Manifesto Against John Redmond

Ten months ago a Provisional Committee commenced the Irish Volunteer movement with the sole purpose of securing and defending the Rights and Liberties of the Irish people. The movement on these lines, though thwarted and opposed for a time, obtained the support of the Irish Nation.

When the Volunteer movement had become the main factor in the National position, Mr. Redmond decided to acknowledge it and to endeavour to bring it under his control.

Three months ago he put forward the claim to send twenty-five nominees to the Provisional Committee of the Irish Volunteers. He threatened, if the claim was not conceded, to proceed to the dismemberment of the Irish Volunteer organisation.

It is clear that this proposal to throw the country into turmoil and to destroy the chances of a Home Rule measure in the near future must have been forced upon Mr. Redmond. Already, ignoring the Irish Volunteers as a factor in the National position, Mr. Redmond had consented to a dismemberment of Ireland which could be made permanent by the same agencies that forced him to accept it as temporary. He was now prepared to risk another disruption and the wreck of the cause entrusted to him.

The Provisional Committee, while recognising that the responsibility in that case would be altogether Mr. Redmond’s, decided to risk the lesser evil and to admit his nominees, to sit and act on the Committee. The Committee made no representations as to the persons to be nominated, and when the nominations were received, the Committee raised no question as to how far Mr. Redmond had fulfilled his public undertaking to nominate ‘representative men from different parts of the country.’ Mr. Redmond’s nominees were admitted purely and simply as his nominees and without co-option.

Mr. Redmond, addressing a body of Irish Volunteers on last Sunday, has now announced for the Irish Volunteers a policy and programme fundamentally at variance with their own published and accepted aims and pledges, but with which his nominees are, of course, identified. He has declared it to be the duty of the Irish Volunteers to take foreign service under a Government which is not Irish. He has made this announcement without consulting the Provisional Committee, the Volunteers themselves, or the people of Ireland to whose service alone they are devoted.

Having thus disregarded the Irish Volunteers and their solemn engagements, Mr. Redmond is no longer entitled, through his nominees, to any place in the administration and guidance of the Irish Volunteer organisation. Those who, by virtue of Mr. Redmond’s nomination, have heretofore been admitted to act on the Provisional Committee, accordingly cease henceforth to belong to that body, and from the date until the holding of an Irish Volunteer Convention the Provisional Committee consists of those only whom it comprised before the admission of Mr. Redmond’s nominees.

At the next meeting of the Provisional Committee we shall propose:

•  To call a Convention of Irish Volunteers for Wednesday, 25th November, 1914, the anniversary of the inaugural meeting of the Irish Volunteers in Dublin.
•  To reaffirm without qualification the Manifesto proposed and adopted at the inaugural meeting.
•  To oppose any diminution of the measure of Irish self-government which now exists as a Statute on paper, and which would not now have reached that stage but for the Irish Volunteers.
•  To repudiate any undertaking, by whomsoever given, to consent to the legislative dismemberment of Ireland; and to protest against the attitude of the present Government, who, under the pretence that ‘Ulster cannot be coerced,’ avow themselves prepared to coerce the Nationalists of Ulster.
•  To declare that Ireland cannot, with honour or safety, take part in foreign quarrels otherwise than through the free action of a National Government of her own; and to repudiate the claim of any man to offer up the blood and lives of the sons of Irishmen and Irishwomen to the service of the British Empire, while no National Government which could speak and act for the people of Ireland is allowed to exist.
•  To demand that the present system of governing Ireland through Dublin Castle and the British military power, a system responsible for the recent outrages in Dublin, be abolished without delay, and that a National Government be forthwith established in its place.

The signatories to this Statement are the great majority of the members of the Provisional Committee of the Irish Volunteers, apart from the nominees of Mr. Redmond, who are no longer members of the Committee. We regret that the absence of Sir Roger Casement in America prevents him from being a signatory with us.

(Signed), EOIN MACNEILL,
Chairman, Provisional Committee.
UA RATHGHAILLE,
Treasurer, Provisional Committee.
THOMAS MACDONAGH
JOSEPH PLUNKETT
PIARAS BEASLAI
MICHAEL J. JUDGE
PETER PAUL MACKEN, Ex-Alderman
SEAN MAC GIOBUIN
P. H. PEARSE
PADRAIC O’RIAIN
BULMER HOBSON
EAMONN MARTIN
CONCHUBHAIR O’COLBAIRD
EAMONN CEANNT
SEAN MAC DIARMADA
SEAMUS O’CONCHUBHAIR
LIAM MELLOWS
L. COLM O’LOCHLAINN
LIAM UA GOGAN
PETER WHITE.

41 Kildare Street, Dublin.

Irish Volunteers, From The Irish Review, September-November 1914.