'Boys wore silk hats perched on their noses or backwards at a drunken angle...'

In On Another Man's Wound, Ernie O'Malley describes the looting on O'Connell Street on Monday evening: "I heard the noise of firing; random shots in the distance. People from the slums . . . had looted some of the shops. Boys walked around with a bright yellow shoe on one foot, the other bare; women carried apronsful of footwear, stopping at intervals to sit on the curb and try on a pair of satin shoes; then, dissatisfied, fling them away and fit on another and different variety.

Boys wore silk hats perched on their noses or backwards at a drunken angle. Three of them have cut slits in their hats and placed them over their faces. Water pistols in hands, they were Kelly the Bush Ranger and his gang, with their bullet-proof, bucket helmets.

Pickets from the GPO fired at the looters, but they fired in the air. Clery's store, a large one, was like an ant heap. Men, women and children swarmed about, carrying off furniture, silks, satins; pushing baby carriages filled with sheets, stockings, garters, curtains.

Trails, winding and twisting, showed what they had discarded. Pickets were strengthened, looters were fired on, the shots were lower. The looters dropped their armful and scampered away, cursing the armed men. 'You dirty bowsies, wait till the Tommies bate your bloody heads off'."