All-for-Ireland League

All-for-Ireland League group portrait of five of its Independent Members of Parliament, in the "Cork Free Press" July 30th 1910.
These are: Patrick Guiney (North Cork), James Gilhooly (West Cork), Maurice Healy (North-east Cork), D. D. Sheehan (Mid Cork) and Eugene Crean (South-east Cork).
The other MPs elected in January 1910 were: William O'Brien (Cork city), John O'Donnell (South Mayo) and Timothy Michael Healy (North Louth). Elected in December 1910 was John P. Walsh (South Cork).
Maurice and Timothy Healy were brothers.

The All-for-Ireland League (AFIL), was an Irish, Munster-based political party (1909–1918). Founded by William O'Brien MP, it generated a new national movement to achieve agreement between the different parties concerned on the historically difficult aim of Home Rule for the whole of Ireland. The AFIL established itself as a separate non-sectarian party in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, binding a group of independent nationalists MPs to pursue a broader concept of Irish nationalism, a consensus of political brotherhood and reconciliation among all Irishmen, primarily to win Unionist consent to an All-Ireland parliamentary settlement.

Conciliation plus business

O’Briens’s conciliatory initiation of the 1902 Land Conference led to agreement on the Wyndham Land Purchase Act of 1903, which resolved Ireland’s century old land question. This was followed by the housing of agricultural labourers, settled under the 1906 Labourers (Ireland) Act. With local government already well established, O’Brien was convinced that in order to achieve the final hurdle of All-Ireland self-government, the success of the approach he used to win the Land Act, the "doctrine of conciliation" combined with "conference plus business", must also be applied to alleviate the fears and integrate the interests of the Protestant and Unionist community in their resistance to Home Rule since 1886.

The Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) was long disrupted by internal dissensions after it had alienated William O’Brien from the party in November 1903 following his success with the Land Purchase Act. He was condemned by party leader John Dillon for allegedly making former tenant farmers less dependent on the party and for the manner in which he secured a new political base in Munster through his alliance with D. D. Sheehan and the Irish Land and Labour Association,^[1] as well as forging further alliances with T. M. Healy and unionist devolutionists during 1904-5 in his engagement with the Irish Reform Association.^[2] By 1907 the country called for reunion of the split party ranks and in November O'Brien's proposals for his and other Independent’s return to the Party were accepted. His return to the Nationalist fold was however to be short lived, as conflict ensued from the government’s intention to amend the Land Act of 1903.

Hibernian clash

O'Brien had always been gravely disturbed by the Irish Parliamentary Party's involvement with "that sinister sectarian secret society", the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) also known as the Molly Maguires , or the Mollies, -- what he called "the most damnable fact in the history of this country", and was bitterly resentful and unsparing in his attacks upon it.^[3] AOH members represented Catholic-nationalism of a Ribbon tradition, their Ulster Protestant counter-part the Orange Order. The AOH Grandmaster was a young Belfast man of remarkable political ability, Joseph Devlin MP, who attached himself to the Dillonite section of the Irish Party, as well as being General Secretary of its adopted United Irish League (UIL).^[4] Devlin was already known as "the real Chief Secretary of Ireland",^[5] his AOH spreading successfully and eventually saturating the entire island.^[6] Even in Dublin the AOH could draw large crowds and stage impressive demonstrations. In 1907, Devlin was able to assure John Redmond, the Irish Party leader, that a planned meeting of the UIL would be well attended because he would be able to get more than 400 AOH delegates to fill the hall.^[6]

William O'Brien addressing the "Baton Conventon"
with Dillon, Redmond and Devlin looking on indifferently.

