***
By August 1881, the Land Act had passed all stages and awaited the Royal Assent. However, clashes between the Irish Party and the Liberal Government over the operation of the Coercion Acts led to increased pressure within the Party and from Irish Americans to reject the Land Act. The Party agreed to adopt a compromise scheme of ‘testing the Act’, i.e. submitting only selected cases to the new land courts. Increasingly militant rhetoric from Parnell, with support from Redmond among other MPs, reflected the quasi-revolutionary atmosphere in Ireland. In October Parnell and his chief ‘lieutenants’ John Dillon and William O’Brien were arrested and lodged in Kilmainham Jail. In response, they published the No Rent Manifesto, aimed at securing the withdrawal of coercion. The Manifesto was condemned by respectable society and failed to win mass support among tenant farmers, who were eager to avail of the Act.
TO FR. PATRICK FURLONG, PP NEW ROSS
Union Club, Wexford,
5 November 1881:
I am sorry to learn from your letter that you don’t approve of the No Rent Manifesto. I feel quite convinced that, if supported, it would be the proper way and indeed the only possible way of hitting our enemies.
The fact, which I am beginning to realize, that it will not be supported generally, makes me feel very despondent. I fear the people are not equal to the sacrifice demanded from them. They are doubtful, they fear the risk, they see the Land Act working favourably and they take grave note of the words of Dr. Croke [Archbishop of Cashel] and of the silence of men like Fr. Tom, yourself and others. The result is they are divided. I think just for the present a large number will refuse rent, but in the end they will be made pay, and the ‘strike’ will I fear be a failure. What then? I confess I feel greatly disheartened …10
***
The ‘Phoenix Park murders’ – the stabbing to death outside the Viceregal Lodge of the incoming Chief Secretary Lord Frederick Cavendish and Under Secretary T.H. Burke by the ‘Invincibles’, a breakaway Fenian group – aroused revulsion throughout Britain and Ireland.
TO THE EDITOR, THE TIMES
9 May 1882:
Sir – Some attention has been called to the fact that in my speech on Sunday at Manchester I made no allusion to the deplorable murder of Mr. Burke and confined myself entirely to denouncing the assassination of Lord Frederick Cavendish.
Will you allow me to say that the simple reason for that omission is to be found in the fact that I was not aware that Mr. Burke had shared the sad fate of his chief until some hours after the meeting when I received a telegram from Dublin giving me details of the outrage.
***
In 1882 the Land League was replaced by the National League. In 1883 Redmond, accompanied by his brother Willie, spent ten months in Australia and New Zealand on a speaking and fundraising mission for the new League. In Sydney, he met and married Johanna Dalton, of an Irish family; Willie also met his future wife Eleanor. The mission raised £15,000 for the League. The brothers and Johanna travelled home via the US, where they addressed meetings across the continent.
FROM CHARLES STEWART PARNELL, MP CORK CITY
1 December 1882:
On behalf of the Irish National League we request you to proceed to Australia and New Zealand for the purpose of placing – in conjunction with Mr. John W. Walshe – before our friends the present deplorable state of things in Ireland and soliciting their sympathy and support in the great struggle which our people are making for the attainment of their national rights.
Signed –
C.S. Parnell, chairman Organising Committee, I.N.L.,
T.M. Healy and T. Harrington, Hon. Secs., I.N.L.,
Patrick Egan, Ex-Treasurer, Land League. 11
***
After his return from Australia in early 1884, Redmond took a less prominent role in political affairs while studying for the English Bar. In June Johanna gave birth to their first child, Esther. In 1885, he began to prepare for the coming general election; the borough constituencies of Wexford and New Ross were to be abolished and Wexford county to be divided into North and South. In the general election of December 1885, Redmond was elected as MP for Wexford North.
TO FR. PATRICK FURLONG, PP NEW ROSS
7 June 1884:
On yesterday my wife presented me with a little daughter. This must be my excuse for the delay in answering your letter and in fixing a day for Ross …
Both my wife and the little one are doing well.12
TO FR. PATRICK FURLONG, PP NEW ROSS
House of Commons,
5 May 1885:
… Of course my highest delight would be, to be one of the Members for the County [Wexford], but I will hold myself unreservedly at the disposal of Parnell and go wherever I am sent.
If however [John F.] Small [MP for Wexford county since 1883] goes North I hope I will be allowed to remain in Wexford if the Club are satisfied with such an arrangement. With best regards and hoping to meet you at Westminster.13
FROM T.M. HEALY, MP LONGFORD NORTH
50 Great Charles St., Dublin,
1 October 1885:
… I saw Small who complained that we had made the arrangement behind his back without giving him notice, but said he was agreeable to do whatever the Party decided so long as it was arranged that it did not appear he was being ejected from the County …
Personally I am in a fix between you both, considering how you retired for me in ’80 …
On the other hand I heard from another source that most of the priests were in your favour, but it would be deplorable if such a matter were to be made an issue in the County and I feel sure all will be arranged satisfactorily …14
TO FR. PATRICK FURLONG, PP NEW ROSS
9 October 1885:
… My examinations will be over by the 21st and I will then at once go across.
I am glad to hear from you that many do not share Cardiff’s ideas. The fact is for the last year I have been making up for lost time at my legal work and have been cramming into that 12 months the work of 3 years. I am now happily at the end.15
***
In March 1886, the introduction of the First Home Rule Bill was imminent. Its presentation to the Cabinet on 26 March by Prime Minister Gladstone triggered the immediate resignation of the powerful ministers Joseph Chamberlain and George Trevelyan and a split in the Liberal Party. On 13 May, during the Bill’s Second Reading, Redmond made a powerfully eloquent defence of it.
TO FR. PATRICK FURLONG, PP NEW ROSS
House of Commons,
22 March 1886:
… I can’t describe to you the anxiety of us all here about the situation. Every hour new rumours are floated and no one knows what to believe. One thing seems certain – Gladstone is going to propose a thoroughgoing scheme and will not give way an inch until he is beaten at the polls, if such a disaster should occur. All the great English Radical provincial papers are standing to Gladstone and this gives us great hopes that Chamberlain’s defection will not be so fatal as was supposed …
The reaction in Ireland must inevitably be so terrible if things go wrong now, that I can’t conceive the country, when it understands how things stand, as it will before Gladstone is done with it, taking the awful responsibility of destroying the present chance of reconciliation …
I