and South. In the general election of December 1885, Redmond was elected as MP for Wexford North.
TO FR. PATRICK FURLONG, PP NEW ROSS
7 June 1884:
On yesterday my wife presented me with a little daughter. This must be my excuse for the delay in answering your letter and in fixing a day for Ross …
Both my wife and the little one are doing well.12
TO FR. PATRICK FURLONG, PP NEW ROSS
House of Commons,
5 May 1885:
… Of course my highest delight would be, to be one of the Members for the County [Wexford], but I will hold myself unreservedly at the disposal of Parnell and go wherever I am sent.
If however [John F.] Small [MP for Wexford county since 1883] goes North I hope I will be allowed to remain in Wexford if the Club are satisfied with such an arrangement. With best regards and hoping to meet you at Westminster.13
FROM T.M. HEALY, MP LONGFORD NORTH
50 Great Charles St., Dublin,
1 October 1885:
… I saw Small who complained that we had made the arrangement behind his back without giving him notice, but said he was agreeable to do whatever the Party decided so long as it was arranged that it did not appear he was being ejected from the County …
Personally I am in a fix between you both, considering how you retired for me in ’80 …
On the other hand I heard from another source that most of the priests were in your favour, but it would be deplorable if such a matter were to be made an issue in the County and I feel sure all will be arranged satisfactorily …14
TO FR. PATRICK FURLONG, PP NEW ROSS
9 October 1885:
… My examinations will be over by the 21st and I will then at once go across.
I am glad to hear from you that many do not share Cardiff’s ideas. The fact is for the last year I have been making up for lost time at my legal work and have been cramming into that 12 months the work of 3 years. I am now happily at the end.15
***
In March 1886, the introduction of the First Home Rule Bill was imminent. Its presentation to the Cabinet on 26 March by Prime Minister Gladstone triggered the immediate resignation of the powerful ministers Joseph Chamberlain and George Trevelyan and a split in the Liberal Party. On 13 May, during the Bill’s Second Reading, Redmond made a powerfully eloquent defence of it.
TO FR. PATRICK FURLONG, PP NEW ROSS
House of Commons,
22 March 1886:
… I can’t describe to you the anxiety of us all here about the situation. Every hour new rumours are floated and no one knows what to believe. One thing seems certain – Gladstone is going to propose a thoroughgoing scheme and will not give way an inch until he is beaten at the polls, if such a disaster should occur. All the great English Radical provincial papers are standing to Gladstone and this gives us great hopes that Chamberlain’s defection will not be so fatal as was supposed …
The reaction in Ireland must inevitably be so terrible if things go wrong now, that I can’t conceive the country, when it understands how things stand, as it will before Gladstone is done with it, taking the awful responsibility of destroying the present chance of reconciliation …
I am absolutely afraid to contemplate the possibility of failure now.16
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
