FORMATION OF IRISH VOLUNTEERS AND OUTBREAK
OF WAR
Meanwhile Nationalist Ireland was deep in its heart revolted by the
way the Parliamentary Party was managing its affairs. They sought
still to delude it with the cry that "the Act" was on the Statute Book
and that all would be well. My experience of my own people is that
once confidence is yielded to a person or party they are trustful to
an amazing degree; let that confidence once be disturbed, then
distrust and suspicion are quickly bred--and to anyone who knows the
Celtic psychology a suspicious Irishman is not a very pleasant person
to deal with. This the Party were to find out in suitable time.
Meanwhile the young men of the South saw no reason why, Ulster being
armed and insolent, they might not become armed and self-reliant. And
accordingly, without any petty distinctions of party, or class, or
creed, they decided to band themselves into a body of volunteers and
they adopted a title sanctioned in Irish history--namely, the Irish
Volunteers.
The movement was publicly inaugurated at a meeting held in the
Rotunda, Dublin, on 25th November 1913, the leading spirits in the
organisation being Captain White, D.S.O., and Sir Roger Casement, a
Northern Protestant who, knighted by England for his consular and
diplomatic services, was later to meet the death penalty at her hands
for his loyalty to his own country. The new body drew its supporters
from Parliamentarians, Sinn Feiners, Republicans and every other class
of Irish Nationalist. The manifesto it issued stated: "The object
proposed 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 attempt either
aggression or domination. Their ranks are open to all able-bodied
Irishmen without distinction of creed, politics, or social grade." And
then it appealed "in the name of national unity, of national dignity,
of national and individual liberty, of manly citizenship to our
countrymen to recognise and accept without hesitation the opportunity
that has been granted to 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." The president of the Volunteers
was Professor John MacNeill, who had borne an honourable and
distinguished part in the Gaelic League Revival. They declared they
had nothing to fear from the Ulster Volunteers nor the Ulster
Volunteers from them. They acknowledged that the Northern body had
opened the way for a National Volunteer movement, but whilst at first
they were willing to cheer Sir Edward Carson because he had shown them
the way to arm, it was not long before they recognised that whilst
extending courtesy to Ulster, their supreme duty was the defence of
Irish liberty. For this they drilled and armed in quiet but firm
determination. When Partition became part of the policy of the Irish
Party, Mr Redmond and his friends had many warnings that the Irish
Volunteers were not in existence to support the mutilation of Ireland.
They proclaimed their intention originally of placing themselves at
the disposal of an Irish Parliament, but not of the kind contemplated
by the Home Rule Bill. The Irish Party saw in the Volunteers a
formidable menace to their power, if not to their continued existence.
They must either control them or suppress them. Mr Redmond demanded
the right to nominate a committee of twenty-five "true-blue"
supporters of his own policy. The Volunteer Committee had either to
declare war on Mr Redmond or submit to his demand. They submitted. The
Government, who were supposed to have instigated and inspired Mr
Redmond's demand, were satisfied. The reconstituted Committee called
the new body the National Volunteers.
But though the Redmondites got control of the Committee they did not
succeed in curbing the spirit of the Volunteers. And besides there was
in Dublin an independent body of Volunteers entitled the Citizen Army,
under the control of Messrs Connolly and Larkin. This was purely drawn
from the workers of the metropolis and was fiercely antagonistic to
the Ancient Order of Hibernians, which _The Irish Worker_
declared to be "the foulest growth that ever cursed this land," and
again as "a gang of place-hunters and political thugs."
It appears Mr Redmond's nominees gave little assistance in arming the
Volunteers, but the original members of the Committee got arms on
their own responsibility and, imitating the exploit of the
_Fanny_, they ran a cargo of rifles into Howth. The forces of the
Crown, which winked at the Larne gun-running, made themselves active
at Howth. The Volunteers were intercepted on their way back by a
military force, but succeeded in getting away with their rifles. The
soldiers, on returning to Dublin, irritated at their failure to get
the arms and provoked by a jeering crowd, fired on them, killing three
(including one woman) and wounding thirty-two. "It was," writes Mr
Robert Lynd, "Sir Edward Carson and Mr Bonar Law who introduced the
bloody rule of the revolver into modern Ireland and the first victims
were the Dublin citizens shot down in Bachelor's Walk on the eve of
the war."
