constitutional policy since the inception of the Home Rule Movement in
1870. Home Rule did not satisfy, and was never admitted as satisfying, the
national demand. But the Fenian Movement had at last driven into the heads
of even Irish landlords and Tories that some concession to national
sentiment was necessary if the government of Ireland was to be made a
tolerable task for decent men. The Home Rule programme was one in which
Repealers and Conservatives agreed to join, the former in despair of
getting anything better, the latter in despair of retaining any longer all
that they had. But once accepted by the Repealers it had committed them,
in the necessities of the case, to a strictly parliamentary policy; and
that policy continued to be pursued even after the necessities which
caused it to be adopted ceased to operate. It was not a policy ever
accepted without reservation by Irish Nationalists: a considerable body of
them held aloof always from the Home Rulers, regretting the old virile
ways and words of Mitchel and Davis, and regarding the Home Rule programme
as a Tory snare into which Irish Nationalism had fallen. The years of
Parnell's leadership saw a nearer approach to national unanimity in the
parliamentary policy than was seen before or has been seen since. But it
was emphatically in the eyes of "strong" Nationalists a policy that could
only be justified by results, and the results were slow to appear. When
they appeared at last in the shape of a Home Rule Bill of the Asquith
Ministry there is no doubt that had it been carried and put into operation
the advocates of a stronger policy would have been overborne by the men of
moderate opinions. That is not to say that Home Rule would have been
accepted by all coming generations as a satisfactory solution of the Irish
situation; but it would have meant an immediate settling down of the
country to the solution of many internal problems and the return to
Ireland of something approaching the normal conditions of a civilized
country. The prospect was shattered by the enrolling of the Ulster
Volunteers. To the ordinary Home Ruler, the moderate Irish Nationalist,
their action seemed to be a gross and unpardonable breach of faith. For a
century Irish Unionists had uttered to Irish Nationalists the unvarying
challenge to acknowledge and submit to the supremacy of the Imperial
Parliament: they had called upon Ireland to abandon its appeal to history
and its "impossible claims" to an independence which Parliament could
never sanction. The Home Rule Party had done so: no renunciation of a
claim to sovereign independence could be more explicit and unequivocal
than that made by Mr. Redmond. So far as the Home Rule Party was
concerned, they had agreed to all the terms imposed upon them: they had
appealed to Parliament, submitting to all the conditions implied in the
recognition of it as the court of final resort, and now their opponents
challenged in advance the competence of Parliament to decide, and fell
back upon the weapons which Nationalist Ireland had been persuaded to
abandon. But though the Ulster Unionists might break the pact, it was
generally expected that the court to which they had taken their appeal
would see that its competence to decide it was not challenged. The
expectation was vain. The English Tory Party bluntly proclaimed that if
Ulster decided to repudiate the verdict of Parliament, Ulster would be
supported in any measure to that end which it should resolve to take. And
in the face of this proclamation the Liberal Party seemed to hesitate: the
Irish Party in Parliament could extract nothing from the Government beyond
vague assurances that all would finally be well. Nationalist Ireland,
surprised, uneasy, suspicious, indignant saw nothing more reassuring than
broad smiles of indulgent benevolence upon the faces of Cabinet Ministers.
