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The Political Ideas of Parnell*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

F. S. L. Lyons
F. S. L. Lyons
Affiliation:
University of Kent
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Extract

‘It is not easy to describe the mental life of a man who is neither expansive nor introspective’. Thus wrote T. P. O'Connor, one of Parnell's earliest biographers. Historians have never ceased to echo his lament, and however much they may have differed in their interpretation of Parnell, they have generally agreed that, while no Irish leader of the nineteenth century has been so intensively studied, none remains so enigmatic and inaccessible.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , December 1973 , pp. 749 - 775
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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References

1 O'Connor, T. P., The Parnell movement (London, 1886), p. 339.Google Scholar

2 Parnell himself was partly responsible for the legend, since he openly admitted that his knowledge of Irish history owed nothing to his formal education (Lecture on ‘The study of Irish history’, delivered to the Catholic University Historical Society on 13 Dec. 1877; published in Nation, 14 Sept. 1889). This is confirmed by Mccarthy, Justin (Reminiscences (London)), ii, 109)Google Scholar and by T. P. O'Connor, though the latter stressed that while Parnell's reading was practical rather than literary, he was nevertheless a well-informed man (O'Connor, T. P., Charles Stewart Parnell (London, 1891), pp. 21–2).Google Scholar

3 A copy of the catalogue of the Avondale library is preserved in the National Library in Dublin. For his familiarity with the secessionist argument as expressed by Mitchel, John, see his speech at Cork in December 1882 (United Ireland, 23 Dec. 1882).Google Scholar

4 Special Commission Act, 1888: reprint of the shorthand notes of the speeches, proceedings, and evidence taken before the commissioners appointed under the above-named act (hereafter cited as Spec. Comm. proc.), VII, 1–2.Google Scholar

5 Parnell, C. S., ‘The Irish land question’, in North American Review, cxxx (04 1880).Google Scholar For the authorship, see Healy, T. M., Letters and leaders of my day (London, 1928), i, 87.Google Scholar

6 Freeman's Journal, 29 11 1890.Google Scholar

7 Freeman's Journal, 11 12 1890.Google Scholar

8 Freeman's Journal, 18 03 1891.Google Scholar

9 Tablet, 12 June 1852, cited by Parnell in speech at Cork, (Nation, 9 Oct. 1880).Google Scholar

10 For the history of this earlier experiment, see Whyte, J. H., The independent Irish party, 1850–59 (Oxford, 1958).Google Scholar

11 Thornley, D. A., ‘The Irish Home Rule party and parliamentary obstruction 1874–87’, in Irish Historical Studies, xii, no. 45 (03 1960).Google Scholar

12 The Times, 3 Aug. 1877.

13 Nation, 30 June 1877.

14 Nation, 6 Nov. 1880.

15 Diverse examples of what Parnell regarded as corrupting or dangerous practices were Butt's private negotiations with the government to secure the passage of an Irish Intermediate Education Bill in 1878, Healy's independent dealings with both the Radical, Henry Labouchere, and the Tory, Randolph Churchill, in the mid-eighties, and the increasing tendency of Irish M.P.s to join the National Liberal Club – by 1890 no fewer than 36 were members. The Butt incident attracted criticism in the Nation, 27 July 1878; for the intrigues of Healy, see Churchill, Lord R. to Salisbury, Lord, 22 Dec. 1885 (Salisbury Papers) and Thorold, A. L., Henry Labouchere (London, 1913), p. 251;Google Scholar and for the membership of the National Liberal Club, see O'Brien, C. Cruise, Parnell and his party (1st edn, Oxford, 1957), pp. 330–2.Google Scholar

16 Nation, 22 Mar. 1884, speech at St Patrick's night banquet in London. On this occasion he went out of his way to issue a warning against looking for assistance to a great democratic alliance of English and Irish workers, such as Michael Davitt was just then beginning to envisage. ‘Some people’, said Parnell, ‘desire to rely upon the English democracy – they look for a great future movement against the English democracy; but I have never known any important section of any country which has assumed the governing of anorher country awaken to the real necessities of the situation without being compelled to do so.’

