National Volunteers

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The National Volunteers was the name taken by the majority of the Irish Volunteers that sided with Irish Parliamentary Party leader John Redmond after the group split in the wake of the question of the Volunteers' role in World War I.

While Redmond took no role in the creation of the Irish Volunteers, when he saw how popular they had become he realized an independent body of such magnitude was a threat to his authority as leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, and therefore sought control of the organization. Eoin MacNeill, along with Sir Roger Casement and other leaders of the Irish Volunteers, had indeed sought Redmond's approval of and input in the organization, but did not want to hand control over to him. In June, 1914 Redmond insisted the Volunteers accept 25 members of his choosing to the 27 member Provisional Committee (as some of the standing members were already Redmond supporters this would have given him control). The motion was bitterly opposed by the radical members of the committee (mostly members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood), notably Patrick Pearse, Sean MacDermott, and Eamonn Ceannt, but was carried nevertheless in order to prevent a split. With the support of the Irish Party the Volunteer organization grew dramatically.

Following the outbreak of World War I in August, and the successful placement of the Third Home Rule Act 1914 on the statute books, Redmond made a momentous speech in Woodenbridge, County Wicklow on September 20, in which he called for members of the Volunteers to enlist in an intended Irish Army Corps of the New British Army's divisions, his motives twofold. Firstly, he felt it was in the future interest of an All-Ireland Home Rule settlement to support the Allied war cause, joining together with the Ulster Volunteer Force who offered immediate support enlisting in their 36th (Ulster) Division). Secondly, he reminded the Irish Volunteers that when they returned after an expected short war at the end of 1915, they would be an armed army capable of confronting the outcome of the partition bill forced through by Sir Edward Carson, leader of the Ulster Unionists, as an amendment to the Home Rule Act. Nearly all of the original leaders of the Volunteers utterly rejected this notion, and dismissed Redmond's appointees, who then formed the National Volunteers.

The vast majority of the membership remained loyal to Redmond, keeping some 175,000 members, leaving the Irish Volunteers with an estimated 13,500. Most members of the National Volunteers as well as many other Irishmen following the call of their parliamentary leaders, such as William O'Brien MP. and D.D. Sheehan MP., enlisted in battalions of the 10th (Irish) Division and the 16th (Irish) Division. Redmond's expectations were however overtaken by events to follow, the denied Irish Army Corps, (the British insisted that, unlike their Ulster counterparts, the nationalist be led by English officers, Redmond's earlier statements having aroused the War Office's suspicions), the unexpectedly prolonged war, the Easter Rebellion and then the results of the general elections in December 1918.

[edit] Reading References

  • Thomas P. Dooley: Irishmen or English Soldiers: ?
    the Times of a Southern Catholic Irish Man (1876-1916)    .
    Liverpool Press (1995).
  • Terence Denman: Ireland's unknown Soldiers
    the 16th (Irish) Division in the Great War.
    Irish Academic Press (1992), (2003) ISBN 0-7165-2495-3.
  • Desmond & Jean Bowen: Heroic Option: The Irish in the British Army
    Pen & Sword BooKs (2005), ISBN 1-84415-152-2.

[edit] Great War Memorials

Those who died in the Great War are commemorated at the:

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