After the Rising in 1916, Gallagher contacted O'Brien in London to discuss the attitude of the "Cork Free Press" to it. He found that O'Brien attributed it to Larkinites. Gallagher said the staff would walk out unless the paper took a more favourable attitude. O'Brien capitulated and soon developed an admiration for the insurgents' idealism and their desperation at possible consequences. O'Brien's "Cork Free Press" soon began to present an altogether favourable attitude towards Sinn Féin, practically becoming a Sinn Féin organ. Though the paper continued to point out the lesson that physical force had been proved useless and that what was needed was a united constitutionalism. The editorials took on a distinctly heroic view of the rebels and damned Redmond and the Irish MPs for their anti- Sinn Féin utterances.