But Ulster Unionists were not the only people in Ireland who disliked Home
Rule. It was just as little to the taste of Sinn Fein and the Republicans
and the Labour Party as it was to them. If the Ulster Party thought that
Home Rule was too great a concession, the others thought that it was
practically no concession at all. But being in a minority they were
prepared for the present to submit. The Sinn Fein Party and the
Republicans were well aware that Home Rule meant a set back to their
programme. Little as it conferred in comparison with what they wished to
have, it was certain to allay for many years the sting of Irish discontent
and to prolong the period during which Ireland would seek its satisfaction
in the shadow of its coming fortunes. The Labour Party had already begun
to organize its forces with a view to participation in the activities of
the expected Parliament, and looked forward with a modest confidence to
its immediate future. To all of these the arming of Ulster, which made the
Parliamentarians so indignant, was a light in the darkness. They had been
for years protesting unheeded against a policy which acknowledged the Act
of Union by acknowledging the supremacy of the Parliament which it set up:
their words had fallen for the most part upon stopped ears. And now from
the party supposed to regard the supremacy of Parliament as on a level
with the Ten Commandments came the mutterings of revolt and the rattle of
arms. Ulster had decided to defy "the English edict which would keep
Irishmen disarmed while the meanest Englishman may arm himself to the
teeth"; Ulster had taken up arms "against the usurped authority of the
Parliament of Great Britain to make laws to bind them." _Sinn Fein_
promised that Unionist Ulster would in its coming struggle with the
English Parliament "receive the sympathy and support of Nationalist
Ireland." From the Republican Party the action of the Volunteers received
unstinted and enthusiastic commendation. "Ulster has done one thing,"
wrote _Irish Freedom_, "which commands the respect and admiration of all
genuine Nationalists--she has stood up for what she believes to be right
and will be cajoled neither by English threats nor English bayonets. Her
attitude in this affair is the attitude of the O'Neills and the
O'Donnells: no other people but an Irish people could do it and something
of the kind was very necessary to shame the rest of Ireland out of
J.P.-ships and jobs into some facing of the facts.... In present
circumstances accursed be the soul of any Nationalist who would dream of
firing a shot or drawing a sword against the Ulster Volunteers in
connection with this Bill. Any such action would be an enforcement of a
British law upon an Irish populace which refused it, would be a
marshalling under the Union Jack. We are willing to fight Ulster or to
negotiate with her, but we will not fight her over the miserable shadow of
autonomy, we will not fight her because she tells England to go to Hell."
"The sheen of arms in Ulster was always the signal for the rest of
Ireland. And Ireland even in this generation, hypnotized as most of her
people are by catch cries about 'imperilling Home Rule,' by mockeries of
all 'wild' politics and 'wild' plans, by doctrines even more debasing in
their shameless lying than O'Connell's, Ireland has answered the call."
But to see in a revolt against a particular Act of Parliament a revolt
against the supremacy of Parliament _simpliciter_ was a mistake. Ulster
was willing, anxious indeed, that the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament
should be maintained in Ireland, but she made one condition: that
Parliament should ensure in Ireland the Protestant Ascendancy. For that
Ulster Protestantism professed to be prepared to fight to the death. It
was secured by the Legislative Union; and to weaken the Union was to
weaken it. So long as Ireland formed "an integral part of the United
Kingdom," so long as Catholic Irishmen were in a permanent minority in the
Parliament of that kingdom, so long did it seem certain that the
Protestant interest would be secure. Protestant England was considered to
have made a pact with Protestant Ulster, and Ulster was prepared to
enforce its observance even by force of arms. Ulster trembled when the
shadow of the Vatican fell across her as men once trembled at an eclipse
of the sun: and the Union seemed the only guarantee that recurrent
eclipses would not be the harbingers of a perpetual darkness.
And whatever elements of hope for the future Sinn Fein and Republican
Ireland might see in the attitude of the Ulster Volunteers towards England
it was plain that while they might be praised and imitated they could not
be followed. They were a strictly sectarian force formed to promote a
strictly sectarian object, while Sinn Feiners and Republicans stood for
the union of all Irishmen without distinction of creed. And their close
(and, as it seemed to many Irishmen, unnatural) alliance with the English
Tory Party was clear proof that their revolt (so far as it went) against
the authority of Parliament could and would be utilized to the greater
advantage of England and the detriment of Ireland. Ulster might propose to
fight for her own hand and her own position in Ireland, but her English
allies would see to it that nothing which Ulster gained would be lost to
England. The moral to be drawn was that Ulster being part of Ireland was,
however wayward and bitter, to be treated with consideration and respect;
her fears for her safety to be allayed; even her prejudices to be
considered and met; her incipient feeling of resentment against England
applauded and encouraged. So far and no farther Irish Nationalists could
go: but Ulster's claim to ascendancy could not for a moment be recognized.
Meanwhile the rest of Ireland should follow the example of the North and
arm in defence of a threatened liberty.
This was the attitude not merely of Sinn Feiners and Republicans, but of
many followers of the Parliamentary Party. But the bulk of the
parliamentarians took a different view. Some of them deprecated all
appeals to violence on the part of Irish Nationalists and held that it was
the business of Parliament to enforce its own authority upon the
recalcitrants: others thought nothing should be done, because nothing need
be done, Ulster being accustomed to threaten, but never being known to
strike: others again thought that the Ulster threats should be countered
by threats as determined, backed by means not less efficacious.
