At first the shopkeepers were bewildered and at a complete loss to understand the sudden change in the attitude of their assistants, but on hearing Paidraig O’Kelly, the so-called Gaelic organiser, make his first public speech, they knew at once what they were up against. In 1914, before the war broke out, all thinking Irishmen knew that the coming and growing danger in Ireland was the Transport Union, formed originally for the perfectly legitimate object of raising the status and wages of the working classes (quite apart from the small farmer class) by combined action. But in a very short time this Union became the instrument of Bolshevism in Ireland under the able command of James Connelly, a disciple of Lenin’s long before the latter had risen to power. And so thoroughly and well had Connelly made out his plans for the future that in every town and village the complete machinery of Soviet Government had been prepared, ready to start working the instant the revolution should break out. Men had been appointed to every public office, and the houses of the well-to-do allotted to the different Commissioners and officers of each local Soviet. Luckily for Ireland, the rebellion of 1916 saw the end of James Connelly, probably the most dangerous and one of the cleverest men of modern times in Ireland. With the death of Connelly and the disappearance of Larkin to America, the Transport Union fell into the hands of less able men, but still carried on successfully with agrarian agitation, though marking time as regards revolution. After the war the Union found itself up against Sinn Fein, and for a time it looked as though the two parties would come to blows and so nullify each other’s efforts. Unfortunately both parties saw that their only chance of success was to co-operate; doubtless the Transport Union thought that if the rebellion was successful their chance would come in the general confusion, and that they would be able to get their Soviet Government working before the Sinn Feiners could get going. During 1919 and 1920 Sinn Fein and the Transport Union nearly came to blows on several occasions in the west over agrarian trouble. The Transport Union wanted to take advantage of the absence of law and order to hunt every landlord and big farmer out of the country and divide their lands amongst the landless members of the Union, while Sinn Fein policy was to wait until the Republic had been set up, when, so they declared, there would be an equitable division made.