THE BIRTH OF A MOVEMENT AND WHAT IT CAME TO
Whilst Ireland was thus finding her soul and Mr Gerald Balfour
pursuing his beneficent schemes for "killing Home Rule with kindness,"
the country had sickened unto death of the "parties" and their
disgusting vagaries. Mr William O'Brien, although giving loyal support
and, what is more, very material assistance to Mr Dillon and his
friends, was not himself a Member of Parliament, but was doing far
better work as a citizen, studying, from his quiet retreat on the
shores of Clew Bay, the shocking conditions of the Western peasantry,
who were compelled to eke out an existence of starvation and misery
amid the crags and moors and fastnesses of the west, whilst almost
from their very doorsteps there stretched away mile upon mile of the
rich green pastures from which their fathers were evicted during the
clearances that followed the Great Famine of 1847, and which M. Paul
Dubois describes as "the greatest legalised crime that humanity has
ever accomplished against humanity."
"To look over the fence of the famine-stricken village and see the
rich green solitudes, which might yield full and plenty, spread out at
the very doorsteps of the ragged and hungry peasants, was to fill a
stranger with a sacred rage and make it an unshirkable duty to strive
towards undoing the unnatural divorce between the people and the land"
(William O'Brien in an _Olive Branch in Ireland_).
Mr Arthur Balfour had established the Congested Districts Board in
1891 to deal with the Western problem, where "the beasts have eaten up
the men," and when Mr O'Brien settled down at Mallow Cottage he
devoted himself energetically to assisting the Board in various
projects of local development. But his experiences proved that these
minor reforms were at the best only palliatives, "sending men ruffles
who wanted shirts," and that there could be only one really
satisfactory solution--to restore to the people the land that had been
theirs in bygone time, to root out the bullocks and the sheep and to
root in the people into their ancient inheritance. It was only after
years of patient effort that he at last succeeded in persuading the
Congested Districts Board to make its first experiment in land
purchase for the purpose of enlarging the people's holdings and making
them the owners of their own fields.[1] The scene was Clare Island,
"the romantic dominion of Granya Uaile, the 'Queen of Men,'" who for
many years brought Elizabeth's best captains to grief among her wild
islands. The lordship of this island of 3949 acres, with its
ninety-five families, had passed into the hands of a land-jobber,
"with bowels of iron," who sought to extract his cent. per cent. from
the unfortunate islanders by a series of police expeditions in a
gunboat, with a crop of resulting evictions, bayonet charges and
imprisonments.
The result of the experiment was, beyond expectation, happy. After
many delays the Congested Districts Board handed over the island to
its new peasant proprietors, now secure for ever more in their own
homesteads, but this transfer was not completed until the Archbishop
of Tuam and Mr O'Brien had guaranteed the payment of the purchase
instalments for the first seven years--a guarantee which to the
islanders' immortal credit never cost the guarantors a farthing.
Fired to enthusiasm by the success of this experiment Mr O'Brien
conceived the idea of a virile agitation for the replantation of the
whole of Connaught, so that the people should be transplanted from
their starvation plots to the abundant green patrimony around them. He
avows that no political objects entered into his first conceptions of
this movement in the West. But the approach of the centenary of the
insurrection of 1798, with its inspiring memories of the United
Irishmen, furnished him with the idea, and the happy title for a new
organisation which, in his own words, "drawing an irresistible
strength and reality from the conditions in the West, would also throw
open to the free air of a new national spirit those caverns and
tabernacles of faction in which good men of all political persuasions
had been suffocating for the previous eight years." Accordingly the
United Irish League was born into the world at Westport on the 16th
January 1898, to achieve results which, if they be not greater--though
great, indeed, they are--the fault assuredly rests not with the
founder of the League, but with those others who malevolently thwarted
his purposes. The occasion was opportune. The three several movements
of the Dillonites, Redmondites and Healyites were in ruins, and
Ireland went its way unheeding of them. The young men were busy with
their '98 and Wolfe Tone Clubs. They drank deep of the doctrines of a
heroic age. Centenary celebrations were held throughout the country,
at which men were exhorted to study the history of an era when men
were proud to die for the land they loved. For a space we listened to
the martial music of other days, and our hearts throbbed to its
stirring notes. The soul of the nation was uplifted above the squalid
rivalries of the "'ites" and the "'isms." It awaited a unifying
influence and a programme which would disregard the factions and leave
a wide-open door for all Nationalists to come in, no matter what sides
they had previously taken or whether they had taken any at all.
