[Dillon makes mention of the shooting of Mr Sheehy-Skeffington.] ‘Horrible rumours which are current in Dublin, and which are doing untold and indescribable mischief, maddening the population of Dublin, who were your friends and loyal allies against this insurrection last week and who are rapidly becoming embittered by the sotires afloat and these executions ... ‘ (p.64.)

‘It is the first rebellion that ever took place in Ireland where you had a majority on your side. It is the fruit of our life work. We have risked our lives a hundred times to bring about this result. We are held up to odium as traitors by those men who made this rebellion, and our lives have been in danger a hundred times during the last thirty years because we have endeavoured to reconcile the two things, and now you are washing out our whole life work in a sea of blood.’ p.(67.)

If it had not been for the action of John [Eoin] MacNeill you would be fighting still ... he broke the back of the rebellion on the very eve of it, and he kept back a very large body of men from joining in’ (p.70.)

‘I say I am proud of their courage, and, if you were not so dense and so stupid, as some of you English people are, you would have had these men fighting for you, and they are men worth having. ... ours is a fighting race ... The fact of the matter is that what is poisoning the mind of Ireland, and rapidly poisoning it, is the secrecy of these trials and the continuance of these executions (p.72.) ... I do not think Abraham Lincoln executed one single man, and by that one act of clemency, he did an enormous work of good for the whole country (p.72.) ... why cannot you treat Ireland as Botha treated South Africa (p.73.) ... victims of misdirected enthusiasm and leadership (p.74.)

‘[Rebels showed] conduct beyond reproach as fighting men. I admit they were wrong; I know they were wrong; but they fought a clean fight, and they fought with superb bravery and skill, and no act of savagery or act against the usual customs of war that I know of has been brought home to any leader or any organised body of insurgents.’ (p.75.)

‘[...] the great bulk of the population were not favourable to the insurrection, and the insurgents themselves, who had confidently calculated on a rising of the people in their support, were absolutely disappointed. They got no support whatever. What is happening is that thousands of people in Dublin, who ten days ago were bitterly opposed to the whole of the Sinn Fein movement and to the rebellion, are now becoming infuriated against the Government on account of these executions, and as I am informed by letters received this morning, the feeling is spreading throughout the country in a most dangerous degree.’ [Reads statement for Mr. Skeffington’s widow] Mrs Skeffington begs me, in conclusion, to ask the Government and the House of Commons for a public investigation.’ (p.77.)

‘[...] I do most earnestly appeal to the Prime Minister to stop these executions ... it is not murderers who are being executed; it is insurgents who have fought a clean fight, a brave fight, however misguided, and it would be a damned good thing for you if your soldiers were able to put up as good a fight as did these men in Dublin - three thousand men against twenty thousand with machine-guns and artillery [Heckled and responds] ... we have attempted to bring the masses of the Irish people into harmony with you, in this great effort at reconciliation - I say, we are entitled to every assistance from the Members of tthis House and this Government.’ [End]

‘It will be our duty, and we will set about it without delay, to disorganise and break up the Irish Constabulary [19] that for the past 30 years have stood at the back of the Irish landlords - bayonet in hand. The pay of these men, which is taken out of the pockets of the Irish tenants, is voted yearly in the Enghsh Parliament, and not an Irish member could be found to protest against it. Let us now see that, instead of the twelve hundred thousand pounds a year which is devoted to pay the Irish Constabulary, that not one hundred thousand will go for that purpose: then I would like to see the landlord who would face the Irish tenant! (Applause.) I tell you that the hour we take away the bayonet of the Irish policeman that hour the landlords will come to ask us for a settlement of the land question.’ (Special Commission Report, p.30).

Mr. Ronan: ‘Did you say in a speech, “It will be our duty to disorganise and break up the Royal Irish Constabulary“’?
Mr. Dillon: ‘Yes, and I trust to do it yet.’
Mr. Ronan: ‘You would break and disorganise the Royal Irish Constabulary?’
Mr. Dillion: ‘No ; I have not the power yet, but when I have the power I trust to do it.’ (National Press, March 27, 1891.

