political and religious leaders. Rather, it was something that could only be developed within. Distrust of all communal leaders and vigilant self-reliance was necessary to counter the reality that the exercise of powers of dominance in society was never based upon moral justice. To illustrate this point, Griffith drew up precepts such as ‘do not scorn the beggar in the street … he is nobler than your masters’; ‘do not believe that a man who wears a tall hat and trousers is necessarily civilised’; and ‘do not talk about “the dignity of labour” [a favoured subject of contemporary religious epistles]. Look up from the mud and behold the poorhouses [the fate of many rural migrants to the city].’ As ‘the only unforgivable sin is the sin of hypocrisy’, Griffith believed that it would be better to be associated with ‘honest scoundrels’ than ‘mix with dishonest swindlers’. Expressing negative emotions such as pity, anger and scorn should never be avoided if they were justified. Above all, it was essential ‘to be frank’.26 The political savvy adage that was favoured by John O’Leary—that the world is his who knows when to hold his tongue—was not part of Griffith’s mindset. As a result, Griffith was often considered to be a cantankerous man who was incapable of doing anything to either to his own advantage or that of anyone else. According to the social norms of politics, such a man was quite simply best left alone.
Griffith did not view his youthful convictions to be a matter of inherently rooting for the underdog or the oppressed. Rather they reflected a belief that society was fundamentally dishonest and, therefore, the honest man would inevitably suffer and be punished by his peers.27 Not surprisingly, he would grow up to recognise that he too had the capacity to offend ‘honest as well as dishonest quarters’.28 Nevertheless, his almost misanthropic belief that it was possible to counter dishonesty in society with the written word remained. This self-righteousness reflected not so much naivety as his basic temperament, which was that of a writer. Possessing the air of a man who was psychologically apart, his few friends never attempted to probe into his personal life out of an instinctive respect. It was simply clear that ‘he is very sensitive’ and was incapable of appealing to others for help.29 Griffith’s personal code of strict self-reliance was not only a quintessentially Victorian work ethic: it was also a psychological defence mechanism to maintain a determined resolve in the face of demoralising life circumstances. Respect, rather than personal intimacy, would be the touchstone of what he sought in his social relations. His private life and family was virtually a taboo subject. Even allowing for the norms of Victorian reticence, it was perhaps inevitable that Griffith’s primary role in public life would be that of a maverick and frequently unpopular critic rather than a truly communal figure.
During the late 1880s, following a collapse of the Young Ireland Society arising from quarrels surrounding the management of the GAA, Griffith became a leader of the Leinster Debating Society. This was composed entirely of ‘hardworking young men of humble circumstances’ who in their determination to unmask social injustices typified themselves as ‘strangers to cant and hypocrisy’.30 Although it met at a venue that housed small republican and socialist clubs, its membership intentionally had a mixed political profile: as its leader Griffith would place advertisements for its meetings in opposing Tory and Parnellite newspapers.31
Griffith’s attitudes towards Parnell and his party were not sympathetic. Although he chaired a meeting that denounced the British government for imprisoning William O’Brien MP (the most popular Irish Party politician and journalist of the day), Griffith wrote a scathing satire of Parnellite journalism. Meanwhile, the society’s journal denounced Parnell and his followers as ‘professional swindlers’ who ‘connive at blackmailing the Irish people’ into supporting their party alone so they could become ‘a well-fed, well-housed, “aristocratic” if you please, corps of professional agitators’ while ordinary Irish people were left to face ‘the poor house, the jail—a hand to mouth existence in this country or emigration’.32 Such attitudes reflected a belief that Parnell and his Irish Party had betrayed the promises made by republican Land Leaguers earlier that decade to prioritise the welfare of the urban working class. Due to this failure, the society expressed sympathy with the Social Democratic Federation, a British socialist body then seeking to establish itself in Dublin. Griffith himself supported the argument that the remedy for strikes was the nationalisation of all means of production under a system of state socialism.33 Strikes were actually quite common in Dublin at this time. Notwithstanding the formation of the first permanent Dublin Trades Council in 1886, the city’s working class experienced a great economic depression with unemployment rising to high levels and slum tenements becoming more numerous than ever.34 Such issues never surfaced in the columns of the Irish Party’s press, however. It was therefore quite natural for Griffith to find himself at home within a republican or socialist culture of protest.
Griffith’s interest in working-class protest politics was combined with a preoccupation with personal self-development. Reflecting his interest in journalism, Griffith gave papers about past political pamphleteers like Jonathan Swift as well as Richard Steele and Joseph Addison, two pioneering newspaper figures of early-eighteenth century England whose writings were still considered by Victorians as providing templates in style for any prospective journalist.35 Reflecting his interest in literature, Griffith spoke on modern and early-modern Irish writers, English and American poets from Elizabethan times up until his own day and the classics.36 His lack of formal education, however, was betrayed by his writing style at this time, which used vernacular language and no punctuation.37 Most tellingly, he drew a contrast between the life that he felt he deserved and that which he had in reality. In poor verse Griffith depicted the privileged lifestyle of a university student, living a life of scholarship and dissipation without having to worry about any material concerns, before cutting abruptly to a description of the reality of his life, being almost penniless and performing solitary pub crawls in the early hours of the morning after ‘every honest man was gone to sleep’.38 In later life, Griffith championed the right of the working classes to receive state grants to enable them to attend university. This was an almost unheard of idea in contemporary Britain or Ireland but, reflecting a legacy of the Napoleonic Empire, it had many supporters in continental Europe.39 Griffith generally impressed whatever company he was ever in as being extraordinarily well read. This was partly because he had a photographic memory.40
The power of Griffith’s pen was suited best for satirical or insightful political analyses rather than literary or artistic creations. His almost religious preoccupation with notions of social justice perhaps made him a good candidate to become a persuasive journalist while he was certainly not a poet. In his youth, he expressed appreciation for the tradition of political street ballads. This viewpoint reflected his passing interest in writing such material. This was something he would do infrequently, however, confining himself to a few protest ballads at the time of Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902) as well as some bawdy doggerel to entertain fellow political prisoners during the post-1916 period.41
In 1890 Griffith renamed his club as the Leinster Literary Society and proposed that it should establish branches throughout the province, with a central executive in Dublin.42 This plan for expansion failed because its members lacked means. The only successful literary society in Dublin at this time was the Pan-Celtic Literary Society. Formed by alumni of Blackrock College, it was associated with the Rathmines branch of the Irish Party’s Irish National League and included several barristers and arts graduates.43 The Pan-Celtic represented a suburban and comfortable Dublin Catholic middle class that was very distant from Griffith’s social world.44 Its members viewed the contemporary history of Irish writers and artists living in London, as well as the existence of Parnell’s party at Westminster, as a national success story. By contrast, Griffith and his friends viewed Irish culture and politics through the prism of their socially disadvantaged experience. These two social worlds began to commingle, however, when Parnell’s fall had the affect of shattering the unity of the Irish National League, the Irish Party’s authoritarian support body. This led the minority pro-Parnell wing to appeal directly for working-class support; a development that was unprecedented and would also prove very short lived.45 Nevertheless, this presented Griffith and his associates with a brief window of opportunity to play a part in formulating a political programme in conjunction with various middle-class activists. In turn, they were led to view Parnell, as distinct from