This wide-open door and this broad-based programme the United Irish
League offered. Mr Dillon attended the inaugural meeting, but from
what Mr O'Brien tells us he did not seem to grasp the full
potentialities of the occasion, "and he made his own speech without
any indication that any unusual results were expected to follow." Mr
Timothy Harrington, one of the leading and most levelheaded of the
Parnellite members, also attended, in defiance of bitter attack from
his own side, showing a moral courage sadly lacking in our public men,
either then or later. By what I cannot help thinking was a most
fortuitous circumstance for the League, at a moment when its existence
was not known outside three or four parishes, Mr Gerald Balfour
determined to swoop down upon it and to crush it with the whole might
of the Crown forces. Two Resident Magistrates and the Assistant
Inspector-General of Constabulary, with a small army corps of special
police, were sent to Westport. Result--the inevitable conflict between
the police and people took place, prosecutions followed, extra police
taxes were put on and a store of popular resentment was aroused, the
League getting an advertisement which was worth scores of organisers
and monster meetings. I am myself satisfied that it was the ferocity
of the Crown attack upon the League which gave it its surest passport
to popular favour. Whilst the United Irish League was struggling into
life in the west I was engaged in the south in an attempt to lead the
labourers out of the bondage and misery that encompassed them--their
own sad legacy of generations of servitude and subjection--but I am
nevertheless pleased to recall now that, as the editor of a not
unimportant provincial newspaper in Cork, I followed the early
struggles of the new League with sympathy and gave it cordial welcome
when it travelled our way.
As a mere statement of indisputable fact, it is but just to say
that the entire burden of organising the League fell upon the
shoulders of Mr O'Brien. When it was yet an infant, so to speak, in
swaddling-clothes, and indeed for long after, when it grew to lustier
life, he had to bear the whole brunt of the battle for its existence,
without any political party to support him, without any great
newspaper to espouse his cause and without any public funds to supply
campaign expenses. Nay, far worse, he had to face the bitter hostility
of the Redmondites and Healyites "and the scarcely less depressing
neutrality" of the Dillonites, whilst under an incessant fire of shot
and shell from a Coercion Government. After Mr Dillon's one appearance
at Westport he was not seen on the League platform for many a day. At
Westport he had exhorted the crowd to "be ready at the call of their
captain by day or night," but having delivered this incitement he left
to others the duty of facing the consequences, candidly declaring that
he had made up his mind never to go to jail again. Mr Harrington,
however, remained the steadfast friend of the League, and Mr Davitt
also gave it his personal benediction, all the more generous and
praiseworthy in that his views of national policy seldom agreed with
those of Mr O'Brien. Confounding all predictions of its early eclipse,
and notwithstanding a thousand difficulties and discouragements, the
League continued to make headway, and after eighteen months' Herculean
labours Mr O'Brien and his friends were in a position to summon a
Provincial Convention at Claremorris, in the autumn of 1899, to settle
the constitution of the organisation for Connaught. Two nights before
the Convention Mr Dillon and Mr Davitt visited Mr O'Brien at Mallow
Cottage to discuss his draft Constitution. It is instructive, having
in mind what has happened since, that Mr Dillon took exception to the
very first clause, defining the national claim to be "the largest
measure of national self-government which circumstances may put it in
our power to obtain." This was the logical continuance of Parnell's
position that no man had a right to set bounds to the march of a
nation, but Mr Dillon seemed to have descried in it some sinister
purpose on the part of Mr O'Brien and Mr Davitt to abandon the
constitutional Home Rule demand in the interest of the physical force
movement. Eventually a compromise was agreed on, but in regard to
other points of the Constitution--particularly that which made the
constituencies autonomous and self-governing--Mr Dillon was
obstinately opposed to democratic innovation. It would appear to me
that in these days was sown the seeds of those differences of opinion
between those close friends of many years' standing which were later
to develop into a feeling of personal hostility which, on the part of
one of them (Mr Dillon) at least, was black and bitter in its
unforgivingness. The Claremorris Convention was such a success its
"dimensions and character almost took my own breath away with wonder;
all other feelings vanished from the minds of us all except one of
thankfulness and rapture in presence of this incredible spectacle of
the foes of ten years' bitter wars now marching all one way 'in mutual
and beseeming ranks,' radiant with the life and hope of a national
resurgence" (Mr O'Brien).
