There were, meanwhile, differences at the headquarters of the National Volunteers over Mr Redmond’s offer of their services “for the defence of the shores of Ireland,” which was made without their knowledge or consent.  They, however, passed a resolution declaring “the complete readiness of the Irish Volunteers to take joint action with the Ulster Volunteer Force for the defence of Ireland.”  The Prime Minister promised in Parliament that the Secretary for War would “do everything in his power after consultation with gentlemen in Ireland, to arrange for the full equipment and organisation of the Irish Volunteers.”  But the War Office had other views in the matter, and though a scheme was drawn up by General Sir Arthur Paget, Commanding the Forces in Ireland, “by which the War Office may be supplied from the Irish Volunteers with a force for the defence of Ireland,” this scheme was immediately rejected by the War Office authorities who, in their efforts to gain Irish recruits—­and I write with perfect knowledge of the facts—­were guilty of every imaginable blunder and every possible insult to Irish sentiment and Irish ideals.

The Ulster Volunteers, on the other hand, were allowed to retain their own officers and their own tests of admission, and were taken over, holus-bolus, as they stood; were trained in camps of their own, had their own banners, were kept compactly together and were recognised in every way as a distinct unit of Army organisation.  All of these privileges were insolently refused to the Nationalists of the South—­they were for a time employed in the paltry duty of minding bridges, but they were withdrawn from even this humiliating performance after a short period.

Meanwhile an Irish Division was called for to be composed of Southern Nationalists, and with the Government guarantee that “it would be manned by Irishmen and officered by Irishmen.”  I had my own strong and earnest conviction about the war and the justice and righteousness of the Allied cause.  I felt, if service was offered at all, it should not be confined to “defence of the shores of Ireland,” but should be given abroad where, under battle conditions, the actual issue between right and wrong would be decided.  I made my own offer of service in November 1914, and all the claim I make was that I was actuated by one desire and one only—­to advance, humbly as may be, in myself the cause of Irish freedom.  For the rest, I served and I suffered, and I sacrificed, and if the results were not all that we intended let this credit at least be given to those of us who joined up then, that we enlisted for worthy and honourable motives and that we sought, and sought alone, the ultimate good of Ireland in doing so.  Mr Redmond’s family bore their own honourable and distinguished part in “The Irish Brigade,” as it came to be known, and Major “Willie” Redmond, when he died on the field of France, offered his life as surely for Ireland as any man who ever died for Irish liberty.