LYNCH'S BRIGADE

Feilding Star, Volume XIV, Issue 3628, 7 November 1918, Page 1

LYNCH'S BRIGADE

HUMOURS OF RECRUITING IN IRELAND. (By Col. Arthur Lynch, M-P.) Dublin. I have been in Ireland for some weeks, but the recruiting campaign, so far as I am concerned, is only a few days old. Already it shows signs of healthy life. The intervening time has been occupied in the work of overcoming initial difficulties. The more I explored the machine of government, the more I admired the British soldier ! The machine moves slowly, and creaks, and breaks down, but all this simply means that good old lumbering methods which were comfortable enotigh during the hundred years of peace are hopelessly inefficient to meet the conditions of a new era.

There is no lack of young men in Ireland. In every street in Dublin one meets stalwart youths marching along like ready-made soldiers, and showing every martial disposition except readiness to fall in and don -the British uniform. Most of these young men are politicians. Their leaders are also orators and writers—clever men in their way.

No matter what may have been Ireland's grievances, or trials, or hardships in the past, the world, and particularly America, will jucfge the Irish cause by the attitude of young Irishmen now while the great war is being fought for the freedom of the world. It is hard to bring these arguments home. to young men at a public meeting where their organised forces are singing the 'Soldiers' Song' or other forbidden ditties in endless choruses, and where the young boys of fifteen, and the young girls, of course, are shouting themselves purple in the face, hurling at us political views which fail to reach the platform owing to the infernal din. which their leaders are making-

At the first of our big meetings j in Dublin Captain O'Grady and ' myself found ourselves like an islet ! in a sea of foaming waters, but I ' must do the Sinn Peiners the jus- ; tice to say that while for some ■ time we were entirely in their j hands, they offered us no personal | violence, and one of their leaders, I who acted as a buckler in our hour , of need, showed us politely to our j car, and then told us what he i thought of us, and particularly of the Government of Ireland. ! . The Dublin crowd is a crowd of moods, dangerous no doubt at times, but extraordinarily suscep- ' tible to the influences of good hu- ; mour and to the sport- ! ing instinct. The more fierce and determined are these young men in their attitude towards us, the more I ctesire to have them as soldiers for the western front. I have not relinquished that hope. The Dublin meetings have been of this great advantage —that they have made the recruiting campaign talked of in every nook and cranny of Ireland. People at least know that we are here, and that we are on the look-out for men, and such, is the impulsive Irish temperament that we have already had several ; offers from Sinn Feiners. 1 Our next move will be to march out with the nucleus already form- ! ed, wearing our own uniform, spor- ■ ting our national tabs, playing the Irish airs from our own pipe bands, ! and booking our recruits as we march through the streets or the roads of the coiintryside, and in this way carrying on, as I hope, the pacific conquest of Ireland.