British reinforcements quickly suppressed the rebellion; within a week, several parts of the city were reduced to rubble and 450 people were dead. The rebels’ surrender was followed by large-scale arrests in Dublin and in the provinces, and general courts-martial were set up. One hundred and sixty-nine men and one woman, the Countess Markievicz of Connolly’s Citizen Army, were tried and convicted by courts-martial. The Easter Rising’s leaders—including the signatories of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic, Tom Clarke, Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, Sein Mac Diarmada, Eamonn Ceannt, Thomas McDonagh, and Joseph Plunkett—were executed. Over 1,800 men and five women were sent to Frongoch internment camp in Wales. Eight of them were from County Longford; three were from Granard.
Internees were quickly released; 650 after a few weeks, more in July, and the rest by Christmas 1916. They were welcomed home by crowds and bonfires. The prisoners had not wasted their time in the camp. Placed together in one location, they formed friendships, organized themselves, and plotted. When they were turned loose, they joined the political party Sinn Féin, the Irish Volunteers, or both. When it was announced that there would be a by-election for the North Roscommon seat at Westminster in February 1917, the Republicans had a chance to find out how much support they had. Count Plunkett was put forward as the representative of the new Irish nationalist direction in opposition to the Irish Parliamentary Party candidate. A prominent and respected member of the community, he was director of the National Museum, a papal count, and the father of the executed 1916 leader Joseph Plunkett. He ran as an independent, heavily supported by Sinn Féin, and won handily. After some pressure from Sinn FCiners, he declared he would follow Sinn Féin’s policy of not taking his seat at Westminster. This decision continues to influence Irish politics.
In May 1917, there was another by-election, this time in South Longford. Mick Collins, who had been interned in Frongoch, was a conspiratorial genius. He arranged to have Joe McGuinness, who was imprisoned in England, nominated as the Sinn Féin candidate. McGuinness, a Dublin draper, was a native of nearby Tarmonbarry, and his brother, Frank, owned a small shop in Longford town. The campaign slogan was “Put him in to get him out.” Republican Ireland descended on Longford; among those speaking on behalf of McGuinness were Margaret Pearse, widowed mother of the executed brothers Patrick and Willie Pearse, Count Plunkett, and Mrs. Desmond Fitzgerald, whose husband, a 1916 veteran, was in an English jail. Count Plunkett told one crowd, “Every vote for McGuinness [is] a bullet for the heart of England.” The public was presented with two distinct choices, the moderate work-with-the-system approach of the Irish Parliamentary Party versus the radical challenge-the-system approach of Sinn Féin. McGuinness won by thirty-seven votes. Around this time, Matt Brady joined the Irish Volunteers.
When McGuinness was released from prison, a rally in Longford brought together a who’s who of Irish Republicans, including McGuinness, Count Plunkett, Arthur Griffith, am on de Valera, and Thomas Ashe. Griffith was the founder of Sinn FCin and the prime source of its abstentionist tactics; that is, the refusal of Republican elected officials to take their seats at Westminster. De Valera was the most senior 1916 rebel who had not been executed. In 1916, Ashe had led attacks on Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) barracks in North County Dublin and directed a pitched battle with the RIC outside Ashbourne in County Meath. Collectively, they were key actors in a series of dramatic political events. Matt Brady was a witness to and participant in these events and probably heard Ashe introduced as “Commandant Thomas Ashe of the Irish Republican Army.” Soon after the rally for McGuinness, under the Defence of the Realm Act, Ashe was charged with attempting to cause “disaffection" among the people while making a speech at Ballinalee, County Longford. He was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment at hard labor and joined about forty other prisoners in Mountjoy Prison in Dublin. The prisoners attempted to distinguish themselves from the criminal population by requesting a number of special privileges, including unrestricted conversation, optional work, classes for study, and no association with ordinary criminals. When the privileges were refused, they embarked on a hunger strike. The prison authorities countered by force-feeding them, but liquid was pumped into Ashe’s lungs instead of his stomach, causing his death in September 1917.
Republicans from throughout Ireland attended the funeral; years later, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh recalls his parents’ account of the event. The First Battalion (Ballinalee) of the Longford Volunteers, including Matt Brady of the Colmcille Company, marched eight miles to Longford town to catch a special train to Dublin. There were so many passengers that extra carriages were attached as the train progressed. The funeral, an open display of contempt for the power of the authorities, brought the city to a standstill. After a volley of shots was fired over the coffin, the oration was given by Mick Collins. He was brief, but powerful: “Nothing additional remains to be said. The volley which we have just heard is the only speech which is proper to make above the grave of a dead Fenian.” On detail was Matt Brady and his comrades in the Colmcille Company of the Longford Battalion, Athlone Brigade, of the Irish Volunteers. As did many others, Brady took his turn “on guard over [the] corpse in the city hall … and then on duty at [the] funeral.”
About this time, May Caffrey was an 18-year-old living in County Donegal. She was the daughter of John Caffrey, a municipal inspector for Belfast Corporation, and Jeanne Ducommun. Caffrey met Ducommun in London, where he was attending classes while she was working as a governess. He was an Irish Catholic interested in learning French. She was a Swiss Calvinist who was fluent in French, English, and German. In spite of, or perhaps because of, their different backgrounds, a relationship blossomed. They married and moved into a house on Clonard Gardens in Belfast. One of her first experiences there was watching the aftermath of a July 12th march commemorating the victory of the Protestant army of William of Orange over the Catholic army of James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. She was amazed at the rioting. Their daughter, May Caffrey, was born in Belfast in 1899. In 1906, the family moved to Armagh City, where John Caffrey took a job as headmaster of the Technical Institute. May would later tell her children about how she always had to walk to primary school with a group of other children, for she had to pass through a Unionist area and her parents feared she would be attacked. In 1908, the family moved to Donegal Town, where John Caffrey became county engineer. He also became active in Sinn Féin. He attended the Dublin funeral of the Irish-American Fenian O’Donovan Rossa in 1915 and heard Pearse’s famous oration there. In the 1918 national election, he seconded l? J. Ward, Sinn FCin’s candidate for South Donegal, on Ward’s nomination papers. (Ward was elected). Caffrey’s children followed his politics.
Like Matt Brady, May Caffrey was a participant in the dramatic political events in Ireland. She was a member of the Gaelic League and was the captain of the first branch of Cumann na mBan, the women’s wing of the Republican Movement, in Donegal town. She also organized the hinterland, cycling to Mountcharles and Frosses and other places. At one point, a local priest complained to her father that she was drilling the servant girls. The priest indicated that not only were her politics wrong but she was consorting with people beneath her. Her father ignored him and supported her.
As Sinn Féin, the Irish Volunteers, and Cumann na mBan grew and de Valera, Arthur Griffith, Mick Collins, and others toured the country, the authorities became concerned. Collins was arrested in Dublin in March 1918, transported to Longford, and charged with having “incited certain persons to raid for arms and carry off and hold same by force" in North Longford. He was found guilty and sent by train to Sligo Jail. In the same month, John Joe O’Neill (son of James O’Neill), was charged with drilling a squad of young men at Ballinamuck.