IRISH REBEL.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 7717, 6 May 1916, Page 1

IRISH REBEL.

AN AVOWED ATHEIST. NOTORIOUS JAMES CONOLLY. An Auckland resident with some knowledge of the notorious James Connolly, leader of the Irish revolt, who is reported to have been shot, is Mr J. P. Scullen. In conversation 1 with a reporter, Mr Scullen said that he was in Belfast when James Larkin launched his first real blow at law and order in the shape of the big transport strike of 1908. Even so long ago as that his lieutenant, Connolly, was regarded as a coming leader. Connolly, a well-built man of more than average height, was an adept at handling a crowd. Under the sound of his persuasive voice his hearers were at once interested and soon caried away by the torrent of his argument, his thought became the motive power in their subsequent violent actions. Connolly was an avowed atheist. His religion was the religion of labor, and he the appointed disciple and disseminator of the tenets of its gospel. In the Belfast strike, Mr Scullen said, something happened which had not been thought possible before. Catholic and Protestant were united in the cause of labor, and the brass bands that ordinarily headed opposing processions were amalgamated to lead one. Mr Scullen is of the opinion that there is no more of the religious clement in the Irish revolt in and around Dublin to-day than there was in the strike conducted under practically the same leadership in Belfast. He states that he thinks that Connolly seized this opportunity to take revenge upon Briain for his defeat (with Larkin) at Belfast, at Dublin, in 1913, and at the other centres in Ireland where the military were called out to quell the riots that were a result of his agitation. Questioned as to the part played by the Sinn Fein organisation, Mr Scullen said that he thought they had foolishly allowed themselves to be lead. At first they were frankly suspicious of the promises of the Kaiser, when he offered them all the reforms they had been striving after for years. Connolly, caring nothing for the aims and objects of the Sinn Fein doctrine, was nevertheless sufficient of an opportunist to use his powers as orator and organiser to further the German propaganda, merely, Mr Scullen thinks, because it was opposed to Britain. The money for the revolt apparently came from Germany 1 through Irish-American bodies controlled by James Larkin, who for some months has been resident in the United States.