‘I want to say a word of warning to the Bailiffs, and all that class of people who will side with the landlord in the struggle this winter in Ireland, and that warning is this, that there is no man in Ireland, England, or Scotland who does not know who will have the Government in Ireland within the next few years. (Cheers.) The little potentates are in their own estimation the Lynches or Macdougalls, who have the police to help them to-day, and who think they can ride over the bodies of our people. I tell these people that the time is at hand, and very close at hand too, when the police will be our servants, when the police will be taking their pay from Mr. Parnell, when he will be Prime Minister of Ireland. And I warn the men to-day who take their stand by the side of landlordism and signalise them as the enemies of the people, that in the time of our power we will remember them.’ (Daily News, December 6, 1886).

‘Believe me, they will not be able to do much with their Coercion Act, and I would tell you what is more, that there is not a magistrate or a policeman (loud groans) don’t be so excited against the police, because they will be all working under my orders within a year (great cheering) there is no magistrate or policeman in Ireland who does not know in his heart that Mr. Parnell will be ruler in this country in a year or two, and do you suppose that they are going to work a Coercion Act bitterly against us? Not a bit of it. They like their bread and butter as much as anj^body. They know right well that it is not to the landlords they will have to look in the future. They know perfectly well now what they did not believe during the last Coercion Act, that since Mr. Gladstone has come round, the cause is going to Avin, and they know perfectly well, every man of them, that Mr. Parnell will be their master, as he will be the master of this country - (cheers) - within a very short time. Believe me, the Coercion Act will not amount to much. Nobody will be afraid of it.’ [21] and the only consequence will be we will ask a larger reduction when it comes. I think it would be only fair play that suppose we asked twenty-five per cent, without a Coercion Act, we should ask forty-five per cent, if we got a Coercion Act. (Cheers.) It would be only justice to inflict a fine on a man who behaves badly, and if a landlord of the country behaves badly, I don’t see why he should not be fined as well as a poor fellow who would behave himself badly in the street.’ (Freeman’s Journal, March 14, 1887.

‘I say the best plan to promote and expedite that settlement [of evicted tenants, freedom from landlord tyranny and land purchase] is by organising the countiy, and by an overwhelming organisation to push forward the National cause of Home Rule. Because if you once get it into the heads of Irish landlords that a Home Rule Parliament will be sitting within two years in Dublin they will be tumbling over each other to sell. Once you convince them that Home Rule is really coming you will find you have a totally different class of men to deal with. They have been very stiff in the past, but if there was a National Parliament they would not be so stiff at all, and the land- lords know that they would not get the prices by any means that they got in the past. [...] Some landlords never will sell until compelled, and the first necessity for Ireland to-day is an effective, warning, compulsoiy Bill. We have compulsion here under the Boaixl, but it is not the kind we had in the Bill originally, for it gives tliat landlord the bonus and cash, and puts him in a better position than the man who is not compelled. Ii you had a proper compidsory Bill, which would take the land from the landlord without bonus, it would be like the case of the “Possum up the tree. Don’t shoot, I’ll come down.’ (Freeman’s Journal, 16 Oct. 1911.)

All the foregoing quoted in The Home Rule Bill: Memoranda on Amendments [Union Defence League], London 1912 - No. 4: Reserved Services - The Royal Irish Constabulary [Union Defence League], London (12 Oct. 1912): online; accessed 16.08.2014.)

This is a Vote to provide the means of paying the extra increase in salary to the Dublin Metropolitan police and to the Irish Constabulary which was sanctioned by an Act which we passed last December. On that occasion there was an interesting discussion as to the condition of the Dublin Metropolitan Police. Before we pass this Vote I should like to ask the Chief Secretary to make some statement as to the result of his investigations into the state of that body, a body which, I need hardly say, the position and spirit of which is of enormous vital importance not only to the Irish Government, but to those of us who are resident citizens of Dublin. I think I may say, and that in doing so I speak for the vast majority, that the citizens of Dublin have been very friendly towards that force. The Dublin Metropolitan Police, as I think the Chief Secretary will have been able now to appreciate, is a very fine police force. Physically I do not suppose there is such a police force in the world except perhaps the New York Police, which are largely drawn from the same nationality. They are a magnificent body of men, and, so far as I have been acquainted with them, having resided in Dublin for forty years, they have been a very effective and, on the whole, under difficult circumstances, a very loyal and reliable body of police. I may say that the circumstances under which the Dublin police do their duty is very, very different indeed from [col. 549] the circumstances under which the police in this City, or, I may say, in any other of the cities, do their duty, because sometimes trouble arises in Dublin of a political character which is quite unknown to this Metropolis and which puts a strain on the police and which is very much in excess of anything which falls on the police in a City like this. During all these years the police have managed, as a rule, to maintain fairly good relations, and, in fact, I go beyond that and say, very good relations with the poplation of Dublin. But, unhappily, about five years ago there came a great break in that condition of affairs. Owing to a variety of circumstances the police were brought into violent collision with the inhabitants of the city - large sections of the inhabitants of the city. Bloodshed resulted, there were serious riots, and very bitter feeling was aroused between the police and the people, which was a most unfortunate circumstance.

