The Irish Volunteer - Óglach na hÉireann, Volume 2 - Number 71

The clock is ticking to the day (Easter Sunday 23 April) agreed secretly for the Rising by the Military Council of the IRB and one of its members, PH Pearse, is Director of Organisation of the Irish Volunteers. In this issue he confirms the General Orders for Easter Manoeuvres issued on 3 April. His order says that “while the point of mobilisation may or may not be announced to the Companies beforehand, in accordance with local conditions, an effort will be made to send the mobilisation order to every individual Volunteer, so as to test each Company’s ability to get into immediate touch with all its members”.

The paper reports an extraordinary outburst by a British Army recruiting officer at Gurteen, Co. Sligo. He saw men in the crowd wearing Tricolour ribbons and called them “swine”, “idiots” and “cross-bred bastards”. He said whoever was preventing the Germans invading it was “not the Sinn Féiners” and Irishmen should join the British Army to fight “for their dirty little mud-heaps of houses and their dirty little shops”. 

See more