The polite rebels who visited Dublin suburbia

Felicity O’Mahony looks back at a time in 1916 when four armed and apologetic Irish republicans visited a Dublin suburb.

The undated radio script in which Denis Johnson recalled his time as a 'schoolboy in the rebellion': Picture: Board of Trinity College Dublin

In the early hours of Easter Tuesday 1916, 61 Lansdowne Road, the Ballsbridge home of Judge William Johnston, his wife Kathleen and their only son was occupied, under “amiable circumstances”, by four armed and apologetic Irish republicans.

Denis — a future playwright — was then a 14-year old schoolboy home for the holidays from his Scottish boarding school.