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So early as June 15 1914 the inspector-general of the Royal Irish Constabulary had presented to the Chief Secretary, Mr. Birrell, a report of which the following paragraph reads now like inspired prophecy:

In Ireland the training and drilling to the use of arms of a great part of the male population is a new departure which is bound in the not distant future to alter all the existing conditions of life. Obe- dience to the law has never been a prominent characteristic of the people. In times of passion or excitement the law has only been maintained by force, and this has been rendered practicable owing to the want of cohesion among the crowds hostile to the police. If the people became armed and drilled effective police control would van- ish. Events are moving. Each county will soon have a trained army far outnumbering the police, and those who control the Volunteers will be in a position to dictate to what extent the law of the land may be carried into effect. 1

Throughout 1915 and the early months of 1916 the police continued to warn the Government of the dangerous character of the Sinn Fein agitation. At a meeting of the Weakness Council of the Irish Volunteers, on May 30 1915, a Govern- resolution, moved by Mr. Bulmer Hobson, in favour meat. of an immediate rising had only been defeated by

the casting vote of the chairman, Prof. MacNeill; and in Dec. the movement had become so menacing that the Under-Secretary, Sir Mathew Nathan, wrote to Mr. Birrell pointing out the futility of the efforts of Messrs. Redmond and Dillon to minimize it, and the serious consequences that might easily ensue if it were not dealt with in time. 2 Lord Midleton, leader of the Southern Unionists, had already more than once urged upon the Chief Secretary the necessity for disarming the disloyal Volunteers and prosecuting the leaders. But none of these representations produced the slightest effect. 3 Indeed, so far from the arjn of the law being strengthened, it had been appreciably weakened by the passing on March 16 1915 of the second Defence of the Realm Act, by which any British subject could claim trial by jury for an offence against the regulations. In Ireland, this was tantamount to enacting that no offender should ever be convicted, for neither the juries nor the local J. P.'s could be trusted to return verdicts or decide in accordance with the evidence. 4 At this time the only tri- bunals that could be relied upon were those presided over in the country districts by two resident magistrates, who con- stituted under the Crimes Act a special court in cases of riot or unlawful assembly, or by the metropolitan or stipendiary justices in Dublin or Belfast; and these tribunals had no power to impose a greater sentence than six months' hard labour.

In vain the heads of the Royal Irish Constabulary pointed out to the Government, in Jan. 1916, that it was impossible to get juries to convict on the clearest evidence, that in various

1 Royal Commission Report (Cd. 8279) t p. 8).

2 ib. p. 9.

" The witness (Maj. Price, intelligence officer of the Irish Military headquarters) read an account of the parade of the Iish Volunteers in College Green on St. Patrick's Day, and said it was a translation of a letter to America dated April 14 last, written in Irish from St. Mary's College, Rathmines, Dublin. He had de- scribed that as an extremely bad letter, pointing to some outbreak during the summer of this year. The letter had been sent to the Chief Secretary, the Under-Secretary and the Lord Lieutenant. The Under- secretary wrote re the outbreak in the summer, ' I look upon it as vague talk.' Mr. Birrell wrote, ' The whole letter is rubbish'; and Lord Wimborne initialed it. ' That is only typical,' added the wit- ness." Report of inquiry by the Royal Commission (The Times May 26 1916).

4 On Feb. 24 1915 John Hegarty and James Bolger were arrested for unlawful possession and larceny of high explosives. At the time of their arrest the D. R. Regulations provided for trial by court- martial only, but as the Act was under amendment in Parliament decision in the case was deferred, and when it was decided to try the men the amending bill had passed, and they had the right to be tried by jury. In April, at the Dublin City Commission, the grand jury returned a true bill against them. But when they came to be tried, Hegarty in spite of overwhelming proof was acquitted on the charge in connexion with the explosives. On the further charge of writing and uttering seditious statements the jury disagreed; and the same thing happened at the June commission. Both prisoners were then discharged and placed under military supervision. In Hegarty 's bedroom the police had found 19 sticks of gelatine dynamite, some fuse and 303 cartridges, and seditious literature.

parts of Ireland the ordinary justices whether through fear or favour were just as bad, and that to meet the situation an amendment of the Defence of the Realm Act was absolutely essential. Conversations followed; but nothing was done.