The last of these Nationalist sections joined with the Republicans and
some of the Sinn Feiners, Sinn Fein still officially adhering to its
traditional policy, to form, in imitation of the Ulstermen, the force of
the Irish Volunteers. The promoters of the movement were anxious to avoid
all appearance of opposition to a body of Irishmen whom, however they
might differ from them and no matter what collisions with them might occur
later, they respected for their vigour and resolution: on the other hand
they desired to make it perfectly plain that Ulster was not the only part
of Ireland that had the courage to proclaim its intention of standing up
for its rights. At a meeting held in the Rotunda in Dublin on November 25,
1913, the movement was publicly inaugurated.
Of the committee which took charge of the movement during its earlier
stages some were (or had been) supporters of Sinn Fein, others were
Republicans, more than a third were supporters of the Parliamentary Party
and a few had never identified themselves with any Irish political party
of any kind. And the manifesto to the Irish people issued by the committee
bore clear indications of its composite origin. It took sides neither with
nor against any form of Irish Nationalism and it contained no word of
hostility against the Ulster force. "The object proposed," it said, "for
the Irish Volunteers is to secure and maintain the rights and liberties
common to all the people of Ireland. Their duties will be defensive and
protective, and they will not contemplate either aggression or domination.
Their ranks are open to all able-bodied Irishmen without distinction of
creed, politics or social grade.... In the name of National Unity, of
National Dignity, of National and Individual Liberty, of Manly
Citizenship, we appeal to our countrymen to recognize and accept without
hesitation the opportunity that has been granted them to join the ranks of
the Irish Volunteers, and to make the movement now begun not unworthy of
the historic title which it has adopted." Volunteers were to sign a
declaration that they desired "to be enrolled in the Irish Volunteers
formed to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to all the
people of Ireland without distinction of creed, class or politics." The
final words of the declaration were an answer to the charge, printed in an
English newspaper a few days before, that the new movement was to form a
Volunteer force of Catholics in hostility to Protestants, and an answer by
anticipation to the charge, made freely afterwards, that the Volunteers
were intended to deprive Unionist Ulster of her just rights. The attitude
deliberately adopted towards Ulster could not have been better put than it
was by the President of the Volunteers, Professor Eoin MacNeill, in his
speech at the inaugural meeting. "We do not contemplate," he said, "any
hostility to the Volunteer movement that has already been initiated in
parts of Ulster. The strength of that movement consists in men whose
kinsfolk were amongst the foremost and the most resolute in winning
freedom for the United States of America, in descendants of the Irish
Volunteers of 1782, of the United Irishmen, of the Antrim and Down
insurgents of 1798, of the Ulster Protestants who protested in thousands
against the destruction of the Irish Parliament in 1800. The more genuine
and successful the local Volunteer movement in Ulster becomes, the more
completely does it establish the principle that Irishmen have the right to
decide and govern their own national affairs. We have nothing to fear from
the existing Volunteers in Ulster nor they from us. We gladly acknowledge
the evident truth that they have opened the way for a National Volunteer
movement, and we trust that the day is near when their own services to the
cause of an Irish Nation will become as memorable as the services of their
forefathers."
This was noble and chivalrous language and it loses none of its force when
one recollects that many of the platforms in Ulster were ringing at the
time with denunciations of "our hereditary enemies" and with references to
Irish Catholics as "hewers of wood and drawers of water," "the men whom we
hate and despise."
But in spite of the fact that the leaders of the Irish Volunteers wished
to preserve, and largely succeeded in preserving, a non-provocative
attitude towards the Ulstermen, the governing facts of the situation could
hardly be ignored completely. Phrases used at meetings for the enrolment
of Irish Volunteers appreciative of the spirit of Ulster were strongly
resented by many Nationalists who saw in the Ulster Volunteers a menace
not to the English exploitation of Ireland but to the national hopes. And
even the leading spirits in the movement could not conceal the fact that
the Ulster Volunteers, whatever they might prove to be in the future, were
certainly a present obstacle to the attainment of Home Rule, which, little
regarded by Sinn Fein and the Republicans as a final settlement, was
undoubtedly the only approach to a settlement that could be looked for in
the near future. The blame of this it was sought to throw on the English
Tory Party. "A use has been made," said Professor MacNeill, "and is daily
made, of the Ulster Volunteer movement, that leaves the whole body of
Irishmen no choice but to take a firm stand in defence of their liberties.
