"We Went By Train In Three Different Parties"

“I Didn’t Know What A Rebellion Was”

Relevant Places

Mervyn Wall was only eight years old and living in Palmerston Road, Dublin when the Easter Rising took place. He remembers being told that a girl that they knew had been shot soon after the fighting began.

He was really upset when later in the week his father took away his toy gun. The reason his father gave him for doing this was that,

A British soldier might see it through the window and think I was a sniper.

Mervyn found this hard to believe.

Mervyn Wall was a Programme Officer for Radio Éireann and was later Secretary of the Arts Council. He wrote numerous novels including The Unfortunate Fursey (1946), The Return of Fursey (1948) and Leaves for the Burning (1952) to name a few.

Mervyn Wall was interviewed for the programme 'Writer in Profile', broadcast on 1 April 1970.

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RTÉ would like to gratefully acknowledge the support and participation of the individual speakers who were kind enough to share their research and private collections with the public as part of the RTÉ Reflecting the Rising project. A big thanks also to the many volunteers and actors who gave their time so generously to help make RTÉ Reflecting the Rising a memorable and successful day.

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