Baton Convention

As prelude to O’Brien’s formation of the AFIL, Redmond called a National Convention at the Mansion House, Dublin, 7 February 1909, to win support for a House of Commons bill curtailing funding of tenant land purchase under the Birrell Land Act (1909). Over 3000 UIL delegates attended. Redmond, who chaired the meeting, claimed it would burden the British Treasury and local ratepayers excessively. O’Brien argued that the curtailing Bill would kill land purchase by provoking refusal by landlords to sell and worsen relations between tenants and landlords. The convention was obviously loaded against O'Brien when delegates suspected of supporting him were excluded at the entrance and assaulted in "probably the stormiest meeting ever held by constitutional nationalists".^[7]

When he attempted to speak O’Brien was howled down by various contingents of Belfast Hibernians and midland cattle-drivers, their presence pre-organised by Devlin's AOH organisation. Its stewards, armed with batons, attacked O’Brien’s follower who had gained entrance, their general order to "Let no one with a "Cork accent" get near the platform". From which the event earned the name Baton Convention. ^[8] Eugene Crean MP for Cork SE was attacked on the platform, it developed into a fight involving Devlin and James Gilhooly MP for north Cork, this in Redmond’s presence. Others targeted were members of the Young Ireland Branch, Frank Cruise-O’Brien and Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, who called Devlin a brainless bludgeoner.^[9]

League launched

Regarding himself as having been driven from the party by Hibernian hooligans,^[6] O’Brien’s subsequent move was to officially constitute his new movement, the "All-for-Ireland League", its embryonic origins - the successful Land Conference of 1902, which he initiated in Kanturk ^[10] in March 1909. It was immediately publicly denounced by Redmond, and at an Irish party meeting held 23 March the party voted fifty to one that membership in the League was incompatible with party membership.^[11] O'Brien suffered a health breakdown in April, and retired to Italy to recuperate.

Announcement of the League's
Inaugural Meeting 31 March 1910

From there O’Brien looked to an alliance with Arthur Griffith's moderate Sinn Féin movement through emissaries James Brady (a Dublin solicitor), John Shawe-Taylor and Tim Healy. O’Brien offered funds for Sinn Féin candidates to run in Dublin and funds to run its paper Sinn Féin, in return for Sinn Féin support of his candidates in the south. A special Sinn Feín executive council meeting called 20 December 1909 seriously considered these overtures, many present in favour of cooperation. Sinn Féin's William Sears reported the end result: "Regret cannot cooperate because the Constitution will not allow us. Mr. Griffith was in favour of cooperation if possible".^[12] Nevertheless in the following years O’Brien and his party continued to associate itself with Griffith's movement both in and out of Parliament. In June 1918, Griffith asked O’Brien to have the writ moved for his candidacy in the East Cavan by-election (moved by AFIL MP Eugene Crean) when Griffith was elected with a sizable majority.^[13]

O’Brien returned from Italy for the January 1910 elections in which his electoral success must have exceeded his expectations. Eleven Nationalists independent of the official party returned, seven of them his followers. It revived his project of the All-for-Ireland League.^[14] He framed the League’s programme containing several unique points:

1) extension of the conciliatory spirit of the Land Conference to the larger problem of Irish self-government;

2) distrust of the Irish Party’s alliance with the Liberals and specific opposition to Lloyd George’s budget and Birrel’s revision of the land settlement; and

3) hostility to the Ancient Order of Hibernians.^[15]

The League held its inaugural public meeting 31 March 1910 in Cork city. Its rules and constitution were formulated and endorsed at a public meeting on 12 April, where it announced its Home Rule manifesto and political policies to be:

• "the union and active co-operation in every department of our national life of all Irish men and women of all classes and creeds who believe in the principles of domestic self-government for Ireland.
• For the accomplishment of this object the surest means were to be a combination of all the elements of the Irish population in a spirit of mutual tolerance and patriotic goodwill, such as shall guarantee to the Protestant minority of our fellow-countrymen inviolable security for their rights and liberties, and win the friendship of the people of Great Britain without distinction of party." ^[16]

"Three C s" Banner

League's membership card endorsed:
All for Ireland here are we,
All for Ireland's liberty;
To right, to raise, to set her free,
Our Native Land for ever. T.D.S.

The application of the AFIL’s principles of "Conference, Conciliation and Consent" , were to win All-Ireland Home Rule – or constitutional nationalism rather than an ultimately doomed path of militant physical force.