The leaders of the Unionist Party in Great Britain and the journalists,
public speakers and election agents of that party are employing the threat
of armed force to control the course of political elections and to compel,
if they can, a change of Government in England with the declared object of
deciding what all parties admit to be vital political issues concerning
Ireland. They claim that this line of action has been successful in recent
parliamentary elections and that they calculate by it to obtain further
successes, and at the most moderate estimate to force upon this country
some diminished and mutilated form of National Self-Government. This is
not merely to deny our rights as a nation. If we are to have our concerns
regulated by a majority of British representatives owing their position
and powers to a display of armed force, no matter from what quarter that
force is derived, it is plain to every man that even the modicum of civil
rights left to us by the Union is taken from us, our franchise becomes a
mockery and we ourselves become the most degraded nation in Europe. This
insolent menace does not satisfy the hereditary enemies of our National
Freedom. Within the past few days a political manifesto has been issued,
signed most fittingly by a Castlereagh and a Beresford, calling for
British Volunteers and for money to arm and equip them to be sent into
Ireland to triumph over the Irish people and to complete their
disfranchisement and enslavement."
All this was true, but it was only half the truth. It was true that the
Tory Party was making use of the threat of armed force; but the threat had
been made before the Tory Party could make use of it, and it had been made
by a body of armed Irishmen. But the followers were, as often happens,
less virulent than their leaders; and months after this the sight might
have been witnessed in Belfast of Ulster Volunteers and Irish Volunteers
using the same drill ground through the good offices of a tolerant
Ulsterman: and though the Ulster Volunteers were prepared undoubtedly to
fight for their privileges, some of the most vicious appeals to their
passions and their prejudices came from men who were not of the Ulster,
not even of the Irish, blood. Right through their tragic and tempestuous
career the Irish Volunteers in spite of countless difficulties and
provocations continued their attitude of punctilious courtesy to the
Ulster force. When the Ulstermen succeeded in their great coup of running
a cargo of rifles from Hamburg to Larne the _Irish Volunteer_
congratulated them heartily and warmly. Their attitude towards their
fellow-countrymen was deeply regretted, but for what they had done to
assert the freedom of Irishmen from English dictation they were accorded
generous praise. The spirit of the leaders in this matter permeated the
force. The head of the Irish Volunteers in Tralee wrote at a time when
threats of suppressing the Ulstermen with the help of the army were made:
"To my mind the Volunteers should prevent if possible and by force the
English soldiers attacking the Ulster rebels. Say to the English soldiers
and to the English Government, 'This is our soil and the Ulster rebels are
our countrymen; fire on them and you fire on us.'... Ulster is not our
real enemy, though ... Ulster thinks we are her enemy. Time will prove who
are Ulster's friends and ours."
But the history of the Irish Volunteers, though indispensable for the
understanding of the development of Sinn Fein is not the history of Sinn
Fein. Individual Sinn Feiners were prominent in the movement and brought
into it the spirit of national unity and disregard of the differences of
creed which kept Irishmen divided: but the Sinn Fein organization remained
distinct, praising, warning and criticizing the new movement and the
tactics of its leaders. It pointed out at once that for the Volunteers to
combine and to drill was not enough: they must have rifles and rifle
ranges, and urged that the provision of them should be seen to without
delay. But though it wished the Volunteers to be equipped as effectively
and as quickly as possible it still regarded an armed force of Irishmen as
inadequate to the task of winning Irish freedom. "To help the Volunteer
movement," said _Sinn Fein_, "is a national duty: they may not defeat
England, but the movement will help to make Ireland self-reliant." And
_Sinn Fein_ was emphatic in urging the dangers of a sectional policy, of
any attempt to narrow the basis upon which the new force was to be built
up. "It is better," ran a leader on the subject, "at the beginning of the
National Volunteer movement there should be frank speaking and frank
understanding. If it were designed to be a movement confined to or
controlled by any one Nationalist section we would not write a word in its
support. It would fail badly.... It is quite true that we must work
through public opinion in the circumstances of Ireland rather than through
force of arms, but it is a poor thinker who does not realize that the
public opinion which lacks the confidence, the calmness, the steadiness,
the judgment, the resolution and the understanding which a training in
arms gives a people is a poor weapon to rely upon in times of crisis."
