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‘Parnell’s Old Brigade’: the Redmondite–Fenian nexus in the 1890s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Matthew Kelly
Matthew Kelly*
Affiliation:
Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford
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Extract

The relationship between constitutional and advanced or physical-force nationalism in nineteenth-century Ireland was always tense and intimate. Both traditions professed to repudiate the stated aims and strategies of the other, while at the same time often co-operating across the apparent ideological and organisational divides. The Fenians worked with Isaac Butt’s early home rule movement, while the New Departures of the late 1870s facilitated I.R.B. involvement in the Land League and the home rule movement, proving crucial to the emergent leadership of Charles Stewart Parnell. Although this ideological flexibility was often motivated by a self-interested desire to be associated with influential organisations and personalities, it also arose from the realisation that the ideal strategy was currently inappropriate. The essence of the New Departure lay in allowing physical-force men to join the agrarian agitation of the Land League on the understanding that this did not compromise their separatist ideals. Consequently, the self-identification of separatists at the time of the 1916 rising as belonging to an immemorial tradition, consecrated by the blood of martyrs, needs to be set against both the contingency of political engagement and the lack of precision as to the form of state a separate Ireland might take.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 33 , Issue 130 , November 2002 , pp. 209 - 232
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 2002

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References

1 The work of Gerard Moran is particularly suggestive in this regard. His numerous essays and articles are detailed in the bibliography to his A radical priest in Mayo: Fr Patrick La elk: the rise and fall of an Irish nationalist, 1825-86 (Dublin, 1994). T. W. Moody famously distinguished three New Departures in the late 1870s: see his Da itt and Irish re olution, 1846-82 (Oxford, 1981). See also the subtle readings in Lyons, F. S. L., Charles Stewart Parnell (London, 1977), pp 70–115Google Scholar, and Kee, Robert, The laurel and the i y: the story of Charles Stewart Parnell and Irish nationalism (London, 1993).Google Scholar

2 Lyons, F.S.L., The Irish Parliamentary Party, 1890-1910 (London, 1951), p. 26Google Scholar; Gwynn, Denis, The life of John Redmond (London, 1992), pp 86-7Google Scholar. Bishop Nulty of Meath declared that ‘No man can remain a Catholic as long as he elects to cling to Parnellism.’

3 For a consideration of some aspects of the relationship between Fenianism and constitutional nationalism see Kelly, Matthew, ‘Dublin Fenianism in the 1880s: “the Irish culture of the future”?’ in Hist. Jn., xliii (2000), pp 729-50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Callanan, Frank, The Parnell split, 1890-91 (Cork, 1992), pp 238-59.Google Scholar

5 Mandle, W. F., The Gaelic Athletic Association and Irish nationalist politics, 1884-1924 (Dublin, 1987), pp 80–91.Google Scholar

6 R. Barry O’Brien to John O’Leary, 15 Mar. 1891 (N.L.I., O’Leary papers, MS 5927).

7 O’Brien, R. Barry, The life of Parnell (London, 1910 ed.), pp 514-15.Google Scholar

8 Weekly Freeman, 17 Oct. 1891.

9 For biographical detail see Gwynn, Denis, The life of John Redmond (London, 1932)Google Scholar and Gwynn, Stephen, John Redmond’s last years (London, 1919)Google Scholar. More recent accounts include Paul Bew’s brief study, John Redmond (Dundalk, 1996)Google Scholar, and Laffan, Michael’s essay ‘John Redmond (1856-1918) and home rule’ in Brady, Ciaran (ed.), Worsted in the game: losers in Irish history (Dublin, 1989), pp 132-42.Google Scholar

10 Bew, Paul, Conflict and conciliation in Ireland, 1890-1910: Parnellites and radical agrarians (Oxford, 1987), pp 23-4.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., pp 26-7.

