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CHAPTER 3

Leading the Parnellites: The Split and Electoral Politics

With a general election pending in 1892, Gill made attempts to mediate a truce between the Parnellites and the moderate section of the anti-Parnellites, but to no avail. The election in July gave Redmond’s followers nine seats to the anti-Parnellites’ 72, on a vote of 70,000 to 280,000.

FROM T.P. GILL MP

11 January 1892:

I sent you on Friday night a rough suggestion for a basis of peace … I have written to Dillon, but I see [he] is laid up with influenza. I hope that you will not make it impossible for you and him to have … a chat with each other alone, and within these few days which offer, for various reasons, a favourable opportunity …

Dillon’s last speech seemed to hold out an olive branch … I am aware there are people in both camps who will fight tooth and nail against peace – with these Dillon and you will have to reckon…1

FROM T.P. GILL MP

12 January 1892:

… You say this is not practical politics? It would soon become so if you and Dillon got in motion towards each other … I feel certain that Dillon is disposed for peace – his interests and inclinations seem to him to point that way …

It is in your power to shift the onus of wantonly carrying on the strife on to the factionaries of the majority where, as I believe, it mainly lies.

As to the one great objection – how to enter into association with certain men whose horrible hounding down of Parnell is one of the most humiliating episodes in Irish history – there is no practical difficulty: I have in mind a truce rather than peace, an armed truce if you like – until Home Rule is obtained ...2

***

By 1894, following the defeat of the second Home Rule Bill, the discord within the anti-Parnellite section of the Party (termed ‘the Seceders’ by the Parnellites, who called themselves the ‘Independent Party’) had become acute. Gladstone retired from politics on 4 March. The new Liberal prime minister, Lord Rosebery, appeared to suggest that further Home Rule initiatives would be shelved indefinitely. Redmond took the lead in condemning this departure from Gladstonian principles. Healy also attacked Rosebery, while Dillon defended him. The conflict between Dillonite and Healyite factions had already extended to a struggle for mastery of the board of the Freeman’s Journal, the anti-Parnellite newspaper. This came to a head when, on 29 March, Healy was voted off the board. The Party schism was now effectively a three-way split.

MEMORANDUM IN REDMOND’S HAND, 9 APRIL 1894, OF MEETING WITH HENRY LABOUCHERE, MP NORTHAMPTON (LIBERAL)

House of Commons, 9 April 1894:

Labouchere today came to see me here and said he had been asked by certain parties to speak to me in confidence. He had been asked to find out if I would consent to re-enter the Party of the Seceders on condition

(1) that I should be the head of the Party

(2) that I should have one half of the Committee of the Party filled up by my friends.

He sd. he could give no names – but that ‘Tim’ was beaten and he and his friends wd. prefer to see me head of the Party rather than Dillon.

I said the whole thing was impossible. JER.3

***

The issue of clerical intervention in politics became acute after the 1892 general election, when narrow victories for anti-Parnellites in North and South Meath were ruled invalid on the grounds that the local Catholic bishop and his priests had openly engaged in ‘spiritual intimidation’ of Parnellites by preaching that Parnellism was sinful. Redmond’s meeting with Archbishop Walsh took place against this background and with another general election likely soon. Individual priests continued to correspond covertly with Redmond. A by-election in East Wicklow was precipitated in April 1895 by the resignation of the sitting anti-Parnellite MP, John Sweetman, who stood again as a Parnellite, to be narrowly defeated. In the general election of July, the seat was won by the Parnellite William Corbet.

FROM FR. WALTER P. SINNOTT

Tomacork, Carnew, Co. Wicklow, 4 February 1894:

I enclose a cheque – £10 – for the Indep. Home Rule Fund. As I have no desire to get into trouble … then destroy this at once and do not make the least mention of it to any one. Cash the cheque yourself – let no one see it. When publishing put it simply in this way ‘A Wicklow Priest £10’. Nothing more.4

MEMORANDUM OF MEETING WITH DR. WILLIAM WALSH, ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN

24 February 1895:

Met Archbishop Walsh at lunch at the Mansion House. After lunch had long talk on situation. The Lord Mayor was present. Dr. W. admitted that from our point of view we could not be expected to go back into the Party of the Seceders, but thought something might be done to smooth matters & create better feeling. He made two suggestions:

