148Maume, Long Gestation, p. 52; S. Spiro to Redmond, 22 Jan. 1907; Redmond to Spiro, 28 Jan.1907, RP Ms. 15,247.
149Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (London, 2005), pp. 113–119; Oswald John Simon to Redmond, 1, 5 Jan 1906, RP Ms. 15, 246.
150Now Chisinau, capital of the Republic of Moldova, where, in April 1903, forty-nine Jews were killed, ninety-two severely injured and 700 houses destroyed when the traditional anti-Jewish blood libel was used to incite a pogrom after a Christian boy was found murdered. See Michael Davitt, Within the Pale: the true story of anti-Semitic persecutions in Russia (London, 1903). Massacres on an even worse scale occurred at Odessa and Kiev in 1905 and in Bialystock in 1906.
151Précis of information received from county inspectors for April to June 1905, NAI CBS 54/74.
152Précis for Jul. 1905, NAI CBS 54/74.
153Précis for Aug. 1906, Apr., Nov. 1908, Sep. 1909, NAI CBS 54/74.
154David Fitzpatrick, Politics and Irish Life 1913–1921: Provincial Experience of War and Revolution (Cork, 1977), p. 82. The first Dublin branch of the AOH was formed in 1904; by December 1906, when it moved to new premises at Rutland Square, it had 150 (male) members. By April 1914, this had grown to 3,000 male members and a 1,000-strong Ladies’ Auxiliary Division. The benefit society established nationally by the Order under the National Insurance Act of 1911 had 130,000 members and a staff of 120 by the same date. F.J., 19 Jul. 1911, 10 Jun. 1912, 13, 16 Apr. 1914.
155Laffan, Resurrection, p. 21.
156Davis, Arthur Griffith, p. 20.
157Ibid., pp. 11, 21; Maume, Long Gestation, pp. 56–7.
158Davis, Arthur Griffith, pp. 22–3.
159Laffan, Resurrection, p. 23. Griffith and Redmond make an appearance together in the ‘Circe’ episode of Joyce’s Ulysses as a pair of ‘armed heroes’ who ‘spring up from furrows… and fight duels with cavalry sabres’, as do the similar binary opposites from the Irish nationalist pantheon ‘Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith O’Brien against Daniel O’Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, Justin McCarthy against Parnell….’ James Joyce, Ulysses (Bodley Head edition, Penguin Classics, 1992), p. 695.
160Davis, Arthur Griffith, pp. 26–7.
161Précis of information on secret societies during Feb. 1905, NAI CBS 3/716, 29989/S.
3
HOME RULE BY INSTALMENT
He hoped to be able to pass some serious measure which would be consistent with and would lead up to… the larger [Home Rule] measure.
– Memorandum by Redmond of interview with Campbell Bannerman,
14 Nov. 1905.
I have done my best… To this work I have given up every other consideration. I have thrown upon one side my profession… my worldly interest and the interests of my children, and I have devoted everything that I possessed in this world, all my time and my abilities, and… all my whole heart to advance this cause….
– Redmond at Liverpool, 3 Dec. 1907.
I
As transfers of power went in Britain in the twentieth century, that of late 1905 was a curiosity, with the formation of the new Government preceding rather than following the dissolution and General Election. In early November, the long-running dispute in the Cabinet between Balfour and Chamberlain on the free trade issue had become a crisis that threatened the imminent resignation of the Conservative Government. With the electoral tide running in favour of the Liberals, the question of the hour for Redmond was the likely attitude of a Liberal Government to the Home Rule issue. Statements in the previous month by Asquith, Morley and Lord Rosebery, Redmond’s bugbear of the 1890s, had left contradictory impressions. Asquith had declared that, while he had never gone back on the spirit or aims of Gladstone’s policy, there could be no Home Rule Bill in the next Parliament.1 Rosebery agreed with Asquith, but Morley on 20 October called for such a bill. An authoritative statement from the Liberal leader, Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman, was awaited with enormous interest. Communications between him and the Irish leadership required delicate handling. Dillon suggested that Redmond should try to meet him if possible before he spoke.2
Redmond had already gone north to deliver three key speeches – at Sunderland, Glasgow and Motherwell – addressed respectively to the Irish voters in Britain, the Liberal leadership and nationalists at home. To the first, his message was that, despite the awkward fact that the Liberals proposed to extend secular control of the school system in England and Wales while the Tories would defend denominational schools, they would find, by voting for pro-Home Rule candidates, that ‘the interests of their country and the real interests of their creed are identical’. Of the second, he asked how they would have the moral power to compel the Irish people to submit to a system of government they had solemnly condemned, given their party’s overwhelming support for his amendment to that year’s Address. Dunravenesque schemes of devolution could never settle the Irish question; Morley had stated the Irish demand correctly – ‘an Irish legislature with an executive responsible to it’.3 For the third, he reaffirmed his adherence to ‘the old policy of Parnell’:
Independence of all British parties, readiness to accept from any British party any concession which we think will shorten or smoothen the road to Home Rule… but no paltering under any circumstances with the one great principle underlying our whole movement….4
At Glasgow, while it was premature to give precise advice to the Irish electors in Britain, he set out guiding principles. Votes should not be given to Liberal candidates who had openly repudiated their pledges to Ireland; furthermore, they had a natural sympathy with Labour candidates, he said, repeating his trope that ‘the Irish Party in the House of Commons is itself a Labour party’.5
On 14 November, Redmond and O’Connor breakfasted with Campbell Bannerman. The Liberal leader told them that he was ‘stronger than ever’ for Home Rule, but it was a question of how far they could go in the next Parliament. He had no complaint to make of Redmond’s Glasgow speech, but thought