John Redmond was continually appealed to to come in with them, but as often refused, until it became a certainty that Home Rule would be placed upon the Statute Book, when he ultimately consented; but only on condition that he had the nomination of half the controlling committee—a demand which was somewhat resented.
Strange enough, it was the Irish Times which criticized John Redmond the most mercilessly of all for his attitude; and the passage is well worth referring to (June 6, 1914), if only as a testimony to the character both of the Irish leader and his opponents as well. The Sinn Fein leaders were then "all that was best in the country," John Redmond "all that was worst."
When the war-cloud loomed up in the horizon of Europe, the Nationalist Volunteers were indeed still one, though the opposition between the two parties was still alive, but at this point a new phase was entered into.
John Redmond, it will be remembered, upon the declaration of hostilities, at once offered the assistance of the Nationalist Volunteers to defend the shores of Ireland. Possibly the Sinn Feiners thought they smelt conscription and militarism in this, for not only did they formally expel the Redmondites, but entered upon precisely the same tactics in regard to the present war that the Parnellites adopted during the South African War. This consisted in violent pro-German sentiments, just as there had been pro-Boer sentiments a couple of decades ago. Like the Parliamentarians of 1900, they laughed at the most extreme sentiments of self-righteousness which at once came over the English Press, in which "the hereditary foe of small nationalities" was suddenly changed into "the champion of all honour, justice, and truth in the world"—which was particularly galling, if not actually ludicrous, to a race which was so obviously the negation of any such a claim—at least, so thought the Sinn Fein element.
As in those days, this spread to recruiting, and the Hibernian quoted one of Joe Devlin's early poetic effusions which lucidly described the miseries existent "where the Flag of England flies." Honesty, another of the Mosquito Press, as it came to be called, quoted John Dillon's Tralee speech of October 20, 1901, when he said: "I see there is a gentleman coming over here looking for recruits for the Irish Guards, and I hope you will put him out if he comes," which sentiments were applied to Mike O'Leary by the Sinn Feiners of the South when he turned up, and I myself saw the eyes plucked from his posters as I passed Macroom. For Sir Roger Casement's attempt to form an Irish Brigade another parallel was taken, this time from Mr. Patrick O'Brien's Dublin speech of October 1, 1899, when he said "he would not say shame to the Irishmen who belonged to British Regiments, because he had hopes that ... instead of firing on the Boers they would fire on the Englishmen. It was encouraging to think that out in the Transvaal there was a body of Irishmen ready and willing to go into the field against England."
Meanwhile, the party which once held these views as "the immutable first principles of Irish Nationalism" and was now so vigorously loyal and energetically military, appeared to the Sinn Feiners to have changed its ground, and thus to be betraying Ireland—quite forgetting that all the while it was England that had to a large extent changed its attitude.
Thus a passage in the Irish Republic pilloried them in a quotation from Parnell. "Parnell," it said, "speaking at Limerick on the occasion of his receiving the Freedom of that city, foretold the corruption and demoralization which a prolonged stay at Westminster would effect in the ranks of the Parliamentary Party in the following memorable words: 'I am not one of those who believe in the permanence of an Irish Party in the English Parliament. I feel convinced that sooner or later the influence which every English Government has at its command—the powerful and demoralizing influence—sooner or later will sap the best party you can return to the House of Commons.'"
As early as October 30, 1915, many Irishmen had begun to adopt the Sinn Fein attitude in this matter so strongly that Gilbert Galbraith came out with a striking leader in Honesty, which, referring to the famous dictum of the defeated loyalists at the Battle of the Boyne—"Change kings, and we'll fight the battle over again"—openly advocated the change, if not of leaders, at least of the methods of leadership from Redmondism to Carsonism. "In nearly every crisis of his bitter fight with Redmond," said Gilbert Galbraith, "Carson had displayed the qualities of a successful leader with strength of character and boldness of resource, and Redmond those of a weak, temporizing Stuart, and no man since Parnell had so browbeaten, insulted, and lashed with scorn the British people."
What the Sinn Feiners admired in Carson was his scrupulous honesty in declaring what he wanted, and his gloriously unscrupulous determination to see that he got it, and they called aloud that Nationalist Ireland should find someone with the Ulster spirit to lead them.