KILDARE VOLUNTEERS PROTEST 100 YEARS

LEINSTER LEADER 1 JULY 2014

Kildare Volunteers protest 100 years ago

“A special meeting of the Kildare Volunteers was held in the Town Hall, at eight o’clock on Wednesday evening,” the Leinster Leader reported on 27 June 1914.

“There was a full attendance of the Corps. The business of the meeting was to discuss the action of certain members of the force in absenting themselves from drill on Monday last, on the plea that a special train had not been secured for them to Bodenstown on the previous Sunday.

Dr. Rowan, who presided, said that the idea of men abandoning their duty to the country because the Great Southern and Western Railway did not provide a train for them on a particular occasion would be amusing if it were not calculated to bring discredit on the district.

In the English army, conduct of that kind would be dealt with by court martial. In a Volunteer army there was, of course, no penal code, but Volunteers should regard themselves for that reason as all the more in honour bound to their allegiance.

These men might have acted merely on the impulse of the moment in absenting themselves from duty, but if they insisted on putting their personal whims before their duty their place was outside the ranks. Inside them, they would be only a source of weakness and demoralisation.

The following pledge was then put by the Chairman and taken by all present with the exception of five dissentients; “I hereby pledge myself never to permit any private or outside matters, or any personal relations towards my follow Volunteers, to affect the faithful discharge of the duty which I owe to them and to the Country as a loyal member of the Irish National Volunteers.