12 Ibid., p. l3.

13 O’Brien, William, An oli e branch in Ireland and its history (London, 1910), p. 69.Google Scholar

14 Laffan, Michaelchallenges the same police assumptions regarding Sinn Féin in The resurrection of Ireland (Cambridge, 1999), pp 190-93CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Hart, Peterdemonstrates how the Volunteers defined themselves against these very groups in The I.R.A. and its enemies: iolence and community in County Cork, 1916-1923 (Oxford, 1998), p. 148Google Scholar. Examples of medics manipulating their I.R.B. links to further their positions in the locale include Dr Mathew Grey of Drumlish, County Longford, at one point the local I.R.B. treasurer, and Dr M. M. Sheehy of Kilmallock, County Limerick, Land Leaguer, Parnellite and Amnesty Association campaigner (N.A.I., Crime Branch Special Files (C.B.S.), box 7, 7453; box 11, 12844, 29 Dec. 1896; box 12, 14851).

15 Senior police officers often provided moderating commentary on the bold claims of their juniors. For example, compare the monthly report of October 1892 submitted by the County Kildare Inspector with that of his Divisional Commissioner (Midland Division Monthly Report (M.R.), Oct. 1892 (P.R.O., CO 904/60)).

16 ÓBroin, Leon, Re olutionary underground: the story of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, 1858-1924 (Dublin, 1976), p. 49Google Scholar; R. F. Foster, ‘Thinking from hand to mouth: Anglo-Irish literature, Gaelic nationalism and Irish politics in the 1890s’ in idem, Paddy and Mr Punch: connections in Irish and English history (London, 1993), pp 262-80. Cf. Mandle, Gaelic Athletic Association, pp 80-124, for the high level of factious I.R.B. activity in the G.A.A.

17 Intelligence notes, Misc. — B ser., xxxvii, Jan., Feb. 1899 (P.R.O., CO 903/6). These police estimates are taken seriously by Garvin, Tom, The e olution of Irish nationalist politics (Dublin, 1981), p. 91Google Scholar, and Fitzpatrick, David, The two Irelands, 1912-1939 (Oxford, 1998), p. 15 n. 6.Google Scholar

18 A classic expression of this is O’Hegarty, P. S., A history of Ireland under the union, 1801-1922 (London, 1952), p. 633.Google Scholar

19 Annual report of the Crime Special Report for 1892, Western Division (N.A.I., C.B.S., box 6, 61860).

20 Ibid., box 13, 16247; intelligence notes, Misc. — B ser., vii, Jan. 1896 (P.R.O., CO 903/5). Before the split the Freeman’s Journal sold 50, 000 copies daily.

21 N.A.L. C.B.S., box 10, 10712, 25 Oct. 1895. Allan was paid £4 a week, a low wage for the job; John Wyse Power took on his role as I.R.B. co-ordinator when Allan was absent.

22 Ibid, box 11, 11411. Mallon remarked: ‘Of course there are a lot of others who are regarded as of no consequence, but who follow Allan on public occasions.’

23 For details of the murder see ÓBroin, Re olutionary undergound, pp 50-55.

24 N.A.I., C.B.S., box8, 8454.

25 Comerford, R. V., The Fenians in context: Irish politics and society, 1848-1882 (Dublin, 1985; repr., 1998), pp 169-79Google Scholar; Thornley, David, Isaac Butt and home rule (London, 1964), pp 53-6, 65-82.Google Scholar

26 Thornley, Butt, pp 87-90, 135-7, 188-9, 290.

27 Case of John Daly 1885, report by E. G. Jenkinson (from August 1882 the head of Special Branch at Dublin Castle) (P.R.O., CAB 37/14/5).

28 Register of Home Associations, 1890-93, p. 413/1-4 (ibid., CO 904/16).

29 N.A.I., C.B.S., box 1, 838, 824, 876.

30 Misc. notes, xii (P.R.O., CO 903/2); Munster Express, 25 Oct. 1890.

31 N.A.I., C.B.S., box9, 9156.

32 Ibid., Misc. police reports, 1882-1921, box 3, Limerick, 30 Mar. 1891.

32 Weekly Independent, 28 Apr. 1894. Allan claimed: ‘Even Mr Parnell himself (as I learned from his own lips) had up to then been carried away with the idea that the quickest way to get the men out was to get Home Rule.’

34 In November 1896 the Independent decided to publish the appeal of the John Daly Testimonial Committee in the news columns free of charge (minutes of the editorial committee of the Irish Independent, 1896-7 (N.L.I., MS 14915)).

