Ulster not as enemies but as friends, mutual courtesies being exchanged, 1 while Sir Edward Carson declared that he never could or would be associated with any movement for weakening the Empire, and that in the event of international difficulties the Ulster volunteers would fight shoulder to shoulder with the British army in its defence. 2 The temper of the army, on the other hand, was shown by the Curragh incident of March 20,
when Gen. Gough, commanding the 3rd Cavalry Bri- The gade stationed at the Curragh with 57 of his officers
'incident. ( out f 7) preferred to accept dismissal from the
army if ordered North. The circumstances in which this resolution was arrived at are obscure and complicated; but there can be no doubt that the officers believed that they had been given an option in the matter, and that they were under the impression that an immediate aggressive movement against Ulster was contemplated. 3 Rage and consternation were general in the Liberal and Nationalist camps, where the action of the officers was denounced as " militarism " and " a second Zabern."
Affairs in Ireland were now rapidly coming to a head. On April 17 the Ulster Unionist Council issued a statement
giving what purported to be the actual facts with The Lame re g ar( j t o re cent military and naval operations and running. plans of the Government, and accusing ministers
of a deliberate design to crush the Ulster movement by force. The volunteers had completed their organization. Their armament was now also provided; for on the night of April 24-5, 35,000 rifles and 3,000,000 rounds of ammunition were successfully distributed by means of 600 motor-cars to the various centres; 12,000 rifles were at the same time landed at Bangor and Donaghadee on the coast of Down. This " gun-running " had been admirably organized; until the last moment none, save the mysterious directing committee, knew where the arms were to be landed; and the Government was completely outwitted. Mr. Asquith described it in Parliament as " an unparalleled outrage," and British warships were ordered to patrol the Irish coast, to prevent its repetition. 4
Ulster, then, was armed and defiant. Meanwhile the National Volunteers, on their side, were growing into a formidable force. 6
The Nationalist leaders were perturbed by the spread Redmond of a movement from which they had hitherto held %" t tl the * aloof, since it threatened to transfer power from Volunteers, them to the extremer men who had hitherto directed it, and on June 9 Mr. Redmond issued a statement to the effect that his party, which had thought the movement premature, had been converted by the Curragh incident and the Larne gun-running, and he demanded a reconstitution of the governing committee on representative lines, suggest- ing that it should at once be reenforced by 25 members, from different parts of the country, nominated at the instance of the Nationalist party and in sympathy with its policy and aims. Towards the end of the month the committee, realizing that it had little support in the country for its resistance, grudg- ingly acceded to this demand. The Volunteer movement in the South was thus for a time saved from disruption, and in July the Nationalists started the Defence of Ireland Fund, to secure arms and complete the organization of the force.
There were thus in Ireland two rival armed organizations, and in Parliament the extreme danger of the situation was pointed out in June 16 by Lord Robert Cecil, who moved the adjournment of the House. But nothing would disturb the
1 See, e.g., Irish Times, March 21, 24, 26 1914.
2 Irish Times, March 25 1914.
3 The whole matter later formed the subject of acrimonious debates in Parliament. An abstract of these will be found in the Ann. Reg. (1914), pp. 55 ff.
4 The Government at first determined to institute proceedings against the leaders in the High Court by filing an ex-officio informa- tion for riot, disturbance and obstructing the King's officers, and this was actually drafted by the Irish Attorney-General. After- wards, however, on the advice of Mr. Redmond, it was decided to take no proceedings.
5 On May 6 their numbers were returned as 26,696, on the follow- ing Oct. 7 as 178,649.
equanimity of Mr. Birrell, who argued that, provided that the due formalities were observed, drilling and the carrying of arms were alike legal; that the Volunteer movement did not add greatly to the danger; and that discipline and the ability to use fire-arms would be good for the Irish people.
Meanwhile an amending bill, embodying Mr. Asquith's " middle course," had been sent up to the House of Lords, where it underwent a drastic transformation (July 8). On July 10, at a meeting of the Ulster Union- ea ist Council, Capt. (afterwards Sir James) Craig read BUI*" the preamble to the Constitution of the Ulster Provi- sional Government, and the Boyne celebrations on the r2th were made the occasion for a series of monster demonstrations, the moral of which was tersely put by Sir Edward Carson at Drumbeg " Give us a clean cut, or come and fight us! " In the South, on the other hand, opposition to any form of par- tition was hardening, and the Wolfe Tone celebration at Bodens- town on the i4th was attended by an unprecedented concourse of people. A telegram from Mr. John Devoy, editor of the Gaelic American, and later a leading spirit in the Sinn Fein-German plot against the Entente, 6 hailed " the voice from the grave which forbids partition and brands as infamous any man who consents to exclude Ulster even for one day," 7 a theme enlarged on by the Sinn Fein press. On the 2ist a conference was held at Buckingham Palace, at the instance of the King, be- tween ministers and the leaders of the Irish parties, to Bucking- consider the possibilityof finding an area to be excluded pj|JJ ce from the operation of the Home Rule bill; but on the con- 24th it dissolved, being unable, in the words of the fereace. Speaker, who presided, " to agree, in principle or in detail, on such an area."
Such was the situation when an unfortunate incident poured fresh oil on the flames. On the morning of Sunday July 26 the "Dublin Regiment" of the National Volunteers, about 1,000 strong, marched to the little J^ e wtn ' port of Howth, some 9 m. from the capital, arriving a *. at the harbour at about one o'clock. Simultane- running. ously a yacht loaded with arms berthed at the pier; and presently every one of the volunteers was supplied with a rifle, those remaining being loaded into motor-cars. The few police present were prevented from interfering, and shortly before two o'clock the Volunteers set out on the march back to Dublin.
The local police had already telephoned to headquarters in Dublin, and, in the absence of the chief commissioner, the deputy commissioner, Mr. Harrel, believed it to be his duty to take action. This seemed all the more necessary, if the law was not to be brought into utter contempt, owing to the peculiar circumstances of the gun-running at Howth. The Ulster Volunteers had imported arms by stratagem, under cover of night, and had been able to justify their action in some sort by the judicial decision which had declared the Arms Proclamation illegal. But this decision had been reversed by the Dublin Court of King's Bench on June 15, and the act of the Irish Volunteers was therefore one of ostentatious defiance of the law; for the Proclamation remained in force until its withdrawal on Aug. 5.* Unable to obtain immediate instruc- tions from the under-secretary, Sir James Dougherty who did not record his views till 5 P.M., when the affair was over Mr. Harrel applied on his own responsibility for military assistance, no Royal Irish Constabulary being available. With a small force of Metropolitan police and two companies of infantry he
6 See Documents relative to the Sinn Fein Movement, Government " White Paper " (Cmd. 1108), issued in Jan. 1921.
Irish Freedom, July 1914.
8 " Some arms were smuggled into the north of Ireland, and they were secretly and unostentatiously distributed. That proceeding was, of course, very wrong, but the authority of the Government was not defied. . . .The course at Howth differed altogether from the method of the landing in the North. At Howth the arms were os- tentatiously landed in daylight, and the constabulary_there, as well as the coastguard officers, were overpowered with violence" (evi- dence of Sir John Ross of Bladensburg, formerly chief commissioner of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, before the Royal Commission on the insurrection in Ireland : Irish Times, May 30 1916).
