Here, in Cork district, you have in combination all the dangers which war can inflict.

Here, in Cork district, you have in combination all the dangers which war can inflict.

The economic and social problems would tend to become, like the military situation, more and more difficult as time went on and we became more and more isolated.

An independent Ireland would see its own independence in jeopardy the moment it saw the independence of Britain seriously threatened. Mutual self-interest would make the peoples of these two islands, if both independent, the closest possible allies in a moment of real national danger to either.

By keeping the annuities, we could build up a national industry every years as big as the Shannon Scheme.

It is the duty of our men to enroll themselves in the national services. We need all our manpower for defence. For the military and... we need a quarter of a million men.

Could he not find in his heart the generosity to acknowledge that there is a small nation that stood alone not for one year or two, but for several hundred years against aggression; that endured spoliations, famines, massacres in endless succession; that was clubbed many times into insensibility, but that each time on returning [to] consciousness took up the fight anew; a small nation that could never be got to accept defeat and has never surrendered her soul?