It was late afternoon on a beautiful sunny day when I passed down Bold Street and noticed that all the shops in that thoroughfare were closed and that the windows of most of them were barricaded […] Soon the mounted police arrived and formed a cordon across Bold Street from the Central Station into Seel Street. A few moments later, at the top of narrow Bold Street came a large procession numbering many hundreds of people headed by a band. They were members of the many local Irish Societies organised for the occasion to give their compatriots [the Irish regiment] a warm Irish welcome.