Ireland Since ParnellSheehan, D. D. (Daniel Desmond)
History
Ireland Since Parnell
Sheehan, D. D. (Daniel Desmond)
Ireland -- Politics and government; Irish question
The new body, or rather the old, resumed the original title of the
Irish Volunteers. There were also a number of other bodies entirely
out of harmony with the policy of the Parliamentary Party, such as
Sinn Feiners, the Republicans, and the Citizen Army of Dublin's
workers organised in connection with Liberty Hall. These were all
opposed to recruiting, and the extremists amongst them advocated total
separation from England as the cardinal article of their faith. A new
Separatist daily newspaper was published in Dublin under the title
_Eire--Ireland_. Its attitude towards the war was that Ireland
had no cause of quarrel with the German people, or just cause of
offence against them; and it was not long before the Irish Volunteers
came to be regarded by the British authorities as a "disaffected"
organisation. Its organs in the Press were promptly suppressed, only
for others as promptly to take their place. Its officers began to be
deported without charge preferred or investigation of any sort. Fenian
teachings became popular once more and "the Old Guard" of Ireland, who
had remained ever loyal to their early Fenian faith, must have felt a
pulsing of their veins when they saw the doctrines of their hot youth
take shape again. The eyes of a small but resolute minority of Irish
Nationalists began to see in red revolution the only hope of Irish
freedom. Physical force may appear a hopeless policy but it was at
least worth preparing for, and it may be also it would be worth the
trial. This was their creed and this the purpose that animated them.
There can be no doubt that through the medium of the old Irish
Republican Brotherhood, which had never quite died out in Ireland,
communications were kept up with the Clan-na-Gael and other extreme
organisations in the United States, and through these avenues also
probably with Germany. Indeed the German Foreign Office, quite early
in the war, at the instigation of Sir Roger Casement had declared
formally "that Germany would not invade Ireland with any intentions of
conquest or of the destruction of any institutions." If they did land
in the course of the war, they would come "inspired by good will
towards a land and a people for whom Germany only wishes national
prosperity and freedom."
The avowedly revolutionary party gained a great accession of strength
when Mr P.H. Pearse and Mr James Connolly composed certain differences
and united the workers in the Citizen Army with the Irish Volunteers.
Mr Pearse was now the leader of the latter organisation--a man of high
intellectual attainments, single-minded purpose, and austere
character. "For many years," writes Mr Henry, "his life seems to have
been passed in the grave shadow of the sacrifice he felt that he was
called upon to make for Ireland. He believed that he was appointed to
tread the path that Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone had trodden before
him, and his life was shaped so that it might be worthy of its end."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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