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THE 

PARNELL    MOVEMENT 


THE 


PARNELL    MOVEMENT 


WITH 


A    SKETCH    OF   IRISH   PARTIES 
FROM  1843 


BY 


T.  P.  O'CONNOR,  M.P. 

AUTHOR   OF 
LORD    BEACONSFIELU,    A    BIOGRAPHY'    'GLADSTONE'S    HOUSE   OF    COMMONS*    ETC. 


LONDON 

KEGAN  PAUL,  TRENCH,  &  CO.,  i  PATERNOSTER  SQUARE 

1886 


02,6 


rights  of  translation  and  of  reproduction  are  reserved} 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  THE   FALL  OF  O'CONNELL       ....  I 

II.  THE  COMING  OF  THE    FAMINE             .           .           .           .     '      .      .  l6 

III.  THE   FAMINE  .           . 4O 

IV.  THE  GREAT   CLEARANCES 66 

V.      THE  GREAT   BETRAYAL 126 

VI.      RUIN   AND   RABAGAS 1 68 

VII.      REVOLUTION    .           .           .           . 205 

VIII.      ISAAC   BUTT .      .  22Q 

IX.      FAMINE  AGAIN  ! 287 

X.     THE  LAND   LEAGUE •  3r5 

XL     THE  COERCION   STRUGGLE 407 

XII.      THE   IRISH   NEMESIS 472 

XIII.      THE   GENERAL   ELECTION 542 

INDEX 559 


FARXELL    MOVEMENT. 


EA3TE2L  L 

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Tar  issied: 


2  T^IE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

other  weapon  than  his  voice,  had  succeeded.  He  was  pro- 
claimed the  Liberator  of  his  country  ;  all  other  forces  in  the 
nation  and  all  other  men  were  overshadowed  by  his  single 
name  ;  and  he  established,  without  the  assistance  of  a  bayonet 
or  of  a  musket,  an  omnipotence  over  the  democracy  as  un- 
questioned and  unquestionable  as  that  of  a  Czar  with  millions 
of  soldiers  behind  him. 

It  was  not  long  before  O'Connell  and  the  nation  found 
that  the  glories  of  Catholic  Emancipation  were  but  a  mockery 
and  an  illusion.  He  had  calculated  that  with  this  lever  he 
would  have  been  able  to  wring  with  promptitude  all  the  other 
reforms  which  he  deemed  necessary  ;  and  the  evils  for  which 
he  demanded  redress  were  sufficiently  pressing.  The  tithes 
still  existed  ;  and  the  clergymen  of  the  opulent  Protestant 
Establishment  gathered  their  dues  of  wheat  from  a  poverty- 
stricken  Catholic  peasantry,  backed  by  soldiers  and  police  and 
guns,  and  sometimes  amid  scenes  of  mad  passion  and  much 
bloodshed.  O'Connell,  in  order  to  gain  Emancipation,  had 
committed  the  terrible  mistake  of  consenting  to  the  abolition 
of  the  forty-shilling  freeholder  :  and  this  had  taken  away  from 
the  landlords  one  of  the  most  effective  reasons  for  sparing 
the  tenant  at  will  ;  and  evictions  were  perpetrated  on  an  un- 
usually large  scale.  In  short,  the  material  condition  of  Ireland 
was  worse  in  the  years  succeeding  to  what  it  had  been  for 
several  years  before  the  Act  of  Emancipation. 

O'Conncll's  attempts  to  change  all  this  through  the  Im- 
perial Parliament  proved  miserably  abortive  ;  he  determined 
to  enter  on  a  new  agitation — this  time  the  object  being  the 
Repeal  of  the  Act  of  Union  :  and  this  brought  the  second  of 
his  great  disillusions.  He  had  throughout  his  career  been  the 
staunchest  of  Liberals  :  to  every  measure  of  Liberal  reform 
he  had  given  his  passionate  adhesion  ;  of  the  Reform  Act  of 
1832  he  was  one  of  the  most  effective  advocates  :  and  now 
the  Liberal  Party  failed  him.  He  had  no  sooner  entered  upon 
the  agitation  for  Repeal  of  the  Union  than  he  came  into 
collision  with  the  representatives  of  English  Liberalism  in 
Ireland.  The  association  which  he  founded  was  declared  to 
be  illegal ;  the  Marquis  of  Anglesey,  the  Liberal  Lord-Lieu- 
tenant, proclaimed  his  meetings  ;  his  letters  were  opened  by 


