An Cosantóir

www.military.ie the defence forces magazine | 21 cooled gun fired .303 bullets at 550 rounds per minute. They also had the Vickers, the regular heavy machine gun used in WW I and for many decades afterwards. Solid and reliable, it was water-cooled and fed by a 250-round (.303 calibre) canvas belt. A Vickers was put to good use in strafing the Irish Citizen Army in St Stephen's Green, while a Lewis gun was in operation from the United Services Club, also on the Green. British troops also had Mills bombs (grenades), which they used in such sorties as the storming of Clanwilliam House, at Mount Street, and assaults on oc- cupied buildings near City Hall. From early on, soldiers on the roof of Trinity College (several from Australia and New Zealand) sniped with Lee Enfields. British forces began to spread out around the city and by the middle of Easter Week, they had command of most high places in the central Dublin area, like the Custom House, Tara Street tower and Mc Birney's department store by the Liffey, from where rifle and machine gun fire was poured on the Volunteers occupying outposts in and around Sackville Street. The Volun- teers responded with their Howth Mausers. Many tales tell of the skill of the marksmen on either side. One related to a can on a string - used to shuffle messages between an outpost on Sackville Street and the GPO - which was bagged by an Australian marksman from Trinity's roof. Anoth- er is of Volunteer Joseph Sweeney in the GPO, who halted an improvised armoured car on Sackville Street by firing through the driver's slit. The rapid adaption of lorries into improvised armoured cars (Daimler lorries lent by Guinness were mounted with locomotive smoke boxes at the GS&WR's Inch- icore works) was an ingenious move that allowed the British to advance through heavy fire along such locations as North King Street, and to relieve the Lancers trapped near the Four Courts. However, the real game-changer was the British use of artillery. After the call went to the Reserve Artillery Brigade in Athlone, four 18-pounder field guns were fettled up and dispatched by train on Tuesday 25th April (along with shrapnel shells, the only ammunition available). These detrained at Blanchardstown. The first use was at 3.45 pm, when shrapnel shells were fired at the insurgent barri- cades on the railway bridges at North Circular Road and Cabra Road. The field guns then moved to Trinity College on Wednesday to bombard Liberty Hall, along with the 12-pounder of the armed yacht Helga. Later, shells were lobbed against the eastern end of the Four Courts. When the guns were wheeled out of Trinity on Thursday to focus on the Volunteers on Sackville Street their shells began to rain down on a potential tinderbox, containing stores of oil, paint and newsprint. The shrapnel shells were enough to ignite flammable material, and by Thursday night fires raged along the street. On Friday afternoon the GPO came under direct shell fire and the roof was soon ablaze. One account relates that a unit of Sherwood Foresters, based near Parnell Street, also used trench mortars to bombard the insurgents. The Volun- teers evacuated the GPO that evening and re-established in Moore Street. The surrender occurred the following day, Saturday 29th April. Perhaps the most poignant use of weapons in the Ris- ing came later, with the Lee Enfields used by British firing squads for the 14 executions in Dublin and one in Cork over the period 3rd to 12th May. about the author: Michael Barry is an author and histo- rian living in Dublin. His most recent book, Courage Boys, We are Winning: an Illustrated His- tory of the 1916 Rising (Andalus Press, 2015), contains over 550 photographs. His previous book, The Green Divide: an Illustrated History of the Irish Civil War (An- dalus Press, 2014), received very high praise. Both are available from http://andalus.ie/ and all leading bookshops. Lewis machine gun, with ammunition pan: capable of firing 550 rounds per minute. 18-pounder field gun: standard British field artillery gun on the Western Front. Four arrived from Athlone on Tuesday 25th April. A collection of improvised bombs found in the Royal College of Surgeons after the Rising. Improvised armoured vehicle: Five Daimler flatbed lorries were rapidly armoured for the military. Three had locomotive smoke boxes fitted. Gun slits were cut out, with some painted decoy slits to confuse snipers. Weapons Top Left: Mauser 71: bolt-action, single-shot rifles issued to the Prussian Army in 1872, revolutionary for their time. Short-magazine Lee Enfield Mk III: the general- issue service rifle during WW I. Capable of a much higher rate of fire than the rebels' single- shot Mausers.

• Cover