Stephen Lucius Gwynn

“ It is these soldiers of ours, with their astonishing courage and their beautiful faith, with their natural military genius, carrying with them their green flags and their Irish war-pipes, advancing to the charge, their fearless officers at their head, and followed by their beloved chaplains as great-hearted as themselves—bringing with them a quality all their own to the sordid modern battlefield—it is these soldiers of ours to whose keeping the Cause of Ireland has passed. ”

“ What will be the certain effect of a breakdown? No one could fail to have been impressed by the serious and solemn note upon which the Archbishop of Dublin concluded his speech. He reminded you this was not a question of Ulster and the rest of Ireland, not of Catholic and Protestant, or Unionist and Nationalist: it was a question of the necessity for all men of good will, all men of responsibility, all men who know that the foundation of freedom is the maintenance of order, to join hands to protect their common country from anarchy and chaos. ”

“ Wicklow Volunteers, in spite of the peaceful happiness and beauty of the scene in which we stand, remember this country at this moment is in a state of war, and the duty of the manhood of Ireland is twofold. Its duty is at all cost to defend the shores of Ireland from foreign invasion. It has a duty more than that, of taking care that Irish valour proves itself on the field of war as it has always proved itself in the past. The interests of Ireland, of the whole of Ireland, are at stake in this war. ”

“ In his defeat and ours, we accept no defeat; we shall endeavour to keep our will set, as his was, for a final triumph which can mean humiliation for no Irish heart. Tangled as are the threads of all his policy, he leaves the task far nearer to accomplishment than he found it; and if in the end freedom and prosperity come to a united Ireland, they will be found to proceed—however deeply overlaid by years and by events may be the chain of causation—from the action which John Redmond took in August 1914, and upon which his brother, with a legion like him, set the seal of his blood. ”

“ I ask him whether he does not know in his inmost heart that it would bring to the common enemy more dismay and consternation than the destruction of a hundred of their submarines if they knew that England, Scotland and Ireland were really united, not merely within the confines of the shores of these islands, but united in every part of the world where the Irish people are to be found? ”

“ War in the Balkans, war possibly in the East of Europe, we could think of; but war flinging the complex organization, so potent yet so delicate, of great and fully civilized States into the melting-pot—that we never really believed in. Prophets of finance, prophets of the labour world, had told us the thing was impossible. Even our most recent experience, the irruption of armed forces into the political arena, had contributed to fix in our minds the view that all armaments were merely in terrorem, part of a gigantic game of bluff. ”

“ A clumsy speaker in debate might do infinite mischief. When a party is in opposition, all its members can talk, and are encouraged to talk, to the utmost; little harm can be done to one's own side by what is said in criticism of measures proposed. Support and exposition is a much more ticklish business. Add to this the fact that under the fully developed system of parliamentary obstruction—that is, of using discussion to prevent legislation from being put through—the best service that a member can render to Government is to say nothing, but vote. ”

“ March found us engaged, though still only attached by companies to more seasoned troops, in some rough crater-fighting on the ugly mine-riddled stretch between Loos and Hulluch. It was when we were marching out from broken houses about the minehead at Annequin that we first met again our old stable companions, the Royal Irish—and that I first saw Willie Redmond in France at the head of his company. ”

“ Some of the most glorious chapters connected with our national struggle have been associated with Ulster—aye, and with the Protestants of Ulster—and I declare here to-day, as a Catholic Irishman, notwithstanding all the bitterness of the past, that I am as proud of Derry as of Limerick. Our ideal in this movement is a self-governing Ireland in the future, when all her sons of all races and creeds within her shores will bring their tribute, great or small, to the great total of national enterprise, national statesmanship, and national happiness. Men may deride that ideal ”

“ To-day there are in Ireland two large bodies of Volunteers, one of which has sprung into existence in the North and another in the South. I say to the Government that they may to-morrow withdraw every one of their troops from Ireland. Ireland will be defended by her armed sons from invasion, and for that purpose the armed Catholics in the South will be only too glad to join arms with the armed Protestant Ulster men. Is it too much to hope that out of this situation a result may spring which will be good, not merely for the Empire, but for the future welfare and integrity of the Irish nation? ”

“ Is there an Englishman representing any party who does not yearn for a better future between Ireland and Great Britain? There is no Irishman who is not anxious for it also. Why cannot there be a settlement? Why must it be that, when British soldiers and Irish soldiers are suffering and dying side by side, this eternal old quarrel should go on?.... ”

“ It is the holiest work that men can undertake, to maintain the freedom and the rights and to uphold the peace, the order and safety of their own nation. You ought to be proud—you, the sons and the grandsons of men who were shot down for daring to arm themselves—you ought to be proud that you have lived to see the day when with the good will of the democracy of England you are arming yourselves in the light of heaven. ”

“ He was the son of a veteran Nationalist, who had taken a lead in Parnell's day; but the farmer's son had become the most characteristic product of Ireland's capital, which, rich or poor, squalid or splendid, is a metropolis—a centre of many interests, a forcing-house of many ideas. Nothing in Ireland is less English than Dublin, and its tone differs from that of England in having active sympathy with the continental mind. ”

