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CHAPTER ONE

Early Days

Emmet Dalton was born in the United States on 4 March 1898 to Irish-American parents who lived in Fall River, Massachusetts, a relatively prosperous mill town. Emmet’s father, James Francis Dalton, was feisty and personable, and enthusiastically threw himself into work, business and politics. There were strong Irish connections in the family. James Francis’s own father, James senior, was born in Galmoy, County Kilkenny in 1839, just a few years before the Great Famine that forced many Irish to seek refuge in America. James senior took the emigrant ship also, marrying another Irish immigrant, Laois-born Elizabeth Walsh, after settling in Rhode Island. Possibly influenced by the folk memory of the Famine, James F. was a fervent Irish nationalist, convinced that the Irish had suffered many wrongs inflicted by their English overlords. He was an enthusiastic supporter of Irish causes and would become immersed in the campaign for Home Rule.

Like other men of Irish background in the state of Massachusetts, James F. became active in the Democratic Party, and in the 1890s was a state committee man.1 One of his contemporaries in the party was a man of similar background, John Francis Fitzgerald, known as ‘Honey Fitz’, whose parents were also Irish-born. Both men loved sport, especially baseball, and James F. was a director of the Fall River Baseball Association. Fitzgerald would go on to become the Mayor of Boston and an extremely powerful figure in Boston politics – his grandson, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, would become President of the United States. With his energy, drive and affability, James F. might also have carved out a career for himself in Massachusetts politics but he was destined to take a different path in life.

When he was in his late twenties, James F. decided on a great adventure – he would leave America, and return with his family to the land of his ancestors. By now, James F. had been married twice, and had two sons. His first wife was Bridget Heffernon, and they had a son, Martin Joseph. After Bridget died, apparently in childbirth, James F. at age 28, married again, this time his bride being Katherine Lee Riley (20), who was born in Somerset, Massachusetts where her family were farmers. The marriage register lists James F. as a manager by profession, while his bride is described as a stenographer.2 Katherine was also of Irish-American background: her mother’s maiden name was Margaret Cronin; her father’s name was Charley Riley. Both parents had been born in Ireland.

The couple were married in Somerset on 2 June 1897 by a Catholic priest, and their son James Emmet Dalton, was born the following year.3 According to the city birth register, the family then lived in Fall River. The boy was called after the Irish patriot, Robert Emmet, who had the same birthday, 4 March. Robert Emmet, born in 1778, was executed in Dublin in 1803 after an abortive rebellion against British rule. By coincidence, there happened to be an infamous individual with a similar name who was in the news during the 1890s. This was Emmett Dalton, an outlaw in the American Old West who became notorious as an armed robber and member of the Dalton Gang. However, there is little doubt that the baby was called after the patriot rather than the bandit, even though the entry in the Fall River birth register is rendered as ‘James E. Dalton’, thus giving less emphasis to the ‘Emmet’ element in the name. The father’s occupation is given as ‘salesman’.

James F. moved to Dublin, Ireland around 1900, where he went into business. It is unclear if he tried to seek out relations in County Kilkenny. When he had settled in, he sent for his wife Katherine, who set off for Ireland with their infant son Emmet and James’s son Martin J. from his first marriage.4 Arriving in Dublin, they soon moved into the new house that James F. Dalton had acquired for his family. It was in a new housing estate at Drumcondra, with green fields nearby, in an area that was then on the edge of the city. It was a time when Dublin was in the throes of preparations for a visit by Queen Victoria to the city, in April 1900. Young Emmet was most impressed by the colourful uniforms of the soldiers, and this would form one of his earliest memories.

