But first it is necessary to indicate the other element of hostility—­far more serious than that of Ulster, because it challenged Redmond’s leadership.  It was that of the extremist group, which rapidly began to welcome German successes, not for any love to Germany but because it could not conceive of any hope for Ireland except in the weakening or Destruction of British power.  These men, as been already seen, had acquired an influence in the Volunteer Force out of all proportion to their numbers, owing to the fact that the Irish party had stood aloof from the movement in its early stages.  Professor MacNeill said later that but for the Gaelic League and the Gaelic Athletic Association there would have been no Irish Volunteers.  The bulk of both these bodies was always antagonistic to the parliamentary movement.  When their opposition openly declared itself, in consequence of the East Wicklow speech, Redmond was not sorry to have a clear issue raised, involving a formal breach.  In a public letter to Colonel Moore he wrote that he read “this extraordinary manifesto with feelings of great relief,” because communications from all parts of the country had forced him to the conclusion that so long as the signatories to this document remained members of the governing body, “no practical work could be done to put the Volunteer organization on a real business basis.”

By a real “business basis” he meant that the Volunteers should be made a defensive force to act in concert with the troops engaged in the war.  That was the clear issue.  You must be for the troops or against them.  In these days the official attitude of those who signed the dissenting manifesto was that Ireland should be neutral.  But at such a crisis, as Mr. Dillon said in a telling phrase, a man who calls himself a neutral “is either an enemy or a coward.”

It became only too clear later that we had to do with a body of men who were enemies and were certainly not cowards.  Their number at this moment was difficult to determine.  What immediately revealed itself was that the vast majority of the Volunteers, when choice was forced on them, adhered to Redmond.

The case of my own constituency, Galway City, may be given as typical, though rather of the towns than of the country.  The country-side was apathetic; the towns were both for and against Redmond’s policy.  In Galway, Sinn Fein had a strong hold on the college of the National University, but, on the other hand, the depot of the Connaught Rangers was just outside the city at Renmore, and that famous corps had many partisans; while in the fishing village of the Claddagh nearly every man was a naval reservist.