headmaster of St. Enda's school, spoke in Irish. What he said may be
thus roughly rendered:

"There are as many men here as would destroy the British Empire if they
were united and did their utmost. We have no wish to destroy the
British, we only want our freedom. We differ among ourselves on small
points, but we agree that we want freedom, in some shape or other. There
are two sections of us--one that would be content to remain under the
British Government in our own land, another that never paid, and never
will pay, homage to the King of England. I am of the latter, and
everyone knows it. But I should think myself a traitor to my country if
I did not answer the summons to this gathering, for it is clear to me
that the Bill which we support to-day will be for the good of Ireland
and that we shall be stronger with it than without it. I am not
accepting the Bill in advance. We may have to refuse it. We are here
only to say that the voice of Ireland must be listened to henceforward.
Let us unite and win a good Act from the British; I think it can be
done. But if we are tricked this time, there is a party in Ireland, and
I am one of them, that will advise the Gael to have no counsel or
dealings with the Gall [the foreigner] for ever again, but to answer
them henceforward with the strong hand and the sword's edge. Let the
Gall understand that if we are cheated once more there will be red war
in Ireland."

The platform where Pearse spoke was set up within a stone's throw of the
General Post Office in which, four years later, he was to give effect to
the words he spoke then and to earn his own death in undoing the work of
Redmond's lifetime. At that moment no one heeded his utterance, nor the
speech, also in Irish, of Professor John MacNeill from another platform,
which went, as its speaker was destined to go, half the way with Pearse.