Over the years James F. Dalton would pursue various business projects. He ran a fashionable laundry for a period, the Central Laundry at 60 South William Street, in a genteel area of the south city. He later went into the insurance business, and became an importer and manufacturer’s agent, with an office at 15 Wicklow Street. After settling in Dublin, the family quickly expanded. The 1911 census returns show that the family resided at 8 St Columba’s Road Upper, Drumcondra. The redbrick two-storey terraced house, with a small front garden, on a quiet residential street, just off Iona Road, is still there. James F. Dalton (42) is described as ‘Head of Family’, and the manager of a laundry company. His wife is listed as Katherine L. Dalton (34). The census returns record they were both born in the United States and married for 14 years. The family’s religion is given as ‘Roman Catholic’. Details are provided of four sons and a daughter. The eldest son, Martin J. Dalton, is described as a student at the National University. He is listed as being able to speak Irish and English, the result, no doubt, of an Irish education. Also listed as having been born in the United States, and able to speak Irish and English, is J. Emmet Dalton (13). The remaining children were born in Dublin city. Charles Francis, eight years old at the time, was born in 1903, and no doubt named after his mother’s father Charles Riley. Eileen, aged six, was born in 1906 – she would pass away at age nine. The baby in the family at the time of the census was Brendan Ignatius, aged one.

The family was prosperous enough to have a live-in servant, as many of the better-off middle-class Dublin families had in that era – she is listed in the census returns as Mary A. Coughlan (21), a native of Dublin. The couple went on to have other children: Nuala was born in 1913 and became a nun; Deirdre was born in 1916 and Dermot Patrick arrived in 1919. The parents had an obvious preference for traditional Irish names. In all, James F. Dalton fathered eight children, the most famous being Emmet. With his natural air of authority, James was given a nickname within the family – he was known as ‘The Sir’.

Drumcondra, like its neighbouring area Glasnevin, enjoyed the seclusion and amenities of a genteel suburb on the edge of Dublin, but was close to the city centre, with its theatres and other amusements. The trams ran along nearby Drumcondra Road, where the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin ruled from an imposing palace behind high walls. There were fields nearby earmarked for housing, and the open countryside was within walking distance. At Finglas Bridge, on the edge of the cemetery lands, boys could swim during the summer in the shallow waters of the Tolka. Dublin’s notorious slums and infamous ‘Monto’ red light district did not impinge on the tranquility of life in Drumcondra.

For a boy interested in sport, the Dalton home was ideally located. In one direction, a few minutes’ walk away, there was Croke Park, premier stadium of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), and scene of the All-Ireland senior football and hurling finals every year. In another direction, again within walking distance of the Dalton home, there was located in Phibsboro the stadium known as Dalymount Park, home of Bohemians soccer club, popularly known as ‘Bohs’. In that era, on a quiet evening when a match was in progress, locals living within a few miles radius of the stadium could hear the ‘Dalymount Roar’ as the assembled Dubs cheered a goal or a save. Emmet Dalton would become a regular at Dalymount, both as a player and later as a spectator.

As a devoutly Catholic family, the Daltons would have appreciated the reassuring proximity of the Church of Saint Columba, a grey, granite edifice in Romanesque style, completed in 1905. The church would cater for the spiritual needs of the residents of the new suburbs of Drumcondra and Glasnevin. For the Daltons, daily Mass and Communion, and the nightly Rosary, formed part of their routine. Not too far away from their home, on the other side of the Royal Canal, was the grim outline of the Victorian-era Mountjoy Prison, behind grey, stone walls. From some of the cell windows facing east, one could see St. Columba’s church. The prison would also figure in the story of Emmet Dalton.

The family men who lived in this middle-class Drumcondra/Glasnevin suburb of redbrick houses included businessmen, civil servants and clerical workers. Living almost around the corner, at 7 Iona Drive, were the Malleys. They lived in a grander house than the Daltons. Luke Malley was a civil servant, a clerk in the Law Department of the Congested Districts Board (later known as the Land Commission). He and his wife Marion had a large family. One of their sons, Ernie, aged 13 at the time of the census, just like his neighbour Emmet Dalton, would later take the more Gaelic, more romantic version of the surname, O’Malley.5 He would also figure prominently in the story of Emmet Dalton.

O’Connell School

Emmet was first sent for schooling to the Holy Faith nuns at Glasnevin. Then he went on to O’Connell School (also known as Scoil Uí Chonaill), located on North Richmond Street, just off the North Circular Road. Emmet’s brother Charlie would also be educated there, as would Ernie O’Malley, starting in 1907. O’Malley described O’Connell’s as ‘a fairly good school where we rubbed shoulders with all classes and conditions’.6 O’Connell School was the most historic of the Christian Brother establishments in Dublin. The foundation stone of the school was laid in June 1828 by Daniel O’Connell, the charismatic leader of the movement for Catholic Emancipation. Apart from inculcating a strong Catholic religious faith, the Brothers were also noted for promoting Irish nationalism and culture, with a particular emphasis on the Irish language.