• Many of the leading Protestant gentry of Munster, and representatives of the wealthy Protestant business and professional community joined the League. Lord Dunraven, Lord Barrymore, Lord Mayo and Lord Castletown, Sir John Keane of Cappoquin, Villiers Stuart of Dromana , Moreton Frewen, were a few of the most notable adherents. Even amongst the Orangemen the spirit of patriotism was stirring – hands were stretched out from Ulster to the Catholics of the South. Lord Rossmore, once Grandmaster of the Orange Institution, joined the League, Sharman Crawford and others. Unionism was declared by them to be a "discredited creed". Nationalist and Unionists were called upon to recognise the unwisdom of perpetuating a suicidal strife which sacrificed them to religious bigotry and the political exigencies of English parties.^[17]

League Chairman was James Gilhooly (MP), Honorary Secretary D. D. Sheehan (MP). A Central London branch was founded by Dr J. G. Fitzgerald (MP) as Chairman, suggesting some disenchantment with his former Parnellite colleagues including John Redmond.^[18] Canon Sheehan of Doneraile, a founder member, spoke and wrote enthusiastically in favour of the Leagues doctrines. The Cork Free Press, published by O'Brien, appeared for the first time on 11 June 1910 as the League’s official organ and organiser. It was a newspaper in the fullest sense, superseding the Cork Accent and was one of the three great radical newspapers published in Ireland – the other two being The Nation, published in Dublin in the 1840s, and The Northern Star, published in Belfast in the 1790s.^[19]

Canon Sheehan wrote the manifesto of the movement for the first number of the Cork Free Press, and asked in a very long editorial:

We are a generous people; and yet we are told we must keep up a sectarian bitterness to the end; and the Protestant Ascendancy has been broken down, only to build Catholic Ascendancy on its ruins. Are we in earnest about our country at all or are we seeking to perpetuate our wretchedness by refusing the honest aid of Irishmen? Why should we throw unto the arms of England those children of Ireland who would be our most faithful allies, if we did not seek to disinherit them? A weaker brother disinherited by a stranger will naturally be his enemy . . .
England owes her world-wide power . . . to her supreme talent of attracting and assimilating the most hostile elements of her subject races . . . Ireland, alas, has had the talent of estranging and expelling her own children, and turning them . . . into her deadliest enemies. It is time that all this should cease, if we still retain the ambition of creating a nation.^[20]

All-for-Ireland fife and drum band parading through Castletownbere co. Cork in 1910.
Towns often had rival AFIL and AOH bands, occasionally clashing on Sunday parades.

Supreme in Cork

In the December 1910 general elections O'Brien's task was truly formidable. His candidates were earmarked for rejection not alone by the Irish Party’s Hibernians. There was considerable hostility to O’Brien amongst many Catholic churchmen, who long regarded him as at heart an unreconstructed Parnellite, and latently anti-clerical.^[21] The Church’s forces were mobilised even more thoroughly against him when Cardinal Michael Logue expressed himself against O’Brien’s and his League, and disapproved of 'conciliationism'. All three County Cork bishops opposed O’Brien.^[22]

Distribution of party seats
in the December 1910 election

O'Brien's hostility to the AOH was counter-productive in mobilising the Catholic clergy, with one or two exceptions, behind the official IPP candidates. O'Brien felt as if he were under siege from clerical forces and wrote despondently "We have to deal with a confederacy of the priests of this country to strangle the AFIL and to strike down its standard-bearers".^[23] The competition between the rival nationalist parties in Cork was, at times, extremely violent. In the election contests of 1910 and 1914 in the city, a total of 11 people were shot and two killed in clashes between IPP and AFIL supporters. Many more injured in street brawls between the rival parties ^[24]

