IRISH REBELLION. The Irish Rebel lion of 1916, an abortive attempt to throw off British rule in Ireland and to establish a repub lic, was a phase and an issue of the Home Rule (q.v.) movement since 1912. In April of that year Mr. Asquith had introduced the third Home Rule Bill, which met with violent opposi tion from the Ulster Orangemen. A secret force entitled the °Ulster Volunteers' had been formed to resist by force the application of the Home Rule Bill to that province. In July 1913, the force was formally inaugurated and its objects openly avowed. Arms were imported under cover and training camps formed. As a counterblast to the movement, the Home Rulers formed the Nationalist Volunteer Force, which rapidly grew in numbers and received the for mal recognition of Mr. Redmond in June 1914. Hence, at the outbreak of the European War, there were in Ireland two unofficial, unauthor ized, and certainly illegal, °armies," with dia metrically opposite aims. They were, more over, drilled and fairly well equipped. So much inflammable material could not fail to bring about disastrous results. Only a week before the European crisis had reached its cul minating point in declarations of war between the Great Powers, the Nationalist Volunteers had landed some 3,000 rifles, when the police, who had intercepted the Volunteers on their march back to Dublin, came into conflict with a crowd of nationalist sympathizers, who began to throw stones and other missiles. The troops (Scottish Borderers) were called out and a volley was fired. Four persons were killed and many injured. The assistant commissioner of police, Mr. Harrel, who had called out the troops, was immediately suspended, and the British Government ordered an inquiry into the case. On 3 Aug. 1914, the day before Great Britain declared war on Germany, Mr. Red mond made a declaration in Parliament that the government might safely withdraw all their troops from Ireland and leave it to be defended by the Nationalist and Ulster Volunteers work ing loyally together.
Events soon proved, however, that Mr. Red mond's sincere optimism was ill-founded; a defi nite split appeared in the ranks of the Volun teers. Hardly had the Irish statesman assured the House of Commons that the British Empire could count on Ireland's solidarity in regard to the war, when the first rumblings of the ap proaching storm could be heard. Just before Premier Asquith visited Dublin on 5 Sept. 1914, the extremist majority of the Volunteer leaders published a manifesto in which they attacked Mr. Redmond in the following unmistakable terms: °Ireland could not with honor or safety take part in foreign quarrels other than through the action of an Irish Parliament,' and that they repudiated °the claims of any man to offer up the blood and lives of the sons of Ireland and Irishmen while no National government which could act for the people of Ireland is allowed to exist.' On 25 Oct. 1914 this attitude was
even more definitely expressed in the following declaration of principles adopted by a conven tion of the extremists: (1) °To maintain the right and duty of the Irish nation to provide for its own defence by means of a permanent armed and trained Volunteer Force; (2) to unite the people of Ireland on the basis of Irish nationality and of common interests; to main tain the Integrity of the nation, and to resist any measures tending to bring about or perpet uate disunion or the partition of the country; (3) to resist any attempts to force the men of Ireland into military service until a National government is empowered by the Irish people themselves to deal with it; (4) to secure the abolition of the system of governing Ireland from Dublin Castle, and the establishment of a National government in its place.' With few exceptions the leaders of the revo lutionary section of the Volunteers were com paratively unknown men. They were nearly all of the °intellectual') class, idealists, scholars, men of letters, or artists. Patrick H. Pearse, °Commandant-General' and °President of the Provisional Government' of the °Irish Repub lic,' was an educator conducting a boys' school in which Irish was spoken, Saint Enda's, at Rathfarnham near Dublin. He was also known as a poet of considerable force. John MacNeill, President of the Vounteers, but in the end not an active participant in the rebellion, was a pro fessor of ancient and mediaeval Irish history in the National University. He was one of the foremost Celtologists and a frequent contrib utor to reviews. Thomas J. Clarke was a revo lutionist from early youth ; he had served 15 years in prison for a political dynamite outrage, and in later years owned a newspaper and to bacco store in Sackville street, Dublin. Thomas MacDonagh was a member of the fac ulty of University College, Dublin, and one of the most powerful of the younger Irish poets. Joseph Plunkett, a son of Count Plunkett, was a writer and editor. Edward Kent was con nected with the Dublin Corporation and was also known as a writer. James Connolly was a socialist and a labor leader, author of 'Labour in Irish Sean MacDearmada was the editor of Irish Freedom. Roger Casement was a retired member of the British Consular Service who had won knighthood as well as international fame by his investigations into the rubber atrocities in the Belgian Congo and in the Amazon Valley of Peru. (See CASE MENT, SIR Roam). Major John MacBride fought on the side of the Boers with an Irish brigade in the South African War. He married the beautiful Miss Maude Gonne, who gained a brief notoriety by her violent anti-English prop aganda during the same war.