The Irish Volunteer - Óglach na hÉireann Volume 2 - Number 63

On 6 February in the Foresters’ Hall, 41 Parnell Square, at a Volunteer fund-raising concert, Commandant P.H. Pearse delivered a very significant speech. Reminding his audience of his oration at O’Donovan Rossa’s funeral the previous August, Pearse said he had been told that some people “had thrown their hands up in mock horror and said ‘Pearse has let the cat out of the bag. He admits that the Irish Volunteers are out for Separation.’”. The paper’s report continues:

“As far as he was concerned, the cat had never been in a bag. He and the majority of them had been Separatists before they were Volunteers. Was it to be pretended that in becoming Volunteers they had become something less than Separatists? Personally, he had avowed his object at and ever since the very first meeting. True, he had been willing to co-operate with those who did not go as far as he…There is nothing in common between those who hold the sovereignty of the Irish nation as the first article of their political creed and those who accept as a ‘final settlement’ an act which expressly denies that sovereignty. If ever the Irish Volunteers go into action they would go into action for Irish freedom.”  

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