17 Nation, 5 Sept. 1885, speech at Dublin.

18 Freeman's Journal, 24 05 1889. It was characteristic of Parnell's detachment from Ireland at this time that, although his speech was delivered to an audience of councillors from a number of Irish cities, the meeting was held in London.Google Scholar

19 O'Brien, C. C., Parnell and his forty, p. 234, n. 1.Google Scholar

20 Lyons, F. S. L., The fall of Parnell, 1890–91 (London, 1960), ch. 2.Google Scholar

21 W. E. Gladstone to Lord Richard Grosvenor, 7 Jan. 1886 (Add. MS, 44, 316, fos. 165–7).

22 Butt, Isaac, Irish Federalism: its Meaning, its Objects, and its Hopes (Dublin, 1870);Google ScholarSullivan, A. M., New Ireland (16th ed., London, n.d.), pp. 344–5.Google Scholar For two modern appraisals, see Mccaffrey, L. J., ‘Irish Federalism in the 1870's: a Study in Conservative Nationalism’, in Transactions of the American Philosophical Society (new series, vol. 52, pt 6, Philadelphia, 11 1962);Google Scholar and Thornley, D. A., Isaac Butt and Home Rule (London, 1964), especially chs. 3 and 4.Google Scholar

23 His declaration of 1874, when he was defeated in his attempt to win a Dublin seat, is recalled in Irish Times, 14 Oct. 1881.

24 Nation, 25 Nov. 1876, speech at Liverpool.

25 Nation, 21 July 1877, speech at Liverpool.

26 Nation, 15 Dec. 1877, speech at Castlebar.

27 For the New Departure and its implications, see Moody, T. W., ‘The New Departure in Irish politics, 1878–79’, in Essays in British and Irish history in honour of James Eadie Todd, ed. Cronne, H. A., Moody, T. W. and Quinn, D. B. (London, 1949).Google Scholar See also Brown, T. N., Irish-American nationalism (Philadelphia and New York, 1966),Google Scholar ch. 5, and Moody's, T. W. review of that book in Irish Historical Studies, xv, no. 60 (09 1967).Google Scholar

28 For the evolution of his attitude, see Lyons, F. S. L., ‘The economic ideas of Parnell’, in Roberts, M. (ed.), Historical Studies (Cambridge, 1959), ii, 60–78.Google Scholar

29 Freeman's Journal, 18 11 1878, speech at Tralee.Google Scholar

30 Speech at Galway, 24 Oct. 1880. I have used the official police report and would like to express my indebtedness to Professor R. Dudley Edwards for making available to me the volume in his possession which contains the reports of the key Land League meetings in the summer and autumn of 1880.

31 United Ireland, 19 Apr. 1884, speech at Drogheda.

32 Nation, 18 Oct. 1879.

33 O'Brien, R. B., The life of Charles Stewart Parnell (3rd edn, London, 1899), i, 203 (hereafter cited as Parnell).Google Scholar

34 Spec. Comm. Proc., VII, 22.Google Scholar Professor E. Larkin of Chicago University has kindly confirmed for me that the Cincinnati newspapers did not themselves report the crucial phrase. It should be noted, though, that the Attorney-General claimed before the Special Commission that the Irish World report appeared verbatim in the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, 21 Feb. 1880 (Spec. Comm. Proc., VII, 117).Google Scholar

35 Nation, 14 Feb. 1880.

36 O'Brien, R. B., Parnell, i, 203–4.Google Scholar

37 Nation, 2 Oct. 1880, interview with James Redpath.

38 Police report of speech at New Ross, 26 Sept. 1880.

39 The change of direction is charted in O'Brien, C. C., Parnell and his party, pp. 72–118.Google Scholar For a more apocalyptic view of the effect of the Phoenix Park murders, see Corfe, T., The Phoenix Park murders (London, 1968), pp. 262–6.Google Scholar

40 In acknowledging the bishops' resolutions to this effect, Parnell did not lose the opportunity to say ‘how highly my colleagues and I value the mark of confidence in us which the resolutions of the hierarchy convey’. (C. S. Parnell to Bishops of Ardagh and Clonmacnoise and Raphoe, , 31 Oct. 1884, McCabe Papers, Dublin Diocesan Archives.)Google Scholar

41 United Ireland, 23 Dec. 1882, speech at Cork.

42 United Ireland, 24 Mar. 1883, interview in Paris.

43 Nation, 17 Jan. 1885, speech at Clonmel.

44 See, for example, the Clonmel speech cited in the previous note. His main reason for taking this view was that, under the constitution of 1782, the Irish parliament had the right to grant or withhold supplies for imperial purposes as well as for Irish purposes. He omitted, however, to refer to the existence of a royal veto upon Irish legislation or to the fact that the Irish executive was independent of the Dublin parliament. His belated recognition of these points is noted below.

