Knowing that the ignorance and
insularity of the Irishman is a danger to himself and to his
neighbors, I had no scruple in making that appeal when there was
something for him to fight which the whole world had to fight
unless it meant to come under the jack boot of the German version
of Dublin Castle.
There was another consideration, unmentionable by the recruiting
sergeants and war orators, which must nevertheless have helped
them powerfully in procuring soldiers by voluntary enlistment.
The happy home of the idealist may become common under millennial
conditions. It is not common at present. No one will ever know
how many men joined the army in 1914 and 1915 to escape from
tyrants and taskmasters, termagants and shrews, none of whom are
any the less irksome when they happen by ill-luck to be also our
fathers, our mothers, our wives and our children. Even at their
amiablest, a holiday from them may be a tempting change for all
parties. That is why I did not endow O'Flaherty V.C. with an
ideal Irish colleen for his sweetheart, and gave him for his
mother a Volumnia of the potato patch rather than a affectionate
parent from whom he could not so easily have torn himself away.
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