It has been estimated that about 125 past pupils of O’Connell’s took part in the 1916 Easter Rising. One of them, Seán T. O’Kelly, later became President of Ireland. Three of the executed leaders of the Rising were former students of the school – Sean Heuston, Eamonn Ceannt and Con Colbert. Former O’Connell School boys fought in the War of Independence and they were to be found on opposite sides in the Irish Civil War which followed. The writer and theatre critic Gabriel Fallon has recorded that among his ‘close companions’ at O’Connell’s were Emmet Dalton, Noel Lemass and Ernie O’Malley.7 They were all around the same age. Noel’s brother Sean, later to become Taoiseach, was also at O’Connell’s around this time, and Emmet knew the Lemass brothers well. O’Malley was close enough to Emmet’s younger brother Charlie to entrust him with his books when, in March 1918, he took a break from his medical studies to leave home and organize for the Irish Volunteers in the 1918 election.8 One of the teachers at O’Connell’s who knew Dalton well was Brother William Allen, who would later be noted for his unique collection of rare historical documents, books and artifacts, including arms from Ireland’s revolutionary period donated by former pupils.

James F. Dalton, Activist and Organizer

After setting up home in Dublin, Emmet’s father, James F. Dalton, threw himself into the political and business life of his adopted city. He became active in nationalist organizations such as the United Irish League and the Ancient Order of Hibernians. He demonstrated his devotion to Irish history by picking shamrock from the tomb of Daniel O’Connell in Glasnevin Cemetery and sending it back to his home town of Fall River. Close on a half century later shamrock based on that original plant was still being grown in Fall River, in a munici-pal greenhouse.9 Politically, James was a constitutional nationalist, supporting the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) led by John Redmond, which was campaigning for Home Rule and which had made some progress towards that goal through its activities in the parliament at Westminster. Yet it was still under the cloud of its spectacular split in 1890–91 following the marriage of party leader Charles Stewart Parnell to a divorcee. But party unity was re-established in 1900 under John Redmond, who came from a noted County Wexford family of Catholic gentry.

James F. Dalton kept a large picture of party leader John Redmond over the mantelpiece in the sitting room of his Drumcondra home. As an extremely hardworking activist for the IPP, James F. made a considerable impact in nationalist circles in Dublin. Perhaps because of his experiences with the Democratic Party in America, he took an active part in committees and fund-raising work linked to the nationalist cause. He proved an extremely good events organizer. Likeable and energetic, he had the ability to win friends. He became friendly with luminaries of the party such as the Belfast-born MP Joe Devlin, a noted orator and skilled political organizer; Willie Redmond MP, a brother of the party leader; and Tom Kettle, poet, journalist, barrister and academic, who had served as an MP up to 1910. Devlin and Kettle would visit the Dalton home to socialize and sometimes play cards. While still a schoolboy, Emmet came to know some of the prominent people in the Home Rule movement.

James F. Dalton was held in such high esteem by those involved in the Home Rule movement that he was the guest of honour at a banquet given for him at the Gresham Hotel on 21 December 1911. The dinner sold out, and senior figures in the IPP were present, including Willie Redmond and Tom Kettle. Though Joe Devlin was unwell, he still made sure to turn up at the Gresham to pay tribute to his friend. Dalton was presented with an illuminated address by an Irish Party activist, Lawrence Wickham, a member of Blackrock Urban Council, in recognition of his work for the ‘National Cause’. The address referred to the ‘sacrifices’ made by Dalton, his ‘unselfish patriotism’ and the ‘great personal regard in which he is held’. The address also referred to his ‘almost unique faculty of attracting universal friendship’.

