then set out on the road to Howth, and when the Volunteers on their return march neared Clontarf they found this force blocking both the main roads to Dublin.
A halt was called, and Mr. Harrel stepped forward to parley with the two leaders of the Volunteers. On their refusal to order their men to give up their rifles, he ordered the police to disarm them. In the short scuffle that followed the soldiers assisted the police; the Volunteers fought with clubbed rifles, and some of them received slight bayonet wounds. In the end 19 rifles and a number of wooden clubs or batons were captured; but the rear ranks of the Volunteers had taken ad- vantage of the fight in front to disperse and carry off their rifles singly. After the road was clear two soldiers were wounded by revolver shots, fired, not by Volunteers, but by bystanders. 1
The affair being now considered at an end, the troops were ordered to march back to Dublin. They consisted of 100 Scottish Borderers, under Capt. Cobden, who were The joined near Fairview by about 60 men of the same
'wafk' '*' re gi men t under Maj. Coke. Their route took them /Massacre, through a low quarter of the city, where they were followed by a crowd which, not content with hurling abusive epithets at them, presently began to pelt them with stones and other missiles. All down Talbot Street, Earl Street and Sackville Street, it had been possible to hold the mob in check by the rear-guard occasionally turning and threatening them with bayonets. But by the time the troops, marching along the quay of the Liffey called Bachelors' Walk, had reached the corner of Liffey Street, matters were so serious 25% of the men being badly hurt that Maj. Haig, who had just arrived and taken command as senior officer, told off 30 men, who turned and h'ned the road, four or five of them kneeling. He asked five or six of them if they were loaded, and ordered them to be ready to fire if he gave the order. Immediately afterwards, owing to some misunderstanding, 21 of the men discharged their rifles, with the result that three persons were killed and 38 more or less seriously wounded. In the course of the inquiry into this unhappy affair Maj. Haig stated that he was not aware that the 100 men under Capt. Cobden had been ordered to load at Howth Road and were still loaded. A judicial com- mission decided that the soldiers were not justified in firing, but failed to come to any decision as to whether or not an order to fire had been given. 2
This Bachelors' Walk " Massacre " was a serious embarrass- ment to the Liberal Government. Their efforts to make Mr. Harrel solely responsible, on the ground that he had disobeyed
1 This follows the official account (for further details see report of the Royal Commission, Cd. 7631 and 7649). In " Clontarf " a supplement to the Irish Review, July-Aug. 1914 Thomas Mac- Donagh afterwards executed as one of the leaders of the Easter rebellion who was one of the Volunteer officers with whom Mr. Harrel talked, gives a somewhat different version. He does not mention any scuffle but says that the commissioner, after negotia- tion, allowed the Volunteers to keep their rifles on condition of their being at once dismissed. The force, he says, was thereupon marched into Fairview Park and formally dismissed. His account, while naturally magnifying the r61e played by the Volunteers, is moderate and restrained.
2 In his evidence before the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate (Aug. 30 1919) the Hon. W. Bourke Cockran thus summarized the Howth gun-running incident: "Gun-running promised to become a favourite sport of these chartered rebels, the Ulstermen chartered by the very Government they were defying. But when the Nationalists undertook to bring in a cargo of arms the British soldiery appeared on the spot and with bullet and bayonet prevented them from landing a single rifle, shooting down women and children who happened to be spectators " (see 66th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Document No. 106, p. 893).
A recent German " historian " of Ireland succeeds in outdoing even Mr. Bourke Cockran. His succinct account of the Howth gun- running is as follows: " On July 26-1914, the Volunteers brilliantly underwent their baptism of fire; a yacht from Rouen had secretly landed arms and ammunition at Howth, and when the English garrison of Dublin tried to disarm the Volunteers, it was put to flight by them with the butt-ends of their rifles; whereupon, in anger at its defeat, it fired into the unarmed crowd, mostly consisting of women and children, and killed and wounded very many persons." Julius Pokorny, Ireland (Perthes 1 Kleine Volker- und Lander-Kunde, Band l), Gotha 1916, p. 135.
Declaration of War.
his instructions, broke down on the fact, revealed under cross- examination in Parliament, that these instructions had only been written four hours after the event. A Royal Commission, carefully selected, was more effective. Mr. Harrel was found to have exceeded his powers in calling out the military, and was dismissed from the force. The effect on the moral of the police was disastrous, for henceforward it was felt that no action could be taken by them, even in grave emergencies, without risk of being " broken " by the Government. 3 The effect on the moral of Sinn Fein is best explained in the words of Thomas Mac- Donagh:
The whole moral of this story, as of the whole rise and progress of the Irish Volunteers during the past eight months, is that if the leaders of the Irish people act strongly and decisively, thoy can suc- ceed in their action. The young men of Ireland have got a strong lead from the Irish Volunteers ; and they march to victory. Ireland has now the strength to enforce her choice of destiny. The men who ruled Ireland in the past under Tory r6gime, and under Liberal regime, lost their power on July 26. At Clontarf in 1914, asat Clon- tarf in 1014, has been won a national victory. 4
Such was the situation in Ireland within a month of the crime of Sarajevo two organized hostile forces standing face to face, both protesting their pacific intentions, both refusing to budge an inch from claims which made an agreed peace impossible. 5 Small wonder that to foreign observers the Bachelors' Walk affair seemed the beginning of troubles which would keep the British Government fully occupied at home.*
The most surprising effect of the declaration of war against Germany on Aug. 4 1914, however, was that it seemed at once to unite all Ireland with the rest of the United Kingdom in a common cause. In the House of Commons Effect Irish Unionists and both sections of Irish National- ists gave their support to the Government. Mr. Redmond, in his speech on Aug. 5 in support of the vote of credit, declared that the events of recent years had com- pletely changed the feeling of Nationalists towards Great Britain. The Government might safely withdraw all the troops from Ire- land, for her coasts would be defended by her armed sons, and the National Volunteers would gladly join with their brethren of the North for this purpose. When Nationalists and Ulstermen had fought together on the Continent, and drilled together for home defence, he believed it would be possible, as regarded Home Rule, to present a real Amending Bill to the Government by agreement. Thus Ireland was committed to the World War by the united voice of her representatives. " Ireland, " said Sir Edward Grey in his speech announcing to Parliament the declaration of war, " is the one bright spot."
It was almost at once apparent, however, that the old antag- onisms, though obscured for the time, survived. Attempts to settle the Home Rule controversy by negotiation between the party leaders broke down; and on Sept. Passing 14 it was announced that the Prime Minister in- Home Rule tended to wind up the session at once, and that BUI then the Home Rule bill would become law auto- I9I4- matically under the Parliament Act, but that the Government would introduce a bill 7 postponing the operation of the Act till after the war and pledged itself to introduce an Amend- ing bill dealing with Ulster before the Home Rule Act should become operative. In announcing this policy to the House of Commons Mr. Asquith said that the new bill would provide that the Act should not be put in operation for 12 months in
3 See Report of Royal Commission on the rebellion in Ireland (Cd. 8279), p. 6.
4 " Clontarf," loc. cit. The writer omits to mention that, in spite of Brian Born 's victory at Clontarf, Dublin remained after it, just as before, a Danish city.
6 The Ulster proclamations of a purely defensive attitude have already been noted. On June 30 the Irish Volunteers published a manifesto stating that they would " do their utmost to promote peace and good-will throughout Ireland," their object being " to secure the unity of all Ireland and of all Irishmen on the ground of national liberty."
Baron Kuhlmann cabled to Berlin " the hour has come."
7 This bill also provided for a similar postponement of the Act disestablishing the Welsh Church.
