believe it was there where O’Kelly won. No matter better luck next time.7
[ENCLOSED: MICHAEL TREACY TO DENIS TREACY]
Arklow, 26 April 1895 [all misspellings as in original]:
… this is a busey day with all the voters putting in Sweetman to misrepersent them in parlimint. But I say the man that gowes and gives his vote against his Bishop and priests is doing wrong. Remember when sickness and death comes how fond you or me will be to see our own good priest that we voted against in our Healthy days and at that last moment how sorry we will be for gowen against our priest our Bishop and Priests ought to no right from wrong in them matters and we should be advised by them …
TO ARCHBISHOP WILLIAM WALSH
8 July 1895:
… with reference to the coming election for East Wicklow. Mr. [William] Corbet has announced his candidature and knowing your view that the only issue before the country is a purely political one I venture to ask you to permit such of your priests as may desire to do so, to support Mr. Corbet on the platform ...8
FROM ARCHBISHOP WILLIAM WALSH
Maynooth, 12 July 1895:
… I regret I cannot do what you ask … I cannot see how any priest can support the candidature of anyone at your side in the present unhappy division without compromising himself to some extent, in view of the deplorable line in journalism taken by the newspapers under the control of yourself and a number of your colleagues. No priest identified in any degree with the views advocated by those papers could be considered worthy of a place in the Sacred Ministry …9
TO ARCHBISHOP WILLIAM WALSH
14 July 1895:
… I regret very much the decision you have arrived at… I trust you will forgive me if I respectfully protest against Your Grace’s statement that ‘No priest identified in any degree with the views advocated by those papers… could be considered worthy of a place in the Sacred Ministry.’ … For my part I entirely disclaim the advocacy of any ‘views’ which would be unworthy of the support of the clergy of my church …10
FROM MICHAEL O’KANE
Derry City, 13 July 1895:
… with the sound of the Orange drum in our ears and all the intolerance which it represents, many of your followers, of whom I am one, think it better to support the Whig [i.e. anti-Parnellite candidate E.F.V. Knox] … Mr. Knox … told me he thought the assistance which he received from the Parnellites in Derry should be acknowledged and reciprocated in Stephen’s Green and South Dublin … we have now an opportunity of capturing the seat from the Unionists and you know what that means to a Derry Catholic ...11
Knox won the seat over the Unionist candidate by 39 votes.
FROM ANGUS MAGUIRE
Grosvenor St., London, 27 July 1895:
Many thanks for your note. I am extremely sorry to have been the means of costing you a seat [in Clare West]. I fear the people were more alienated against me than you thought and so fell an easier prey to the priests … I doubt if more help at the last moment would have done much good ... Thank you very much for your kindness to me …12
FROM FR. MICHAEL C. HAYDEN CC
The Manse, Wexford, 2 January 1896:
I am sorry that I cannot be with you [at the forthcoming Parnellite Convention at Enniscorthy] first, because I take no public part in politics, and second, because I think a priest cannot possibly identify himself with your party so long as Dr. Kenny and (occasionally) the Independent say such bitter things of the Bishops and Priests of Ireland. It appears to me that these attacks are only injuring the cause you have at heart … I have watched, with increasing pride, your public career from your magnificent maiden effort in the House of Commons down to your noble peroration at Fermoy …13
***
The 1895 general election returned the Tories to power. The Parnellites advanced slightly, from 9 to 11 seats. In December, a boundary dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana caused a crisis in US–British relations, with the Monroe Doctrine being invoked. A short-lived war fever followed. Redmond took the opportunity to amend the tone adopted in his February 1895 speech at the Cambridge Union when he had called separation from England ‘undesirable and impossible’.
REPLY TO JOE PULITZER, THE WORLD, NEW YORK
24 December 1895:
You ask for an expression of opinion on the war crisis from me as a representative of British thought. In this, as in all other matters, I can speak only as a representative of Irish opinion. If war results from the reassertion of the Monroe Doctrine Irish national sentiment will be solid on the side of America. With Home Rule rejected Ireland can have no feeling of friendliness towards Great Britain.14
FROM ANGUS MAGUIRE
Grosvenor St., London, 27 December 1895:
I read your telegram to the New York World with great surprise and regret … [Firstly] I believe the natural, almost the inevitable, future of Ireland is to remain a member of the British Empire and that this future offers her a greater prospect of greatness and prosperity than an independence which, even if it were possible, could only mean weakness and isolation … I consider your statement very damaging to our Home Rule policy …15
TO ANGUS MAGUIRE
1 January 1896:
… I exceedingly regret that you so strongly disapprove of my telegram to New York. It was unfortunate that I had not an opportunity of consulting you before sending it as I am most anxious not to take up any position which has not the support of all our Party …
I think you rather misinterpreted the meaning of my cable. It was not a declaration in favour of separation which I agree with you in regarding as impossible under existing circumstances ...16
***
The Parnellites’ failure to advance significantly in the 1895 election drove Redmond into new and varied political paths. One was co-operation with unionists in the Recess Committee, set up to suggest initiatives to meet the Tories’ professed desire to enact Irish administrative reforms. By the later 1890s, his political programme was a curious amalgam of conciliation, aimed at all unionists prepared to work for the good of Ireland, and militant rhetoric owing much to John O’Leary’s (quietist) brand of Fenianism, the whole seasoned with a soupçon of anti-clericalism.
As MP for Waterford City, Redmond was an active lobbyist for infrastructural projects in the city.
FROM M.G.D. GOFF
Waterford, 28 February 1896:
Allow me to congratulate you on your very successful introduction of the Waterford Infirmary Bill, and to thank you most sincerely for all the trouble you have taken in the matter …
[It] will be of incalculable benefit to the citizens of Waterford so long as Waterford exists, and the fact of the success of the Bill being mainly due to your able and eloquent advocacy will be remembered ...17
FROM E.R. LLOYD KANE [SON OF LATE REV. DR. R.R. KANE, GRAND MASTER OF ORANGE LODGES IN IRELAND]
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