the implementation of its dual policy of Home Rule and conscription for All-Ireland. Transformed realities Nation divided The war, its duration, the suspension of the Home Rule Act, particularly the conscription crisis drastically increased support for Sinn Féin, the numbers of people joining its branches rising immeasurably. For Unionists the war confirmed all their pre-war suspicions that Irish Nationalists could no longer be trusted, contrasting the Easter Rising with their blood sacrifice during the Battle of the Somme, the conscription crisis providing a watershed for Ulster Unionists to withdraw securely into their northern citadel. With the end of the war and the German Armistice on 11 November 1918, and with Sinn Féin winning a majority of seats in the December election, the government faced its obligation under the Home Rule suspensory measure of 1914, to return to the Irish question. It became apparent that to adopt the recommendations of the Convention Report a fourth Home Rule Act was required. Delay in Government action resulted from the primary need to be first engaged with the Versailles Peace Conference which needed to be concluded and signed in July 1919. The parliamentary summer recess followed, so that when the Cabinet's designated "Long Committee for Ireland" began its work in September 1919, it was nearly a year behind recent political events in Ireland. In the meantime, the Dublin Castle administration was confronted from 21 January 1919 with the separatist Dáil Parliament of the Irish Republic in Dublin. In addition hierto with militant Republican volunteers acting independently of the Dáil, beginning with the Soloheadbeg Ambush on the day the First Dáil convened. It heralded in the beginning of the Irish War of Independence with systematic attacks on British government forces across Ireland, the members of the Royal Irish Constabulary bearing the brunt of the attacks. The Long Committee decided by October 1919, that two Irish parliaments should be established, including a Council of Ireland, a mechanism for the "encouragement of Irish unity", optionally in a Federation or as a Dominion, beginning with the partition of the entire nine Ulster counties. The committee thereby adopting much of the recommendation contained in the March 1918 Irish Convention Report. Home Rule after-life By February 1920 Ulster unionist politicians stated again that they would only claim six counties, whereby Long offered the Ulstermen a deal (in return for their votes) 'that the Six Counties ... should be theirs for