Letter from Margaret Ruth Leslie to her brother Cecil George Leslie, 29 April 1916 Letters 1916-1923 Margaret Ruth Leslie

This work was originally published by Maynooth University in Ireland in 2017. In 2026 this data, stored in a relational database was extracted and converted into this TEI/XML document.

 Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities Vienna, AT 2026

This is an open access work licensed under Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Margaret Ruth Leslie and Cecil George Leslie come from the wealthy south Ulster family known as the Leslies of Corravahan outside Cavan. Margaret had been living in Wilton place since at least 1911. Her brother Cecil George Leslie was wounded in the opening stages of the Great War losing an eye as a result and at the time of this letter was stationed at the Seine divisional HQ for the duration of the war. This letter from Margaret Ruth Leslie (1886-1972) to Cecil George Leslie (1879-1919) gives an eye witness account of the impact of the Easter Rising in the wealthy area of Wilton Place in south Dublin. Areas which she has covered in the letter include the rebel garrisons occupation of St Stephens Green, heavy fighting in the city centre, well hidden snipers, lack of popular support for the rebels fro the Dublin population, having to forage for food supplies and rumors surrounding a body of Sinn Feiners marching on Dublin from Wexford.

McKeown Private Collection McKeown-1916-04-29 https://letters1916.ie/item/2107 English Margaret Ruth Leslie 1916-04-29 1 Wilton Place, Dublin, Ireland Cecil George Leslie Female 1972 Easter Rising Ireland 1916 Easter Rising Ireland 1916

The data in these XML files was generated based on a data dump from the Magellan database (https://github.com/Maynooth-Center-for-Digital-Humanities/Magellan). Each database record has been converted to a JSON file (https://github.com/letters1916static/letters-data/tree/main/json). The element section of the JSON file contains the TEI-encoded contents of the letters. The TEI XML has been cleaned and made well-formed using a Python script (https://github.com/letters1916static/letters-data/tree/main/src).

 1 Wilton Place Dublin 29 - IV- 16 Dear Choppy, I don't know if you will ever get this but Bergy Tombe has motored up from Wicklow to—day & says he'll get some letters posted on his way home. There's no post in Dublin & we haven't seen a paper since Monday except a Daily Sketch which we saw yesterday. It was going the round of Dublin and we got "a read of it". It's extremely hard to know where to begin especially as we know practically nothing though we hear hundreds of rumours. We can hear fierce battling going on constantly. I see fearful fires down in the city. We can hear machine — guns, bombs, some kind of bigger gun and of course incessant rifle-fire. There are snipers everywhere & it's next to im -possible to locate them. To begin with we were much cooped up & only allowed out into the square etc. except that some of us had to go & see Dina Hensworth twice a day. She is all by herself in a house in Pembroke Road just across Baggot St Bridge & has just perpetrated an infant & as the fighting was very hot in that district someone has to call constant- ly & distract her maid with prattle. As a matter of fact she is merely pleasureably excited — in fact, dreadful to relate we are all enjoying it enormously. There must be masses of troops in Dublin now They hold all the bridges this side of the town now, which the Sinn Feiners did on Monday & Tuesday of course they had odious fighting to get them back & the hospitals are crammed. I believe two trains of wounded have gone to Belfast & a lot to England. Of course the S. F.'s tried to cut the railway to the north but I believe theyonly half blew up a bridge & there is a singleline still. Of course all this informationis quite unreliable. It's a loathsome jobfor the troops as they haven't even decentmaps & of course they can't trust anyone& have no guides & being English knownothing, & except at rare intervals theynever see the enemy. It's house to housefighting & they are sniped from everywhere.Thank goodness Jane & Ira are gettingso used to it all that they have ceasedto fuss about us & we were alloweddown to Ballsbridge this morning tosee the troops coming in. It's perfectlysafe as we hold the whole road fromBaggot St out to Kingstown now &the snipers don't want to shoot us inthe least. I can hear them going all roundnow. Half the time I don't think theycan be firing at anything in particular.The police are all cooped up somewhere. Theycan't let them out as they aren't armed& in even in plain clothes, directing the troops would be quite unmistakable & a plainmark for snipers. There is very likely nothinggoing on in Merrion Square now & I hearthey fired on the Red + nurses thereyesterday but on the whole they seem to havebehaved very decently. We We have heard ofseveral people whose houses they occupied& they weree quite I didn't even lootif they were not resisted. There strikes oneas being curiously little popular sympathywith the movement & it seems Redmond'slot — the National Volunteers (who he saidwere to keep the peace at home!) are lyingvery low & are not in with the S. F's atall. Of course they must be feeling sickas at any rate this must do for Home Rule.We were allowed down to Nassau St oneday to pack parcels for the Dublin FusilierPrisoners as they depend on the food that issent there & it would be dreadful if theydidn't get it. So the were to get a passfor a motor to take this week's consignmentdown to Kingstown & dump it on one of thereturning transports. We strolled down ingreat hopes of seeing strange sights & per - haps being shot at but saw verylittle except a dead horse in Stephens Green(where we weren't supposed to go) & a lot of motors& trams across the road & bullet holesin the windows, of course this was afterthe S F's had evacuated Stephen's Greenwhich they did on Tuesday night. I don't knowwhy they were let as they could simplyhave been starved out there. However Ibelieve we were desperately short of troops& everything else till Wed. One of the greatdifficulties is to bury the dead as of coursethey can't always get them to the cemeteries.They are going to use the field at the backhere I think. You should see us foragingin the morning - Jane , Nelly, Margery, & meI don't know what will happen if it goes onmuch longer & the food begins to give out.I believe a lot of Sackville St is burnt out& they we have blown up Jacob's factory & burnta lot of S F's in it. I don't know if we havegot the Post GPO back yet but I doubt it. The Sinn Feiners seized that & Stephen'sGreen first thing & report says they baggedsome young officers & a parson or so & severalother people & kept them with them sothose poor devils will have to be blown upwith the S. F. 's. We have just heard areport that the Sinn Feiners are at Slanewhich we must keep carefully from Dina.It's possible I'm afraid as otherwise Ithink Lady Connyham would have got toher somehow. There are supposed to be a big Body of S F 'smarching up from Wexford but Bergy Tombesays he doesn't believe it as he has seen nosign of them & anyhow there are troopslying in wait for them. From the paper yesterday Asquith seemsto be minimizing the affair as muchas he can but it's bound to come out. I hope all's quiet in the country but therebut there are rumours of trouble in the west.Gen French was away when theoutbreak occurred (1 p.m. on Monday) Of coursethe government has been warned over &over again that this was imminentThey say French had gone over to handin his resignation as they wouldn't givehim men. Must stop as this hasgot to go. I'm afraid it's a verygarbled account, but my informationis profuse but scanty if you knowwhat that means. I wish we couldget some war news .Best love. Yours ever M.R.L.I don't know if they have heard anythingof me at home 1 Wilton Place, Dublin, Ireland Letter from Margaret Ruth Leslie to her brother Cecil George Leslie, 29 April 1916 Margaret Ruth Leslie Letter from Margaret Ruth Leslie to her brother Cecil George Leslie, 29 April 1916