MacNeill later served in the Irish Free State government but Hobson was confined to a civil service job in the Department of Post and Telegraphs after Independence. Although he had been one of the most active members of the IRB for years, and was instrumental in the founding of the Volunteers, Hobson took no major role in politics after the Rising, or the subsequent Irish War of Independence (although he was later an occasional adviser to Clann na Poblachta). In 1922 he was appointed Chief of the Revenue Commissioners Stamp Department, the first of the departments that the IRB had infiltrated to any depth.