1. That he should make public declaration that the issue between the two parties was a purely political one & not a moral or religious one. He sd. this was his view ever since Parnell’s death. He disapproved of priests saying at last election that it was a religious question & severely censured 2 priests in his own diocese who did so. He had issued a circular to his priests forbidding them to speak on politics in the churches … He did not attempt to defend the policy of the Seceders, but sd. he supported them in principle because they were the majority.5

FROM FR. JOHN O’MULLOY, DD, PP

Aughrim, Co. Wicklow, 9 April 1895:

You ought to come at once to East Wicklow and speak at three meetings … The place ought to be placarded with a quotation from the letter of His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin … If Sweetman is elected by a great majority, the effect would be immense.6

FROM DENIS TREACY

Manchester, 26 April 1895:

I beg to congratulate you on your manly fight in East Wicklow [by-election occasioned by Sweetman’s resignation] although beaten not disgraced. I enclose you a letter I received from my father who is a voter in Arklow so that you may see the sort of men you had to deal with in that town … I am ashamed of it, as I firmly believe it was there where O’Kelly won. No matter better luck next time.7

[ENCLOSED: MICHAEL TREACY TO DENIS TREACY]

Arklow, 26 April 1895 [all misspellings as in original]:

… this is a busey day with all the voters putting in Sweetman to misrepersent them in parlimint. But I say the man that gowes and gives his vote against his Bishop and priests is doing wrong. Remember when sickness and death comes how fond you or me will be to see our own good priest that we voted against in our Healthy days and at that last moment how sorry we will be for gowen against our priest our Bishop and Priests ought to no right from wrong in them matters and we should be advised by them …

TO ARCHBISHOP WILLIAM WALSH

8 July 1895:

… with reference to the coming election for East Wicklow. Mr. [William] Corbet has announced his candidature and knowing your view that the only issue before the country is a purely political one I venture to ask you to permit such of your priests as may desire to do so, to support Mr. Corbet on the platform ...8

FROM ARCHBISHOP WILLIAM WALSH

Maynooth, 12 July 1895:

… I regret I cannot do what you ask … I cannot see how any priest can support the candidature of anyone at your side in the present unhappy division without compromising himself to some extent, in view of the deplorable line in journalism taken by the newspapers under the control of yourself and a number of your colleagues. No priest identified in any degree with the views advocated by those papers could be considered worthy of a place in the Sacred Ministry …9

TO ARCHBISHOP WILLIAM WALSH

14 July 1895:

… I regret very much the decision you have arrived at… I trust you will forgive me if I respectfully protest against Your Grace’s statement that ‘No priest identified in any degree with the views advocated by those papers… could be considered worthy of a place in the Sacred Ministry.’ … For my part I entirely disclaim the advocacy of any ‘views’ which would be unworthy of the support of the clergy of my church …10

FROM MICHAEL O’KANE

Derry City, 13 July 1895:

… with the sound of the Orange drum in our ears and all the intolerance which it represents, many of your followers, of whom I am one, think it better to support the Whig [i.e. anti-Parnellite candidate E.F.V. Knox] … Mr. Knox … told me he thought the assistance which he received from the Parnellites in Derry should be acknowledged and reciprocated in Stephen’s Green and South Dublin … we have now an opportunity of capturing the seat from the Unionists and you know what that means to a Derry Catholic ...11

Knox won the seat over the Unionist candidate by 39 votes.

FROM ANGUS MAGUIRE

Grosvenor St., London, 27 July 1895:

Many thanks for your note. I am extremely sorry to have been the means of costing you a seat [in Clare West]. I fear the people were more alienated against me than you thought and so fell an easier prey to the priests … I doubt if more help at the last moment would have done much good ... Thank you very much for your kindness to me …12

FROM FR. MICHAEL C. HAYDEN CC

The Manse, Wexford, 2 January 1896:

