IRELAND SINCE
PARNELL
BY
CAPTAIN D.D. SHEEHAN
BARRISTER-AT-LAW
LATE M.P. FOR MID-CORK
LONDON
DANIEL O'CONNOR
90 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, W.C.1
1921
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
CHAPTER
I. A LEADER APPEARS
II. A LEADER IS DETHRONED!
III. THE DEATH OF A LEADER
IV. AN APPRECIATION OF PARNELL
V. THE WRECK AND RUIN OF A PARTY
VI. TOWARDS LIGHT AND LEADING
VII. FORCES OF REGENERATION AND THEIR EFFECT
VIII. THE BIRTH OF A MOVEMENT AND WHAT IT CAME TO
IX. THE LAND QUESTION AND ITS SETTLEMENT
X. LAND PURCHASE AND A DETERMINED CAMPAIGN TO KILL IT
XI. THE MOVEMENT FOR DEVOLUTION AND ITS DEFEAT
XII. THE LATER IRISH PARTY--ITS CHARACTER AND COMPOSITION
XIII. A TALE OF BAD LEADERSHIP AND BAD FAITH
XIV. LAND AND LABOUR
XV. SOME FURTHER SALVAGE FROM THE WRECKAGE
XVI. REUNION AND TREACHERY
XVII. A NEW POWER ARISES IN IRELAND
XVIII. A CAMPAIGN OF EXTERMINATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
XIX. A GENERAL ELECTION THAT LEADS TO A "HOME RULE" BILL!
XX. THE RISE OF SIR EDWARD CARSON
XXI. SINN FEIN--ITS ORIGINAL MEANING AND PURPOSE
XXII. LABOUR BECOMES A POWER IN IRISH LIFE
XXIII. CARSON, ULSTER AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS
XXIV. FORMATION OF IRISH VOLUNTEERS AND OUTBREAK OF WAR
XXV. THE EASTER WEEK REBELLION AND AFTERWARDS
XXVI. THE IRISH CONVENTION AND THE CONSCRIPTION OF IRELAND
XXVII. "THE TIMES" AND IRISH SETTLEMENT
XXVIII. THE ISSUES NOW AT STAKE
FOREWORD
The writer of this work first saw the light on a modest farmstead in
the parish of Droumtariffe, North Cork. He came of a stock long
settled there, whose roots were firmly fixed in the soil, whose love
of motherland was passionate and intense, and who were ready "in other
times," when Fenianism won true hearts and daring spirits to its side,
to risk their all in yet one more desperate battle for "the old
cause." His father was a Fenian, and so was every relative of his,
even unto the womenfolk. He heard around the fireside, in his younger
days, the stirring stories of all the preparations which were then
made for striking yet another blow for Ireland, and he too sighed and
sorrowed for the disappointments that fell upon noble hearts and
ardent souls with the failure of "The Rising."
He was not more than seven years of age when the terrible tribulation
of eviction came to his family. He remembers, as if the events were
but of yesterday, the poignant despair of his mother in leaving the
home into which her dowry was brought and where her children were
born, and the more silent resignation, but none the less deeply felt
bitterness, of his father--a man of strong character and little given
to expressing his emotions. He recalls that, a day or two before the
eviction, he was taken away in a cart, known in this part of the
country as "a crib," with some of the household belongings, to seek a
temporary shelter with some friends. May God be good to them for their
loving-kindness and warm hospitality!
He wondered, then, why there should be so much suffering and sorrow as
he saw expressed around him, in the world, and he was told that there
was nothing for it--that the lease of the farm had expired, that the
landlord wanted it for himself, and that though his father was willing
to pay an increased rent, still out he had to go--and, what was worse,
to have all his improvements confiscated, to have the fruits of the
blood and sweat and energy of his forefathers appropriated by a man
who had no right under heaven to them, save such as the iniquitous
laws of those days gave him.
It was something in the nature of poetic justice that the lad whose
family was cast thus ruthlessly on the roadside in the summer of 1880,
should, after the passage of the Land Act of 1903, have, in the
providence of things, the opportunity and the power for negotiating,
in fair and friendly and conciliatory fashion, for the expropriation
for evermore from all ownership in the land of the class who cast him
and his people adrift in earlier years.