During his address, Tom Kettle said that the most brilliant student that he knew in their Dublin College was a son – Martin J. Dalton – of their guest that night. Joe Devlin said of James F. Dalton, that ‘no more loyal friend, no more affectionate comrade’ had ever appeared in Ireland. Touched by the occasion, James F. warmly thanked the attendees. ‘It has often been told to you by our leaders and others who have visited this great Republic of the West, of the love that is borne not only by the exiles, but also by the children of the exiles, for Ireland. I am proud to say, as the son of an exile, that I intensely love this dear old land…’

It was not surprising that Martin Dalton had come to the notice of Tom Kettle. Apart from being a ‘brilliant student’ at UCD, Martin was also active in the college’s renowned debating society, the Literary and Historical Society, known as the L&H. Kettle had once held the prestigious position of auditor of the society. Martin helped Arthur Cox secure election for auditor in 1913 over the future Taoiseach, John A. Costello. Cox later became a prominent solicitor and ultimately a Jesuit priest. He recalled that Martin ‘learned much of his politics from his father, organizer of the Irish Parliamentary Party’, and ‘steered me to victory’.10

James F. Dalton helped to organize a massive Home Rule rally held in Dublin on 31 March 1912, with son Martin coordinating the attendance of university students.11 Dalton senior also played a key role in organizing the elaborate welcome given by the IPP to British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith when he visited Dublin in July 1912 to support Home Rule. The Liberal leader was shepherding a Home Rule Bill through Parliament, and was given a rapturous reception in Dublin, driving through the city in an open-topped carriage with John Redmond. As Organizing Secretary of the Reception Committee, James F. attended a reception for Asquith in the Gresham Hotel. Through his father’s activities, Emmet would have gained some understanding of the Home Rule politics of the day.

As he became a citizen of some prominence in Dublin, James F. Dalton became a Justice of the Peace (JP), and went into the insurance business. In 1913 he helped launch the Catholic and General Assurance Association Limited, becoming a director along with luminaries such as the Earl of Orkney.12 An office was set up at 22 Westmoreland Street and Dalton was on a very good salary of £500 a year. Unfortunately this arrangement ended in acrimony. In early 1916 he launched a legal action in the Dublin courts against his former employer for unfair dismissal, though in April the company settled the case.13

Cistercian College, Roscrea

After primary education at O’Connell’s, it might have been expected that young Emmet would continue his secondary education at the school. However, in 1912, he was sent away to a boarding school run by monks in County Tipperary. In his retirement, Brother Allen told a story to a friend about the background to Emmet’s change of school.14 The Brothers had installed a new instrument at O’Connell’s – a telephone. The Superior of the community, Brother John A. O’Mahony, a man in his sixties, wanted to test the instrument and decided to make a telephone call. One of the few families he knew with a telephone was Emmet Dalton’s family. He called the Dalton home in nearby Drumcondra and Mrs Dalton answered. He introduced himself and said he was sorry to hear that influenza had invaded her home. There was a pause, and Mrs Dalton asked, ‘Do you have the right family, Brother? There is no influenza in my house. Both Emmet and Charlie went to school this morning.’ It was now the Brother’s turn to be taken aback. He said only one boy, Charlie arrived at school and this boy apologized for Emmet’s absence due to influenza. Alarmed by this information, Emmet’s parents carried out inquiries. It emerged that Emmet had been regularly indulging in truancy from school, or ‘mitching’ as he described it himself in later life, using a traditional Dublin expression.15 As a result, his parents decided to send him away to boarding school. Looking back on his school days, he said he was not a brilliant student, but was able to pass examinations. He was mainly inclined towards sport and athletics, implying that he was not enormously interested in academic subjects. Referring to his ‘mitching’, he reckoned he was a ‘difficult pupil’.

Emmet was sent for secondary education to the Cistercian College, Roscrea, set in countryside more than 80 miles from Dublin. It was a more exclusive establishment than O’Connell’s, and perhaps more exotic as well. The college had been set up a few years earlier, in 1905. Travel to the school entailed a lengthy train journey from Dublin. The extra expense involved in sending 14-year-old Emmet to such a school would suggest a certain affluence on the part of his father at this period. The boarding school, which is still in operation, is run by the monks of Mount St. Joseph Abbey. They belong to the contemplative Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (OCSO). The school, located in an imposing, grey stone building set in green, wooded countryside, provided a striking contrast to the urban environment which Dalton had hitherto experienced. In later life, Dalton talked with affection of his days at O’Connell’s, where he said he had received ‘brilliant’ teaching. But he was also taken with Roscrea, where he felt inspired by the Cistercian monks he encountered. In old age, he would talk of the many happy days he had at Roscrea, and his pride at being associated with the various people he met there, and the example set by the monks’ life of ‘unselfish devotion’.16

