Drawing was doodled during the devastation of Dublin in 1916

This single sheet of notepaper gives a vivid impression of the atmosphere in Dublin during the 1916 Rising.

Thomas Bodkin was an artistic young barrister, from a prominent middle-class nationalist family. From the start of the Rising he travelled around witnessing the fighting, returning home with news and provisions. On the Thursday he joined the Red Cross as a stretcher-bearer, bringing the wounded to the Emergency War Hospital at Dublin Castle.

Excitement and tedium are both captured in the notepaper which Tom carried in his pocket. In a spare moment he began a letter to a friend describing the busy scene around him when his pen was suddenly lifted from the page mid-word.