the young people towards them, but ignorantly content so long as they were undisturbed, the leaven of the Gaelic League self-reliance principle was undermining their political foundations, in common with all other foundations in Ireland which were the result of a bastard connexion with any of the manifestations of English civilisation in Ireland. That is also the secret of the Irish Literary Movement in English. It gets its inspiration from Irish tradition, Irish convention, Irish speech, and even though it expresses itself in English it is an English which is half Irish. Its whole spirit is the spirit of an Ireland which is looking back to Eoghan Ruadh and Keating rather than forward to a development of the perfectly reputable, perfectly colourless, and perfectly uninspiring work of, say, Mr. Edward Dowden. That work is the work of a mind perfectly assimilated to English civilisation, and it has no future save absorption. The Gaelic League leaven has driven it home to the people of Ireland that any similar work or effort in any sphere has no future save absorption, and it has sent them, in everything, in literature, politics, economics, back to their native culture and its traditions.

CHAPTER III

THE GENESIS OF THE SINN FEIN MOVEMENT

It may be asserted with truth that the youth of Ireland, in every generation, are by instinct Separatist, that “their dream is of the swift sword-thrust,” and that therefore in every generation there is the full material for a Separatist Movement. The question, then, of the adhesion of any given generation to a Separatist Movement resolves itself practically into the question of the formation, at the right time, of a Separatist Movement with an open policy; and practically any generation of Irishmen is liable to be drawn from a moderate movement to a Separatist Movement if the Separatists should develop a sufficiently attractive and workable open policy. But, in the absence of that, or in the presence of a more workable or attractive moderate policy, the mass of the people are more liable to be deflected to the moderate policy and to leave Separatist principles to the minority who will not compromise and who will carry on a secret movement in default of an open one. That minority always exists, and the key to Irish political history in the years since Fenianism may be found in the fact that Fenianism has never died out of Ireland since its foundation in 1858 by James Stephens and Thomas Clarke Luby, and that the Separatist Minority had always worked through it. Given a suitable open policy, that minority may become a majority at any time.

Now a Separatist Movement may have a choice of open policies, but it can have only one kind of secret policy, viz., a policy of arming and insurrection. And that is why insurrectionary movements which failed at an attempted insurrection and had no open policy to fall back upon have invariably been succeeded by moderate movements. Emmet was followed by O’Connell, Young Ireland by the Tenant Right Parliamentarian Movement, Fenianism by Parnell.

Fenianism held the field, as a partly secret and partly open movement, although it had no open policy, for many years after ’67, because there was no moderate policy either workable or attractive put forward. But when Parnell developed his machine of Opposition in Parliament and Organisation outside Parliament, and demonstrated that that policy, at any rate, held some possibility of wresting material concessions from England, there was a great landslide from the Separatist Movement, which finally went underground and became again a Separatist minority working in secret. With the death of Parnell died all chance of the policy of Parliamentarianism achieving anything for Ireland, but his fighting personality and record cast a glamour over the Nation for many a year after his death and secured to his successors something of his authority if, unfortunately, it could not secure to them his courage or his ability.

The Separatists, however, were reviving, and gradually the younger generation came into play. The Gaelic League had turned men’s thoughts towards the old independent Ireland when the language and with it native culture were secure, and that spirit when it sought political expression naturally found it in Separatist form, and as naturally in literary form. So that there came a Separatist revival, largely in literary form, and Literary Societies were established in Dublin, Cork and Belfast which preached Separation and which fell back upon the propaganda methods of the Young Irelanders—ballad, lecture, history, with the significant addition of the language. The movement was to some extent drawn together by the publication (January, 1896, to March, 1899) at Belfast of the “Shan Van Vocht,” a monthly journal projected and edited by Miss Alice Milligan, which printed both literary and political matter, but in form was preponderatingly literary, printed notes of the doings of the various clubs and societies, and in general kept the scattered outposts of the movement in touch with one another. The celebration throughout Ireland of the centenary of ’98 gave further impetus to the growing Separatist sentiment, and when, in 1899, some of the Dublin Separatists established “The United Irishman,” with Mr. Arthur Griffith as editor, the modern Separatist Movement was definitely on its feet.

The influence of the “United Irishman” in accelerating the development of the movement and in drawing it together was immediate. Its chief writers were William Rooney, whose character and whose work were akin to those of Thomas Davis, with again the significant addition that he knew Irish fluently, but of course far behind him in ability, and Mr. Griffith, who brought to the paper a clear, logical, virile and convincing style which is the best that has come out of Ireland since John Mitchel. The paper gave the movement expression, acted, so to speak, both as secretary and organiser, and was very soon in touch with every club and every convinced Separatist in Ireland, holding them together, encouraging them, increasing them. Clubs grew, and were gathered together in convention and formed into an organisation, “Cumann na nGaedheal,” which took up organisation work vigorously, and which, though at the outset in 1902 it had the misfortune to lose William Rooney, who was its chief inspiration, yet made progress. Separatists grew more confident, more informed, and more numerous.

The propaganda of Cumann na nGaedheal consisted of the Irish language, history study, Irish industries, and self reliance generally, with a pious expression of opinion that everybody ought to have arms. Arming was, however, no portion of its policy, nor had it any public policy in the nature of a platform policy. It was, practically speaking, an educational movement, on the same lines as the Gaelic League, save with a definite political basis, and was carried on on identical lines—classes (language and history), lectures, national concerts, and celebrations of national anniversaries. As such, its influence was limited, and the great majority of the people, who will not go to classes or lectures and are reachable only through some public platform and platform policy, were quite untouched by it. Its members were practically wholly young men and young women with a studious or intellectual bent, and although the “United Irishman” was a very severe and very pungent critic of the Irish Parliamentary Party, yet “Cumann na nGaedheal” and the Party never crossed swords, because their spheres of action were so widely