our fellow-countrymen
inviolable security for all their rights and liberties and win the
friendship of the entire people of Great Britain, this representative
meeting of the City and County of Cork hereby establishes an
Association to be called the All-for-Ireland League, whose primary
object shall be the union and active co-operation in every department
of our national life of all Irish men and women who believe in the
principle of domestic self-government for Ireland."

The All-for-Ireland League made memorable progress in a brief space of
time. Mr O'Brien's return to public life was hailed even by the late
W.T. Stead in _The Westminster Gazette_ as nothing short of a
great political resurrection. The noble appeal of the League's
programme to the chivalrous instincts of the race attracted the young
men to its side with an enthusiasm amounting to an inspiration. The
Protestant minority in Southern Ireland were being gradually won over
to a genuine confidence in our motives and generous intentions to
safeguard fully their interests and position and to secure them an
adequate part in the future government of our common country. Even the
great British parties began to see in the new movement hopes of that
peace and reconciliation between Great Britain and Ireland which must
be the hope of all just and broad-minded statesmanship.

It was in these circumstances that the Party surrendered "at discretion"
to the expediencies of Liberalism, abjectly waiving their position as an
independent entity in Parliament, with no shadow of the pride and spirit
of the Parnell period left, seeming to exist for the favours and bonuses
that came their way, and for the rest playing to the gallery in Ireland
by telling them that Home Rule was coming "at no far distant date," and
that they had only to trust to Asquith and all would be well. Never had
a Party such a combination of favourable circumstances to command
success. They possessed a strategical advantage such as Parnell would
have given his life for--they held the balance of power and they could
order the Government to do their bidding or quit. Yet instead of
regarding themselves as the ambassadors of a nation claiming its liberty
they seemed to be obsessed with a criminal selfishness passing all
possible belief. When it was proposed to make Members of Parliament
stipendiaries of the State, they at first protested vehemently against
the application of this principle to the Irish repre