PR12/
106 10 September 1914
Letter, from R.E. Longfield, Mallow, to George Berkeley. He finds interesting ‘…your sound reasons for thinking that Ireland would prosper more…if she be granted Home Rule…’, but he thinks the ‘great divisions’ amongst the nationalists and the home rulers will result in turmoil without ‘England’s restraining influence’. Notes the ‘movement you have mixed yourself up in is very dangerous’, but it is well ‘for Redmond’s followers to have some gentlemen leading them’. Mentions Redmond’s offer which should be swallowed with a grain of salt, and the need to follow Carson’s lead.
4pp
107 7 October 1914
Letter from R.E. Longfield, Mallow, to Ge orge Berkeley. Longfield notes that ‘a number of nationalists have enlisted but not many of the [Irish] Volunteers I fear…’. He write s of a ‘strong anti - English feeling due to the ‘stupidity & dishonesty’ of papers like the Irish Volunteer and Irish Freedom. The country’s ‘very existence depends on the English fleet, but they ignore this and pretend to think Ireland [should] be a free & independent country’. Home Rule has ‘encouraged the disaffected & has in no way conciliated them … they will “ask for more” & they are not fit to have it…’. Longfield tells of a very offensive anonymous letter he received after he had some recruiting posters put up in Mallow. He thinks that Berkeley will get sick of Home Rulers and ‘… this rabble of A.O.H Sinn Feiners…’. Tells of his nephew ’ s great escape from death in the trenches.
4pp
II Other Material Relating to Belfast Irish Volunteers (1914)
108 November 1913 / June 1914
Printed ‘Manifesto of the Irish Volunteers’.
1p
109 8 June 1914
Newspaper pages from the Irish Times. Item underlined, “STICK TO THE GUNS’, with note ‘My own advice at Dungannon and yours at Fintona’.
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