Irish Volunteers receive no offer from British government

No offer has been received by the Irish Volunteers of any formal relationship with the British government.

Although the Ulster Volunteers are to be given their own division in the army, there has been no similar offer made to the Irish Volunteers.

This has been confirmed in a statement made by Eoin MacNeill and Laurence J. Kettle that ‘no proposal, suggestion or offer to arm, equip or train the Irish Volunteers has been made to them by the Government, and that no person has any authority to hold out to any units of the Volunteers Force that any such proposal, suggestion or offer has been made or accepted.’

Left: confidential letter recommending that the R.I.C. should consider training the Volunteers. Click for full document. Right: letter from Sir James Dougherty, Under-Secretary of Ireland in response to a request from the Arklow branch of the Volunteers to borrow Constabulary rifles for inspection. Click for full correspondence. (Images: National Archives of Ireland, CSO/RP 1914, 14097 & 14268)

The statement goes on to dismiss claims that there has been any move made to unite the Irish Volunteers with their rivals in Ulster: ‘The Standing Committee desires to state also that no proposal or offer of co-operation has been made to them on behalf of the Ulster Volunteer Force to defend the coasts of Ireland.’

MacNeill and Kettle say that any proposal made to them will be fully considered by the Standing Committee of the Irish Volunteers, but in the meantime no person or unit within the Volunteers was allowed to deviate from existing policy.

The Irish Volunteers, which were founded last November, are now estimated to have more than 140,000 members. They successfully imported arms in August through Howth and through other shipments along the east coast.