G.P.O. Staff in 1916

It is a curious fact that it was Post Office staff upstairs in the G.P.O. who were the first people to try to stop the Rising on Easter Monday 1916! Papers preserved in the British Postal Museum and Archive in London, however, record that the telegraph staff and a few unarmed guards barricaded themselves against the rebels and refused to leave their posts until shots were fired at them. The official reports of Dublin G.P.O. staff from several locations throughout the city - the G.P.O., the Crown Alley telephone exchange, Aldborough House, Dublin Castle and Amiens Street station – give a fascinating insight into the lives of a few Post Office people during that turbulent week and provide nuggets of new information about the historical drama that unfolded in Dublin during Easter Week.

Eyewitness Account:
Here, for instance, is what Sam Guthrie, the Ballybrophy-born Telegraph Superintendent saw as he looked out of the window of the Telephone Room upstairs in the G.P.O.:

''I saw that the windows of the Public Office and other windows looking into Sackville Street were being smashed, the fragments of glass falling on to and covering the pavement, and several members of the Sinn Fein party stood round the public entrance with rifles and revolvers.''

This is the sort of fresh, eye-witness account that is preserved in the Post Office papers and that brings events so vividly to life – you can almost hear the glass breaking! The story of the Rising from this unique Post Office perspective is told in Stephen Ferguson’s little book, ‘Self respect and a little extra leave’ G.P.O. staff in 1916, on sale in the G.P.O and online from (new window) An Post’s Philatelic Bureau.