erybody expected that there would be some sort of ructions between the
Volunteers and the military on last St. Patrick's Day, when it was
announced that the Sinn Feiners would parade fully armed and with a real
maxim gun, but luckily nothing happened.

The next crisis was seen to approach in Holy Week, when large numbers of
strangers were noticed to be arriving daily from every part of the
country and putting up at lodging-houses.

The strangers were next noticed to be paying continual visits to the
Sinn Fein headquarters in Shears Street, extensive premises that were
once a hospital.

On the outbreak in Dublin the whole place was put into a state of
expectant siege, with passwords and guards, much in the same way as at
the G.P.O. in the capital, but no outbreak occurred.

On the Wednesday the Lord Mayor and the Bishop of Cork were able to
obtain an interview with the leaders, and as a result of the conference
a temporary sort of truce was arranged, which was never really broken,
though at times it was a matter of touch and go.

That it would have been serious cannot be doubted, for they claimed no
less than six hundred men at headquarters, and anything up from a
thousand within the boundaries of the city, to say nothing of the
surrounding districts, which were anything but favourable either to John
Redmond or William O'Brien.

Now, the inner history of the negotiation, which was later made public
in a letter from the Assistant-Bishop of Cork to the _Freeman's
Journal_, is of supreme importance for two reasons.

In the first place, it explains the kind of influences which were at
work all over the country to prevent the spread of the outbreak by the
better-disposed and more sober-minded of the population.

In the second place, by revealing the psychology of some of the
provincial leaders it goes not a little to establish my theory that even
as late as Monday night something might have been done had the leaders
of the "Republic"--which it must never be forgotten had always been a
"provisional" term--been approached by the best spirits in Ireland
herself, instead of immediately launching an army corps of troops and a
naval detachment bald-headed on to the guns of the Volunteers, who could
never have expected to bring off a victory in the real sense of the
term, and who were only anxious to offer themselves as a willing
holocaust to the Spirit of Nationality they thought was dying fast
because it had merged itself