Hardly had the echoes of the Dublin street firing died down before the
thunders of war were heard on the Continent. Germany had temporarily
cut through the entanglements of the Irish situation, and from the
island drama across the Irish Sea the thoughts of all flew to the
world tragedy that was commencing with an entire continent for a
battlefield.
If the situation created by the war had been properly handled, it
could, with the exercise of a little tact and management and, it may
be, with the application of a certain pressure upon Ulster, have been
turned to magnificent account for the settlement of Ireland's
difficulties and disagreements. The Home Rule Bill had not yet passed
into law. Anything was possible in regard to it. Again, however--and
with the utmost regret it must be set down--the wrong turning was
taken.
Confronted with a common peril, all British parties drew together in a
united effort to support the war. The Irish Party had to declare
themselves. Mr Redmond spoke in Parliament with restraint and
qualification, but he made a sensation, at which probably nobody was
more surprised than himself, when he said that the Government might
withdraw all her troops from Ireland; her coasts would be defended by
her armed sons and the National Volunteers would gladly co-operate
with those of Ulster in doing so. Mr Redmond might have bargained for
the immediate enactment of Home Rule or he might have remained
neutral. Instead he gave a half-hearted offer of service at home, "to
defend the shores of Ireland," and forthwith Sir Edward Grey
proclaimed, with an applauding Empire to support him, that "Ireland
was the one bright spot." Yes, but at what a cost to Ireland herself!
It is a fallacy, widely believed in, that Mr Redmond proposed a
definite war policy. He did not. He did not at first promise a single
recruit for the front. He did not put England upon her honour even to
grant "full self-government" in return for Irish service. Admitted
that the Home Rule Act was on the Statute Book; but it was accompanied
by a Suspensory Bill postponing its operation, and the Government
likewise gave a guarantee that an Amending Bill would be introduced to
make the measure acceptable to Ulster according to the bargain agreed
to by the Irish Party surrendering the Six Counties to Carson.
The Ulster Party, on the other hand, were determined to extract the
last ounce of advantage they could out of the situation. They made no
promises and gave no guarantees until they knew where they stood. When
it was seen, after the war had been for a month running its untoward
course against the Allies, that they had nothing to fear from Home
Rule, they told the Ulster Volunteers they were free to enlist.
The official organ of Sinn Fein and _The Irish Worker_ were
against any Irish offer of service, but the bulk of Nationalist
opinion undoubtedly favoured the Allied course on the broad grounds of
its justice and righteousness. Mr William O'Brien sought to unite all
Irish parties on a definite war policy. He held the view that "however
legitimate would have been the policy of compelling England to fulfil
her pledges by holding sternly aloof in her hour of necessity, the
policy of frank and instant friendship on condition of that fulfilment
would have been greatly the more effectual to make Home Rule a
necessity that could not be parried, as well as to start it under
every condition of cordiality all round."