The writer has it proudly to his credit that, acting on behalf of the
tenants of County Cork, he individually negotiated the sales of more
landed estates than any other man, or combination of men, in Ireland,
and that with the good will and, indeed, with the gratitude of the
landlords and their agents, and by reason of the fact that he applied
the policy of Conference, Conciliation and Consent to this practical
concern of men's lives, he secured for the tenants of County Cork a
margin of from one and a half to two years' purchase better terms than
the average rate prevailing elsewhere.
For the rest he devoted himself during the better part of a quarter of
a century to the housing and the social betterment of the workers in
town and country, with results which are reflected in their present
vastly improved condition.
But his greatest effort, and what he would wish most to be remembered
for is that, with a faithful few and against overwhelming odds, he
took his stand for Mr William O'Brien's policy of National
Reconciliation, which all thoughtful men now admit would have saved
Ireland from countless horrors and England from a series of most
appalling political blunders if only it had been given fair play and a
fair trial.
It is no use, however, in a very sordid and material world, sighing
for the might-have-beens. What the writer seeks in the present work is
to give, fairly and dispassionately, a narrative of what has happened
in Ireland since Parnell appeared upon the Irish scene and the curtain
was rung down upon the tragedy that brought the career of the one and
only "Uncrowned King of Ireland" to a close--and until, in turn, the
downfall of Parliamentarianism was accomplished by means which will,
in due course, appear in these pages.
IRELAND SINCE PARNELL
CHAPTER I
A LEADER APPEARS
There are some who would dispute the greatness of Parnell--who would
deny him the stature and the dignity of a leader of men. There are
others who would aver that Parnell was made by his lieutenants--that
he owed all his success in the political arena to their ability and
fighting qualities and that he was essentially a man of mediocre
talents himself.
It might be enough to answer to these critics that Parnell could never
hold the place he does in history, that he could never have overawed
the House of Commons as he did, nor could he have emerged so
triumphantly from the ordeal of _The Times_ Commission were he
not superabundantly endowed with all the elements and qualities of
greatness. But apart from this no dispassionate student of the Parnell
period can deny that it was fruitful in massive achievement for
Ireland. When Parnell appeared on the scene it might well be said of
the country, what had been truly said of it in another generation,
that it was "as a corpse on the dissecting-table." It was he, and the
gallant band which his indomitable purpose gathered round him, that
galvanised the corpse into life and breathed into it a dauntless
spirit of resolve which carried it to the very threshold of its
sublimest aspirations. To Isaac Butt is ascribed the merit of having
conceived and given form to the constitutional movement for Irish
liberty. He is also credited with having invented the title "Home
Rule"--a title which, whilst it was a magnificent rallying cry for a
cause, in the circumstances of the time when it was first used, was
probably as mischievous in its ultimate results as any unfortunate
nomenclature well could be, since all parties in Ireland and out of it
became tied to its use when any other designation for the Irish demand
might have made it more palatable with the British masses. Winston
Churchill is reported to have said, in his Radical days, to a
prominent Irish leader: "I cannot understand why you Irishmen are so
stupidly wedded to the name 'Home Rule.' If only you would call it
anything else in the world, you would have no difficulty in getting
the English to agree to it."
But although Isaac Butt was a fine intellect and an earnest patriot he
never succeeded in rousing Ireland to any great pitch of enthusiasm
for his policy. It was still sick, and weary, and despondent after the
Fenian failure, and the revolutionary leaders were not prone to
tolerate or countenance what they regarded as a Parliamentary
imposture. A considerable body of the Irish landed class supported the
Butt movement, because they had nothing to fear for their own
interests from it. They were members of his Parliamentary Party, not
to help him on his way, but rather with the object of weakening and
retarding his efforts.
It was at this stage that Parnell arrived. The country was stricken
with famine--the hand of the lord, in the shape of the landlord, was
heavy upon it. After a season of unexampled agricultural prosperity
the lean years had come to the Irish farmer and he was ripe for
agitation and resistance. Butt had the Irish gentry on his side. With
the sure instinct of the born leader Parnell set out to fight them. He
had popular feeling with him. It was no difficult matter to rouse the
democracy of the country against a class at whose doors they laid the
blame for all their woes and troubles and manifold miseries. Butt was
likewise too old for his generation. He was a constitutional statesman
who made noble appeal to the honesty and honour of British statesmen.
Parnell, too, claimed to be a constitutional leader, but of another
type. With the help of men like Michael Davitt and John Devoy he was
able to muster the full strength of the revolutionary forces behind
him and he adopted other methods in Parliament than lackadaisical
appeals to the British sense of right and justice.