Attempts to carry the contest into Irish Party territory failed; a meeting at Crossmolina, County Mayo ended almost fatally when revolver shots were fired and O’Brien’s audience routed by toughs and priests.^[25] The League, dependent almost entirely upon O’Brien’s personal following amongst the rural community in Munster (the bulwark of Sheehan’s Land and Labour Association) and though woefully lacking in clerical support, returned eight AFIL MPs (three further Nationalist Independents were also returned). In the end it was Cork, the country’s largest county, which vindicated O’Brien’s policies returning the eight seats to form his new political party. It included Timothy Healy who the previous November created the unusual AFIL coalescence of Healyism and O’Brienism. Healy lost his seat in Louth north, but was returned in a 1911 by-election after Moreton Frewen retired his seat in Cork north-east.^[26]

The Cork Free Press gave the total Redmondite vote in the country as 92,709, and the Independent Nationalist's vote, largely supporting the principles of the League, as 39,729 (30,46%) which included the constituencies outside of Cork contested by fourteen AFIL candidates (Armagh south, Dublin Harbour, Kerry south and east, Limerick city, Limerick west and east, Louth north, Mayo west, Tipperary mid, Waterford west and Wexford south).^[27]

Striking proposals

The AFIL party was convinced that the success of an Irish Parliament must depend upon it being won with the consent rather than by the compulsion of the Protestant minority. In a 1911 letter to the Prime Minister H.H. Asquith, the party specifically proposed Dominion Home Rule as the wisest of all solutions to the Irish question.^[28]

After the introduction of a new Third Home Rule Bill by Asquith in April 1912, an AFIL conference held in Cork on 25 May declared whole-hearted support of the Bill, subject to three amendments:

League's proposals for an Ulster settlement, Daily Express, January 27, 1914

• firstly: safeguards providing against the apprehensions (however imaginary) of Ulster;
• secondly: the completion of the abolition of landlordism by the use of Imperial credit;
• thirdly: the empowering of the Irish Parliament to raise, as well as to spend, its revenue.^[29]

During the three readings of the Bill in 1913 and 1914, O’Brien and his AFIL colleagues fought untiringly in the spirit of their electoral mandate for a non-sectarian solution to the “Irish question” and were adamant that through cooperation on specific matters of common interest to build and win Unionist confidence, goodwill and consent,^[30] and that there should be no limit to the concessions offered to Ulster to have it participate in an All-Ireland parliament. "Any price for a United Ireland, but partition never".

In January 1914 both O’Brien in his Cork Free Press and D. D. Sheehan in the London Daily Express simultaneously published a list of concessions they ascertained as acceptable to Ulster, enabling its participation in a Dublin parliament. The proposals in brief were:

1. That the representatives of Ulster should have an exercisable veto right over Irish legislation;

2. Ulster should have sixty representatives in the Irish House of Commons, out of a total of 164;

3. All representatives of the Irish Civil Service should be by competitive examination;

4. North-East Ulster should have its own appointment of court judges, district magistrates, inspectors of education.^[31]

Instead, the uncompromising IPP/AOH stand taken by the Dillon-Devlin alliance killed All-Ireland Home Rule, by aiming to force Ulster’s acquiescence; "no Orange vetoes, no concessions, Ulster must follow", Ulster's Unionist leader Sir Edward Carson, proclaiming "Ulster can never be coerced, Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right", demanding from Redmond that he "listen to the Cork members" when he said in the Commons:

There has been an attempt, and I admit it fully and frankly, by some few Irish members, led, I believe by the hon. Member for Cork (ironic Nationalist laughter). See how it is laughed at ! (Unionist cheers). The hon. Member for Cork is a Home Ruler. I differ from him just as much as I differ from any other Home Ruler. But let me say, that movement was a movement of conciliation. It commenced to a large extent in the Land Purchase Act that was passed by my right hon. friend, the Member for Dover (Mr Wyndham). The hon. Member for Cork, seeing the benefits of the Acts as they resulted in Ireland, has rightly adhered to it, and to every promise he made at the time, and largely because of that he is now driven outside the Irish Party. When the hon. Gentleman and some others proceeded to what they call trying to reconcile Ulster and the Protestants of Ireland, they made speeches which, if they had been made by the majority of the Nationalists for the last twenty years might, I admit, possibly have made some effect on some of the Unionists of Ireland. Their idea was certainly a worthy idea, nobody can deny that, of bringing about reconciliation and better feeling, and the moment they do that they are denounced and they are boycotted and they are persecuted. The hon. Member for Cork ----

