´óÏó´«Ã½

There was not a "national uprising" in Dublin. It was not even a sectional "uprising". The whole sad business was conceived and planned, and carried into fatal effect without the knowledge or the sanction of the Irish Nation. Had it been possible to take a vote of the people of this country on the issue, 99 per cent of them would have declared against such an attempt without hesitation and with all the power of protest they could muster. In due time we shall discuss the varied influences that operated on the minds of the ill fated leaders, who have paid the dread penalty of their own rashness, folly and credulity. But on the morrow of their doom, and while the fate of so many other victims is still undecided we hope the charity of silence, will be extended to the dead. Ireland has already suffered bitterly through the ghastly events of the last days of April; but the hearts of her people are strong and their minds have been disciplined by trials and disappointments that would have made the men. of any other nation despair of their country’s future and their own. Had the counsel of the National leaders been regarded, Dublin and Ireland would not have known the week of horrors whose "aftermath" must now be reaped in agony by thousands. The wise counsel of earnest and patriotic leaders will not be flouted henceforward by the most "hot headed" members of the Irish community.

We want to liberate our country from Dublin Castle rule. Mr Birrell has ceased to be Chief Secretary. We care not who succeeds him; the new ruler, like all his predecessors, will represent a System against which the heart and soul of Ireland rebel. But the idea of handing Ireland over to the brutal tyranny of the Kaiser, his junkers, his military satraps, and his Army of outrage mongers and desecrators is more repulsive if possible than the notion of acquiescing in the perpetual dominance of English politicians at Dublin Castle. The soldiers and statesmen and martyrs of our race in days gone by did not fight and plead, and plan and suffer that the land of their love might become a toy or tool in the hands of Spaniard, Frank or Teuton; and a German victory now would place this Island at the mercy of a tyrannical conqueror more helplessly than it was at the feet of King James’s Ministers when O’Neill and O’Donnell lay dead in Rome three hundred years ago. An Ireland ruled by the freely elected representatives of all the people who live within her borders is the ideal for which we have striven, and to which we shall adhere. The realisation of the great ideal is within our reach – it cannot be stayed or delayed a moment beyond the specified hour if we do not give the wondering world an exhibition of folly and incapacity unparalleled in the history of nations. The accredited leaders of the National Movement guided us to the verge of victory – more, they placed the crown of victory in our hands, and if untoward events on the Continent of Europe had not happened, that crown would have been placed on our country's brow and the horrors of last April end would never have befallen. Our confidence unimpaired and our faith imperishable in those leaders remain. With them is Ireland’s certainty of freedom.