35 N.A.I., C.B.S., box 9, 9156.

36 Ibid.

31 Daily Independent, 4 Oct. 1893.

38 Redmond, J. E., Historical and political addresses, 1883-1897 (Dublin, 1898), p. 364.Google Scholar

39 Freeman’s Journal, 13 Nov. 1894.

40 N.A.I., C.B.S., box 9, 9238.

41 Daily Independent, 13 Nov. 1894. Morley was similarly condemned following the execution of John Twiss, hanged at Cork jail on 9 February 1895. Twiss was convicted of the murder of the earl of Cork’s bailiff James Donovan on the morning of 21 April 1894. Donovan was the caretaker of a farm in the townland of Glenlara, near Newmarket, County Kerry. Nationalist opinion considered Twiss innocent, targeted for his history of Moonlighting. Meetings calling for his reprieve exemplified the Redmondite-Fenian nexus: see N.A.I., C.B.S., box 10, 9545; Daily Independent, 4 Feb. 1895; E ening Herald, 9 Feb. 1895. See Lynch, Pat, They hanged John Twiss (Tralee, 1982)Google Scholar for a picturesque account of the murder, trial, and apparent miscarriage of justice.

42 Weekly Independent, Apr. 1894.

43 N.A.L. C.B.S., box 4, 5052; Daily Independent, 13 May 1892.

44 Redmond, Historical & political addresses, p. 360.

45 On this subject see Jordan, Donald, ‘The Irish National League and the “unwritten law”: rural protest and nation-building in Ireland, 1882-1890’ in Past & Present, no. 158 (1998), pp 146-71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

46 N.A.L. C.B.S., box 11, 12211.

47 Ibid., 11642.

2 Daily Independent, 10 July 1896. In parliament John Redmond declared of one prisoner: ‘Egan is a delicate man, and the life that he and the others are leading is killing them. It is impossible to see them month after month without seeing that they are dying almost before one’s face’ (Hansard 4, i, 248 (11 Feb. 1892)).

49 For example, see Redmond, Historical & political addresses, pp 371-2.

50 Hansard 4, iii, 992 (9 Feb. 1893).

51 Ibid., i, 292-3, 334-5, 341 (12 Feb. 1892). Justin McCarthy’s defence of Fenianism was more ambivalent, resisting the alignment of the Federationists with Fenian sentiment: ‘Fenianism and dynamite have absolutely nothing to do with each other. The Fenians were a revolutionary party, but they never had anything to do with outrage or dynamite or any other crime of that kind.’

52 Ibid., liii, 438, 441 (11 Feb. 1898).

53 South-Western Division M.R., Jan. 1894 (P.R.O., CO 903/63).

54 South-Western Division M.R., Feb., Mar. 1893 (ibid.).

55 As William Redmond pointed out during the 1892 Queen’s Speech debate, ‘I tell him that some of these men who have been most active, have done most to promote the cause of good will between the two countries upon the lines laid down by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian’ (Hansard 4, i, 292-3 (11 Feb. 1892)).

56 South-Western Division M.R., Apr. 1894 (P.R.O., CO 904/63).

57 South-Western Division M.R., Sept. 1894 (ibid., CO 904/64). Ryan was perhaps purging himself of impure influences. In August 1894 he had been present at an amnesty convention in Liverpool where it was agreed that all parliamentary candidates should be called upon to take an amnesty pledge. This read: ‘I hereby declare that should I be elected to Parliament, I will on all occasions that arise in the House of Commons, vote for the immediate and unconditional release of all prisoners incarcerated in prisons for offences rising out of the political struggle in Ireland, and I will further take every opportunity in Parliament and in all public discussion of advocating the cause of Amnesty with regard to these prisoners’ (intelligence notes, Misc. — B ser., ii, 1895-7, Aug. 1894 (P.R.O., CO 903/5)).

58 N.A.L. C.B.S., box 10, 10819.

59 P.R.O. CO 903/5 (July 1895).

60 N.A.I., C.B.S., box 8, 8024.

61 Ibid., box 10, 10825; Daily Independent, 14, 25 Nov. 1895. Cf. William Redmond addressing his East Clare constituents on the Second Home Rule Bill: ‘Sooner than stand up and allow his lips to frame the words that the Bill was the final settlement of Ireland’s National demand he would not only give up being their representative and leave public life, but if any man said that he should either say that this was the settlement of Ireland’s claims or lose his life, he believed, if God gave him strength, he would lose his life before he would accept that Bill as a final settlement of the demand for which their forefathers had fought and died. That was the difference between the McCarthyite members and the Parnellites. With that Bill or without they would go on until the epitaph of Robert Emmet could be written (cheers)’ (Weekly Independent, 23 Sept. 1893).