The Chairman at this point called Carson to order, amid jeers.^[32]

Historic protest

During the final stage of the debate on the Third Home Rule Bill in the House of Commons, the Bill accompanied by Asquith's solemn guarantee that it would never be enforced without an Amending Bill, enacting the separation of the Six Counties, O'Brien's speech on 25 May 1914 was the only word of protest uttered by a representative of Ireland.^[33] In the course of his speech O’Brien said (in extract):

"The game was lost for Ireland the day the honourable member for Waterford (Mr. Redmond) and his friends consented to the Partition of Ireland. Bitterly opposing any genuine concession to Ulster at the right time, now consenting to the concession of all which will not only fail to conciliate Ulster, but will rouse millions of the Irish race in revolt against your Bill. . . . . . Any Bill that proposes to cut off Ulster permanently or temporarily from the body of Ireland is to me worse than nothingness, . . . . . . We are ready for almost any conceivable concession to Ulster that will have the effect of uniting Ireland, but we will struggle to our last breath against a proposal which will divide her, and divide her eternally, if Ireland’s own representatives are once consenting parties. . . . . . . we regard this Bill as no longer a Home Rule Bill, but as a Bill for the murder of Home Rule as we have understood it all our lives, and we can have no hand, act or part in the operation. (Loud All-for-Ireland cheers).^[34]

The All-for-Irelanders resolutely resisted the violation of Ireland's national unity, and as a final protest before History, abstaining from voting for a Bill which had become a Partition Bill. As a result they were assailed with yells of "Factionists!" and "Traitors!" by the Hibernian Party members, whose own votes had just pledged Ireland’s fatal consent to the Partition infamy.^[35]

The spectre of civil war loomed when, after the Ulster Volunteers landed arms from Imperial Germany in April to resist Home Rule, Redmond's Irish Volunteers following suit in July, landing arms to enforce it.

Calamities unfold

August saw the unexpected involvement of Ireland in World War I . The Third Home Rule Act was placed on the statute books with Royal Assent in September, but suspended for the duration of the war. O’Brien and his party rallied in support of the Allied cause of a Europe free from oppression supporting Britain's war effort, as did the IPP and its National Volunteers in unison with most sections of Irish society. O’Brien perceived it as an opportunity for all Irishmen, Protestant and Catholic alike to unite and serve together in the long term interest of attaining independent Irish self-government. The initial recruiting response to enlisting in Irish regiments of the 10th and 16th (Irish) Division was considerable. Ulstermen enlisted in their 36th (Ulster) Division.

By 1915 with stalemate on the Western Front and the losses of the 10th (Irish) Division in the Dardanelles at Cape Helles, enthusiasm began to wane. O’Brien had warned a decade earlier of the resurgence of revolutionary nationalism evolving out of the sectarian basis of national action, subsequently erupting in the 1916 Rebellion. This was to have serious ramifications for Ireland's subsequent history.

O'Brien suffered closure of his newspaper, the Cork Free Press in 1916 soon after the appointment of Lord Decies as Chief Press Censor for Ireland. Decies warned the press to be careful about what they published. Such warnings had little effect when dealing with such papers as the Cork Free Press. It was suppressed after its republican editor, Frank Gallagher, accused the British authorities of lying about the conditions and situation of republican prisoners in Frongoch internment camp.^[36]

Convention boycott

Following the Easter Rising the Government’s attempt in July 1916 to have Redmond and Carson agree on immediately introducing Home Rule, failed. The new Prime Minister Lloyd George proposed in May 1917, in what was a fifth attempt to implement Home Rule, that an Irish Convention, composed of representative Irishmen from all parties, should assemble to deliberate upon the best means of governing their country.