Irish Volunteers

With his nationalist background, it was not surprising that Emmet was among the 4,000 who joined the Irish Volunteers, at the inaugural meeting in the Rotunda Rink in Dublin in November 1913.17 James F. Dalton became heavily involved in the movement, as did his friend Tom Kettle. The organization had been founded by Gaelic scholar Eoin MacNeill, in response to the formation of the Ulster Volunteer Force by Ulster Unionists opposed to Irish Home Rule. The bill to enact this legislative autonomy for Ireland was then working its way through the House of Commons. Many nationalists were not yet ready to accept the idea that the Ulster Protestants might be regarded as a separate people entitled to self-determination.

In April 1914 the UVF raised the level of tension on the island of Ireland by landing 25,000 rifles at Larne, Bangor and Donaghadee. On 26 July a small consignment of about 900 Mauser rifles was landed by the Irish Volunteers very publicly at Howth, County Dublin from the yacht Asgard skippered by the writer Erskine Childers. Authorities attempted to capture the rifles landed at Howth; a small number seized by the police were returned later as they had been confiscated illegally. Soldiers from a detachment of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers had been involved in an unsuccessful attempt to seize the rifles. When they were jeered by a crowd at Bachelor’s Walk in Dublin city centre some soldiers lost control and opened fire, killing three civilians and wounding dozens. The deployment of the military that led to the shooting aroused considerable outrage throughout Ireland. James F. Dalton attended a meeting of Dublin City magistrates who protested at the military being called out.18

In June, James F. Dalton was one of twenty-seven nominees submitted by John Redmond to join the ruling Provisional Committee of the Irish Volunteers. However, the outbreak of the Great War in August 1914 quickly split the Volunteer movement. To avoid a civil war, the British government placed Home Rule on the statute book, but postponed its implementation until the end of the war. On 20 September IPP leader John Redmond made a historic speech in Woodenbridge, County Wicklow, where he declared it was in Ireland’s interest for the Volunteers to enlist in the British forces and fight in the war in defence ‘of right, of freedom, and religion’. He reasoned that Irish nationalists by fighting in the war alongside Ulster Unionists, would ensure Irish unity when Home Rule was enacted. He also envisaged that the Volunteers who joined the British forces would form the nucleus of a future Irish army that would secure the unity of Ireland. Militant nationalists opposed participating in the war effort, and this split the Irish Volunteer movement. The anti-Redmond element were in a minority and continued to be known as the Irish Volunteers, led by Eoin MacNeill. The vast majority, however, followed Redmond and became known as the National Volunteers. By this time the revolutionary Irish Republican Brotherhood had secretly manoeuvred itself into key controlling positions within the Irish Volunteers and was seeking to capitalize on England’s difficulty by using the Irish Volunteers in an uprising against British rule.

James F. Dalton served on the national committee of the new National Volunteers as the militia raised funds, built its organization and armed its members. At a meeting in Dublin City Hall on 30 September 1914, James seconded the motion making Willie Redmond MP (younger brother of John Redmond) one of the Honorary Treasurers.19 Willie Redmond would later die in British uniform during the Great War. Among the others on hand that night was James’s friend, Tom Kettle. Kettle had been in Belgium to procure arms for the Volunteer movement when the war broke out. Like Willie Redmond, he also died in the war. He would be comforted in his dying moments at the Somme by James’s son, Emmet.

James F. Dalton had helped supply arms to the Volunteer movement. Patrick Moylett, a businessman from County Mayo, later described how he bought rifles from James Dalton during an arms-buying trip to Dublin in 1914. The arms were to equip local Volunteers in his home town of Ballyhaunis. Probably acting on behalf of the Volunteers, Dalton provided six Mausers of the 1896 Spanish model pattern, and one 1877 Mauser for a total of £25.20 The transaction seems to have occurred after the outbreak of the Great War in August, possibly before the split in the movement, which would explain Dalton’s dealing with Moylett, who affiliated himself to the militant Irish Volunteer group.

