their horses. It may have seemed to them a rather curious kind of
insurrection--that is, if they were strangers to Ireland.

In the Post Office neighbourhood the Volunteers had some difficulty in
dealing with the people who surged about them while they were preparing
the barricade, and hindered them to some little extent. One of the
Volunteers was particularly noticeable. He held a lady's umbrella in his
hand, and whenever some person became particularly annoying he would
leap the barricade and chase his man half a street, hitting him over the
head with the umbrella. It was said that the wonder of the world was not
that Ireland was at war, but that after many hours the umbrella was
still unbroken. A Volunteer night attack on the Quays was spoken of,
whereat the military were said to have been taken by surprise and six
carts of their ammunition captured. This was probably untrue. Also, that
the Volunteers had blown up the Arsenal in the Phoenix Park.

There had been looting in the night about Sackville Street, and it was
current that the Volunteers had shot twenty of the looters.

The shops attacked were mainly haberdashers, shoe shops, and sweet
shops. Very many sweet shops were raided, and until the end of the
rising sweet shops were the favourite mark of the looters. There is
something comical in this looting of sweet shops--something almost
innocent and child-like. Possibly most of the looters are children who
are having the sole gorge of their lives. They have tasted sweetstuffs
they had never toothed before, and will never taste again in this life,
and until they die the insurrection of 1916 will have a sweet savour for
them.

I went to the Green. At the corner of Merrion Row a horse was lying on