The AFIL Party was asked to nominate representatives to the Convention. In reply O’Brien stated four essential conditions which first needed to be fulfilled if the Convention was to succeed. He submitted a panel to the Cabinet limited to twelve leading representatives of the main bodies and parties involved. It was subsequently clear that such a prominent representation would not have separated without coming to agreement, but O’Brien’s proposals were set aside. None of those he proposed were invited. Instead the ninety-five who agreed to attend in July were composed of nine-tenths representatives drawn from already elected representatives who had previously voted for the Home Rule partition settlement.

Lloyd George appealed to O’Brien to attend, but under the circumstances both he and Healy declined, despite the fact that for thirteen years he had been calling for a conference of all parties to settle the Irish question. O’Brien believed that the conclave would make "a hateful bargain for the partition of the country under a plausible disguise". What was needed instead was not a "heterogeneous assembly . . . but a small round-table of representative Irishmen". As early as 18 May Sinn Féin declined to send representatives, the Dublin Trades Council, the Cork Trade and Labour Council, the Gaelic and National Leagues also refused.^[37]

The only constructive contribution which the Ulster delegates made to the Irish Convention was to propose in March 1918, the partition of Ireland with the exclusion of all of the province of Ulster.^[38]

Handing over

A final contest between the old parliamentary rivals ensued on the death of AFIL party chairman James Gilhooly in October 1916. The West-Cork by-election has a place in history as the first after the Rising and the last in which the Irish Party narrowly captured a seat and as the self-induced demise of the AFIL. At stake in the bitterly fought by-election was not just one of the 105 seats in the House of Commons, the great issue was William O’Brien’s AFIL versus John Redmond’s Irish Party. In November three candidates were nominated, the third also a local AFIL supporter who stood in protest after O’Brien passed him over in favour of Frank Healy, a Sinn Féin close candidate who had been imprisoned in Frongoch, thereby splitting the AFIL vote to the detriment of O’Brien’s party.^[39] (At that time seats were won by "candidates first past the post", or uncontested as in 1918 by Séan Hayes of Sinn Féin).

When Britain moved to introduce Home Rule in April 1918 as proposed by the Irish Convention, it unwisely did so when it linked its implementation with a conscription bill for Ireland after the collapse of the Allied, and Irish, divisions during the German Spring Offensive on the Western Front. This resulted in the ”Irish conscription crisis". At its height the AFIL withdrew from Westminster while making a final damning anti-conscription speech, joining forces with the Irish Party, Sinn Féin and Labour in mass protest demonstrations in Dublin. Although the act was never put into force its crisis caused an unprecedented rise in popularity for Sinn Féin, destroying all interest in Home Rule and constitutional nationalism.

Towards the end of 1918, as a consequence that both the Irish Party and Britain failed to introduce Home Rule and maintain an undivided Ireland, and as it became evident that constitutional political concepts for attaining independent All-Ireland self-government were being displaced by a path of militant physical-force, the AFIL MPs recognised the futility of contesting the December general election -- O'Brien in an address to the election:

We cannot subscribe to a programme of armed resistance in the field, or even of permanent withdrawal from Westminster; but to the spirit of Sinn Féin, as distinct from its abstract programme, the great mass of independent single-minded Irishmen have been won over, and accordingly they ought now to have a full and sympathetic trial for enforcing the Irish nation's right of self-determination.^[40]

The party members issued a manifesto supporting the Sinn Féin movement, and unanimously decided to retire from the election ^[41] putting its seats at the disposal of its candidates, all of whom were returned unopposed as Sinn Féin representatives.

Conclusion

The dual policy of the League aimed at attaining All-Ireland self-government, initially as Home Rule within the United Kingdom, then as a Dominion. It maintained that there could neither be any form of coercion of Unionist Ulster nor any question of partitioning Ireland. Instead it proposed achieving this by cultivating rapprochement between moderate Catholic and Protestant Irishmen through conference and conciliation as opposed to conflict. It also demanded guarantees for unlimited safeguards to protect the minority Protestant community. Its primal aspiration was to have the people on this island come to realise that it is possible for Irish of different persuasions to live together in mutual toleration.