Although only about sixteen years old, Emmet Dalton was given the task by his father of delivering the rifles across Ireland to County Mayo. Emmet later recalled the delivery of the heavy parcel, wrapped in sack cloth, to his family home.21 James Dalton saw his son off on the train at Kingsbridge station for the journey to Ballyhaunis. For a youth of such tender years, it was a challenging assignment. The police could become suspicious and, besides, Emmet could barely lift the heavy parcel. Emmet was wearing his Christian Brothers school cap and this may have helped convey an image of innocence that allayed any suspicions. Dalton senior helped his son heave the package onto the luggage rack of the train.

Moylett stated that a week after he paid for the weapons, Emmet arrived at his business premises in Ballyhaunis with the six rifles, but no ammunition. Moylett had managed to get some ammunition from Belfast from another unlikely source – an Orangeman – but it was only about 25 rounds. ‘I took Emmet Dalton and my foreman, Pat Kennedy, who was in the Volunteers, to the police rifle range and we did our practice openly.’22 Clearly, even as a schoolboy, Emmet knew how to fire a rifle – a useful accomplishment in light of his later military career. Moylett recalled that Emmet told him that he was 18 years of age [sic] and that John Redmond was getting him a commission in the British Army. ‘His statement made me sad because it cut straight across what he was doing. I tried to persuade him not to join, but I was not successful.’ Moylett became a senior figure in the Irish Republican Brotherhood during the War of Independence, though he took no part in the Civil War.

Emmet Dalton Joins the British Army

In late 1915, Emmet Dalton, aged 17, joined the British Army. He showed considerable independence of spirit and sense of adventure by doing so without consulting his parents. He was said to have been a student of ‘great ability’ at the college in Roscrea, and he reportedly gained a scholarship to the Royal College of Science but abandoned it to go into the British forces.23 He was following the call of his father’s great idol, John Redmond, who had encouraged the Volunteer movement and Irishmen generally to fight for Britain in the Great War. Dalton later reminisced that the overwhelming majority of the Irish people at this time supported the action being taken by John Redmond and his followers in the National Volunteers. He was imbued with the same feeling of patriotism that existed all around. There was also the glamour of going to war: ‘I mean, at eighteen years of age, what do you know?’24

His enlistment was assisted by his father’s friend, Joe Devlin MP. Devlin gave him a letter of introduction to a man who was in charge of recruiting and who had an office on Grafton Street, Dublin. So far as Dalton could recall, the man’s name was Macartney Filgate.25 Dalton called to the recruiting office, and applied for a temporary commission in the British Army. Dalton lied about his age, claiming to be 18 years old.26 He received a letter dated 29 December 1915 from the War Office, London appointing him a to a ‘temporary Second-Lieutenancy in the New Army (on probation)’, posted to the 7th Service Battalion, Royal Dublin Fusiliers. He was required to attend a class of instruction at Cork, and was to present himself, without fail, to the Commandant, School of Instruction, Garrison Office, Cork in one week. He was instructed to report in uniform, but if his uniform was not ready, to report in plain clothes. In a rather parsimonious tone, the letter added: ‘Expenses incurred in travelling to join on first appointment must be paid by yourself.’27

During the interviews for a 1978 RTÉ TV documentary, Cathal O’Shannon asked Dalton if in joining the British Army he felt he was fighting for Britain, or fighting for Ireland, or for little Belgium? Dalton replied that he was fighting for all three. The ‘Irish Brigade’ subscribed to the idea of fighting for small countries. They all felt sympathetic to Belgium. Dalton also agreed that in joining the army he was motivated partly by a sense of adventure.28

Dalton’s father was utterly dismayed when Emmet turned up at the family home in British Army uniform. As an avid supporter of John Redmond, James Dalton probably backed Redmond’s call on the Volunteers to join the British Army. At the very least, he had not distanced himself publicly from Redmond’s policy. But he was still shocked when he saw his son in the uniform of the King’s forces, and his basic Irish nationalist emotions came into play. Emmet’s mother was also upset. Emmet managed to calm them down and they came to accept their son’s decision. Emmet duly set off for Cork and underwent a course for young trainee officers for about a month at the city’s Victoria Barracks. He received further training in Kilworth camp, near Fermoy, County Cork.