“ That was and is the true reason of Ulster's resistance to national self-government. What he would concede and what he would reject, Redmond indicated in general words: "There is no demand, however extravagant and unreasonable it may appear to us, that we are not ready carefully to consider, so long as it is consistent with the principle for which generations of our race have battled, the principle of a settlement based on the national self-government of Ireland. I shut no door to a settlement by consent, but ... we will not be intimidated or bullied into a betrayal' of our trust." ”

“ The argument which underlay implicitly Redmond's whole contention was never set out; it was contentious, politically, and he wisely avoided it. He spoke for a nation to which autonomy had been accorded by statute; he preferred men to feel for themselves rather than be asked to admit that no self-governing nation will submit voluntarily to the imposition of the blood-tax without its own most formal consent. All that he said was, in effect: You have Ireland with you for the first time, by our assistance; do not destroy our power to continue that assistance, do not alienate Ireland. ”

“ If there ought to be an oblivion of the past between Great Britain and Ireland generally, may I ask in God's name the First Lord of the Admiralty [Sir Edward Carson] why there cannot be a similar oblivion of the past between the warring sections in Ireland? All my life I have taken as strong and as strenuous a part on the Nationalist side as my poor abilities would allow. ”

“ No one here will be moved by threats, but let us not be mad enough to shut our eyes to the facts. Is there a man in this room who can contemplate without horror the immediate future of Ireland if this Convention fails? For my part, I see clearly a future following on our failure in which on one side there will be an angered, if you like, a maddened people, with no responsible control, and on the other, Government ruling by the point of the bayonet. ”

“ Ireland, whatever may have been our differences in the past, and whatever may be our differences in happier days again when we are at peace, everybody must feel by the action of her representatives, who have fought so bitterly in this House and in the country, has created a new claim for herself upon the affection, the gratitude, the respect of the people of the Empire by the great and proud part that she has played in this great struggle. ”

“ His was not the magnetism which constrains allegiance almost in despite of reason—the power which was possessed by his first and only leader, Parnell. Redmond's appeal was to men's judgment and convictions, not to those instincts which lie deepest and most potent in the heart of man. That was the limitation to his greatness. He could lead only by convincing men that he was right. ”

“ The Home Rule controversy had now resolved itself into a question whether Ulster really meant business. Sir Edward Carson set himself to make that plain beyond yea or nay.
In a speech delivered in Belfast, at the opening of a new drill hall, he asked and answered the question, "Why are we drilling?" He and his colleagues did not recognize the Parliament Act, he said; a law passed under it would be only an act of usurpation, a breach of right. "We seek nothing but the elementary right implanted in every man: the right, if you are attacked, to defend yourself." ”

“ He felt acutely that the Empire belonged to Irish Nationalists at least as much as to English Tories. America also was familiar to him, and he had every cause to be grateful to the United States; but his interest in the dominions was of a different kind. He felt himself a partner in their glories, and by this feeling he was linked in sympathy to a great many elements in British life that were otherwise uncongenial to him—and was, on the other hand, divided in sympathy from some who in Irish politics were his staunch supporters. ”

“ In this he stood alone; but unhappily no man carried more weight in Belfast—with the possible exception of one whom few of us outside Ulster knew before we came to that body. Mr. Alexander McDowell was a solicitor by profession, the adviser of policy to all the business men of Belfast. From the first day of our meeting he stood out by sheer weight of brain and personality. He was to some of us the surprise of that assembly, and made us realize how little part we had in Ulster when the existence of such a man could be an unknown factor to us. ”

“ As the rebellion, or the outbreak, call it what you like, has been put down with firmness, I do beg the Government, and I speak from the very bottom of my heart and with all my earnestness, not to show undue hardship or severity to the great masses of those who are implicated, on whose shoulders there lies a guilt far different from that which lies upon the instigators and promoters of the outbreak. ”

“ Sorrow gave a strong grip to depression on a brooding mind which had always a proneness to melancholy, which was now linked with a sick body, and which lived among disappointments and grief and the sense of rancorous dislike in men who once thought it a privilege to cheer him on his passing.
Add to all this that Redmond's one hope for Ireland now lay in the Convention, and that he collated with good reason on his soldier brother's influence there—as no man could fail to do who had seen the effect which his last speech produced upon the House of Commons. ”

“ Sir Edward Carson, in opposing the introduction of the Bill, had used the words: "What argument is there that you can raise for giving Home Rule to Ireland that you do not equally raise for giving Home Rule to that Protestant minority in the north-east province?" Redmond, following him, made one of his few false moves in debate. "Is that the proposal? Is that the demand?" he asked. Sir Edward Carson shot the question at him: "Will you agree to it?" Seldom does the House see a practised speaker so much embarrassed; Redmond in confusion passed to another topic. ”

“ Sir Edward Carson said, "whatever way you settle the Irish question" (and that phrase threw over the cry of "No Home Rule") , "there are only two ways to deal with Ulster. It is for statesmen to say which is the best and right one. She is not a part of the community which can be bought. She will not allow herself to be sold. You must therefore either coerce her if you go on, or you must in the long run, by showing that good government can come under the Home Rule Bill, try and win her over to the case of the rest of Ireland. ”