The Third Home Rule Bill had been proposed in 1912 (and was subsequently passed in 1914) under the British Liberal government, after a campaign by John Redmond and the Irish Parliamentary Party.
[1] In response, Nationalists formed their own paramilitary group, the Irish Volunteers, at a meeting held in Dublin on 25 November 1913; the purpose of this new organisation was to safeguard the granting and implementation of Home Rule.
Eoin MacNeill, along with Sir Roger Casement and other leaders of the Irish Volunteers, had indeed sought Redmond's approval of and input in the organisation, but did not want to hand control over to him.
This war is undertaken in the defence of the highest principles of religion and morality and right, and it would be a disgrace for ever to our country and a reproach to her manhood and a denial of the lessons of her history if young Ireland confined their efforts to remaining at home to defend the shores of Ireland from an unlikely invasion, and to shrinking from the duty of proving on the field of battle that gallantry and courage which has distinguished our race all through its history.
I am glad to see such magnificent material for soldiers around me, and I say to you: "Go on drilling and make yourself efficient for the Work, and then account yourselves as men, not only for Ireland itself, but wherever the fighting line extends, in defence of right, of freedom, and religion in this war".
[5] He reminded the Irish Volunteers that when they returned after an expected short war at the end of 1915, they would be an army capable of confronting any attempt to exclude Ulster from the operation of the Government of Ireland Act.
The Division was largely officered by Englishmen (an exception was William Hickie, an Irish born general), which was not a popular decision in nationalist Ireland.
In addition, Redmond's earlier statement, that the Irish New Army units would return armed and capable of enforcing Home Rule, aroused War Office suspicions.
Kitchener was certainly not inclined to, as he saw it, waste valuable officers and equipment on a force which, at best, would relieve Territorial units from garrison duties and, at worst, would provide Irish Nationalists with the ability to enforce Home Rule on their own terms.
[14] They staged a very large rally, of over 20,000 men, on Easter Sunday 1915 in Dublin's Phoenix Park, but their Inspector General, Maurice Moore, saw no military future for the organisation: "They cannot be trained, disciplined or armed, moreover, the enthusiasm has gone and they cannot be kept going... it will be of no practical use against any army, Orange or German.
[8] By March 1916, the RIC was reporting that the Irish Volunteers, "are foremost among [nationalist] political societies, not by reason of their numerical strength but on account of their greater activity".
[8] In April 1916, a faction within the Irish Volunteers launched the Easter Rising, an armed insurrection centred in Dublin aimed at the ending of British rule in Ireland.
During the Rising, one unit of the National Volunteers (in Craughwell, County Galway), offered its services to the local RIC to help suppress the rebellion in that area.