Military commissions were formally announced in the British government journal London Gazette. The supplement for the edition of 8 January 1916 recorded that, on the first of the month, James Emmet Dalton, had been appointed temporary Second Lieutenant (on probation) with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers (RDF). He was one of many young men from his north Dublin neighbourhood who joined the RDF early in the Great War. One was Frank Malley, older brother of Dalton’s school contemporary, Ernie O’Malley. Frank later served with the King’s African Rifles, and died in what is now Tanzania.29

While Emmet was still undergoing training in Cork, a momentous event took place in Dublin. On Easter Monday 1916, the more militant element of the Irish Volunteers staged the Rising, which utterly transformed the Irish political situation for generations. Organized by members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the 1916 Rising was the most significant insurrection against British rule since the 1798 rebellion. The fighting was mainly confined to Dublin where the Irish Volunteers and members of the smaller socialist organization, the Irish Citizen Army seized a number of key buildings, the most iconic being the General Post Office (GPO). Fighting continued for the next six days.

As soon as he learned of the rebellion, James F. Dalton’s practical instincts came into play. He instructed his wife to lay in provisions and to buy two hundredweight (101.6 kg) of flour as nobody knew how long the trouble would last. Knowing instinctively that his 13-year-old son Charlie would want to go into town and see what was happening, James F. forbade the boy to go anywhere near the fighting. All Charlie’s sympathies were with the rebels and as he recalled later, he would have loved to help with the fight. He was disgusted to see women coming out of their homes to give jugs of tea to British soldiers.30

Many Irishmen serving in the British Army were still in Ireland when the rebellion broke out. They must have found themselves in a dilemma, as they had joined to fight for the rights of small nations – not to fight their fellow Irishmen. Many families also found themselves in an equivocal situation – having one son in the British Army and another son involved with or sympathetic to the rebel forces. Charlie Dalton stated that during Easter Week, before going to bed, the family gathered as usual to say the Rosary and to ‘pray for the Volunteers’.31 At the same time it is clear that despite their nationalist proclivities, the Daltons would have remained steadfastly loyal to Charlie’s brother Emmet who was now with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.

A few days after the start of the rebellion, Charlie was talking to his mother when the windows of the house shook with the sound of a deafening explosion – they later discovered that the British gunboat Helga had sailed up the River Liffey to shell buildings which were believed to be occupied by rebels. Towards the end of a week of fighting, Charlie was upstairs with his family saying the Rosary, when he saw a red glow in the sky in the direction of the city centre.32 A man passing by the house the following day said the GPO had caught fire and that the Volunteers had surrendered – he had seen them lined up on the street. Charlie was greatly disappointed at the news. Among the many captured insurgents was an extroverted young man from County Cork, named Michael Collins. All prisoners were released by June 1917.

After the fighting ended, Charlie went into Dublin city centre and walked amid the ruins. He later explained that in his patriotic fervor he wanted to make contact with others who felt the same as he did. He went to one of the Requiem Masses for the dead at the Church of St Mary of the Angels on Church Street, run by the Capuchin Franciscans. He found there what he was looking for. Outside the church he saw an older schoolmate from O’Connell’s, Ernie O’Malley, singing rebel songs.33 Like the Daltons, the O’Malleys had a foot in both camps – Ernie O’Malley had fought with the rebels in the Rising and would later become a prominent IRA leader, while, as previously indicated, his brother Frank was in the British Army. Charlie Dalton recalled that ‘we were horrified’ at the news of the execution of the Rising leaders.34 The shooting by firing squad of men such as Pádraig Pearse, his brother Willie and James Connolly, engendered great sympathy for the rebel cause. This accelerated the rise of the separatist Sinn Fein movement and helped to sound the death knell for John Redmond’s Irish Parliamentary Party.