That is exactly what I was doing. I was raising questions which arose out of the Act for which this money is to be voted, and unless the ruling is that we must pass this Vote sub [?silentiae] we are entitled to discuss such questions as arise out of the Act. One other question which I propose to discuss was the question whether the Chief Secretary had looked into the matters which he promised to look into when we were discussing the Act, because if he has not looked into those questions I intend to move a reduction of the Vote, in order to raise the question of his neglect to look into those matters which he promised to look into when we were passing the Bill. I raised the matter then, and it is precisely on that very matter I propose to address a few observations arising out of that very discussion. I maintain I should be entitled to challenge this whole Vote, if I am so disposed, on the ground that the assurances, or the expectations, not to put it as high as assurances, which were then aroused in our minds have not been carried out. When that Bill was before the House I made a strong appeal to the Chief Secretary to take into favourable consideration a claim for the reinstatement of four or five of the police-constables who were dismissed from the service, and I want to know whether he has investigated that matter or not. I would point out the grounds upon which I make a very strong claim for favourable consideration. The police in Dublin have been undoubtedly in a very disturbed and discontented condition. The Chief Secretary himself must know now that that discontent did not arise entirely from the question of insufficient salaries or wages, although [col. 551] that was a very large element in the matter, but that it arose from the series of circumstances to which I have just been alluding. In view of the ruling which you, Mr. Maclean, have given, I will not enter into those circumstances in detail, although I hope that some other opportunity will be given when the main Vote is brought on. I may point out that when you, Sir, say that another opportunity will be given when the full Vote is brought on, since the War broke out we have had no opportunity at all of discussing any Irish business, therefore a little latitude might reasonably be offered on occasions of this kind. The Irish Votes for the two last Sessions have been thrown into the hotch-potch at the end of the Session and no discussion allowed upon them at all, owing to the excuse of war emergency.

This is a matter of extreme urgency. I maintain, from a long knowledge of the city of Dublin, that by a little sympathetic and judicious handling the police force in the city might be restored to the same spirit of loyalty which prevailed prior to the unhappy events of 1911. I can assure you, Sir, and the Chief Secretary that the state of the city of Dublin at the present moment is such that it is in the highest interest to everybody that the police force should be in an entirely satisfactory condition. It is not in a satisfactory condition. The men are smarting under what they consider to be, and what I consider to be, a good deal of mismanagement and injustice. I will not attempt to go in detail into all the events which led up to the condition of things which prevailed before Christmas, when we were on the eve of a police strike. It would be impossible for me to exaggerate the dangers that threaten the city of Dublin in the event of a strike in the police force. It would be, or might be, nothing short of a disaster. Better counsels prevailed, and that trouble for the moment passed away, but there is still a very serious spirit of discontent among the men. They do not think that they have been generously treated. I agree with them. I do not think they have. I do most earnestly urge on the right hon. Gentleman that he might now, discipline having been vindicated - he may remember that in the Debate last December he was pressed somewhat on this subject, and he made an appeal to us to say no [col. 552] more about it, on the ground that discipline must be vindicated, and I used any influence I possess with colleagues of my own who felt very strongly on the subject to induce them not to press him further upon it, because I felt that these are extremely delicate matters, that in a police force discipline must be maintained, and for the moment it was better to leave the whole matter in the hands of the Chief Secretary and the Commissioner in Dublin - but now a considerable period has elapsed, discipline has been vindicated, the force have been doing their duty loyally in the interval, and I say that now the time has come when the case of these dismissed constables ought to be reconsidered.

