“If there ought to be an oblivion of the past between Great Britain and Ireland generally, may I ask in God’s name the First Lord of the Admiralty [Sir Edward Carson] why there cannot be a similar oblivion of the past between the warring sections in Ireland?  All my life I have taken as strong and as strenuous a part on the Nationalist side as my poor abilities would allow.  I may have been as bitter and as strong in the heated atmosphere of party contests against my countrymen in the North as ever they have been against me, but I believe in my soul and heart here to-day that I represent the instinct and the desire of the whole Irish Catholic race when I say that there is nothing that they more passionately desire and long for than that there should be an end of this old struggle between the North and the South.

“The followers of the right honourable gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty should shake hands with the rest of their countrymen.  I appeal to the right honourable gentleman here in the name of men against whom no finger of scorn can be pointed; in the name of men who are doing their duty; in the name of men who have died; in the name of men who may die, and who at this very moment may be dying, to rise to the demands of the situation.  I ask him to meet his Nationalist fellow-countrymen and accept the offer which they make to him and his followers, and on the basis of that self-government which has made, and which alone has made, the Empire as strong as it is to-day, come to some arrangement for the better government of Ireland in the future.

“Why does the right honourable gentleman opposite not meet us half way?  I want to know what is the reason.  It surely cannot be that the right honourable gentleman and his friends believe that under a system of self-government they would have anything to fear.  Nothing impressed me more than the opinion I heard expressed by a high-placed Roman Catholic officer who is in service with the Ulster Division, when he told me of his experience there, and when he said that although he was the only one of the Catholic religion in that Division, it had dawned upon him that they certainly were Irishmen and were not Englishmen or Scotsmen.[8] The right honourable gentleman knows perfectly well that it would not take so very much to bring his friends and our friends together, and I ask him why the attempt is not made?  I ask him whether the circumstances of the time do not warrant that such an attempt should be made?  I ask him whether he does not know in his inmost heart that it would bring to the common enemy more dismay and consternation than the destruction of a hundred of their submarines if they knew that England, Scotland and Ireland were really united, not merely within the confines of the shores of these islands, but united in every part of the world where the Irish people are to be found?