62 Daily Independent, 9 Dec. 1895. Patrick O’Brien addressed a Waterford meeting in January 1895 in similar terms: ‘Constitutional agitation was now on its trial, and if it succeeded at all it could only succeed on the lines laid down by Parnell, on the lines of John Redmond, and if did not succeed the opportunity would come for the good and true men to adopt other means (loud cheers), to realise the dreams of Emmet and Fitzgerald. When that day came he knew at least one man who would not funk the fight then any more than he was not funking the fight now (cheers)’ (Daily Independent, 23 Jan. 1895).

63 Intelligence notes, Misc. — B. ser., v, Nov., Dec. 1895, pp 11-12 (P.R.O., CO 903/5); Daily Independent, Cork Herald, Cork Examiner, 9 Dec. 1895. Secret Society men were prominent at similar meetings in Tuarn and Newry in December 1895, but were not noted at Sligo, Enniscorthy, Wicklow, Aughamore and Kilkenny.

64 O’Brien, Oli e branch, p. 6.

65 South-Western Division M.R., Mar. 1895 (P.R.O., CO 904/64); intelligence notes, Misc. — M ser., xxxvi, Mar. 1895, p. 97 (ibid., HO 184/65).

66 The political division was confirmed at the municipal elections for Limerick of December 1895. The Parnellites obtained 22 seats (a gain of one), the Federationists 14, the Unionists one, and three candidates were elected as neutrals. On 24 November 1895 a crowd of 1,000 attended the Manchester Martyrs’ commemorations in Limerick, with P. J. Hoctor giving the oration and the town’s moderate Parnellite mayor W. M. Nolan presiding (intelligence notes, Misc. — B ser., v, pp 57-8 (P.R.O.,

67 Daily Independent, 12 Mar. 1895.

68 N.A.L. C.B.S., box 10, 9702. The Daily Independent, 15 Mar. 1895, reported that the procession swelled to 1, 400-1, 500 people en route to the cemetery.

69 N.A.L. C.B.S., box 10, 9707.

70 Ibid., 9532; Daily Independent, 30 Jan. 1895.

71 Intelligence notes, Misc. — B ser., viii, p. 11 (P.R.O., CO 903/5).

72 N.A.L. C.B.S., box 11, 11316. Mallon reported that Redmond and Harrington resolved to have Allan removed from his job; if so, this was not acted upon.

73 Ibid., 11477.

74 Daily Independent, 12 Mar. 1896.

75 N.A.L. C.B.S., box 11, 12013, July 1896. The informant goes on to claim that Redmond’s party was being kept afloat thanks to the financial generosity of Cecil Rhodes. Patrick Maume also points out this connexion with reference to the ‘sinister Rhodes associate’, Rochfort, J.M.P, Maguire. for West Clare 1892-5 (Patrick Maume, The long gestation: Irish nationalist life, 1891-1918 (Dublin, 1999), p. 16.Google Scholar

76 N.A.L. C.B.S., box 12, 13478. Mallon went on: ‘Most people are laughing at the whole thing as a good joke. Some say that Secret Society money is spent so freely on both sides of the Atlantic that it is impossible for any honest [i.e. constitutionalist] nationalist to join any organisation pretending to be Irish nationalist, and that nothing serious will arise out of them. Others say that between Harringtonites, Healyites, Dillonites, I.R.B. & I.N.A. it is easy to keep the country quiet, especially as no-one seems disposed to trust either party with large sums of money.’ The Spectator was equally snide: ‘When in doubt call a Conference and found a new association. That appears to be the rule on which the Irish patriot now acts’ (reprinted in the Weekly Nation, 1 May 1897).

77 N.A.I., C.B.S., box 12, 13748.

78 Daily Independent, 21 Apr. 1897.

79 Ibid., 5 May 1897.

80 Davitt to Harrington, 20 Mar. 1897 (N.L.I., Harrington papers, MS 8576/11).

81 Daily Independent, 21 Apr. 1897. At a National Club meeting in January 1895 Redmond addressed the crowd outside: Dublin ‘had always been the centre of the national spirit of Ireland’. The Daily Independent claimed that 2,000 were present (ibid., 21 Jan. 1895); the D.M.P. not more than 500 any at one time (N.A.I., C.B.S., box 10, 9502).

