seat] causes me and your many friends great sorrow. We are proud of you for the way you have borne yourself all through. You acted like a true man – and may God bless you for it …22
FROM CORK YOUNG IRELAND SOCIETY
30 November 1891:
… as a slight token of the love and admiration we hold for you … the members have unanimously elected you President.
Hoping you will accept the position … We are anxious to know when it would be convenient for you to deliver the Inaugural Address …23
FROM EDMUND DOYLE
Broadway, Co. Wexford, ‘Christmas 1891’:
… Let me … beseech you to use your present triumph [in Waterford] in doing one of the greatest services an Irishman could possibly render to the country. You have proved your loyalty to your Chief, use your influence now to heal the dissensions among our countrymen …24
CHAPTER 3
Leading the Parnellites: The Split and Electoral Politics
With a general election pending in 1892, Gill made attempts to mediate a truce between the Parnellites and the moderate section of the anti-Parnellites, but to no avail. The election in July gave Redmond’s followers nine seats to the anti-Parnellites’ 72, on a vote of 70,000 to 280,000.
FROM T.P. GILL MP
11 January 1892:
I sent you on Friday night a rough suggestion for a basis of peace … I have written to Dillon, but I see [he] is laid up with influenza. I hope that you will not make it impossible for you and him to have … a chat with each other alone, and within these few days which offer, for various reasons, a favourable opportunity …
Dillon’s last speech seemed to hold out an olive branch … I am aware there are people in both camps who will fight tooth and nail against peace – with these Dillon and you will have to reckon…1
FROM T.P. GILL MP
12 January 1892:
… You say this is not practical politics? It would soon become so if you and Dillon got in motion towards each other … I feel certain that Dillon is disposed for peace – his interests and inclinations seem to him to point that way …
It is in your power to shift the onus of wantonly carrying on the strife on to the factionaries of the majority where, as I believe, it mainly lies.
As to the one great objection – how to enter into association with certain men whose horrible hounding down of Parnell is one of the most humiliating episodes in Irish history – there is no practical difficulty: I have in mind a truce rather than peace, an armed truce if you like – until Home Rule is obtained ...2
***
By 1894, following the defeat of the second Home Rule Bill, the discord within the anti-Parnellite section of the Party (termed ‘the Seceders’ by the Parnellites, who called themselves the ‘Independent Party’) had become acute. Gladstone retired from politics on 4 March. The new Liberal prime minister, Lord Rosebery, appeared to suggest that further Home Rule initiatives would be shelved indefinitely. Redmond took the lead in condemning this departure from Gladstonian principles. Healy also attacked Rosebery, while Dillon defended him. The conflict between Dillonite and Healyite factions had already extended to a struggle for mastery of the board of the Freeman’s Journal, the anti-Parnellite newspaper. This came to a head when, on 29 March, Healy was voted off the board. The Party schism was now effectively a three-way split.
MEMORANDUM IN REDMOND’S HAND, 9 APRIL 1894, OF MEETING WITH HENRY LABOUCHERE, MP NORTHAMPTON (LIBERAL)
House of Commons, 9 April 1894:
Labouchere today came to see me here and said he had been asked by certain parties to speak to me in confidence. He had been asked to find out if I would consent to re-enter the Party of the Seceders on condition
(1) that I should be the head of the Party
(2) that I should have one half of the Committee of the Party filled up by my friends.
He sd. he could give no names – but that ‘Tim’ was beaten and he and his friends wd. prefer to see me head of the Party rather than Dillon.
I said the whole thing was impossible. JER.3
***
The issue of clerical intervention in politics became acute after the 1892 general election, when narrow victories for anti-Parnellites in North and South Meath were ruled invalid on the grounds that the local Catholic bishop and his priests had openly engaged in ‘spiritual intimidation’ of Parnellites by preaching that Parnellism was sinful. Redmond’s meeting with Archbishop Walsh took place against this background and with another general election likely soon. Individual priests continued to correspond covertly with Redmond. A by-election in East Wicklow was precipitated in April 1895 by the resignation of the sitting anti-Parnellite MP, John Sweetman, who stood again as a Parnellite, to be narrowly defeated. In the general election of July, the seat was won by the Parnellite William Corbet.
FROM FR. WALTER P. SINNOTT
Tomacork, Carnew, Co. Wicklow, 4 February 1894:
I enclose a cheque – £10 – for the Indep. Home Rule Fund. As I have no desire to get into trouble … then destroy this at once and do not make the least mention of it to any one. Cash the cheque yourself – let no one see it. When publishing put it simply in this way ‘A Wicklow Priest £10’. Nothing more.4
MEMORANDUM OF MEETING WITH DR. WILLIAM WALSH, ARCHBISHOP OF DUBLIN
24 February 1895:
Met Archbishop Walsh at lunch at the Mansion House. After lunch had long talk on situation. The Lord Mayor was present. Dr. W. admitted that from our point of view we could not be expected to go back into the Party of the Seceders, but thought something might be done to smooth matters & create better feeling. He made two suggestions:
1. That he should make public declaration that the issue between the two parties was a purely political one & not a moral or religious one. He sd. this was his view ever since Parnell’s death. He disapproved of priests saying at last election that it was a religious question & severely censured 2 priests in his own diocese who did so. He had issued a circular to his priests forbidding them to speak on politics in the churches … He did not attempt to defend the policy of the Seceders, but sd. he supported them in principle because they were the majority.5
FROM FR. JOHN O’MULLOY, DD, PP
Aughrim, Co. Wicklow, 9 April 1895:
You ought to come at once to East Wicklow and speak at three meetings … The place ought to be placarded with a quotation from the letter of His Grace the Archbishop of Dublin … If Sweetman is elected by a great majority, the effect would be immense.6
FROM DENIS TREACY
Manchester, 26 April 1895:
I beg to congratulate you on your manly fight in East Wicklow [by-election occasioned by Sweetman’s resignation] although beaten not disgraced. I enclose you a letter I received from my father who is a voter in Arklow so that you may see