I would not make this appeal if I did not believe that the effect of reinstating these men and wiping the slate in their regard would be to greatly better the whole temper and spirit of the police force. Some, not all, of the main causes of the trouble have been removed. The officers who were in command of that force had not the confidence of the men. I do not think they deserved the confidence of the men. The men believed that they were brought into collision with the citizens of Dublin unnecessarily, and that all that trouble - vast numbers of them; were wounded and brought to the hospital, as were many of the citizens - was due not to any necessary cause, but to the incompetence and misdirection of their own officers. That left a very bitter and discontented spirit. There were other causes which I do not go into now, because I do not want to exacerbate feeling. I am anxious to smooth it over, because I have far too keen a sense of the situation in Ireland at the present time, and of the spirit of the country, to wish to add anything to the flames that may break forth. I am anxious, if I can, to help the Government in this matter in putting an end to this trouble, which is a very serious trouble. Therefore I will not go into the other facts which are agitating and causing discontent in the ranks of the Dublin police. I will only say that in addition to the belief - the well-founded belief - that they have had incompetent and unsympathetic officers who were wholly ignorant of police business and who were responsible, through their ignorance, for bringing them into collision with the people unnecessarily, there were other grievances of a substantial character to which I will not allude [col. 553] now. The situation as far as the officers is concerned has greatly improved. The officers now at the head of the Dublin police are competent men, and, with a little give and take and sympathetic treatment the morale, good discipline and good spirit – we cannot have an efficient police force without good spirit – and confidence in their officers would be entirely restored. I therefore appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to make some statement to-night, before this Vote is passed, which will tend to set the police force in Dublin right and remove the bitterness which undoubtedly exists.

I have to watch matters carefully, because I know how seriously circulation of impressions and representations may be expected to affect the morale of a police force where there was for some time last year discontent and dissatisfaction and some reason to fear that which every decent citizen would be glad to avoid. I have not the least reason to believe that the police in Dublin take the view that the House did not deal with them reasonably in the Act which was passed at the end of last year, and at present I do not believe it. It was 558stated that the men are suffering under a sense of mismanagement and injustice, that there is a serious state of discontent among them, and that it is the business of the Chief Secretary to remove bitterness which "undoubtedly still exists." It was said that there was a feeling that the superior officers of the force had been incompetent and had misdirected the force, but that there had been some improvement in this respect and that the officers were now competent men, though there was still this sense of mismanagement and injustice and a serious spirit of discontent and bitterness. I have been a great deal in Dublin, I am happy to say, during the last two months; in fact, I spent the whole of the Recess in and about Dublin. I saw and heard a good deal of the condition of the Dublin police, and I want to say on behalf of the Dublin police that they responded readily, and I think generously, to the desire of Parliament to deal with their case in a reasonable spirit. I have had no representations from any member of the Dublin police - and I do not believe that they hesitate in coming to me - that would lead me to think there is at the present time among that body a sense of mismanagement and injustice, a spirit of discontent, and a condition of bitterness. I really should deplore such a state of things. To say that there has been no difficulty in the Dublin police would be to burlesque the fact. Of course there has been. But the police at present have a commanding officer, the Chief Commissioner, who is accessible and is ready to hear any reasonable representation of a grievance. They have officers as to whom the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. Dillon) has said that the superior officers now are competent men. I appeal to hon. Members to consider whether that improved state of things may not have its fair opportunity to produce its natural results.

That is exactly what we want.

I beg that it may have its fair opportunity to produce its natural results, and that we may not sow suspicion and mistrust and new grounds of trouble in this House which will redound against good administration in Dublin or in any way put in question the discipline of the police, the cheerful acceptance by the police of their duties, and the pride of the police in the esprit de corps of the force, which is one of the most valuable assets [col. 559]of the public in its dealings with those who are entrusted with the maintenance of order. For my part, I have at the present time - and I believe I am warranted in having - confidence in the readiness of the Dublin police not only to do their duty but to do it cheerfully. I believe that they are able and ready to represent grievances if they have any, and that those grievances would be entertained. At the same time, on the questions which were asked me when the Bill was before the House as to the readiness I expressed to investigate the questions which might be brought to my mind, I can assure the hon. Member for East Mayo that those questions have been the subject of discussion between myself and the Chief Commissioner, and the Chief Commissioner is as anxious as any man in Dublin that we shall be entitled to expect the cheerful service of the Dublin force. I was very glad to hear the tribute paid to him and the superior officers of the force. It is a just tribute. I hope that the discreet action of the Chief Commissioner and the superintendents will have the best results.

