Best regards to John [Dillon].11
***
Writing to Gill on 5 February, Parnell claimed to have become aware of new demands from the Liberals, aimed at excluding him from the assessment of the assurances, which would place him in a ‘humiliating disgraceful position’, and of plans to keep the full Irish representation at Westminster. A bewildered Gill immediately alerted Redmond to the danger of breakdown.
TO T.P. GILL MP
Dublin, telegram 6 February 1891:
Impossible to start this morning wire nature of immediate danger Can I do any good by telegram prevent any final decision till he consults friends reply Redmond [National] League office.12
WILLIAM O’BRIEN MP TO T. P. GILL MP, LONDON
Boulogne, telegram 7 February 1891:
Any breakdown most desirable Redmond Harrington and you should come over tonight [to Boulogne].13
TO WILLIAM O’BRIEN MP
London, 7 [misdated ‘January’] February 1891 [fragment]:
… some time with P today. He has got firmly in his mind the idea, due to something which fell from Gill, that the Liberal leaders are trying to make it a condition that you alone [should] see the amended memo and … [missing] … I have every [hope] you may be able to get the changes he suggests made by Gladstone …
[I cannot go] to Boulogne and if I did [it would not achieve] anything … [I must return to] Ireland where [my mother is] hovering [between life and death]. God grant you [success in] your work in the … [missing].
[PS]: I am afraid John’s [Dillon’s] interview with P at Calais had a very bad effect and accounts for much of recent events. Ever since P has been saying if you were to be the leader, as he originally … strongly urged, the difficulties … very small … [missing].14
TO C.S. PARNELL MP
London, ‘Monday night’ [9 February 1891]:
I have just seen Gill on his return from Boulogne, and I am most anxious to see you tomorrow. Until you have seen me I would strongly urge you not to publish anything whatever. I have some good reason for believing that the Liberals won’t agree to amend the memo in any respect even as to the Constabulary and that therefore, if you so choose, you will be in a position to break off on that ground, which I’m sure you see would be an infinitely safer ground than the ‘new condition’ which O’Brien never heard of and did not agree to.
On the other hand if you thought the negotiations should proceed I think it not impossible that we could secure O’Brien [as chairman] in place of Dillon after all.
If the negotiations are broken off on the ground of the assurances being in your view defective, I feel sure O’Brien would not say or do anything hostile, but I fear if your letter to Gill be published and made the pretext for the rupture, he would be driven to action which would be regarded as hostile.
I must go to Dublin tomorrow night.15
***
On 11 February, the final breakdown of the negotiations came after Parnell was informed that the Liberal leaders refused to ‘alter a comma’ of the assurances. Dillon and O’Brien crossed to England, where they were arrested, later to serve six-month sentences. The split in nationalist Ireland became ever more envenomed. The loss of the Carlow by-election was the third consecutive electoral defeat suffered by the Parnellites (following Kilkenny North in December and Sligo North in March). A National Convention of Parnellites was scheduled for 23 July. The 24 MPs on the platform did not include Redmond, who was detained at murder trials in Wicklow. His absence was later interpreted as a distancing of himself from Parnell.
WILLIAM O’BRIEN MP TO T.P. GILL MP
(letter smuggled from Galway Jail), date unknown [pre-22 July] 1891:
I have learned the result in Carlow [by-election] … [It offers] a splendid opportunity for reunion if McCarthy’s people [… illegible] and Redmond resolute ...
The Dublin [Parnellite] Convention is plainly [arranged] on the eve of our release to make Parnell’s men nail their colours to the mast and make reconciliation impossible, or at least to sow division between us and McCarthy’s men. If Redmond would write P a letter suggesting that the Convention shall be postponed, in view of the declaration of [the result] in Carlow, until our release and until there should be consultation as to some possibility of re-establishing union, it would be a decisive stroke …
If John Redmond shows that spirit, I am pretty confident that we would be able to enforce tolerant and even generous treatment from the other side – though, of course, P’s own follies have tremendously strengthened the party of no quarter … R has a magnificent chance.16
***
Dillon and O’Brien were released from prison on 30 July and immediately joined the anti-Parnellite opposition. Redmond maintained a six-week period of silence until mid-September, possibly in expectation of peace overtures from O’Brien. When none materialised, he accused O’Brien and Dillon of lacking the courage to break with the hateful campaign of the scurrilous Healy. Meanwhile, Parnell’s health deteriorated under the impact of constant campaigning, and he died at Brighton on 6 October. Redmond thenceforth cast himself as chief standard-bearer of Parnell’s principle of Party independence. The ensuing weeks were filled with bitter recriminations, private and public, between the protagonists.
WILLIAM O’BRIEN MP TO T.P. GILL MP
‘Wednesday’ [7 October 1891]:
The appalling news just to hand ends all controversy. If he had only let us save him that time at Boulogne, what a different fate his might have been! If even Redmond and the rest had had the courage of their convictions after our coming out of jail he might even then have been persuaded to save himself from his tragic fate. It is most woeful.17
TO T.P. GILL MP
Telegram 17 November 1891:
I have refused to say one word in public of our interchanges of confidence but have been treated with brutal falseness by others write to me Redmond.18
***
Opinion among Redmond’s Wexford North constituents was overwhelmingly anti-Parnellite. He resigned the seat in October and announced his candidacy for Parnell’s Cork City seat. In a campaign full of street violence, he was defeated by an anti-Parnellite. In December, he tried again, this time in Waterford City, where his opponent was Davitt; he was elected to the seat he would hold for 26 years until his death.
TO MICHAEL DAVITT
7 December 1891:
… I agree with you in deploring the injurious effects which the contests of the past year have had upon the reputation of Ireland before the world, and I would welcome any truce upon reasonable terms whereby the decision of the issues before the country could be reserved for the General Election.
If your proposal means that both sides should agree that pending the General Election no contests should take place, but that each party should be permitted unchallenged by its opponents to fill up from its own ranks any vacancy in a seat which had been held by one of its members, I think it a most reasonable one – and I would gladly do my best to have it adopted.19
FROM MICHAEL DAVITT
8 December 1891:
I am glad you endorse at least the spirit of my proposal for a truce in the fight for Waterford. It is right however I should at once inform you of the fact that my letter in yesterday’s papers was written without any consultation …
I