Irish Volunteers, Galway City Corps: File, 1914

Irish Volunteers, Galway City Corps: File of material, primarily correspondence between the Irish Volunteers headquarters in 41 Kildare Street, Dublin and the Galway Corps, in particular regarding the split in the organisation and also requests for guns, also includes circulars and notices of meetings and agenda.  Many of the National Council letters are signed by Liam Mellows. Includes for instance

-Membership card for Dr Walsh, Dominick Street, enrolled 21 June 1914. Printed by O’Gorman, Printinghouse, Galway.  

-Letter from Col. Maurice Moore to the Galway City Corp (25 Aug 1914).

-A handwritten letter from Liam Mellows, Assistant Secretary, Headquarter’s Staff to the Galway Corps regarding ‘payment of expenses of Mr P. H. Pearse’s recent visit to your city’. Signed ‘Yours fraternally Liam Mellows Assistant Secretary Headquarters Staff per HCM’ (30 Aug 1914).

-Letter from the Galway Electric Company Ltd regarding lighting the Shambles Barracks Yard (15 Sept 1914).

-Correspondence (sub-file) relating to the action of Private W. G. Fogarty of “B” company in writing to the Dublin Press regarding the Volunteer military movement and the bid to protect himself from the ‘anti-enlistment speeches and the pro-German opinions of his Officers on parade’ (21 Sept 1914), and to ‘subjecting its chief officers to criticism contrary to military practices’ (18 Sept 1914). In defending his ‘extraordinary conduct’ Fogarty wrote to the Secretaries of the Galway City Corps writing that ‘If Volunteer opinion were not throttled as it is, and if the real consensus of the vast majority were allowed to be ascertained it would be found, I firmly believe, to be in accordance with the magnificent pronouncement of Mr Redmond (a copy of which I enclose and recommend to your serious study)’. Adding that ‘At the present time the whole volunteer movement is in a state of flux - and owing to the influence, - I hope merely temporary - of accidental eccentricities, somewhat chaotic. In such circumstances men must give their opinions freely, so that the movement may finally emerge free and natural - the true child of the Nation’ (p1).  The letter continues, ‘I believe Mr John Redmond’s divine pronouncement contains all that is necessary to guide Ireland and her Volunteers to the speedy and full fruition of our best hopes.

If it be superlatively extraordinary conduct to fight, as bitterly as I can, against the utterly vicious opinions of the few fanatics who are incessantly trying to thwart the noble ideal of Imperial unity and good-will which that declaration enshrines then so be it.  My conduct must continue to be ‘most extraordinary’’ (p2) (18 Sept 1914). A typed letter from Headquarters to the Galway Corps, signed by Liam Mellows on behalf of the Honorary Secretaries (Eoin MacNeill and Laurence J Kettle), advising that ‘the matter was laid before the Country Organisation Sub-Committee of the Irish Volunteers, and we were directed to inform you that your committee have been given full power to deal with the matter as they may think fit’ (22 Sept 1914).

-A typed circular or Statement from the Provisional Committee of the Irish Volunteers recalling the establishment of the organisation 10 months earlier with the ‘sole purpose of securing and defending the Rights and Liberties of the Irish people’ and Redmond’s declaration that ‘it is the duty of the Irish Volunteers to take foreign service under a Government which is not Irish.  He has made this announcement without consulting the Provisional Committee, the Volunteers themselves, or the people of Ireland to whose service alone they are devoted’. The Committee thus at its next meeting propose to call a convention to reaffirm the organisation’s Manifesto and also ‘To declare that Ireland cannot, with honour or safety, take part in foreign quarrels otherwise than through the free action of a National Government of her own’. It also rejects Mr Redmond’s entitlement to ‘any place in the administration and guidance of the Irish Volunteer organisation’.  Members of the Provisional Committee included five of the seven Easter Proclamation signatories. Names on the Statement included Eoin McNeill (Chairman), O’Rahilly.  Thomas MacDonagh, Joseph Plunkett, Piaras Beaslai, P. H. Pearse, Bulmer Hobson, Con Colbert, Sea Mac Diarmada, Eamonn Ceannt, Liam Mellows and Peter White (24 September 1914).

-Also letter from various members to Martin McDonogh, Chairman Galway City Volunteers, asking him to call a meeting to ascertain the financial standing of the Committee and to ‘re-constitute the Committee in accordance with the Policy outlined in Mr Redmond’s Manifesto’ (5 Oct 1914).

-Includes several sheets of The Irish Volunteers Galway City Corps headed paper, and envelopes with the title printed on the bottom left hand corner.