The time came when the older statesman had perforce to make way for
the younger leader. The man with a noble genius for statesman-like
design--and this must be conceded to Isaac Butt--had to yield place
and power to the men whose genius consisted in making themselves
amazingly disagreeable to the British Government, both in Ireland and
at Westminster. "The Policy of Exasperation" was the epithet applied
by Butt to the purpose of Parnell, in the belief that he was uttering
the weightiest reproach in his power against it. But this was the
description of all others which recommended it to the Irish race--for
it was, in truth, the only policy which could compel British statesmen
to give ear to the wretched story of Ireland's grievances and to
legislate in regard to them. It is sad to have to write it of Butt, as
of so many other Irish leaders, that he died of a broken heart. Those
who would labour for "Dark Rosaleen" have a rough and thorny road to
travel, and they are happy if the end of their journey is not to be
found in despair, disappointment and bitter tragedy.
Parnell, once firmly seated in the saddle, lost no time in asserting
his power and authority. Mr William O'Brien, who writes with a quite
unique personal authority on the events of this time, tells us that
there is some doubt whether "Joe" Biggar, as he was familiarly known
from one end of Ireland to the other, was not the actual inventor of
Parliamentary obstruction. His own opinion is that it was Biggar who
first discovered it but it was Parnell who perceived that the new
weapon was capable of dislocating the entire machinery of Government
at will and consequently gave to a disarmed Ireland a more formidable
power against her enemies than if she could have risen in armed
insurrection, so that a Parliament which wanted to hear nothing of
Ireland heard of practically nothing else every night of their lives.
Let it be, however, clearly understood that there was an Irish Party
before Parnell's advent on the scene. It was never a very effective
instrument of popular right, but after Butt's death it became a
decrepit old thing--without cohesion, purpose or, except in rare
instances, any genuine personal patriotism. It viewed the rise of
Parnell and his limited body of supporters with disgust and dismay. It
had no sympathy with his pertinacious campaign against all the
cherished forms and traditions of "The House," and it gave him no
support. Rather it virulently opposed him and his small group, who
were without money and even without any organisation at their back.
Parnell had also to contend with the principal Nationalist newspaper
of the time--_The Freeman's Journal_--as well as such remnants as
remained of Butt's Home Rule League.
About this time, however, a movement--not for the first or the last
time--came out of the West. A meeting had been held at Irishtown,
County Mayo, which made history. It was here that the demand of "The
Land for the People" first took concrete form. Previously Mr Parnell
and his lieutenants had been addressing meetings in many parts of the
country, at which they advocated peasant proprietorship in
substitution for landlordism, but now instead of sporadic speeches
they had to their hand an organisation which supplied them with a
tremendous dynamic force and gave a new edge to their Parliamentary
performances. And not the least value of the new movement was that it
immediately won over to active co-operation in its work the most
powerful men in the old revolutionary organisation. I remember being
present, as a very little lad indeed, at a Land League meeting at
Kiskeam, Cork County, where scrolls spanned the village street bearing
the legend: "Ireland for the Irish and the Land for the People."
The country people were present from far and near. Cavalcades of
horsemen thronged in from many a distant place, wearing proudly the
Fenian sash of orange and green over their shoulder, and it struck my
youthful imagination what a dashing body of cavalry these would have
made in the fight for Ireland. Michael Davitt was the founder and
mainspring of the Land League and it is within my memory that in the
hearts and the talks of the people around their fireside hearths he
was at this time only second to Parnell in their hope and love. I am
told that Mr John Devoy shared with him the honour of co-founder of
the Land League, but I confess I heard little of Mr Devoy, probably
because he was compulsorily exiled about this time.[1]
In those days Parnell's following consisted of only seven men out of
one hundred and three Irish members. When the General Election of 1880
was declared he was utterly unprepared to meet all its emergencies.
For lack of candidates he had to allow himself to be nominated for
three constituencies, yet with marvellous and almost incredible energy
he fought on to the last polling-booth. The result was astounding. He
increased his following to thirty-five, not, perhaps, overwhelming in
point of numbers, but remarkable for the high intellectual standard of
the young men who composed it, for their varied capacities, for their
fine patriotism, and their invincible determination to face all risks
and invite all dangers. It has been said of Parnell that he was an
intolerant autocrat in the selection of candidates for and membership
of the Party, and that he imposed his will ruthlessly upon them once
they were elected. I am told by those who were best in a position to
form a judgment, and whose veracity I would stake my life upon, that
nothing could be farther from the truth. Parnell had little to say
with the choosing of his lieutenants. Indeed, he was singularly
indifferent about it, as instances could be quoted to prove.
