Even that did not suffice for half the gathering. Three overflow
meetings were held, and four thousand men are said to have been enrolled
that evening.

Yet the movement did not spread at once with rapidity. By the end of
December recruits only amounted to ten thousand. For this two causes
were answerable. The first was the honourable refusal of the committee
to allow companies to be enrolled except according to locality. They
would have no sectional companies of Sinn Fein volunteers, of United
Irish League Volunteers, of Hibernian Volunteers. All must mix equally
in the ranks. The second was the fear of most Nationalists that by
joining an organization with which the national leader was not
identified they might weaken his hand. This operated, although the
declared intention of the organization was to strengthen Redmond's
position. At Limerick in January Pearse said: "In the Volunteer movement
we are going to give Mr. Redmond a weapon which will enable him to
enforce the demand for Home Rule."

Briefly, for several months the numbers of the new force did not show
that the whole of Nationalist Ireland was in support of it. Ireland was
waiting for a sign from Redmond, and it did not come. The events which
literally drove Irish constitutional Nationalists into following
Ulster's example had still to occur.

There was, however, a wide extension of the cadres of the organization,
and it was being spread by men some of whom--like Professor
MacNeill--dissented from Redmond's attitude of quiescence, while some
were general opponents of the whole constitutional policy. They covered
the country with committees, recruited, it is true, from all sections of
Nationalist Ireland. But it was inevitable that the element who