The rebellion was the subject of debates in both Houses of Parliament on the 10th and 11th of May—­Mr. Birrell having in the interval, to use a phrase of Carlyle’s, “taken himself and his incompetence elsewhere”—­when Mr. Dillon, speaking for the Nationalist Party, poured forth a flood of passionate sympathy with the rebels, declaring that he was proud of youths who could boast of having slaughtered British soldiers, and he denounced the Government for suppressing the rising in “a sea of blood.”  The actual fact was, that out of a large number of prisoners taken red-handed in the act of armed rebellion who were condemned to death after trial by court-martial, the great majority were reprieved, and thirteen in all were executed.  Whether such measures deserved the frightful description coined by Mr. Dillon’s flamboyant rhetoric everybody can judge for himself, after considering whether in any other country or at any other period of the world’s history, active assistance of a foreign enemy—­for that is what it amounted to—­has been visited with a more lenient retribution.

On the same day that Mr. Dillon thus justified the whole basis of Ulster’s unchanging attitude towards Nationalism by blurting out his sympathy with England’s enemies, Mr. Asquith announced that he was himself going to Ireland to investigate matters on the spot.  These two events, Mr. Dillon’s speech and the Prime Minister’s visit to Dublin—­where he certainly exhibited no stern anger against the rebels, even if the stories were exaggerated which reported him to have shown them ostentatious friendliness—­went far to transform what had been a wretched fiasco into a success.  Cowed at first by their complete failure, the rebels found encouragement in the complacency of the Prime Minister, and the fear or sympathy, whichever it was, of the Nationalist Party.  From that moment they rapidly increased in influence, until they proved two years later that they had become the predominant power all over Ireland except in Ulster.

In Ulster the rebellion was regarded with mixed feelings.  The strongest sentiment was one of horror at the treacherous blow dealt to the Empire while engaged in a life-and-death struggle with a foreign enemy.  But, was it unpardonably Pharisaic if there was also some self-glorification in the thought that Ulstermen in this respect were not as other men were?  There was also a prevalent feeling that after what had occurred they would hear no more of Home Rule, at any rate during the war.  It appeared inconceivable that any sane Government could think of handing over the control of Ireland in time of war to people who had just proved their active hostility to Great Britain in so unmistakable a fashion.