er. After the war had broken out and the Home Rule Act was passed,
and Redmond had launched his appeal, this country farmer, then aged
fifty, made his way to Mallow and asked General Parsons to accept him as
a recruit. He was accepted, and very shortly given a commission in the
Dublin Fusiliers. Out of his local Volunteers he took seventy-five into
the Army with him. He was with the Sixteenth Division from its landing
in France till after the day of Messines, commanding his company. All
this gave him an authority in an assembly where all voices were in
support of the war, and more particularly in an appeal to Ulster; and
with this advantage went an unusual gift of frank and eloquent speech,
linked with a fine idealism.

These were the main personal elements in the group that came together on
July 25th--Mr. Duke, the Chief Secretary, acting as temporary Chairman
and Sir Francis Hopwood (soon to become Lord Southborough) having been
brought over as Secretary. Mr. Duke having addressed us with an earnest
suavity, we were told to select a Chairman: and on the motion of the
Primate, Archbishop Crozier, this embarrassing task was delegated to a
committee of ten, rapidly told off. We adjourned for lunch, and on
reassembling found that a unanimous recommendation named Sir Horace
Plunkett. The Ulstermen had expressed a willingness to accept Redmond.
This he refused to discuss; but he was put into the Chair of the
selecting committee. There was a recommendation also that Sir Francis
Hopwood should be Secretary to the Convention. Both these proposals were
welcomed, and we dispersed feeling that we had done a good day's work.

There was, however, one set-off to it. When the Selection Committee had
done its work, its members went off singly, and outside the gate of
College a small group of ardent patriots were waiting, who mobbed
Redmond on the way to his hotel. They were young, no doubt; but the
Republican party claimed specially the youth of Ireland; and these lads
expressed with a simple eloquence very much what was said by older and
more articulate voices, uttering the same thought in print. It is worth
while to illustrate here the attitude taken towards Redmond by much of
Nationalist Ireland, for it profoundly influenced Redmond's attitude and
action in the Convention. I take, not casual and partisan journalism,
but a passage from a book published by a distinguished Irish writer who
had never publicly attached himself to any pa