Undoubtedly he held them together firmly, because he had the gift of
developing all that was best in a staff of brilliant talents and
varied gifts, and so jealousies and personal idiosyncrasies had not
the room wherein to develop their poisonous growths.
I pass rapidly over the achievements of Parnell in the years that
followed. He gave the country some watchwords that can never be
forgotten, as when he told the farmers to "Keep a firm grip of your
homesteads!" followed by the equally energetic exhortation: "Hold the
harvest!" They were his Orders of the Day to his Irish army. Then came
the No-Rent Manifesto, the suppression of the Land League after only
twelve months' existence, Kilmainham and its Treaty, and the Land Act
of 1881, which I can speak of, from my own knowledge, as the first
great forward step in the emancipation of the Irish tenant farmer. Mr
Dillon differed with Parnell as to the efficacy of this Act, but he
was as hopelessly wrong in his attitude then as he was twenty-two
years later in connection with the Land Act of 1903. In 1882 the
National League came into being, giving a broader programme and a
deeper depth of meaning to the aims of Parnell. At this time the
Parliamentary policy of the Party under his leadership was an absolute
independence of all British Parties, and therein lay all its strength
and savour. There was also the pledge of the members to sit, act and
vote together, which owed its wholesome force not so much to anything
inherent in the pledge itself as to the positive terror of a public
opinion in Ireland which would tolerate no tampering with it.
Furthermore, a rigid rule obtained against members of the Party
seeking office or preferment for themselves or their friends on the
sound principle that the Member of Parliament who sought ministerial
favours could not possibly be an impeccable and independent patriot.
But the greatest achievement of Parnell was the fact that he had both
the great English parties bidding for his support. We know that the
Tory Party entered into negotiations with him on the Home Rule issue.
Meanwhile, however, there was the more notable conversion of
Gladstone, a triumph of unparalleled magnitude for Parnell and in
itself the most convincing testimony to the positive strength and
absolute greatness of the man. A wave of enthusiasm went up on both
sides of the Irish Sea for the alliance which seemed to symbolise the
ending of the age-long struggle between the two nations. True, this
alliance has since been strangely underrated in its effects, but there
can be no doubt that it evoked at the time a genuine outburst of
friendliness on the part of the Irish masses to England. And at the
General Election of 1885 Parnell returned from Ireland with a solid
phalanx of eighty-four members--eager, invincible, enthusiastic, bound
unbreakably together in loyalty to their country and in devotion to
their leader.
From 1885 to 1890 there was a general forgiving and forgetting of
historic wrongs and ancient feuds. The Irish Nationalists were willing
to clasp hands across the sea in a brotherhood of friendship and even
of affection, but there stood apart, in open and flaming disaffection,
the Protestant minority in Ireland, who were in a state of stark
terror that the Home Rule Bill of 1886 meant the end of everything for
them--the end of their brutal ascendancy and probably also the
confiscation of their property and the ruin of their social position.
Then, as on a more recent occasion, preparations for civil war were
going on in Ulster, largely of English Party manufacture, and more
with an eye to British Party purposes than because of any sincere
convictions on the rights of the ascendancy element. Still the Grand
Old Man carried on his indomitable campaign for justice to Ireland,
notwithstanding the unfortunate cleavage which had taken place in the
ranks of his own Party, and it does not require any special gift of
prevision to assert, nor is it any unwarrantable assumption on the
facts to say, that the alliance between the Liberal and Irish Parties
would inevitably have triumphed as soon as a General Election came had
not the appalling misunderstanding as to Gladstone's "Nullity of
Leadership" letter flung everything into chaos and irretrievably
ruined the hopes of Ireland for more than a generation.
And this brings me to what I regard as the greatest of Irish
tragedies--the deposition and the dethronement of Parnell under
circumstances which will remain for all time a sadness and a sorrow to
the Irish race.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Devoy, although banished, did turn up secretly in Mayo
when the Land League was being organised, and his orders were supreme
with the secret societies.]