FROM T.P. GILL
13 October 1893:
… You won’t mind me telling you how [your speeches] struck me:
(i) I approve of your making it clear that ‘Ireland stops the way’ – both as agitation in Ireland and … well-timed disturbance of the House of Commons; (ii) I approve of the nine [Parnellite MPs] devoting themselves to agitation and organisation in Ireland during the autumn session – provided they pair all right.
However … I disapprove of the offensive tone in speaking of the Liberal party and things and measures which the English democracy and working classes hold very dear … [This] can only do you harm both in England and in Ireland … you can make the effect you want without it … speaking in this way was one of the mistakes poor Parnell admitted to me and he tried and generally managed to avoid it in his later speeches …
In Ireland mark this – whatever growth of Parnellite strength has taken place during the year is largely due to the impression created of the sagacity of your actions in Parliament throughout the session; to the confidence thus inspired in your wisdom, discretion and skill – your Parnellesque qualities in short, a confidence which has been greatly heightened by the squabbling on the other side. Men who feared that in supporting Parnellism they were helping to wreck Home Rule have begun to feel that they are doing the contrary and that Parnellism is likely to furnish from its bosom a new leader to whose prudence and adroitness and courage they can trust the constitutional cause …4
FROM T.P. GILL
24 October 1893:
… you should come over and make a tour, taking the opportunity to give a word for the British working man … address a meeting in England in a strongly democratic tone … and point out to the British democracy that we have no quarrel with them, that those who have been Ireland’s oppressors have also been theirs … a series of meetings, indeed, addressed in that vein, with variations, would do a lot of good both to you and to the cause at large …5
***
One of the concessions salvaged by Redmond from the wreck of the Home Rule Bill was a Liberal commitment to set up a Royal Commission to inquire into the whole topic of British–Irish financial relations since the Act of Union. The Commission’s 1896 report, which confirmed the over-taxation of Ireland, would be a landmark event that ignited an island-wide agitation for redress that drew support from nationalist and unionist opinion alike.
FROM JOHN MORLEY MP
5 December 1893:
I was very pleased to get your kind note last night. You and I shall yet have some business to do together in this world, and I believe neither of us will do anything in the meantime to make that business more difficult … I shall continue to be at one end of a wire, and Ireland at the other.6
MEMORANDUM IN REDMOND’S HAND: ‘INTERVIEW WITH JOHN MORLEY ABOUT NAMES FOR FINANCIAL COMMISSION’
19 February 1894:
Incidentally he sd. he was going to appoint a batch of R.M.s and sd. he wd. appoint one Parnellite barrister if I would name one. I sd. I cd. not do so. Asked me if I knew Miles and Dan Kehoe and were they Parnellites. I said yes.7
FROM JOHN MORLEY MP
24 February 1894:
I hope you will allow me to propose your name as a member of the Commission on the References enclosed. It is, as you know, a Royal Commission, and Mr. Childers will be in the chair … Let me have a reply as soon as you conveniently can.8
FROM THE SECRETARIES OF WELSH PARLIAMENTARY PARTY
25 February 1895:
The opponents of Welsh Disestablishment will divide against the introduction of the Welsh Bill on Thursday next. On behalf of the Welsh Parliamentary Party we venture to appeal to you and your followers to support us in this matter as you have done on former occasions ... It is needless to point out how staunch Wales has stood to the National cause of Ireland.
P.S. Please bear in mind that I travelled 1300 miles to vote for Second Reading of Home Rule Bill in 1893 – G.O. Morgan.9
***
THE AMNESTY CAMPAIGN
Constitutional nationalists, including Redmond’s father, had engaged in amnesty campaigns for imprisoned revolutionaries since the 1860s. Redmond’s efforts on behalf of members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) in British jails played an important role in the maintenance of the credibility of his faction, and of constitutional political action in general, in the eyes of the ‘advanced’ nationalists who had flocked to Parnell’s side in his final days. The letter here from John O’Leary, a founding member of the IRB though opposed to terrorist methods, criticises the tendency of amnesty rhetoric to merge into approval of violence. The two most notable convicts aided by Redmond were John Daly and Henry Wilson (the alias of Thomas Clarke), both IRB men imprisoned since 1883 on charges of plotting to bomb London. Clarke was to be the principal long-term planner of the Easter rebellion of 1916, which did much to destroy the Home Rule project and Redmond’s career.
FROM E. LEIGH PEMBERTON, HOME OFFICE
Whitehall, 16 February 1892:
I am directed by Mr. Secretary Matthews [Secretary to Home Secretary Sir Matthew Ridley] to say, in reply to your letter of the 15th instant asking for permission to visit John Daly on Thursday next and to see James Egan on the same day, that instructions will be sent to allow you as the legal adviser of Daly to have an interview with Daly on Thursday at Portland … on the express condition that the interview is strictly confined to the legal business of Daly, and not made use of for discussing prison treatment or prison discipline. Similar … with regard to Egan on this occasion ...10
FROM HENRY MORONEY
St. Ignatius Rd., Dublin, 22 November 1892:
[I write] to you on behalf of the ‘Dublin Invincibles’ who are at present confined in Maryboro’ Prison. What I want to know… is why these men are excluded from the Amnesty question or why is it that our representatives in Parliament do not think of paying them a visit … I admit it was a terrible conspiracy, but after all what was it compared to the treachery England used against us? ... They are ‘Political Prisoners’ … they must be released …
I wrote to Mr. Harrington and you Mr. Redmond on one former occasion and I am surprised that my letter was not even acknowledged.11
FROM HORACE WEST (SECRETARY TO H.H. ASQUITH, HOME SECRETARY)
Whitehall, 25 February 1893:
I am desired by Mr. Asquith to acknowledge your letter of yesterday’s date, informing him of your desire to visit the prisoners Daly and Wilson at Portland, some time next week, and to say that instructions will be given to the Governor of the Prison to afford you the usual facilities.12
FROM H.H. ASQUITH, HOME SECRETARY
Whitehall, 20 June 1893:
I am informed by the prison authorities that in the course of your recent visit to Daly you gave him pen and paper, that he wrote for some time, and that you took the document away with you.
Probably you were not aware that such a proceeding is entirely contrary to prison rules, but it is obvious that a prisoner cannot be allowed to take advantage of the privilege of seeing a legal adviser to make any written communication which may be used outside, and which has not passed under the eyes of the Governor.13
FROM JOHN O’LEARY
‘Lonsdale’, St. Laurence Rd., Clontarf, Dublin, 25 October 1893:
… [Regarding the content of your speech] and what you were reported to have said … about the Clerkenwell explosions which was undoubtedly a Fenian act, if scarcely (though not of