Large group of Volunteers march through Dublin

More than 1200 Volunteers marched through Dublin city today as the four battalions of the First Dublin Regiment of the Irish National Volunteers made their first combined parade. The battalions were representative of the four quarters of the city, the first assembling at Parnell Square, the second at Father Matthew Park, Fairview; the third at Sandymount Castle, and the fourth at Kimmage. The march began at St Stephen’s Green and followed a route throughout the city centre until they reached Smithfield. College Green formed the main rallying point for the spectators.

The Irish Times reporting on the march said a strange element was the absence of cheering along the route and though interest was manifested in the parade it appeared to be mingled with a sense of ignorance as to the nature of the spectacle and cheering was for the benefit of the cinematographer alone. ‘Whatever the case elsewhere in the country’, the paper reported, ‘the Volunteers in Dublin have not sought the encouragement or the hindrance of publicity, and the movement has yet to secure a leader of striking and widely-known personality. The organisation strikes one as having failed yet to make clear any definite immediate object of existence.’