Three Dubliners were shot dead by British soldiers on Bachelors Walk in Dublin. Mary Duffy (56), Patrick Quinn (46) and James Brennan (18) were killed when the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, confronted by a jeering crowd, opened fire on unarmed Dublin civilians on a day of considerable embarrasment for the authorities, as the nationalist Irish Volunteers successfully armed themselves. More than 30 other people were in hospital, some with serious injuries, including men who were bayoneted by the soldiers. A fourth civilian died weeks later.

In Dublin, there were immediate scenes of mourning and anger, with recruitment into the Irish Volunteers swelling the ranks of the nationalist organisation, while the funerals of the victims became political spectacles. In its aftermath, Bachelor’s Walk loomed large over political discourse. When John Redmond and Prime Minister Asquith held a recruitment meeting at Dublin’s Mansion House months later, the signs of protestors urged those in attendance to “Remember Bachelor’s Walk, Don’t Join the Army!”

A plaque honours the Asgard’s landing of arms at Howth earlier that same day, yet nothing marks the violent deaths of innocent civilians. A year on from the event, attempts to unveil a plaque there in July 1915 were stopped by the authorities, under the war-time Defence of the Realm Act. Dedicated “to the memory of innocent civilians slain by British soldiers”, the completed plaque was not unveiled, its location today a mystery.

The King’s Own Scottish Borders, garrisoned in the Royal Barracks, maintained that they were responding to attack by a hostile crowd when the first shots rang out just after 6:30pm in the vicinity of the Ha’penny Bridge. Certainly, some stones were thrown, though Thomas Johnson of the Irish Trade Union Congress would later remark that he had seen “more stones thrown at a football match in Belfast without interruption of the game.” Professor Eoin MacNeill of the Irish Volunteers, in correspondance with Roger Casement, would try and outline what had happened:

The news from Howth and Clontarf soon got all over Dublin. The King’s Own Borderers had to bear the brunt of the disgrace…of the Castle regime. Even at Clontarf, a young girl cried out upon them for cowards and asked the women to line up before their bayonets. Half a mile further towards the city, at the North Strand, a jeering mob collected around them and reminded them of their prowess in South Africa. In Talbot Street they thrice charged the unarmed populace with their bayonets, and still the cry of ‘cowards’ followed them, all along O’Connell Street to Bachelor’s Walk. When they reached the metal bridge, they could stand it no longer.

MacNeill claimed “from Amiens Street to Liffey Street you could not find a missile of any kind, except orange or banana skins”, something contested by some first hand accounts, but the facts of history are that the crowd were unarmed and the King’s Own Scottish Borderers were never in any danger. Subsequent investigation of the incident was widely dismissed as a cover-up, and the end effect, as MacNeill noted, was a sea change in public feeling.

The dead were all working class Dubliners. Mary Duffy was a 56 year old widow whose son was serving with the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. James Brennan, the youngest of the dead, was a teenage messenger boy. Patrick Quinn was a father to six children and employed as a coal porter. In September, the wounded Sylvester Pidgeon succumbed to his injuries, his death reigniting public outrage.

There were dozens of other injured Dubliners too, including several children. One of the wounded was Luke Kelly, namesake and father of the ballad singer who would go on to achieve international fame as a member of The Dubliners. Luke Sr lived a remarkable life in his own right, and distinguished himself as a football player with Jacobs Football Club in the League of Ireland.

In the immediate aftermath of the events, soldiers were confined to Barracks across the city. As historian Pádraig Yeates notes, “one soldier with a Scottish accent who was foolish enough to venture out in civvies was thrown in the Liffey. The Lord Lieutenant, Lord Aberdeen, wanted to visit the injured in hospital but his officials refused to allow him risk his person, given the mood in the city.”

The funerals brought Dublin to a standstill, with the bodies of the three victims brought to the Pro Cathedral, before a procession through the city streets to Glasnevin Cemetery. The Irish Independent reported on 29 July that “The removal of the remains of the unfortunate victims of Sunday’s shooting in Dublin from the City Morgue to the Pro Cathedral last night was marked by scenes of the most impressive character. Seldom in the recent history of Ireland has a more poignant and dramatic scene been witnessed.”

This newsreel Funeral Victims of Gun-Running | Dublin shows the funeral of the victims, following the Bachelor’s Walk massacre on 26 July 1914. A large crowd of Irish Citizen Army members are seen in procession led by a hearse. At this time Irish Volunteers (who later became the Irish Republican Army) were actively bringing guns from Germany to Ireland in small boats.