TO FR. PATRICK FURLONG, PP NEW ROSS
House of Commons,
13 May 1886:
… I fear the Bill is doomed. Chamberlain wants to humiliate Ireland by making the proposed assembly in Dublin simply a vestry and to give Ulster one to itself.
Better the Bill to be lost than for Gladstone to concede this. Time is on our side and I don’t think we need fear a short delay – as success in the near future is assured.17
***
On 7 June, the Second Reading of the Bill was defeated in the House of Commons by 30 votes. After the general election of July, with the Tories returned to power, Redmond (re-elected unopposed for Wexford North) took part in a new phase of agrarian agitation, the Plan of Campaign. Having been called to the Bar, he used his legal skills in defence of prosecuted tenants. A speech of his own in Co. Wexford brought him a conviction and jail sentence.
From The Irish Times, 26 November 1888:
PROSECUTION: THE QUEEN VERSUS REDMOND AND WALSH
26 September 1888:
Defendants were prosecuted, the former [Redmond] at the Crimes Court held at Wexford on the 26th September 1888 and the latter at same place on the 28–29th November 1888, on the charge of wrongfully and without legal authority using intimidation towards one Thomas J. Walker in consequence of his having done an act which he had a legal right to do, viz. evict one James Clinch from the possession and tenancy of a certain farm. They were convicted and sentenced to five weeks imprisonment each without hard labour, from which sentence they did not appeal.
TO FR. PATRICK FURLONG, PP NEW ROSS
15 Upr. Fitzwilliam St., Dublin,
15 November 1888:
Your letter has only now been forwarded to me from London. I have been taking the world very easy since my release – doing little more than eating and sleeping. I am all right again now – my only reminder of Tullamore [Jail] is a pain in my back which I get every afternoon and which no doubt is the effect of the plank bed. I never had a night in a bed during my five weeks.
I am afraid Willy is greatly shaken. He has gone to England. I cross next week but I don’t feel inclined for much work yet.18
***
The Special Commission was set up by the Government to investigate allegations of complicity in murder and outrage made against Parnell and members of the Irish Party in a series of articles published in The Times in March 1887 under the title ‘Parnellism and Crime’. The Commission sat for 128 days between September 1888 and November 1889. It exonerated Parnell but also accumulated evidence that some Home Rule MPs, including Redmond, had incited or condoned violence in the course of agrarian agitation.
TO FR. PATRICK FURLONG, PP NEW ROSS
House of Commons,
16 May 1889:
I had a long talk with Parnell the other night about the [Special] Commission and his present intuition is to call evidence from Wexford and some other counties where the League was strong and outrages and evictions few. He mentioned your name as one of those he would like to get into the box ...
I think the general effect of our evidence will be bad and it certainly is a most humiliating ordeal to go through.19
T.P. GILL, MP LOUTH SOUTH, TO EDWARD KAVANAGH
22 June 1889:
… If the landlords ask for arbitration, of course the tenants, in this as in every other case under the Plan of Campaign, are willing to submit their dispute to a fair arbitration.
I agree with you that Mr. John Redmond would make an excellent representative of the tenants in such proceedings, and I will endeavour to get him to act in that capacity if the arbitration is to go on … The formulation of the tenants’ demand in such arbitration should be left to the gentleman chosen to act as the tenants’ representative.20
FROM GEORGE W. WARREN, BARRISTER
27 September 1889:
Wm. Sinnott Esq. Landlord.
Sundry Tenants (Evicted).
Lands Garrynisk, Co. Wexford.
Settlement by arbitration agreed upon.
Dear Sir,
I beg to say that I have been appointed to act for the landlord in this case and I understand you have consented to act on behalf of the tenants. Kindly let me know when it would be convenient for you to meet me on the lands after 10th proximo (up to which time I have engagements).21
FROM M.J. HORGAN, SOLICITORS
Cork, 20 November 1889:
I think it only fair you should have the privilege of acting as Mr. Healy has done, namely retained the cheque which included 50 guineas (special fee) in excess of yours and out of it sent £100 to the Tenants’ Defence Association.
Therefore I return your cheque [for] £115.11.0 in order that you may act similarly if so disposed. I don’t see why your generosity should not be known as well as Mr. Healy’s.22
TO M.J. HORGAN
15 Upr. Fitzwilliam St.,
21 November 1889:
I am much obliged for your letter but I feel bound to return you the cheque again. I assure you I don’t consider this at all an act of generosity and my only doubt is whether I am justified in taking even the fees which I have retained.23
***
Johanna gave birth to two further children, William Archer in 1886 and Johanna in 1887. On 12 December 1889 in Dublin, she died having given birth to a stillborn child.
TO FR. PATRICK FURLONG, PP NEW ROSS
82 Warwick Gardens, Kensington,
2 January 1890:
I can’t do more than send you a line to thank you for kind letter and to beg of you to remember my darling wife in your prayers.24
CHAPTER 2
Defending Parnell, 1890–1891
In November 1890, Capt. William O’Shea, an Irish former MP, was granted a divorce from his estranged wife Katharine on the grounds of her widely known ten-year affair with Parnell. The first response of most Irish Party MPs was to reaffirm their loyalty to Parnell; he was unanimously re-elected to the chair of the Party. However, the impact of the scandal on Nonconformist Liberal opinion in Britain convinced Gladstone that a continuation of the Home Rule alliance with the Irish Party under Parnell’s leadership must mean his own resignation, the loss of the next election and the indefinite postponement of prospects for Home Rule. When Irish MPs became aware that Gladstone had sent a letter to this effect to the press, a majority reconsidered their allegiance. The Irish Catholic bishops added their weight to the pressure on Parnell to resign the leadership, something he adamantly refused to consider. After a week of anguished debate at Westminster in early December, the Party split when 44 MPs declared Parnell’s leadership terminated, while 27 upheld it. During the debate, Redmond, who had declared himself bound to Parnell ‘by the double ties of private friendship and political allegiance’, emerged as chief spokesman for the Parnell loyalists, arguing that the independence of the Irish Party from British parties was more important even than Home Rule.
TO FR. PATRICK FURLONG, PP NEW ROSS
7 December 1890:
… Nothing in the present heartbreaking crisis gave me greater pain than your telegram. I will not attempt to argue the question with you in a letter and I only send you this note lest you should construe my silence into discourtesy. I need not, I am certain, assure you that I have acted from a clear and strong conception of what is best for the country and from no other consideration whatever.1
***
At