161 * Dr Jeff Kildea, Adjunct Professor in Irish Studies at University of New South Wales, a paper given to the Australian Catholic Historical Society, Sydney, on 16 October 2016. Journal of the Australian Catholic Historical Society 37-2 2016, 161-180 Killing Conscription: the Easter Rising and Irish Catholic attitudes to the conscription debates in Australia, 1916-1917 Jeff Kildea* Introduction During the First World War the Australian government twice asked the Australian people by plebiscite to approve the introduction of military conscription for overseas service. On each occasion, in October 1916 and December 1917, the Australian people by a narrow margin said no. 1 After the defeat of the first referendum supporters of conscription casting around for a scapegoat to blame for their loss found one in the Irish Catholic community, which at the time made up about 22 per cent of Australian voters. Even the prime minister, William Morris Hughes, agreed, claiming that ‘the selfish vote, and shirker vote and the Irish vote were too much for us’. 2 In August 1917 Hughes told his British counterpart David Lloyd George, ‘The [Catholic] Church is secretly against recruiting. Its influence killed conscription’ 3 But it was not only supporters of conscription who believed that it was Irish Catholics embittered by Britain’s treatment of Ireland in the wake of the Easter rising who swung the vote. The Catholic Press, which had opposed conscription, declared soon after the vote, ‘And when the referendum campaign was swinging the electors, now “Yes”, now “No”, one heard with insistent frequency the question, “How can I vote ‘Yes’ while Ireland is under martial law?”’. 4 Labor’s Frank Anstey wrote, ‘[I]f there had been no Easter Week in Ireland … there would have been no hope of defeating conscription in Australia’. 5 As we prepare to mark the centenary of the first conscription referendum next Friday week it is a good time for us as members of the Australian Catholic Historical Society to reflect on Catholic attitudes to conscription and to examine whether it was the Catholic Church, as Hughes claimed, which killed conscription and whether the Easter Rising had influenced the result. Conscription referendum 1916 When in August 1916 Prime Minister Hughes returned from a visit to London, having been persuaded by the Army Council of the necessity