This visit took place in November 1915, and he was full of the experience when he came down to say good-bye before we went out.

Nothing in all his life had approached it in interest, he said to me.

The diary of his tour is prefixed to Mr.S.P.

Ker's book, _What the Irish Regiments Have Done_--but it conveys little, except this dominant impression: "From the Irish Commander-in-Chief himself right down through the Army one meets Irishmen wherever one goes." On that journey he got the same welcome from Ulstermen as from his own nearest countrymen in the Royal Irish Regiment.
V One thing at least Redmond gained, I think, from his visit to the front--the sense that with the British Army in the field he was in a friendly country.

He never had that sense with regard to the War Office.
Running all through this critical year 1915 is the history of one long failure--his attempt to secure the creation of a Home Defence force in Ireland.