E. H.: In 1916, on Easter Monday – we used to go for picnics – and… on this Easter Monday 1916 we went to… the Pine Forest. There were about twelve of us, and we took our lunch and… there were boys and girls, all friends, and we all went off to Pine… we walked to the Pine Forest from Ranelagh, and we had our lunch. And while we were clearing up after lunch I saw my father walking up the road and I wondered what brought him out. So he came along and told us that there was trouble in the city, and that we should pack up quickly and get home as quick as possible, told the boys to keep with him. He said ‘Keep with me, keep all together, and walk straight home and stay there’. He said ‘There’s trouble in the city’, and… we went, we did what he told us we came home and… the next… it was a beautiful Easter, and the next morning he went in to town because he worked in town and he had two elderly… caretakers in the office, and they lived in the basement.

T. L.: In…

E. H.: He didn’t want them to go out in the trouble because they were right, looking into the Stephen’s Green. So, he got a pass from the military, he explained the position and… he got a pass from the British to go in to his office and see these two elderly people and he got them bread and milk and whatever shopping they wanted. And he told them to stay indoors, and not to come out under any circumstances. And at that time we had… It was nice, though I say it was nice and fine it was cold, and my mother had ordered coal and it hadn’t arrived, and we’d no coal. So he used to go into the office and he had a little brief bag, and he filled it with coal every day, and he brought it home. And… every day he went in and he got the mess… and he’d get whatever messages mother wanted to, but he didn’t allow us go out. We were never allowed out for about a week, until he thought it was safe, and then we couldn’t go into town. We were not to go into town, we could go around about where we lived but not into town. And… there was no school or anything, and… I don’t know how long we were at home really.