recorded details of the landing in her diary for the dates 24–25 April: The Belfast Evening Telegraph reported on the events on 25 April: For the Unionist leaders, the Larne gun-running was even more of a political coup than a military feat. The Ulster Volunteers remained inadequately armed, as the weapons shipment contained three types of weapon and insufficient proper ammunition for them. The Larne delivery markedly increased the amount of arms for the UVF. Many much smaller weapons purchases had resulted in the UVF as having just over 37,000 rifles by June 1914. The Larne gun-running put the gun back into Irish politics. The Irish Volunteers had been working on their own plan to acquire weapons, and the success at Larne heightened nationalist suspicions that the authorities were acquiescent towards unionist militants in Ulster. After the events in Larne, the nationalist Irish Volunteers, formed in late 1913, attracted many new members. At the outbreak of the First World War, the government requested all arms and ammunition of the UVF for the war effort. By 1916 the ammunition had largely been transferred, but none of the rifles. In 1920 after the outbreak of the Irish war of Independence, the rifles were used to arm the new Ulster Special Constabulary that was formed (by the same Wilfrid Spender). The USC was largely recruited from former Ulster Volunteers. In 1940 the rifles were released to arm the British Home Guard after the Battle of France. They were first fired in action during the East African Campaign of 1940-41, arming the militias of Haile Selassie I. The Irish Volunteers arranged their own gun-running operation in July 1914, transporting the guns on a private yacht and unloading in daylight at the harbour, in front of a crowd. The Dublin Metropolitan Police (DMP), aided by troops of the 2nd King's Own Scottish Borderers, tried unsuccessfully to confiscate the weapons. On their return to their barracks in Dublin, some troops, baited by a hostile crowd, killed three people and wounded 38. A fourth man died later. Some nationalists interpreted the contrast between the inactivity of the police and military in Larne (which operation took place in the middle of the night) and the heavy-handed response in the middle of the day in Dublin that authorities were biased in favour of the UVF. The whole episode heightened tensions in Ireland, pulling it closer to the brink of