But Mr Redmond and his friends missed the tide of the war opportunity
as they missed all other tides. They were neither one thing nor the
other. Mr Redmond spoke in Ireland in halting and hesitating fashion,
publicly asking the National Volunteers to stay at home, and again
made half-hearted speeches in favour of recruiting. Mr Redmond's
supporters in Cork were not, however, as politically obtuse as he
appeared to be, or perhaps as his associations with Mr Dillon
compelled him to be. Through the writer they asked Mr O'Brien to set
forth a plan of united action. Mr O'Brien did so in a memorandum which
suggested that Mr Redmond should take the initiative in inviting a
Conference with the Irish Unionists to devise a programme of common
action for the double purpose of drawing up an agreement for Home Rule
on a basis beyond cavil in the matter of generosity to the Irish
Unionists, and, on the strength of this agreement, undertaking a joint
campaign to raise an Irish Army Corps, with its reserves, which was Mr
Asquith's own measure of Ireland's just contribution. Mr O'Brien was
in a position to assure Mr Redmond, and did in fact assure him, that
if he took the initiative in summoning this Conference, he would have
the ready co-operation of some of the most eminent Irish Unionists who
followed Lord Midleton three years afterwards. To this Memorandum Mr
O'Brien never received any reply, and I have reason to believe that
all the reply received by Mr Redmond's own supporters in Cork, who
submitted the Memorandum to him with an expression of their own
approval of its terms, was a mere formal acknowledgment.
I am confident that Mr Redmond's own judgment favoured this proposal,
as it did the policy of Conference and Conciliation in 1909, but that
he was overborne by the other bosses, who had him completely at their
mercy and who had not the wisdom to see that this gave them a glorious
and honourable way out of their manifold difficulties.
There were, meanwhile, differences at the headquarters of the National
Volunteers over Mr Redmond's offer of their services "for the defence
of the shores of Ireland," which was made without their knowledge or
consent. They, however, passed a resolution declaring "the complete
readiness of the Irish Volunteers to take joint action with the Ulster
Volunteer Force for the defence of Ireland." The Prime Minister
promised in Parliament that the Secretary for War would "do everything
in his power after consultation with gentlemen in Ireland, to arrange
for the full equipment and organisation of the Irish Volunteers." But
the War Office had other views in the matter, and though a scheme was
drawn up by General Sir Arthur Paget, Commanding the Forces in
Ireland, "by which the War Office may be supplied from the Irish
Volunteers with a force for the defence of Ireland," this scheme was
immediately rejected by the War Office authorities who, in their
efforts to gain Irish recruits--and I write with perfect knowledge of
the facts--were guilty of every imaginable blunder and every possible
insult to Irish sentiment and Irish ideals.
The Ulster Volunteers, on the other hand, were allowed to retain their
own officers and their own tests of admission, and were taken over,
holus-bolus, as they stood; were trained in camps of their own, had
their own banners, were kept compactly together and were recognised in
every way as a distinct unit of Army organisation. All of these
privileges were insolently refused to the Nationalists of the
South--they were for a time employed in the paltry duty of minding
bridges, but they were withdrawn from even this humiliating
performance after a short period.
Meanwhile an Irish Division was called for to be composed of Southern
Nationalists, and with the Government guarantee that "it would be
manned by Irishmen and officered by Irishmen." I had my own strong and
earnest conviction about the war and the justice and righteousness of
the Allied cause. I felt, if service was offered at all, it should not
be confined to "defence of the shores of Ireland," but should be given
abroad where, under battle conditions, the actual issue between right
and wrong would be decided. I made my own offer of service in November
1914, and all the claim I make was that I was actuated by one desire
and one only--to advance, humbly as may be, in myself the cause of
Irish freedom. For the rest, I served and I suffered, and I
sacrificed, and if the results were not all that we intended let this
credit at least be given to those of us who joined up then, that we
enlisted for worthy and honourable motives and that we sought, and
sought alone, the ultimate good of Ireland in doing so. Mr Redmond's
family bore their own honourable and distinguished part in "The Irish
Brigade," as it came to be known, and Major "Willie" Redmond, when he
died on the field of France, offered his life as surely for Ireland as
any man who ever died for Irish liberty.
Faith was not kept with "The Irish Brigade" in either the manning or
the officering of it by Irishmen, and the time came when, through
failure of reserves, it was Irish more in name than in anything else,
and when the gaps caused by casualties had to be filled by English
recruits. A disgusted and disappointed country turned its thoughts
away from constitutional channels; and the betrayals of Ireland's
hopes, and dignity and honour, which had gone on during the years,
were fast leading to their natural and inevitable Nemesis.