I would have been glad if it were possible to part from the matter without entering upon the question which I think was presented to the Committee in a misleading fashion by the hon. Member for Dublin who spoke last, when he referred to the inquiry made of me yesterday on this particular matter, and the conversation of perhaps ten or twenty words in which I assured him, as I honestly assure every Irish Member, that I am ready to receive his representations and take care that they secure attention on the part of those whose business it is to attend to them. The conversation went no further than that, and I could only say at the present time that the Chief Commissioner thinks that we must proceed with the discipline of the force as the force stands. I cannot usefully add anything upon that subject. To every wish of this body, every reasonable wish, it is the business of the Chief Commissioner, and my business as Chief Secretary, to give all the attention we can. All these subjects affecting the contentment and discipline of the Irish police force are subjects of a degree of delicacy and gravity which cannot be exaggerated. The hon. Member for East Mayo, as an old resident in Dublin, well knows that. I have endeavoured as Chief Secretary - and I am sure any Chief Secretary always [560] does - to bear that fact in mind, and while doing that to support the Commanding Officers in everything I can, to secure that the police of Dublin are a disciplined force, and a contented force, as I think generally they are at the present moment.

‘On such occasions it is usual to hold forth to our imitation the great industry of Demosthenes ... for my part, I have no faith in those stories that are told about the time and labour he devoted to the mere framing of his speeches. It is hardly credible that a man who took such an active part in the politics of his country ... could have consumed whole months ... in the composition of a single speech’ [7-8; ...]

‘You will find that it is not because they were more accomplished rhetoricians, that the men of the [French] revolution were greater orators than those who went before them, but because of the bursting forth of new passions, and the diffusion from breast to breast of high and fierce desires. It is this that roused the sensual fire of Mirabeau ... we may draw too from one of the few bright pages in th history of our own country, a strong confirmation of this truth - that the way to make me eloquent is to inspire them with strong passions, and to place great objects before them.’ [9]

‘No many who has an Irish heart within him, can read without shame and indignation, the history of that century which preceded ’82. ... But observe what a change was effectd in those men, when they were summoned to take a share in the great events that were then passing around them. Their apathy disappeared; a sudden [11] energy too possession of their souls; they stood erect; and the astonished tyrants, to whose insults and rapacity they had a short time bfore submitted without a murmur, now trembled beneath their frown. ... My object in alluding to the period of Irish independence, is not political. It is ... to restore eloquence to what it was in the olden time, to restore those aspirations and those passions ... &c.’ [11; ...]

‘At a time when they had the enemy completely at their mercy, and might have dictated whatever terms they pleased, they should have [12] insisted on something more than permission, to meet and amuse one another with elaborate orations ... They should have known that no matter what forms of liberty it may possess, a nation is not free which has not the means of defending itself from aggression; that a constitution is but a mockery whcih has no security for its existence but the faith and forbearance of strangers; that a parliament is nothing more than a debating club, if it be not sustained by the sympathy, and, if need be, by the arms of the people. [13] ... They tell us that national distinctions are but the relics of an imperfect civilization ... mischievous opinions [to which he attributes] [15] the decay of eloquence’

‘[... T]he spirit of national patriotism should be kept [16] alive.’ [Here refers to Dr Whateley [who] argues from genesis that God has split humanity into separate races [19].

‘He formed our intellect and active capacities on such a scale, that we can neither comprehend the real interests of the human race, nor, if we did comprehend, could we effectually promote them; and he suited our desires to those limited capacities.’ [20]

[Further argues against ‘the spirit of cosmopolitanism’ [21]; ‘The rationality of national patriotism appears, therefore, to rest, upon precisely the same footing as that of any other of our affections; namely, the imperfection of our intellectual capacities, and the necessity of some guide to conduct society along that path, which human reason sheds but faint and glimmering light.’ [22]

‘[...] It is sweet to look back upon those times when our country was great and free. It is sweet to muse amidst moss-grown ruins, the memorials of her pride. ... The very sorrows of the patriot are, like our own soft-breathing music, sweetly sad.’ [21] Of the dead patriot:] ‘Oh! who would give his glory and that chainless grave for a few short years of slavery and shame!’ [32]; develops his theme warmly for several pages:‘Rome could not be conquered while she was dead to Roman hearts.’ [36] peroration: ‘national patriotism and common sense are by no means inconsistent ... &c.’