IN THE BEGINNING

Home Rule for Ireland Bill was introduced by the British Prime Minister Henry Asquith in April 1912, a diluted form of Independence was not to everyone’s liking especially the Unionists in Ulster who wished to firmly remain under the rule of the King. The Unionists promised that they would fight the introduction of Home Rule in Ireland by force if necessary. To this end the Unionists signed a covenant pledging that they would set up a Provisional Government in Belfast rather than be governed by Home Rule which they decreed as being Rome Rule. The Unionists under Dublin born Edward Carson readied a Volunteer army for the fight launching recruitment drives and training in a strict military fashion and openly importing arms including one large shipment smuggled into Larne from Germany. On July 1st 1914 a summit was held at Buckingham Palace with the outcome being that in order to avoid civil war in Ireland between Protestants and Catholics, Home Rule although placed on the statute books its implementation would be delayed until an agreement could be reached with the Unionists with a view to a possible partition of Ireland. Redmond conceded that a partitioned Ireland would now be the most likely outcome of the Home Rule Act. Further complications came for the Home Rule movement when Germany declared war and World War One, the war to end all wars began.

A quarter of a million Irishmen fought in the British Army with half of them volunteering during the war years. Many joined for economic reasons while others believed if they fought in defence of other small nations of Europe it would help the cause of Irish independence and accelerate the implementation of the Home Rule Act. In all nearly forty thousand Irishmen died in the battles of Europe and more died when the returned to Ireland murdered for supporting the perceived British oppressors. The Volunteers in Ireland deemed themselves to be an all-Ireland organisation and their associated organisations such as the IRB and Clan Na Gael in America saw only a united thirty two county independent Ireland governed from Dublin as the only conclusion.

Dublin at the turn of the century was the capital of a country still getting over the trauma of a devastating famine and mired in the failures of many rebellions. Architecturally a jewel in the crown of the British Empire, the city was divided into those with and those without who lived in slums and ghettos and what work was available was ruthlessly exploited by a handful of powerful employers. The organisation known as the National Volunteers led by Redmond split over the Home Rule issue and the support of the crown forces in the World War, and of the nearly two hundred thousand members, the Irish Volunteers under McNeill and Bulmer Hobson were left with twenty thousand members seeking a more radical solution to Britain’s presence in Ireland.

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