It appears Mr Redmond’s nominees gave little assistance in arming the Volunteers, but the original members of the Committee got arms on their own responsibility and, imitating the exploit of the Fanny, they ran a cargo of rifles into Howth.  The forces of the Crown, which winked at the Larne gun-running, made themselves active at Howth.  The Volunteers were intercepted on their way back by a military force, but succeeded in getting away with their rifles.  The soldiers, on returning to Dublin, irritated at their failure to get the arms and provoked by a jeering crowd, fired on them, killing three (including one woman) and wounding thirty-two.  “It was,” writes Mr Robert Lynd, “Sir Edward Carson and Mr Bonar Law who introduced the bloody rule of the revolver into modern Ireland and the first victims were the Dublin citizens shot down in Bachelor’s Walk on the eve of the war.”

Hardly had the echoes of the Dublin street firing died down before the thunders of war were heard on the Continent.  Germany had temporarily cut through the entanglements of the Irish situation, and from the island drama across the Irish Sea the thoughts of all flew to the world tragedy that was commencing with an entire continent for a battlefield.

If the situation created by the war had been properly handled, it could, with the exercise of a little tact and management and, it may be, with the application of a certain pressure upon Ulster, have been turned to magnificent account for the settlement of Ireland’s difficulties and disagreements.  The Home Rule Bill had not yet passed into law.  Anything was possible in regard to it.  Again, however—­and with the utmost regret it must be set down—­the wrong turning was taken.

Confronted with a common peril, all British parties drew together in a united effort to support the war.  The Irish Party had to declare themselves.  Mr Redmond spoke in Parliament with restraint and qualification, but he made a sensation, at which probably nobody was more surprised than himself, when he said that the Government might withdraw all her troops from Ireland; her coasts would be defended by her armed sons and the National Volunteers would gladly co-operate with those of Ulster in doing so.  Mr Redmond might have bargained for the immediate enactment of Home Rule or he might have remained neutral.  Instead he gave a half-hearted offer of service at home, “to defend the shores of Ireland,” and forthwith Sir Edward Grey proclaimed, with an applauding Empire to support him, that “Ireland was the one bright spot.”  Yes, but at what a cost to Ireland herself!  It is a fallacy, widely believed in, that Mr Redmond proposed a definite war policy.  He did not.  He did not at first promise a single recruit for the front.  He did not put England upon her honour even to grant “full self-government” in return for Irish service.  Admitted that the Home Rule Act was on the Statute Book; but it was accompanied by a Suspensory Bill postponing its operation, and the Government likewise gave a guarantee that an Amending Bill would be introduced to make the measure acceptable to Ulster according to the bargain agreed to by the Irish Party surrendering the Six Counties to Carson.