The Irish Volunteer - Óglach na hÉireann Volume 2 - Number 55

A meeting in An Daingean (Dingle), Co. Kerry, in support of recruiting to the British Army is reported. 

It was presided over by a Catholic priest, Canon O’Leary. Sergeant-Major O’Rahilly of the Connaught Rangers told the meeting that “if Robert Emmet, Wolfe Tone and Lord Edward Fitzgerald were that day alive they would be on this platform”. Denis Reidy described the Irish Volunteers as “cowards, humbugs and little blackguards”. 

In contrast a public meeting against conscription filled the Mansion House to overflowing and was addressed by Eoin Mac Néill and PH Pearse who said that “if any man loved the English Empire, let him go and fight for the Empire, but that the men of Ireland would never submit to be conscripted. 

The paper rarely carried photographs but this issue has one of the Irish Volunteers stall at Aonach na Nollag, the annual Christmas Fair in Dublin.

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