82 Freeman’s Journal, 21 Apr. 1897.

83 South-Western Division M.R., Apr. 1897 (P.R.O., CO 904/65).

84 Daily Independent, 30 Apr. 1897; N.A.I., C.B.S., box 12, 13531.

85 Freeman’s Journal, 20 May 1897.

86 N.A.I. C.B.S., box 12, 13652.

87 Daily Independent, 29 Apr. 1897.

88 During the 1892 Queen’s Speech debates William Redmond argued that the Fenians had ‘paved the way for the movement of Mr Parnell’, while both Redmond and Harrington agreed that Parnell had been responsible for ensuring the Fenians supported home rule (Hansard 4, i, 292, 336-7 (11 Feb. 1892)).

89 South-Western Division M.R., June 1897 (P.R.O., CO 904/66). William Redmond communicated with leading supporters in County Clare about the possibility of him setting up a branch of the Irish Independent League, but there was no interest and the suggestion was dropped (intelligence notes, Misc. — B ser., xxiv, July 1897, p. 15 (ibid., CO 903/6)).

90 N.A.I., C.B.S., box 12, 14826 S.

91 South-Western Division M.R., May 1897 (P.R.O., CO 904/65).

92 In May 1897 the editors of the Weekly Independent decided they could arrest the decline in circulation of the paper by reducing the number of political reports the paper carried (minutes of the editorial committee of the Irish Independent, 1896-7, 13 May 1897 (N.L.I., MS 14915)).

93 ‘In the mid-1890s Parnellism was firmly placed in a ghetto within Irish polities’ (Bew, Conflict & conciliation, p. 26).

94 “Calculation based on the figures in intelligence notes, Misc. — B ser., xxviii, Feb. 1898, ‘The ’98 centenary movement’ (P.R.O., CO 903/6).

95 Intelligence notes, Misc. — B ser., xxvii, Jan., Feb. 1899 (ibid.). At the height of the I.I.L. controversy Harrington shared a platform with William O’Brien, ex-M.R. and William Abraham, M.P., at an agrarian meeting held at Glanworth, Mitchels-town, County Cork. The District Inspector reported that the overt object of the meeting was to aid the Evicted Tenants’ Fund, but the real object was ‘unity’. O’Brien’s speech was a eulogy of Harrington; the usual resolutions calling for aid for evicted tenants, the denunciation of land-grabbing, and the release of political prisoners were passed (South-Western Division M.R., May 1897 (P.R.O., CO 904/65)).

96 N.A.I. C.B.S., box 12, 14781.

97 Davitt to Harrington, 15 Jan. 1896 (N.L.I., MS 8576/11).

98 Redmond, Historical & political addresses, pp 324-6.

99 This process is considered at length from the separatist perspective in Kelly, Matthew, ‘Separatist political identity: the dilemma of Sinn Fein’ in Boyce, D. George and O’Day, Alan (eds), Ireland in transition (forthcoming)Google Scholar. See also Bull, Philip, ‘A fatal disjunction, 1898-1905: Sinn Fein and the United Irish League’ in Pelan, Rebecca (ed.), Irish-Australian Studies: papers of the Se enth Irish-Australian Conference (Sydney, 1994)Google Scholar; and Maume, Long gestation, pp 34-5. The fullest general account of the reunification remains Lyons, Irish Parliamentary Party.

100 N.A.I., C.B.S., box 15, 20299, 31 Aug. 1899.

101 McCracken, Donal, The Irish pro-Boers, 1877-1902 (Johannesburg, 1989).Google Scholar

102 Pašeta, Senia, ‘Nationalist responses to two royal visits to Ireland, 1900 and 1903’ in I.H.S., xxxi, no. 124 (Nov. 1999), pp 488–504.Google Scholar

103 The United Irishman, 6 Oct. 1901, urged abstention.

104 Inspector Generals’ and County Inspectors’ monthly confidential reports, Jan. 1900 (P.R.O. CO 904/69).