45 Nation, 24 Jan. 1885, speech at Cork.

46 Carnarvon's report on the interview to Salisbury is in Hardinge, A. H., The life of Henry Howard Molyneux Herbert, fourth Earl of Carnarvon (London, 1925), iii, 178–81.Google Scholar Parnell's claim that Carnarvon had promised a statutory legislature was made in the debate on the second reading of Home Rule Bill (Hansard, 3rd series, cccvi, cols. 1181–1200). After Carnarvon's rejoinder in the Lords the controversy was continued in The Times, 12–19 June J886. For this whole episode, see Curtis, L. P., jr, Coercion and conciliation in Ireland, 1800–1892 (Princeton, 1963), pp. 49–54, 113–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

47 Nation, 29 Aug. 1885, speech in Dublin. He looked forward to a unicameral parliament with power to complete the settlement of the land question, to make provision for the agricultural labourers, to reform education and to develop home industries. This last function presupposed that Home Rule would involve the grant of tariff autonomy. This at once led him into a bitter controversy

with Chamberlain, for which see Lyons, F. S. L., ‘The economic ideas of Parnell’, loc. cit.Google Scholar

48 Nation, 5 Sept. 1885, speech at Dublin.

49 Nation, 10 Oct. 1885, speech at Wicklow.

50 MrsO'Shea, , with her usual inaccuracy, places this most important document eighteen months earlier, in May 1884Google Scholar (O'Shea, K., Charles Stewart Parnell: his love story and political life, ii, 18–20.Google Scholar It is clear, however, that Oct. 1885 is the correct date (Hammond, J. L., Gladstone and the Irish Nation, p. 419Google Scholar). For the text, see Hammond, , op. cit. pp. 422–3.Google Scholar

51 Hammond, J. L., op. cit. p. 423.Google Scholar

52 For the fluctuations of Parnell's mood during the critical weeks of the Home Rule negotiations and debates, see Morley, John, The life of William Ewart Gladstone (London, 1911 edn), III, 241–2, 252;Google ScholarO'Brien, William, Evening memories (London, 1920),Google Scholar chs. 7 and 8, and The Parnell of real life (London, 1926), pp. 112–16;Google Scholar and O'Connor, T. P., Memoirs of an old parliamentarian (London, 1929), ii, 31.Google Scholar

53 Hansard, 3rd series, ccciv, cols. 1124–34.

54 Hansard, 3rd series, cccvi, col. 1168–84.

55 Two examples of the suspicion and ill-feeling which Parnell's interference in religious questions could engender are to be found in the recurrent controversy about the demand for a Catholic university. In 1879 some members of the party accused him of calling them ‘a cowardly set of papist rats’ for failing to follow his lead on the university issue. He denied doing so, but if he did not use those actual words he seems to have spoken his mind more freely than he usually did (Nation, 9 and 19 Aug. 1879; O'Brien, W., Recollections (London, 1905), pp. 222–3).Google Scholar A few years later, when the Irish members had neglected the bishops' pleas to intervene in a debate on theQueen's Colleges, Parnell seized the opportunity ‘with his usual skill’, as one bishop noted. ‘This is the sort of thing’, he added sourly, ‘that is throwing the whole country into the hands of him and his followers ’ (DrWoodlock, B., Bishop of Clonmacnoise and Ardagh to Cardinal McCabe, 12 Feb. 1884, McCabe Papers, Dublin Diocesan Archives).Google Scholar

