That night we started making holes in the walls of buildings adjoining the GPO, leading along Henry Street. This proceeded until we observed the enemy at about 3 am – 4 am on Friday morning. At that point we were ordered to cease work.
Most of Friday we spent our time removing flammable material from the vicinity of the fire, which still raged and we tried hard to subdue with any materials at hand.
On Friday evening between 6 pm- 7 pm we lined up in Henry Street awaiting further orders.
The O’Rahilly came out of the Coliseum and asked for 6-7 volunteers to follow him to the GPO basement to remove grenades and other flammable articles.
I was one volunteer and after we finished we were ordered to resume our former positions.
The O’Rahilly was the last to leave the GPO and about five minutes later a rumour came through that the O’Rahilly was killed.
[For more on this, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_O%27Rahilly
…more later …