Changing places

Published in 20th-century / Contemporary History, Features, Issue 6 (November/December 2013), Volume 21

The lord mayor of Dublin, Lorcan Sherlock (here pilloried by Ernest Kavanagh for his ‘whitewash’ of DMP brutality during the Lockout), refused an invitation to join the original provisional committee and also refused the use of the Mansion House for the Volunteers’ inaugural meeting on 25 November 1913. Seven months later, Sherlock would be one of the 25 men added to the committee by John Redmond. (Irish Worker, 10 January 1914)

The lord mayor of Dublin, Lorcan Sherlock (here pilloried by Ernest Kavanagh for his ‘whitewash’ of DMP brutality during the Lockout), refused an invitation to join the original provisional committee and also refused the use of the Mansion House for the Volunteers’ inaugural meeting on 25 November 1913. Seven months later, Sherlock would be one of the 25 men added to the committee by John Redmond. (Irish Worker, 10 January 1914)

Michael Judge, a member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, was bitterly opposed to the admission of Redmond’s nominees to the provisional committee, saying later that ‘had they been men, they could have snapped their fingers at John Redmond and all his influence’. Judge was the only one of the ‘Home Rule’ members to remain on the Irish Volunteer committee after the split. On the other hand, one of the ‘physical force’ element on the committee opted to switch to the National Volunteers. Robert Page, who began 1914 as an IRB member, ended it as a recruiting sergeant for the British Army. Page was a member of C Company, 4th Battalion, who drilled at Larkfield. At a meeting of the company after the split, he was one of only four people out of 120 who opted to go over to Redmond. His company commander told the four that the only honourable thing for them to do was to join the British Army. He ‘had a job to prevent them killing Page that night’. Some months later, he saw that his advice had been taken when he saw a recruiting advertisement saying, ‘Apply to Sergeant R. Page’.

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