brothers did.
In a regressive period to come for women’s equality, the fusion of a deeply conservative religious and state ideology from 1922 onwards ensured their exclusion from public, economic and political life - lasting for many decades to follow. The greatest achievements of the women’s work towards Independence was not recognised in any legislation going forward, and sadly failed to grant the equal rights and opportunities the Proclamation had originally called for. However, the infinite actions of all these women, detailed in their statements and memoirs - through histories failures, through the dirt and the grime - have altered our lives.
Katie went on to have 2 sons and died in 1971, aged seventy four.
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16. |
The Rise
04:34
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Between the walls, amid the house
Unions Call, beyond the dance
And sisters love, and love some more
To wed together, vow before
This flesh and blood, beside who stood
The shoulders strong, of men who could
Continue on, a final turn
Bearing forth, the work was done
The work was done, and words undone
And you, you have broken reign
You, you have spoken change
Small Behaviours, ripple through time
Through histories failures, through the dirt and the grime
Oh to feed us with wisdom, to bathe us in pride
Those infinite actions that alter our lives, alter our lives
It altered our lives …
The work and the fight, the fall and the flight
The ribbon tied tight, and the torn petticoat
The guns and the boats, the lies kept afloat
For the Rise…behind the walls
The Rise…beyond the calls
The Rise...for the Rise
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Kate O'Callaghan County Donegal, Ireland
Kate O'Callaghan is a singer/songwriter based in Donegal, Ireland. Combining evocative melodies with intelligent considered lyrics, she covers a gamut of styles and emotions from Alt. Folk to Jazzy/Blues, the sublime to the cathartic. Evocative, haunting, poignant and refreshingly uplifting, with a unique aspect that explores the less obvious paths tonally as much as the expected. ... more
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