3condw.html

IRISH BATTALIONS: DOWNLOAD TEXT - CONSCRIPTION

Conscription: Conscription through the Military Services Act of January 1916 was never applied to Ireland. It was totally opposed by John Redmond and the Irish Parliamentary Party. In its purest sense of the word, the above statement is true. However, due to unemployment and poverty particularly among the poorer classes in Dublin, there was another other source of income and that was to enlist into the Army. One might call them economic conscripts as distinct from patriotic conscripts. By April 1918, the disaster suffered by the Army in France following the German March Offensive was the War Cabinet’s chief preoccupation. The situation was desperately serious and replacements for the heavy casualties were imperative. The Cabinet understandably began to re-consider whether Conscription should now be applied to Ireland. On the 16th of April 1918, a new Conscription Bill passed through the House of Parliament which allowed Conscription to be introduced to Ireland by proclamation. On the same day the Irish Party left the House of Parliament in protest. The most immediate visible response was the calling of a conference at the Mansion House by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Alderman Laurence O’Neill, with representatives of Sinn Fein, the Irish Parliamentary Party and Labour Party delegates: the intention being to present a united opposition front of Anti-Conscription forces in Ireland. A mass protest against Conscription occurred in the form of a successful General Strike on the 23rd of April 1918. On April the 14th before the Bill was passed, over 8,000 Belfast workers took part in an anti-conscription protest on the steps of the Custom House. Despite the sweeteners offered to the Nationalists by the British Prime Minister, Lloyd George, in the form of Home Rule on the partition principle, conscription was never imposed in Ireland. The apparent enthusiasm in Belfast against conscription quickly dissipated as a result of the confusion caused by the possible links between Home Rule and  conscription. The German Spring offensive collapsed around June 1918 and War Office demands declined, so extra soldiers were not needed. The political fall out of the Conscription Act in Ireland was to weaken the Home Rule Party and strengthen Sinn Fein. Redmond had argued, that by going to Westminster they were able to look after Ireland’s interest, yet on the vital matter of conscription, the British Government would not listen to them. Sinn Fein however had always believed that going to Westminster was a waste of time.