The Sinn Fein organization, however, helped mightily by the feeble efforts of the authorities to discourage it, was gaining strength and vigour. It had won a notable vic- tory when at the annual festival (Oireachtar) of the Gaelic League, held at Dundalk on July 24-9 1915 the majority of the elected candidates for the executive committee were Sinn Feiners. The League thus became a political body, and its founder, Dr. Douglas Hyde, resigned the presidency as a protest against a change of character with which he, though an ardent Nationalist, had no sympathy. From this time onward the police reports record an ever increased activity on the part of Sinn Fein. The movement, in spite of the efforts of some of the bishops, had even been joined by many of the younger Roman Catholic clergy, the most conspicuous being Father Michael O'Flanagan, a priest from Roscommon, who on the anniversary of the " Manchester martyrs " declared that the work of the Irish people was to get rid of the connexion with England, and that if there were no other way to get rid of it, he prayed for the victory of an enemy who would deprive England of her power. 5 In Oct. it was reported that the Irish Volunteers had planned a rising, ostensibly in opposition to conscription, an object which would have enlisted the sympathies of many Redmondite volunteers, and on the 6th an attack on the Castle was actually rehearsed by them without interference on the part of the authorities. On Nov. 14 a large parade of Irish Volunteers was held at Athenry, in Galway, at which shots were fired, a display of force which according to the police reports overawed the people, who " disapproved of the Sinn Fein policy, but were afraid to show this, as they had no confidence in either the will or the power of the Government to protect them." With the opening of 1916 the seditious activities increased. The Workers' Republic for Jan. 8 adver- tised the sympathy of the Citizen Army for the Irish Volunteers, and quoted with approval the words of Fintan Lalor in the Irish Felon of 1848 that the one question was how best to kill or capture the 40,000 men " in the livery and service of England " who were in occupation of Ireland. Large quantities of ex- plosives were now, continually being stolen from quarries and railway stores, 6 and it was noted as significant in connexion with this that articles on the use of explosives were published in the Irish Volunteer. In Feb. the Irish Volunteers began to take up " a truculent attitude " towards recruiting meetings, men armed with guns and pikes attempting to break them up. On St. Patrick's Day (March 17) they held parades through- out the country, 4,555 turning out in the provinces and 1,400 mustering in College Green in Dublin; and the leaders issued manifestos affirming their right to be armed and declaring that any attempt to disarm them would be resisted by force. 7

It is now known that resistance to a threatened disarmament was to be the pretext for the rising planned for Easter 1916 in concert with the German Government. On April 19 Alderman Thomas Kelly, 8 at a meeting of the Dublin Corporation, read a circular 9 purporting to 1916. set out certain " precautionary measures " sanctioned by the Irish Office on the recommendation of the general officer commanding forces in Ireland, measures involving the arrest of all

6 The attitude of the Church throughout was equivocal. There can be no doubt that, apart from the strong Nationalist sympathies of the Roman Catholic clergy, the victory of the Central Powers was ardently desired by many, who regarded France as an " infidel " country, and saw in the defeat of the Entente the best hope of re- storing the temporal power of the Papacy.

6 On Jan. 15 1916 90 Ib. of dynobol were stolen from the colliery of Messrs. Addie and Sons in Lanarkshire, and taken to Dublin. Two men were arrested for this.

'John MacNeill, in the Irish Volunteer (April I 1916), and the O'Rahilly in the Hibernian (April 9).

8 Elected Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1920 while in prison in England for sedition.

9 Report of the Royal Commission (Cd. 8279), p. II.