The first test of the strength and power of the League was shortly to
come. Mr Davitt resigned his seat for South Mayo and proceeded to
South Africa to give what aid he could to the Boers in their desperate
struggle for freedom. A peculiar situation arose over the
Parliamentary vacancy that was thus created. The enemies of the United
Irish League hit upon the astute political device of nominating Major
M'Bride, himself a Mayo man, who was at the moment fighting in the
ranks of the Irish Brigade in the Boer service. Mr O'Brien was
naturally confronted with a cruel dilemma. To allow the seat to go
uncontested was to confess a failure and to give joy to another
brigade--the Crowbar Brigade--who wished for nothing better than the
early overthrow of the League, which was the only serious menace to
their power in the country. To contest the seat was to have the
accusation hurled at his head that he was lacking in enthusiasm for
the Boer cause, which Nationalist Ireland to a man devotedly espoused.
The question Mr O'Brien had to ask himself was what was his duty to
Ireland and to the oppressed peasantry of the West. It could not
affect the Boer cause by a hair's-breadth who was to be future member
for South Mayo, but it meant everything to Irish interests whether the
United Irish League was to make headway and to gain a grip on the
imagination and sympathies of the people. And, influenced by the only
consideration which could be decisive in a situation of such
difficulty, Mr O'Brien offered to the electors of South Mayo Mr John
O'Donnell, the first secretary and organiser of the League, who was
then lying in Castlebar Jail as the result of a Coercion prosecution.
After a contest, in which all the odds seemed to lie on the side of
the South African candidate, Mr O'Donnell was returned by an
overwhelming majority.
The South Mayo election meant the end of one chapter of Irish history
and the opening of another in which the political imbecility and
madness which had distorted and disgraced the years since the Parnell
Split could no longer continue their vicious courses. The return of Mr
O'Donnell had focussed the attention of all Ireland on the programme
and policy of the League. Branches multiplied amazingly, until it
would be no exaggeration to say that they spread through the country
like wildfire. The heather was ablaze with the joy of a resurgent
people who had already almost forgotten the weary wars that had
sundered them and who blissfully joined hands in one more grand united
endeavour for the old land.
Having in several pitched battles defeated the forces of the
Rent-offices and the politicians and disposed of some of the vilest
conspiracies which the police emissaries of the Castle could hatch
against it, the League had to engage in more desperate encounters
before it could claim its cause won. I have already remarked that when
the Local Government Bill was receiving the benediction of all parties
in Parliament, except Mr Dillon, Mr Redmond promised that his
influence would be extended to an effort to return the landlord and
ascendancy class to the new Councils. The United Irish League
determined to take issue with him on this. When the elections under
the new Act were announced, Mr Redmond, honestly enough, proceeded to
give effect to his promise. Mr O'Brien decided, and very rightly and
properly in my judgment, that it would be a fatal policy, and a weak
one, to surrender to the enemy, whilst he was still unconquered and
unrepentant, any of those new Councils which could be made citadels of
national strength and a new fighting arm of the constitutional
movement. It meant that having driven the landlords forth from the
fortresses from which they had so long oppressed the people, they
should be immediately readmitted to them, having made no submissions
and given no guarantees as to their future good behaviour. Mr Redmond
and his followers made brave appeal from the landlord platforms to
their supporters "not to be bitten by the Unity dog." Mr Healy's
newspaper and influence took a similar bent. Mr Dillon's majority, as
usual helpless and indecisive, promulgated no particular policy. For
Mr O'Brien and the United Irish League there could be no such
balancings or doubts. It is good also to be able to say of Mr Davitt
that he assisted in fighting the insidious attempt to denationalize
the County and District Councils. The League and its supporters won
all along the line. The few reverses they sustained were negligible
when compared with the mighty victories they obtained all over
Ireland, and when the elections were over the League was established
in an impregnable position as the organisation of disinterested and
genuine nationality.
The Parliamentarians, seeing how matters stood, and no doubt with a
wise thought of their own future, now proceeded to compose their
quarrels. They saw themselves forgotten of the people, but they were
resolved apparently that the people should not forget them. They took
their cue from a country no longer divided over sombre futilities, and
unable to make up their minds for themselves they accepted the
judgment of the country once they were aware that it was irrevocably
come to. Mr Dillon after his re-election to the chair of his section
in 1900 immediately announced his resignation of the office, and
being, as we are assured on the authority of Mr O'Brien, always
sincerely solicitous for peace with the Parnellites, he caused a
resolution to be passed binding the majority party in case of reunion
to elect as their chairman a member of the Parnellite Party, which
numbered merely nine.