It failed in these aims because most Nationalists under-estimated the intensity of Unionist resistance to Home Rule ^[42] and particularly due to the strong distrust influential Catholic clergy had towards the League. In all but two cases, the clergy acted substantially united behind Irish Party candidates,^[43] so that in the twenty-three constituencies AFIL candidates contested in the December 1910 election, the Church’s forces were thoroughly mobilised against O’Brien’s League,^[44] contributing to the subsequent polarisation of the political landscape.

From 1915 members of the League were deflecting to Sinn Féin,^[45] the editorial of O’Brien’s Cork Free Press stating in the issue of 30 September "It is to Sinn Féin that Ireland must now look to mould the future of her people".^[46] O’Brien was convinced that the only dignified course was to stand aside and let Sinn Féin exert pressure on England to come to terms.^[47] The party did not contest the December 1918 election.

League's Anthem

"The Irish People" March 1909 and O'Brien's vision:
United Ireland a Nation - The One, and Only Hope!
(sashes l-r): Landlord, Tenant, Sinn Féiner, Parliamentarian, Catholic, Protestant, Independent Orangemen, Nationalist . . .

A L L - F O R - I R E L A N D

All for Ireland ! One and all !
Here we meet at Erin's call --
Meet, to pledge with heart and hand,
True fealty to our native land.

Many-minded though we be,
In this pact we all agree --
We must end the reign of wrong
That's wrecked our country's life so long.

Hostile sections in the past,
We shall now be friends at last:
All our classes, clans and creeds
Rivals but in patriot deeds.

Here we come at Erin's call,
From cottage home, and stately hall,
For her rights to stand or fall --
ALL FOR IRELAND ! ONE AND ALL !

T.D.S.^[48]