56 For this, see O'Farrell, P., Ireland's English question (New York, 1971), ch. 4.Google Scholar

57 O'Farrell, P., op. cit. p. 189.Google Scholar

58 Nation, 13 Nov. 1880, speech at Belleek.

59 On the education question he said this: ‘You may depend upon it that in an Irish legislature, Ulster, with such representatives as she now has in the imperial parliament, would be able to resist successfully the realization of any idea which the Catholic hierarchy might entertain with regard to obtaining an undue control of Irish education.’ But as to how this might be done, or as to the stresses which such resistance might introduce into Irish life, he remained completely silent. His attempt, in the same speech, to play down the economic importance of north-east Ulster by juggling with income-tax statistics was not only unconvincing, but, considering how wedded he was to protective tariffs, showed no appreciation whatever of the special problems of Ulster industry. His speech on the second reading is in Hansard, 3rd series, ccevi, 1168–84.

60 Ibid. cols. 1168–84.

61 Lyons, F. S. L., John Dillon (London, 1968), pp. 86–7, 94–5.Google Scholar

62 Nation, 12 May 1888, speech at the Eighty Club; see also his speech at St James's Hall, London, in March 1889 (Nation, 23 Mar. 1889).

63 W. E. Gladstone, memorandum of meeting with C. S. Parnell, 10 Mar. 1888 (Add. MS 44 773, tos. 49–50).

64 O'Brien, R. B., Parnell, ii, 184–9.Google Scholar

65 The two ‘participation’ speeches were at Edinburgh in July and in Nottingham in December (Nation, 27 July and 21 Dec. 1889, respectively).

66 W. E. Gladstone, memoranda of interviews with C. S. Parnell, 10 Mar. 1888 and 18 Dec. 1889 (Add. MS 44,773, fos. 49–50, 156–71). The vice-chairman, Justin McCarthy, who saw Parnell frequently at this period, received a clear impression that the powers of an American state, or even of a Canadian province, were much in his mind (Reminiscences, ii, 108–9).Google Scholar

67 Nation, 21 Dec. 1889, speech at Liverpool.

68 Nation, 5 July 1890, speech to the parliamentary party at a banquet in London to celebrate Parnell's forty-fourth birthday.

69 At Edinburgh in 1889 he even went so far as to say this: ‘I have not spoken in Ireland for years and years, and I will tell you the reason why: that I prefer to keep my head for better work than in coming in contact with the butt-end of a policeman's musket. The Irish member who addresses his constituents does so with the knowledge beforehand that in all probability he will be brutally assaulted and left for dead. And these are risks which some are willing to take, but which everybody is not willing to take. I confess that I am cowardly enough to have to place myself in the latter category’ (Nation, 27 July 1889). Given that he spoke tongue in cheek and that these remarks provoked laughter, they still sound strange from an Irish leader addressing a British audience and they help to indicate the difference between the Parnell of 1880 and the Parnell of 1889.

70 Lyons, F. S. L., ‘John Dillon and the Plan of Campaign, 1886–90’, in Irish Historical Studies, xiv (09 1965).Google Scholar

71 Brown, T. N., Irish-American nationalism, pp. 172–7.Google Scholar

72 In January 1891, during the crisis following the split in the party, Archbishop Walsh wrote to the anti-Parnellite, John Dillon, explaining to him that the bishops had not, as was then being claimed by Parnell's followers, protested against the election of Protestant members to parliament. There had been a disposition to complain that Parnell had departed from the system of selecting members at county conventions laid down in 1885, but this was deleted on Walsh's insistence. The letter that had eventually gone to Parnell in 1890 had therefore been limited to two points – the want of supervision over United Ireland and the independent action of individual members in launching movements [he meant the Plan of Campaign], involving grave consequences, ‘without the sanction of the party’ (Archbishop Walsh to John Dillon, 26 Jan. 1891, Dillon Papers).

73 Freeman's Journal, 19 06 1890.Google Scholar

74 The most obvious sectional interests in the party were the leaders of the Plan of Campaign (John Dillon and William O'Brien) who had reason to feel slighted by Parnell, and the Healy-Sullivan connection (the so-called ‘Bantry Band’) which had given notice of its highly conditional loyalty as far back as February 1886 when T. M. Healy had led an abortive mutiny against Parnell's decision to run Captain O'Shea as a candidate for Gal way city.