The Volunteers were in the opinion of Sinn Fein a useful auxiliary in the
task of developing the one quality from which alone ultimate success was
to be expected, the self-reliance and moral resolution of the Irish
people. But [Greek: autos ephelketai andra sideros]--the mere "sheen of
arms" has an attraction superior to all arguments and all policies: and
there is little doubt that the superior attractions of the Volunteers
proved too strong for many young and ardent Sinn Feiners and induced them
to put the means first and the end second. The phrase of _Irish Freedom_
in noticing the inauguration of the Volunteers probably gives the view of
most of the younger generation: "In this welcome departure from our
endless talk we touch reality at last."
The Irish Volunteers were not the only militant body which the example of
Ulster had formed in Ireland. While the Ulster campaign was in full swing
the workers of Dublin had been engaged in a bitter industrial struggle
with their employers in which after a prolonged battle victory had
somewhat doubtfully declared itself against them. The Labour leader, Jim
Larkin, decided to found a Citizen Army for Irish workers. "Labour," he
said in addressing the meeting at which the new force was inaugurated, "in
its own defence must begin to train itself to act with disciplined courage
and with organized and concentrated force. How could they accomplish this?
By taking a leaf out of the book of Carson. If Carson had permission to
train his braves of the North to fight against the aspirations of the
Irish people, then it was legitimate and fair for Labour to organize in
the same militant way to preserve their rights and to ensure that if they
were attacked they would be able to give a very satisfactory account of
themselves." He went on to say that the object of the Citizen Army was
"that Labour might no longer be defenceless but might be able to utilize
that great physical power which it possessed to prevent their elemental
rights from being taken from them and to evolve such a system of unified
action, self-control and ordered discipline that Labour in Ireland might
march in the forefront of all movements for the betterment of the whole
people of Ireland." The Citizen Army thus formed, never very numerous,
efficient or enthusiastic, was practically destroyed by the formation of
the Irish Volunteers. Most of its members joined the Volunteers, partly
because they were the more numerous and popular body, but principally
because a national policy had more attraction for them than one which was
purely sectional. Captain White, who had trained the first Citizen Army,
now urged that it should be reorganized upon a broader basis and in March,
1914, the Citizen Army, which afterwards played such a memorable part, was
put upon its final footing. The new constitution was as follows: "That the
first and last principle of the Irish Citizen Army is the avowal that the
ownership of Ireland, moral and material, is vested of right in the people
of Ireland: that the Irish Citizen Army shall stand for the absolute
unity of Irish nationhood and shall support the rights and liberties of
the democracies of all nations: that one of its objects shall be to sink
all differences of birth, property and creed under the common name of the
Irish People: that the Citizen Army shall be open to all who accept the
principle of equal rights and opportunities for the Irish People."
It might have seemed that the constitution and principles of the Citizen
Army were wide enough and national enough to justify a union or at least a
close co-operation with the Irish Volunteers. But at first the two bodies
held sternly aloof. The Labour Party had not been invited to send
representatives to the meeting at which the Volunteers had been
inaugurated, and many of the Volunteer Committee were suspected, rightly
or wrongly, of being entirely out of sympathy with Labour ideals and
Labour policy. When members of the Labour Party began to flock into the
Volunteer ranks their action was the occasion of a bitter controversy in
the official Labour organ. The Sinn Fein movement, whose spirit was
supposed to preside over the Volunteer organization, had never been on
cordial terms with organized Labour, and the members of the Irish Citizen
Army were publicly warned to keep clear of these "Girondin politicians,
who will simply use the workers as the means towards their own security
and comfort." Nor were the members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and
of the United Irish League who belonged to the Volunteer Committee any
more to the taste of Labour; they regarded these two bodies as bitter and
implacable opponents of their rights. Regarding themselves as the true
successors of the Nationalism of Wolfe Tone and John Mitchel, they called
upon the Volunteers for an explicit declaration of what was meant by "the
rights common to all Irishmen" which they were enrolled to maintain. Did
they mean the right to Home Rule, or to the constitution of 1782 or to an
Irish Republic? The Volunteers could not have said "Yes" to any one of the
three alternatives without driving out members who desired to say "Yes" to
one or other of the remaining two. The Volunteers had deliberately left in
abeyance controversies which the Labour Army wished to fight out in
advance. They, undoubtedly, desired a Republic and meant to say so. When
it was announced that the Irish Volunteers would be under the control of
the Irish Parliament (when there should be such a body to control them)
Labour became more suspicious still; was not the only Irish Parliament
even in contemplation to be subordinate to the Parliament of England? The
Volunteers seemed to treat the Citizen Army with indifference, if not with
contempt: and a bitter antagonism was developed which only common
misfortune was able to mitigate.