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Two questions here confront us before going from the mere dramatic narrative of the rebellion to its critical consideration. The first is, What exactly is Sinn Fein? and secondly, How far was the rising actuated by German gold?
On my way to the Sinn Fein headquarters in Harcourt street, I passed the Mansion House of the Lord Mayor and found two long-coated Dublin Military Police stripping the new wet poster from the yellow walls. When I arrived at Number 6, Harcourt street, I saw black-clad Mrs. Sheehy-Sheffington, in somewhat agitated absorption of thought, coming down the worn steps of the old Georgian house.
Not all the Green Irish were guilty of the attacks upon our sailors; not all by any means were pro-German; and I know personally of loyal Roman Catholics who are wholly on England's side, and are wholly opposed to Sinn Fein. Many such are here, many in Ireland: them I do not mean. It is Sinn Fein that I mean.
The listeners would applaud, but after the meeting one and another would come up privately and say: "Are you sure now they aren't fooling us again?" The Sinn Féin propaganda, always shrewdly conducted, did not fail to emphasize the pronouncement of the Tory Press that there should be no Home Rule because Ireland had failed to come forward; or to point the moral of Mr.
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.
The propagation of these two beliefs by journals of the newer school such as The Leader, Sinn Fein, and The Irish Homestead has leavened the whole mass of Irish life in our time. The Industrial Development Associations, founded on them as basis, have long ago "bridged the Boyne." At their annual Conferences Belfast sits side by side with Cork, Derry with Dublin.
"Priests preached sermons Sunday urging the people to withstand the enemy with the same spirit they did in the time of Sarsfield," said young Alphonsus O'Mara, the mayor of Limerick, whom I met at breakfast. His Sinn Fein beliefs had imprisoned him in his hotel, for his home was beyond the town and he would not ask the British military for a pass.
But whilst they paid Sinn Fein the compliment of adopting their policy of Parliamentary abstention, they neither honestly kept away nor openly remained asking questions and sending ambassadors from time to time. Sinn Fein was not inactive either.
One panel of names which Mr O'Brien submitted to the Cabinet at their request was: The Lord Mayor of Dublin, the Protestant Primate, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, the Marquess of Londonderry, the Marquess of Ormonde, General Sir Hubert Gough, Major "Willie" Redmond, M.P., the Earl of Shaftesbury, the Earl of Dunraven, Viscount Northcliffe, Mr William Martin Murphy, Mr Hugh Barrie, M.P., and two representatives of Sinn Fein.
In the rebellion he had held Boland's bakery, a large building covering the approaches to Dublin from Kingstown by rail; he had been the last of the leaders to surrender, and had earned high opinions by his conduct in these operations. This was the Sinn Fein candidate for East Clare a county where "extreme" men had always been numerous.
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