ANXIETY OF GOVERNMENT.

85

I have shown that the people had been driven to such a state of disorganisation and frenzy, that acts not to be distinguished from those of civil war might at any moment have been committed. The anxiety of the Government evinced itself in the fact that flying columns of troops had been organised in different parts of the country, one being at Limerick (a distance of about twenty miles from Kilmallock) at the time of which I write, ready to move at a moment's notice.

Any attempt on my part to have asserted the law before dethroning the Land League Committee would have met with the most

formidable opposition, and, in my opinion, would have only aggravated the position, strained as it was already to a dangerous extent. At the same time, I had been sent to restore order and the supremacy of the law, and I felt that it would only be giving strength to the already most powerful forces arrayed against me, if there was any hesitation in taking some immediate action to assert

86

DETHRONING THE LEAGUE.

the power of the Government and to break that of the League. The things I was most anxious to avoid were bloodshed, and those scenes of tumult and disorder which led to it. I had been sent, not only to rule, but to protect the people from themselves, and I should have felt it, indeed, as a most painful calamity had there been in the prosecution of the task any loss of life on the part of either the troops or constabulary on the one hand, or the people on the other.

Having in the course of a week satisfied myself personally with reference to the various matters which had to be weighed before deciding what course should be followed in dealing with the situation, I came to the conclusion that the only means whereby we could hope to grapple with it and to do any good, while avoiding a crisis of which it was difficult to foretell the end, consisted in arresting and removing, under the powers of the so-called suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, the whole of the members

PREPARATIONS OF GOVERNMENT.

87

composing the Land League committees at both Kilmallock and Kilfinane. Early on the 19th May, I went to Dublin and explained the situation. A council was held, at which Lord Cowper presided, the other two members being high officers of State and both Roman Catholics. Father Sheehy had left but one course open to the Government, and with a deep and painful sense of the necessity, it was decided to arrest him, as well as the principal members of the Land League committees at Kilmallock and Kilfinane. The parish priest of Kilfinane was the president of his Land League committee, and from my point of view had done an infinity of mischief in his parish; but in his conduct he did not go to such extremes in public as Father Sheehy did, and his arrest was not proposed. The warrants were signed during the afternoon, and the arrangements necessary for preserving order upon the occasion were left to me. The flying column at Limerick was placed at my disposal,

and I wired in cipher to the officers command

88

READY TO STRIKE.

ing the detachments of troops at Kilfinane and Charleville to concentrate by 5 A.M. next morning on Kilmallock. I took down by the evening train with me fifty men of the constabulary from the depot. We arrived at Kilmallock at about 1 A.M., and all arrangements were at once made. At 4 A.M. I handed the Lord Lieutenant's warrants over to the sub-inspector of police, who proceeded to execute them. Those members of the committee living outside the town were first brought in on cars and lodged in a private sitting-room in the barrack. I thought it desirable to be present at the arrest of Father Sheehy, for many and obvious reasons. police officers knocked at the door of his house at about 5.30 A.M., but it was certainly an hour before any answer was made, and the reverend gentleman himself did not come out until about 7 A.M. I naturally felt some anxiety at the delay, as every one in the town was up and about, the street leading towards the barrack and railway station being

The

ARREST OF FATHER SHEEHY.

89

already thronged with an excited crowd of people. Father Sheehy, as I have before remarked, was a great favourite with the lower classes and poor people, to whom I believe he was kind and sympathetic; but he was at this time endeared above all to the mob by his presumptuous defiance of the law. I say presumptuous, for he presumed, according to his own words, on no Government having the courage to lay its hands upon a priest. When arrested he was allowed, in consideration for his feelings, to walk to the barrack with the Rev. Father Doynes, his parish priest, who bravely refused to desert him in his trouble, a few policemen and soldiers following at some distance. I shall never forget the scene as he proceeded up the street. The people fell upon their knees as he passed, and seized his hands and the skirts of his clothes, while begging his blessing before he left them. Shouts of defiance and loud awful curses greeted my appearance, as I walked towards the barracks through the people, who seemed