I am sorry that I cannot be with you [at the forthcoming Parnellite Convention at Enniscorthy] first, because I take no public part in politics, and second, because I think a priest cannot possibly identify himself with your party so long as Dr. Kenny and (occasionally) the Independent say such bitter things of the Bishops and Priests of Ireland. It appears to me that these attacks are only injuring the cause you have at heart … I have watched, with increasing pride, your public career from your magnificent maiden effort in the House of Commons down to your noble peroration at Fermoy …13

***

The 1895 general election returned the Tories to power. The Parnellites advanced slightly, from 9 to 11 seats. In December, a boundary dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana caused a crisis in US–British relations, with the Monroe Doctrine being invoked. A short-lived war fever followed. Redmond took the opportunity to amend the tone adopted in his February 1895 speech at the Cambridge Union when he had called separation from England ‘undesirable and impossible’.

REPLY TO JOE PULITZER, THE WORLD, NEW YORK

24 December 1895:

You ask for an expression of opinion on the war crisis from me as a representative of British thought. In this, as in all other matters, I can speak only as a representative of Irish opinion. If war results from the reassertion of the Monroe Doctrine Irish national sentiment will be solid on the side of America. With Home Rule rejected Ireland can have no feeling of friendliness towards Great Britain.14

FROM ANGUS MAGUIRE

Grosvenor St., London, 27 December 1895:

I read your telegram to the New York World with great surprise and regret … [Firstly] I believe the natural, almost the inevitable, future of Ireland is to remain a member of the British Empire and that this future offers her a greater prospect of greatness and prosperity than an independence which, even if it were possible, could only mean weakness and isolation … I consider your statement very damaging to our Home Rule policy …15

TO ANGUS MAGUIRE

1 January 1896:

… I exceedingly regret that you so strongly disapprove of my telegram to New York. It was unfortunate that I had not an opportunity of consulting you before sending it as I am most anxious not to take up any position which has not the support of all our Party …

I think you rather misinterpreted the meaning of my cable. It was not a declaration in favour of separation which I agree with you in regarding as impossible under existing circumstances ...16

***

The Parnellites’ failure to advance significantly in the 1895 election drove Redmond into new and varied political paths. One was co-operation with unionists in the Recess Committee, set up to suggest initiatives to meet the Tories’ professed desire to enact Irish administrative reforms. By the later 1890s, his political programme was a curious amalgam of conciliation, aimed at all unionists prepared to work for the good of Ireland, and militant rhetoric owing much to John O’Leary’s (quietist) brand of Fenianism, the whole seasoned with a soupçon of anti-clericalism.

As MP for Waterford City, Redmond was an active lobbyist for infrastructural projects in the city.

FROM M.G.D. GOFF

Waterford, 28 February 1896:

Allow me to congratulate you on your very successful introduction of the Waterford Infirmary Bill, and to thank you most sincerely for all the trouble you have taken in the matter …

[It] will be of incalculable benefit to the citizens of Waterford so long as Waterford exists, and the fact of the success of the Bill being mainly due to your able and eloquent advocacy will be remembered ...17

FROM E.R. LLOYD KANE [SON OF LATE REV. DR. R.R. KANE, GRAND MASTER OF ORANGE LODGES IN IRELAND]

28 January 1899:

I wish to convey my thanks for your manly and straightforward letter [of condolence]. My father always had a warm spot in his heart for his Roman Catholic fellow countrymen.18

***

In November 1896, Redmond made his fourth visit to the US, where he lectured on his fifteen years in the British Parliament and on non-political topics. At his last venue, in New York on 2 February 1897, he addressed a massive amnesty meeting at which he met the Clan-na-Gael (American branch of the IRB) leader John Devoy. Mediated by the Fenian F.J. Allan, manager of the Irish Independent Company, relations between Redmond and Devoy remained relatively warm until the former turned his attention to moves for the reunification of the Party.

FROM F.J. ALLAN

Dublin, undated [February 1897]:

I am suffering from a bad throat tonight and am afraid to venture down to Kingsbridge but I am sure I need hardly say that I join very warmly in the welcome home to you.

