Dividing Ireland: World War I and Partition

174 LOYALTY AND THE CROWN
horizon, and are all our hopes to be dashed to the ground? To
us…rank and file the blame must primarily be laid thence to
the men we gave so much power as leaders who held the
Government in the hollow of their hands for years, but would
not ‘embarrass it’…. Oh that Parnell were alive. He would not
fear to demand his right; he would not be satisfied that the
demand of nine-tenths of the Irish people should be flouted
by the British. 55
The growth of this perception among many in the nationalist
community had dangerous consequences for the Irish Party’s
entire pro-war strategy. T.M.Kettle’s view was that, having mixed
with Englishmen and Protestant Ulstermen in the British army’s
ranks, ‘there is no real or abiding reason for the gulfs…that now
dismember the natural alliance of both of them with us Irish
Nationalists’. 56 The blood sacrifice of Nationalists like Kettle (who
was killed in action on the Somme in October 1916) and Major
Willie Redmond MP, presented an alternative form of sacrifice for
Ireland which the Irish Party and its supporters believed had
brought Catholics and Protestants together. Captain Stephen
Gwynn argued:
Pearse and his followers brought to Ireland, not merely war,
but civil war and hatred…like a pestilence. The old ditch
which divided us is deepened, new blood flows in it, but Willie
Redmond and those who died like him, gave their bodies to
bridge that gulf. Their example preached fellowship and
brotherhood, not to Ireland only, and not only between
Irishmen. It is for Ireland to weigh the issue…to decide a
course. Is it to follow Pearse, who risked and lost his life
without hope of immediate success, in order to revive in
Ireland an ancient war? Or will it adhere to Willie Redmond,
who risked and lost his life in the hope that through foreign
war Ireland might at least reach an honourable peace. 57
Gwynn attempted to restore the sacrifices of the Nationalist
soldiers in the trenches to the forefront of political debate in
Ireland. His interest was chiefly that the work of these soldiers for
Ireland, in Flanders, Gallipoli, Serbia and Mesopotamia, should not
be ‘neutralised, cancelled and blotted out’ back home. Second, his
interest reflected a concern that the sacrifices made, the hardships
borne, the dangers faced and those lives ended, should be met
with some reward and ‘the only rewards that signify are honour,
welcome and gratitude here at home in Ireland…. But the rewards