The fact that the Attorney-General himself had been a main adviser of the Provisional Government did not make it easier to follow his advice to disarm men who professed disaffection to the existing authority.

Mr.
Birrell knew that if he took such action he could be attacked in the official Nationalist Press for having one law in Ulster and another in the South.

Further, Redmond would certainly not have disavowed, and might even have endorsed, such a line of criticism.

The reason was that Redmond, as he had never believed in the reality of the Ulster danger, so now did not believe in this one.
Later, when Mr.Birrell resigned his post after the insurrection was suppressed, Redmond chivalrously took on himself a part of the responsibility.

"I feel," he said, "that I have incurred some share of the blame which he has laid at his own door, because I entirely agreed with his view that the danger of an outbreak of the kind was not a real one, and in my conversations with him I have expressed that view, and for all I know that may have influenced him in his conduct and his management of Irish affairs." A later debate--on July 31st--showed that his strong personal feeling for Mr.Birrell had moved him rather to overstate than to belittle his advisory responsibility.