I had a letter from John Devoy on Saturday in which he says that the New York [Amnesty] meeting was one of the grandest he has ever seen – having regard to its representative character as well as to its size. It is almost a pity that you could not have spent more time there for these great meetings must do much good.19

FROM F.J. ALLAN

2 March 1897:

I had a quiet talk with John O’Leary and some other members of the ’98 provisional committee last evening, and it was decided that for the present it would be more judicious to stick to the original arrangement of not inviting any members of Parliament to join the committee …

We have nearly a 3/4ths majority of the provisional committee now and so long as the other side don’t suspect us, we can get the control of the executive, but if after refusing several of their members we elected you, they would probably go back to their original claim of an executive composed of half anti-Parnellites and half Parnellites, which would spoil us …20

F.J. ALLAN TO JOHN DEVOY, NEW YORK

29 December 1897:

As Mr. John Redmond [MP] is leaving for New York in the morning, I think it only right to let you know for the information of our friends that the articles in the Irish Republic about the lecture on ’98 which Redmond delivered in Dublin are disgraceful lies. There was not a single word in Redmond’s whole lecture that could offend the most extreme man …21

***

ENDING THE SPLIT

Although unity moves initiated by the Parnellite T.C. Harrington MP in 1897 were not at first well received by his colleagues, the centenary commemorations of the 1798 insurrection increased public pressure for an end to the Split and for Party reconciliation. Redmond was impelled in the same direction by his own lack of electoral progress and the general stagnation of the Home Rule cause.

TO T.C. HARRINGTON, MP DUBLIN HARBOUR

7 Belvidere Place, 26 April 1897:

We are all (Clancy, Kenny, Carew, Pat O’Brien et al.) very unhappy at the turn things have taken and at the apparent estrangement which has arisen between us. We are all anxious to have a chat with you … I have to go to London tomorrow night about the pigbuyers’ business – can we meet anywhere tomorrow?22

FROM JOHN DILLON, MP MAYO EAST

2 North Gt. George’s St., Dublin, 3 February 1898:

Enclosed is a copy of a series of resolutions passed by the Irish Parliamentary Party on the 18th January last. You will see that by one of the resolutions I am requested to communicate with you with a view to concerted action in Parliament on all or any of the matters dealt with in the resolutions.

I trust that it may be found possible for all the Nationalist members to act in concert on such questions as

(1) the distress in the West of Ireland

(2) the Local Government Bill

(3) the Catholic University question

(4) Amnesty

(5) the position of the Evicted Tenants

(6) the Land question.

And that on the questions of

(1) Overtaxation

(2) The arrears due to Ireland in respect of the [subvention?] to the British agricultural interest, it may be found possible to arrange for a plan of action which will command the support of some of the Unionist members for Ireland …23

TO JOHN DILLON MP

7 Belvidere Place, Dublin, 4 February 1898:

I have received your letter of 3rd inst. As you are aware I have always been in favour of united action in the House of Commons on any questions upon which they [sic] may be in substantial agreement. I have therefore no hesitation in saying I will be glad to confer as to the questions mentioned by you. I will be in the House of Commons early in the forenoon of Tuesday.24

FROM T.C. HARRINGTON MP

Rutland Square, Dublin, 5 April 1899:

As Chairman of the Conference of Irish Nationalist Members of Parliament held in the Oak Room of the Mansion House yesterday it becomes my duty to forward you a copy of the resolutions adopted there as constituting a basis for re-union among all sections of the Irish Nationalist representation …25

T.M. HEALY, MP LOUTH NORTH, TO MORETON FREWEN

10 May 1899:

I recognize the importance of the suggestion R. makes, and although I have to write hurriedly, I should see no difficulty in accepting a settlement on G. Duffy’s lines … Most of my friends would prefer Redmond to Dillon but the priests would not easily reconcile themselves, if he were selected by the tribunal suggested. For myself however I never thought his anti-clericalism more than skin-deep and possibly if the arbitrators resolved the question in that way there would be such general satisfaction at any kind of solution, that after a single session of united and cheerful co-ordination, even the strongest anti-Parnellite would become reconciled … no one would envy whoever is selected for the task of trying to restore the shattered ranks and prestige of the Party.26

TO JOHN DILLON MP & T.M. HEALY MP

24 July 1899:

Gentlemen … I shd. be glad to know if you wd. be willing to get your Whips to convene a meeting of your Party for the purpose of appointing a small number of representative men to confer with a few of my friends to discuss the basis on wh. a reunion cd. be brought about …27

FROM T.M. HEALY MP

House of Commons, 24 July 1899:

I am this evening in receipt of your letter and hasten to reply to it, as the first communication of the kind received by me since the Split, from any member of your Party ...