Naturally Mr Redmond and his friends did not hesitate to close with
this piece of good fortune, which opened an honourable passage from a
position of comparative isolation to one of triumph and power. The
Healyites, whose quarrel appeared to be wholly with Mr Dillon, to whom
Mr Healy in sardonic mood had attached the sobriquet of "a melancholy
humbug," made no difficulty about falling in with the new arrangement,
and the three parties forthwith met and signed and sealed a pact for
reunification without the country in the least expecting it or,
indeed, caring about it. Probably the near approach of a General
Election had more to do with this hastily-made pact than any of the
nobler promptings of patriotism. I believe myself the country would
have done much better had the United Irish League gone on with its own
blessed work of appeasement and national healing unhampered by what,
as after knowledge conclusively proved to me, was nothing but a
hypocritical unity for selfish salvation's sake. Mr O'Brien puts the
whole position in a nutshell when he says: "The Party was reunified
rather than reformed." The treaty of peace they entered into was a
treaty to preserve their own vested interests in their Parliamentary
seats.
But a generous and forgiving nation was only too delighted to have an
end of the bickerings and divisions which had wrought such harm to the
cause of the people, and accordingly it hailed with gratification the
spectacle of a reunited Irish Party.
It is probable, nevertheless, that had the process of educating the
people into a knowledge of their own power gone on a little further
the United Irish League would have been able at the General Election
to secure a national representation which would more truly reflect
national dignity, duty and purpose.
The first result of the Parliamentary treaty was the election of Mr
John E. Redmond to the chair. In the circumstances, the majority party
having pledged themselves to elect a Parnellite, no other choice was
possible. Mr Redmond possessed many of the most eminent qualifications
for leadership. He had an unsurpassed knowledge of Parliamentary
procedure and seemed intended by nature for a great Parliamentary
career. He was uniformly dignified in bearing, had a distinguished
presence, a voice of splendid quality, resonant and impressive in
tone, and an eloquence that always charmed his hearers. Had he
possessed will power and strength of character in any degree
corresponding to his other great gifts, there were no heights of
leadership to which he might not have reached. As it was, he lacked
just that leavening of inflexibility of purpose and principle
which was required for positive greatness as distinct from
moderately-successful leadership. At any rate, he was the only
possible selection, yet once again Mr Dillon exhibited a disposition
to show the cloven hoof. For some inscrutable reason he made up his
mind to oppose Mr Redmond's election to the chair, but when Mr O'Brien
and Mr Davitt (who had returned from the Transvaal) got word of the
plot they wired urgent messages to their friends in Parliament that Mr
Redmond's selection was the only one that could give the leadership
anything better than a farcical character. Result--Mr Redmond was
elected by a very considerable majority, and Mr Dillon had further
reason for having his knife in his former friend and comrade, Mr
O'Brien.
The three sectional organisations--the National Federation, the
National League and the People's Rights Association thereafter died a
natural death. There were no ceremonial obsequies and none to sing
their requiem.
The first National Convention of the reunited country was then
summoned by a joint committee consisting of representatives of the
United Irish League and the Party in equal numbers, and it gave the
League a constitution which made it possible for the constituencies to
control the organisation, to select their own Parliamentary
representatives and generally to direct national affairs within their
borders. The conception of the Constitution was sound and democratic.
But in any organisation it is not the constitution that counts, but
the men who control the movement. And the time came all too soon when
this was sadly true of the United Irish League.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: To Dr Robert Ambrose belongs the credit for having first
introduced, as a private member, in 1897, a Bill to confer upon the
Congested Districts compulsory powers for land purchase. This was
subsequently adopted as an Irish Party measure. Dr Ambrose was also
the author of a measure empowering the County Councils to acquire
waste lands for reclamation. He was one of the pioneers of the
Industrial Development Movement and wrote and lectured largely on the
subject. He was, with the late Bishop Clancy, prominent in promoting
"the All-Red Route," which would have given Ireland a great terminal
port on its western coast at Blacksod Bay. He, at considerable
professional sacrifice, entered the Party, at the request of Mr Dillon
and Mr O'Brien, as Member for West Mayo. The reward he received for
all his patriotic services was to find himself opposed in 1910 by the
Dillonite caucus because of his independent action on Irish questions.
Mr Dillon had no toleration for the person of independent mind, and
thus a man who had given distinguished service to public causes was
ruthlessly driven out of public life.]