The site of General Sir John Maxwell’s quicklime pit. Old prison yard of Arbour Hill Prison. Burial place of the 1916 Rising leaders. The Proclamation of the Republic of Ireland is inscribed on the wall, in English and Gaelic. From Wikipedia

Thursday, May 11

After visiting Connolly that afternoon, Father Aloysius prayed there would be no more executions. How could there be? Already there were voices—some mere murmurs, others growing strident—beginning to sound throughout Ireland, indicating a shift in public opinion regarding the rebellion; and from across the ocean, from America with its huge politically-connected Irish population; and the pronouncements of prominent Irishmen in England too—Bernard Shaw and John Dillon among them—were proving prophetic.

Though occurring years before his time, Father Aloysius had grown up hearing from oldsters firsthand accounts of the Great Famine of the 1840s. Later he’d read about it. He’d read excerpts from The Nation, contemporary accounts and comments by the great John Mitchel. The stupidity of English policy toward Ireland back then was obvious to all but England. Had nothing been learned in 70 years?

At nine o’clock that evening, Captain Stanley—a kindly officer reluctantly stationed at Kilmainham Jail—requested that Father Aloysius be at the jail at two o’clock the following morning.

Friday, May 12

At 1 a.m., an automobile was dispatched to pick up Lillie and Nora Connolly. James Connolly had been awakened from his first non-morphine induced sleep in days. The pain in his foot returned in full force on hearing he was to be taken by ambulance to Kilmainham and carried to the Stonebreakers’ Yard to be shot at dawn.

At 3 a.m., Father McCarthy heard Sean McDermott’s last Confession. Half an hour later, McDermott wrote his final letter:

I, Sean Mac Diarmada, before paying the penalty of death for my love of Ireland, and abhorrence of her slavery, desire to make known to all my fellow-countrymen that I die, as I have lived, bearing no malice to any man, and in perfect peace with Almighty God.

The principles for which I give my life are so sacred that I now walk to my death in the most calm and collected manner. I meet death for Ireland’s cause as I have worked for the same cause all my life. I have asked the Rev. E. McCarthy, who has prepared me to meet my God and who has given me courage to face the ordeal I am about to undergo, to convey this message to my fellow-countrymen.

God save Ireland. Sean Mac Diarmada.

Sean McDermott
from Wikipedia

A little before 4 a.m., as the body of Sean McDermott was being born to a truck for transport to the quicklime pit, James Connolly was being propped up in a chair at the opposite end of the Yard where 14 others had been shot over the past nine days.

 As he was being blindfolded, Father Aloysius asked if he would pray for the young soldiers who were about to shoot him. “I will say a prayer for all brave men who do their duty,” Connolly replied.

James Connolly
from Wikipedia

As his rotund torso sagged against the ropes tying him to the chair—first from the volley of 12, then from the final shot to the head—Father Eugene McCarthy anointed him with the same oil on his thumb he’d usedonly moments earlier on Sean McDermott.

Reference: Rebels, by Peter De Rosa