Marshal had made him reluctant to clash with Liberal Ministers. During the CID "Invasion Inquiry" (debates of 1913–14 as to whether some British regular divisions should be retained at home to defeat a potential invasion), Seely lobbied in vain for all six divisions to be sent to France in the event of war. French became very friendly with Seely when his first wife died in childbirth in August 1913. Curragh incident With Irish Home Rule due to become law in 1914, and the Cabinet contemplating some kind of military action against the Ulster Volunteers who wanted no part of it, French and Seely summoned Paget (Commander-in-Chief, Ireland) to the War Office for talks, whilst Seely wrote to the Prime Minister (24 October 1913) about the potential use of General Macready, who had experience of peacekeeping in the South Wales coalfields in 1910, and had been consulted by Birrell (Chief Secretary for Ireland) about the use of troops in the 1912 Belfast riots. In October 1913 Seely sent him to report on the police in Belfast and Dublin. There was more discussion about the Army's stance over Home Rule outside the Army than within it. Seely spoke to the assembled Commanders-in-Chief of the Army's six Regional Commands, to remind them of their responsibility to uphold the civil power. They met at the War Office on 16 December 1913 with French and the Adjutant-General Spencer Ewart present. He assured them that the Army would not be called upon for "some outrageous action, for instance, to massacre a demonstration of Orangemen", but nonetheless officers could not "pick and choose" which lawful orders they would obey, and that any officer who attempted to resign on the issue should instead be dismissed. This did not stop tensions about the Army's role from growing. By March 1914 intelligence reported that the Ulster Volunteers, now 100,000 strong, might be about to seize the ammunition at Carrickfergus Castle, and political negotiations were deadlocked as the Ulster Protestant leader Edward Carson was demanding that Ulster have a complete, not just temporary, opt-out from Home Rule. Seely was on the five-man Cabinet Committee on Ireland (along with Crewe, Simon, Birrell and Churchill (First Lord of the Admiralty)). General Paget, who was reluctant to move in case it exacerbated the crisis, was summoned to London. On 14 March 1914 the Committee warned Paget of the perceived need to occupy the arms