La na mBan occurs in Ireland

A large protest by the Irish Women's Workers Union occurred this day in Dublin, Ireland.   The protest, besides the crowds associated it with it, featured a pledge, which read:

A Solemn Pledge from the Women of Ireland.

Because the enforcement of conscription on any people without their consent is tyranny, we are resolved to resist the conscription of Irishmen. We will not fill the places of men deprived of their work through refusing enforced military service. We will do all in our power to help the families of men who suffer through refusing enforced military service.

The union itself came about as labor unions in Ireland were closed to women.  Perhaps ironically the first head of the union was male.  At any rate, this protest provided another example of how things were really not going that well for the Allies at this time.  Indeed, they were close to loosing the war.

Consider, in this early June day in 1918, the Germans had launched their fourth major attack in their Spring Offensive and only the intervention of American troops had prevented the last one from succeeding.  They appeared to be capable of resuming such activity again and again.  Russia was now out of the war.  Conscription in Canada had met with such opposition that the opposition was effectively preventing it from contributing any conscripted men to the war effort at all and the same thing was occurring in Ireland.