Emmet Dalton said in his RTÉ interview with Cathal O’Shannon that when he heard of the Rising his reaction was the same as most of the recruits who were with him in Kilworth Camp, he was surprised, annoyed, and thought it was madness. He felt the rebels represented only a ‘tiny minority’ at that time, ‘and we were the overwhelming majority represented by our people in Parliament…’ However, he made it clear that if he had been asked to oppose the rebels in arms, that would be a ‘different situation’, implying that he would not fight against his fellow-countrymen. In Dublin, Irish troops were among the British soldiers deployed against the rebels, and a number of Dublin Fusiliers were killed. There is no record of any mutiny among them when they were were sent in to suppress the rebellion.

It has been suggested that Emmet Dalton was one of the army cadets who formed part of the British forces that were mobilized for security duties in County Wexford at the time of the rebellion. Because of a shortage of garrison troops, trainee officers, part of the Young Officers Corps at Fermoy, were given rifles and full service kit. They were then sent to County Wexford to guard a munitions factory and other strategic points, and to round up suspects.35 Fortunately none of them was required to open fire on the insurgents. The Wexford Rising was, in fact, a rather ‘gentle’ rebellion; although a large number of Volunteers turned out, there was no fighting and nobody was killed. Colonel French, the local commander of the British forces, took a ‘softly softly’ approach and this helped to resolve the situation without bloodshed. A young man, Francis Carty (a future editor of the Sunday Press), lived in Wexford town at the time of the Rising. He later fought with the IRA in the War of Independence and Civil War. He remembered the arrival of a force of cadets in Wexford with a larger number of British troops. He added in his statement to the BMH: ‘I think that Emmet Dalton was one of these cadets.’36

Richard Mulcahy, IRA Chief of Staff during the War of Independence, claimed that Dalton took the rebel surrender at Enniscorthy in 1916. Mulcahy made the claim in 1927 at an election rally, as a way of praising Dalton for his transformation from a British Army officer who once confronted Irish rebels to a rebel hero of the War of Independence.37 However, Mulcahy’s account raises the question – would a cadet or trainee junior officer be the person deployed to take the surrender of a rebel leader? The leader of the Wexford insurgents, Robert Brennan, told the Bureau of Military History that he surrendered to the British commander, Colonel French.38

While brave and idealistic, the insurgents of 1916 did not have an electoral mandate. The party that Irish nationalists voted for in overwhelming numbers was John Redmond’s Irish Parliamentary Party. As a result, Dalton and others who followed Redmond’s call to join the British Army in the First World War believed that in doing so they were expressing the will of the Irish people. The execution of the leaders of the rebellion helped to swing public sympathy towards the Volunteers’ separatist cause, and to divert support away from the Redmondites. In a 1977 interview, Dalton reflected that the general attitude of the Irish people at that time was changed by ‘the execution of the leaders perpetrated by the British for no valid reason’.39

Referring to the Rising itself, he considered the insurrection a hopeless gamble because it had no hope of success. He could not envision the leaders had ever believed in achieving military victory. He told how his contemporaries at the time looked askance at the Rising. ‘They did not see it the way one sees it now…’ Nevertheless, Dalton appeared to harbour a suspicion that the measure of independence Ireland ultimately achieved with the 1921 Anglo-Irish Treaty could have been secured peacefully had the 1916 Rising not occurred. In a telling quote, he remarked: ‘I think it [the Rising] should never have happened. I think if it had not happened the Home Rule Bill … could have been achieved, and I don’t see that there was a whale of a difference between the Home Rule Bill at that time and the Treaty as it was subsequently accepted.’40

Dalton also recognized the galvanizing effect of the British government’s attempt to introduce conscription in Ireland in 1918. That move was widely opposed by all elements of nationalist Ireland, including the Irish Parliamentary Party, and was later abandoned. Dalton told RTÉ interviewer Pádraig Ó Raghallaigh that he believed the move to impose conscription had an ‘extraordinary effect’. He said the Irish people stood solid against conscription, and he recalled the petition signatures and protests outside the churches on Sundays.41

Despite Dalton’s doubts and misgivings about the 1916 rebellion, he was destined to serve with the IRA in the War of Independence and, after the Truce, to be a member of Michael Collins’s entourage during the talks in late 1921 that resulted in the Anglo-Irish Treaty, but in the meantime he would undergo the horror of the trenches as a young British Army officer in the Great War.