Three overflow meetings were held, and four thousand men are said to have been enrolled that evening.
Yet the movement did not spread at once with rapidity.

By the end of December recruits only amounted to ten thousand.

For this two causes were answerable.

The first was the honourable refusal of the committee to allow companies to be enrolled except according to locality.

They would have no sectional companies of Sinn Fein volunteers, of United Irish League Volunteers, of Hibernian Volunteers.