Your wish for a Conference ‘to discuss the basis on which a reunion could be brought about’ has a practical ring about it and gives evidence of a spirit which I trust may be the means of putting an end to discord …28

FROM JOHN DILLON MP

26 July 1899:

… I beg to say that I am not at the head of any Party or section, and cannot speak or act for anyone else … While I have been ready at any time for some years past, to confer with you or any other Nationalist member… I could do so now only in the capacity of an individual … In my judgment, the people of Ireland[,] disgusted with the failure of previous attempts … have … taken into their own hands the task of reconstituting a united Irish Party …29

FROM T.M. HEALY MP

House of Commons, 4 August 1899:

… In the opinion of several colleagues here, the question of Reunion raised in your letter to Mr. John Dillon and myself deserves to be further pursued… should not be lightly treated or grudgingly received …

Your appreciation of the importance of a reconcentration of Ireland’s Parliamentary strength, and its bearing on the questions which still remain to be dealt with by the present Parliament, will doubtless serve to justify this communication.30

JOHN DILLON MP TO MICHAEL DAVITT, MP MAYO SOUTH

29 August 1899:

Your last letter was very interesting. I agree with you that Redmond’s continued approaches are a sign that he feels himself in a tight corner … It would be foolish not to recognise that he may be able to do a great deal of mischief by getting a fresh conference called …31

***

THE PARNELL MONUMENT

A sign of the waning of bitterness was the success of the project to raise funds for the purchase of Parnell’s former home, Avondale, for the nation, and for the erection of a Parnell monument in Dublin. The latter idea was one of the products of the 1898 commemoration year. It had to compete with a proposal for a Wolfe Tone monument advocated by physical force nationalists. The Parnell monument fund soon far exceeded that for the rival project.

TO RICHARD ‘BOSS’ CROKER, NEW YORK

3 November 1900:

I want to let the subscribers who so generously last year supported the Parnell Monument Fund know how the matter stands now. The Fund was started to honour the memory of the late Charles Stewart Parnell by purchasing the house and demesne of Avondale to be preserved as a National Memorial for all time; also to erect the Monument.

The Parnell property was put up for sale in the Land Court in Dublin the other day. It was divided into seven Lots, and according to the established practice of the Court, these Lots should be put up for sale and sold separately.

The first Lot consisted of the house and demesne of Avondale; and this was the only portion of the property with which our Committee had any concern. There never was, as you know, any intention of purchasing any other portions of the property, and no effort at all was made to raise money for that purpose.

We had hoped that Lot 1 would not have fetched more than about £3,000; there was however considerable bidding for it, and finally we were obliged to offer £4,850, increased by us afterwards to £5,000; the judge however refused at the close of the bidding to declare us the purchasers and we then ascertained that a gentleman who said he was acting as a friend of Mr. John Howard Parnell had offered a sum of £8,000 for all the Lots in bulk, and in spite of our protests, they were sold to him for £8,000.

This purchaser has since offered to transfer his purchase to Mr. John Parnell if our Committee will pay him, the purchaser, £8,000 and costs. Of course, we have no power to do anything of the kind. Our duty was to secure Avondale House and demesne alone, and to vest it in Trustees for the benefit of the Nation for all time, with the understanding that any members of the Parnell family who chose to occupy it should be at liberty to do so …

I am in hopes that the purchaser who declares that he acted in the interests of Mr. John Parnell will come to some arrangement satisfactory to the family, but if we are unable to carry out our proposal of buying the place for the Nation, we can, at least, proceed with the erection of the Parnell Monument, and we propose immediately to place a contract with the eminent Irish-American sculptor, Mr. [Augustus] St. Gaudens, who has promised us to undertake the work.32

FROM RICHARD ‘BOSS’ CROKER

New York, 21 November 1899:

I have the honour on behalf of Tammany Hall to enclose a draft for £3,000 for the purpose of clearing the entire encumbrance now resting upon the Parnell homestead, thus securing the retention of the home in the family ...33