PROTEST AND HOPE, 1918

Protest and Hope, 1918

James Durney

During the summer of 1918 the British government, nervous of growing unrest and still not giving up on conscripting the Irish, undertook to quell the disorder. As Sinn Féin was publicly perceived to be the key instigator of anti-government and anti-conscription feeling, the Lord Lieutenant, Sir John French, claiming ‘evidence of a treasonable plot between Sinn Féin and Germany’ ordered the arrest of seventy-three prominent republicans, among them Art O’Connor, of Celbridge. However, Eamon ‘Ned’ Broy, from Rathangan, who worked as a confidential clerk in the intelligence division of the Dublin Metropolitan Police tipped off the republican leadership of the raids and most leaders evaded arrest. Others, like Eamon de Valera and Arthur Griffith, allowed themselves to be captured for the adverse publicity. The heavy-handed response by the authorities did little to diffuse the conscription crisis and the lack of evidence in the ‘German Plot’ was viewed with deep suspicion outside official and unionist circles.

A large meeting held in the Market Square, Naas, in protest against the arrests and deportations of the republican leaders and their imprisonment without trial was addressed by Art O’Connor, one of those earmarked for arrest. Another public protest meeting announced to be held at Kildare on Sunday 7 July was prevented by the authorities. Elaborate preparations were made to cope with any attempt to hold the meeting. Large contingents travelled from many parts of the surrounding country, but were held up on all sides some distance from the town and prevented from proceeding further by military and police. A field in which a football match was arranged to be held was also occupied by the forces of the Crown, the goal posts removed and entry refused to the general public. There was no disturbance and the day passed without any serious incident.

However, the promoters of the public meeting which was proclaimed by the Government, did not abandon it, but merely postponed it to the following Sunday. The Nationalist & Leinster Times (27 July 1918), reported:

‘The Sinn Féin protest meeting announced for Kildare on Sunday, 7th inst., and which was unavoidably postponed, was held on Sunday, 14th inst., in a convenient centre. Contingents arrived at appointed time from Rathangan, Suncroft, Monasterevan, Kilcullen and adjoining districts. Speeches denouncing the deportations of our Irish leaders and their treatment, the attempt to suppress all Irish organisations and amusements south of the Boyne, while the orangemen, on the north side are allowed freedom and encouragement to defy any law that does not suit them. Indignation appeared on every face at the unjust administration of the law between North and South. All unanimously pledged themselves to support the Sinn Féin policy. This meeting was more fortunate than the cock fights as it was not patronised by a single member of the R.I.C.’

To try to settle the Irish question, the Irish Convention was held in 1917-18 to reach agreement across the political spectrum. Leaders of all the major political orgainsations throughout the country were invited to take part, but Sinn Féin refused to participate, knowing that complete independence would be refused regardless of the views of the delegates. Nationalist Matthew Minch, of the Athy grain merchant family, and unionist Lord Mayo, of Palmerstown, were the only Kildare representatives on the ninety-five man committee. The convention was a failure. To proceed with conscription and home rule faced with intense hostility in the south and defiant opposition to home rule in the north, seemed to Lloyd George as complete ‘folly’ and, on 25 June he announced that the government was not going to introduce the home rule measure in the immediate future. Conscription plans were quietly dropped with the government citing lack of agreement of the Irish Convention. With conscription and home rule indefinitely postponed the government’s Irish policy was in total disarray.

Despite the turn of events men continued to enlist and from 1 June to 11 November 1918 the British Army gained 11,797 recruits from Ireland. It was a lot short of the envisioned 100,000 men deemed eligible to serve. The legacy of the conscription crisis remained and support for Britain and the war effort continued to decline, while that of Sinn Féin and Irish independence continued to rise. But just as one crisis was averted, another materialised and for some tragedy was yet to come. On 12 June the USS Dixie docked at Queenstown (Cobh), Co. Cork. It was aboard this ship that the first verifiable cases in Ireland of what came to be known as the Spanish flu were recorded.