Letter from Gregory to James Craig, 14 October 1916 Letters 1916-1923 Gregory

This work was originally published by Maynooth University in Ireland in 2017. In 2026 this data, stored in a relational database was extracted and converted into this TEI/XML document.

 Austrian Centre for Digital Humanities Vienna, AT 2026

This is an open access work licensed under Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Letter from Gregory to James Craig (1871-1940). Sir James Craig threw himself into the creation and development of the 36th (Ulster) Division following the outbreak of war in 1914. However, due to illness Craig was not able to leave for the front with his division and was forced to resign his commission in April 1916. Following this he went to Westminster to fight for the acceptance of a permanent six-county exclusion during the Lloyd George diplomatic offensive of the early summer of 1916. Craig would go on to become the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.

 Public Record Office of Northern Ireland Carson Papers, D1507/A/19/14 https://letters1916.ie/item/4372 English Gregory 1916-10-14 Belvedere, Lisburn, Co. Antrim, Ireland James Craig Politics Politics World War I (1914-1918)

The data in these XML files was generated based on a data dump from the Magellan database (https://github.com/Maynooth-Center-for-Digital-Humanities/Magellan). Each database record has been converted to a JSON file (https://github.com/letters1916static/letters-data/tree/main/json). The element section of the JSON file contains the TEI-encoded contents of the letters. The TEI XML has been cleaned and made well-formed using a Python script (https://github.com/letters1916static/letters-data/tree/main/src).

 Confidential Belvedere Lisburn 14:10:16 Dear Colonel Craig as Irish matters seem likely to engage the attention of the House to a considerable extent for the next week or so, perhaps it may interest you to know a few little matters bearing on some of the subjects to be discussed. I see that the Radical press is trying to make out that the principal hindrance to getting recruits over here is the continuance of martial law and doubtless strong pressure is being brought to bear on the Govt to put an end to it. It looks as if these efforts would be successful, for we seem to have again reverted over here to the old "Birellian" system of taking the line of least resistance in dealing with Nationalists & rebels in Ireland, in spite of the fact that as recently as last Sunday morning all County Inspectors throughout Ireland were warned (officially) to take all possible precautions against an attempted rising that night or the next morning. By the same post a confidential return was called for of all rebels at present interned in England or a separate report was to be made as to each person, giving amongst other details the opinion of the police as to whether he could now be released either unconditionally or on certain conditions. Imagine the feelings of a police officer in a disturbed district getting such a document by the very same post as one warning him to be on his guard against another rising. From the nature of the return called for the County reports could not possibly reach Govt sooner than next week and yet last tuesday before any report had been written much less received by Govt, the Home Secy announced the intention of the Govt to release most of the rebels still interned. No doubt this public announcement by such a responsible Minister as the Home Secy, will greatly "assist" some police officials to form a "correct" opinion as to the desirability of releasing interned rebels belonging to their districts. As regards recruiting, I see that at last the official figures are to be given in full. Up to the present it has always been stated that they were not available etc. — Absolute bunkum ! They have been available practically since the war started. We send in every month separate returns for the Army & Navy showing the number of recruits who have joined in each county from the 16th of one month to the 15th of the next. These returns show the number of recruits belonging to (a) Ulster Volunteers, (b) National Volunteers (c) Unclassed, & also the number believed to be (a) Protestant (b) R.C. The first return was called for in december 1914 & embraced the period from the beginning of the war till then. After that it was sent in each month, & the figures could at any time have been got from the Castle in a few minutes. Possibly they are not absolutely accurate. We get the names of the recruits from the local recruiting offices, & then supply the rest of the information from our local knowledge. Making every allowance for errors etc I think they may be considered as sufficiently accurate for all practical purposes. My people in the South & West write to me of the bad example exerted by the released Sinn Feiners & of the evil influence they have on the other young men in the neighbourhood. I was very glad to hear from his wife that your brother is now out of hospital & in fairly comfortable quarters. I hope he may get exchanged to Switzerland before long. Poor Jenkins seems to have had very bad luck, as none of the many parcels of uniform etc sent out by his wife had reached him & in consequence he writes in a very despondent frame. Sincerely Yours Gregory. Gregory Letter from Gregory to James Craig, 14 October 1916 James Craig Letter from Captain Wilfrid Spender to Colonel James Craig, 4 July 1916Letter from James Craig to the Registrar, Royal College of Physicians of Ireland, 2 October 1916Letter from Gregory to James Craig, 14 October 1916Letter from Hiram Shaw Wilkinson to James Craig , 17 July 1922 Letter from James Craig to Winston Churchill, 28 June 1922Letter to James Craig, 5 March 1921Letter from Archibald R Cameron to James Craig, 23 June 1922Letter from Cecil Wilson to James Craig, 19 September 1922Letter from Henry Wilson to James Craig, 1922 Belvedere, Lisburn, Co. Antrim, Ireland Letter from Gregory to James Craig, 14 October 1916