Notes

1. ^ Maume, Patrick: The long Gestation, Irish Nationalist Life 1891-1918, Ch.2 'Elites' pp.70-71, Gill & Macmillan (1999) ISBN 0-7171-2744-3
2. ^ Maume, Patrick: pp.69-73
3. ^ MacDonagh, Michael: The Life of William O'Brien, the Irish Nationalist, pp.181-2, Ernst Benn London (1928)
4. ^ MacDonagh, Michael pp.181-2
5. ^ MacDonagh, Michael: p.182
6. ^ ^{a b c} Garvin, Tom: The Evolution of Irish Nationalist Politics : pp. 105-110 The Rise of the Hibernians Gill & Macmillan (2005) ISBN 0-7171-3967-0
7. ^ Jackson, Alvin: Home Rule: An Irish History 1800—2000 p.112, Phoenix Press (2003) ISBN 0-7538-1767-5
8. ^ MacDonagh, Michael: p.183
9. ^ Maume, Patrick: p.99
10. ^ Sheehan, D. D.: Ireland since Parnell Daniel O'Connor London (1921) p.218
11. ^ Maume, Patrick: p.100
12. ^ O’Brien, Joseph V.: William O’Brien and the course of Irish Politics, 1881-1918, The All-for-Ireland League p.193, University of California Press (1976) ISBN 0-520-02886-4
13. ^ Maume, Patrick: p.207 (note 322)
14. ^ O’Brien, Joseph V.: p.194
15. ^ Miller, David W.: Church, State and Nation in Ireland 1898-1921 p.256, Gill & Macmillan (1973) ISBN 0-7171-0645-4
16. ^ MacDonagh, Michael: p.185
17. ^ MacDonagh, Michael: p.186
18. ^ The Times, 6/7/1910
19. ^ Clifford, Brendan, Canon Sheehan: A Turbulent Priest p.17, Irish Heritage Society, Dublin (1990) ISBN 1-873063-00-8
20. ^ Clifford, Brendan p.17
21. ^ Callanan, Frank: T. M. Healy, p.465, Cork University Press, (1996) (ISBN 1-85918-172-4)
22. ^ Maume, Patrick: p.109
23. ^ Miller, David W.: pp.256-66
24. ^ Hart, Peter: The IRA and its Enemies p.47
25. ^ O’Brien, Joseph V.: p.201
26. ^ O'Brien, Joseph V.: p.201/2
27. ^ Walker, Brian M. (ed): Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland, 1801-1922, Royal Irish Academy, Dublin (1978)
28. ^ Sheehan, D. D.: Ireland since Parnell, Ch. XX p.243, Daniel O’Connor London (1921)
29. ^ MacDonagh, Michael: p.187
30. ^ Schilling, Friedrich K.: William O’Brien and the All-for-Ireland League p.202, thesis (1956) TCD.
31. ^ Sheehan, D. D.: Daily Express London: front page, Nationalist help for Ulster; Striking Proposal; How to settle Home Rule January 27, 1914
32. ^ MacDonagh, Michael: pp.188-89
33. ^ O’Brien, William: The Responsibility for Partition, Ch. II: A final Protest before History, p.29, Maunsel & Roberts Dublin & London (1921)
34. ^ O'Brien, William: pp.30-33
35. ^ O'Brien, William: p.29
36. ^ Martin, Peter: Censorship in the two Irelands 1922-39, Introduction p.9, Irish Academic Press (2008) ISBN 0-7165-2829-0
37. ^ O’Day, Alan: Irish Home Rule 1862-1921, Attempts to implement Home Rule, 1914-18, pp 280-87, Manchester University Press (1998) ISBN 0-7190-3776-X
38. ^ Hennessey, Thomas: Dividing Ireland, World War I and Partition, The Irish Convention and Conscription p. 213, Routledge Press (1998) ISBN 0-415-17420-1
39. ^ Southern Star Centenary Edition – 1889-1989 A bitter by-election in 1916: West Cork pivotal point in transition to new era
    article pp.89-90 by George D. Kelleher, Inniscarra, co. Cork
40. ^ MacDonagh, Michael: p.234
41. ^ MacDonagh, Michael: p.237 and in D. D. Sheehan's composed document: A tribute of remembrance to William O’Brien, February 1928.
42. ^ Collins, M.E., Sovereignty and partition, 1912-1949 p.28, Edco Publishing (2004) ISBN 1-84536-040-0
    quote: "Like most nationalist, Redmond knew little about Ulster unionists. He under-estimated the intensity of their resistance to Home Rule and the strength of the UVF."
43. ^ Miller, David W.: pp.258, pp.264-67
44. ^ Miller, David W.: p.266
45. ^ O’Brien, Joseph V.: p. 217 quote: "The County Inspector (RIC) reported to headquarters in 1915 that the Irish Volunteers (the IRB faction) in West Cork
    were composed of men who had formerly given their allegiance to O’Brien’s All-for-Ireland League"
46. ^ O'Brien, Joseph V.: p.223
47. ^ O’Brien, Joseph V.: p.235
48. ^ Irish People, newspaper, published March 6th 1909: Cork City Library.
    T. D. S. are the initials of the composer, Timothy Daniel Sullivan

References

• O'Brien, William: The Downfall of Parliamentarianism Maunsel & Roberts Dublin & London (1918)
• O’Brien, William: The Responsibility for Partition Maunsel & Roberts Dublin & London (1921)
• Sheehan, D. D.: Ireland since Parnell, Daniel O’Connor London (1921)
• MacDonagh, Michael: The Life of William O'Brien, the Irish Nationalist, Ernst Benn London (1928)
• Schilling, Friedrich K.: William O'Brien and the All-for- Ireland League, thesis, Trinity College, Dublin (1956)
• Miller, David W.: Church, State and Nation in Ireland 1898-1921 , Gill & Macmillan (1973) ISBN 0-7171-0645-4
• O'Brien, Joseph: William O'Brien and the course of Irish politics, University of California Press (1976) ISBN 0-520-02886-4
• Clifford, Brendan: Cork Free Press An Account of Ireland's only Democratic Anti-Partition Movement , Athol Books, Belfast. (1984)
• Callanan, Frank: T. M. Healy, Cork University Press (1996) ISBN 1-85918-172-4
• Maume, Patrick: The long Gestation, Irish Nationalist Life 1891-1918, Gill & Macmillan (1999) ISBN 0-7171-2744-3

External links