THE  FALL   OF    O'CONNELL  3 

the  hands  of  Liberals  in  the  Post  Office  l  ;  and  he  was  finally 
brought  by  Liberal  law-officers  before  an  Orange  judge  and 
a  packed  Orange  jury.  Declining  to  plead,  he  was  convicted  ; 
but  was  never  called  up  for  judgment.  It  was  under  the  ex- 
asperation caused  by  these  high-handed  acts  that  he  hurled 
at  the  then  Liberal  Administration  the  words  which  have 
often  since  been  quoted  with  rare  delight  by  Irish  speakers. 
He  spoke  of  the  Ministry  as  the  '  base,  brutal,  and  bloody 
Whigs.' 

But  these  experiences  had  their  effect  upon  him  ;  and 
still  more  the  bitter  experiences  he  had  in  Parliament.  He 
brought  forward  his  motion  (April  23,  1834)  in  favour  of  Repeal 
of  the  Union  ;  it  was  laughed  at  by  both  sides  of  the  House  ; 
and  when  he  went  into  the  lobby,  he  was  supported  by  but 
40  votes. 

Then  he  made,  perhaps,  one  of  the  worst,  though  one  of 
the  most  natural,  mistakes  of  his  life.  Instead  of  keeping  the 
attention  of  his  countrymen  and  of  the  Legislature  fixed  upon 
Repeal — which,  if  granted,  involved  the  redress  of  every  other 
grievance — he  determined  to  reverse  the  process.  He  tried  to 
make  the  removal  of  other  grievances  the  stepping-stone  to 
gaining  Repeal,  instead  of  standing  by  Repea.  as  the  be-all  and 
end-all  of  national  rights.  He  had  an  additional  reason  for 
hoping  for  the  redress  of  grievances,  in  the  promises  of  the 
Liberal  statesmen  of  the  period.  They  had  declared  over  and 
over  again  their  readiness  to  place  Ireland  on  a  perfect  equality 
with  England;  and  O'Connell,  before  long,  got  strong  evidence 

1  During  the  fierce  excitement  caused  in  1845  by  the  opening  of  the  letters  of 
the  Brothers  Bandiera  to  Mazzini  by  Sir  James  Graham,  a  Parliamentary  Return 
was  ordered  of  the  various  ministers  who  had  exercised  the  power  of  opening  the 
letters  of  private  persons.  According  to  this  return,  Mr.  Secretary  Littleton 
(afterwards  Lord  Hatherton)  had  done  so  in  1834,  and  Lord  Mulgrave  (afterwards 
Marquis  of  Normanby)  in  1835.  In  1836  the  same  noble  marquis  inspected 
private  Irish  correspondence,  with  the  assistance  of  Mr.  Drummond,  the  Irish 
Secretary.  In  1837  Mr.  O'Connell's  private  letters  to  his  friends  were  opened  by 
order  of  Lord  Chancellor  Plunket  and  Dr.  Whately,  Archbishop  of  Dublin  and  a 
Member  of  the  Privy  Council,  the  seals  or  envelopes  being  softened  by  the  appli- 
cation of  steam,  and  skilfully  re-sealed  after  the  letters  had  been  copied.  In  1838 
the  same  sort  of  espionage  was  carried  on  by  Lord  Morpeth  (afterwards  Lord 
Carlisle),  in  1839  by  Lords  Normanby  and  Ebrington  and  General  Sir  T. 
Blakeney,  and  again  by  Lord  Ebrington  in  1840. — (Parliamentary  Return, 
Session  of  1845.  Papers  relating  to  Mazzini.) 

B  2 


4  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

% 

of  the  reality  of  the  promise.  In  spite  of  continued  opposition 
by  the  Conservatives  and  of  repeated  rejections  by  the  House 
of  Lords,  an  Act  was  passed  which  threw  open  the  municipal 
councils  of  Ireland  to  the  Catholics ;  and  which  enabled 
O'Connell  himself  to  be  elected  Lord  Mayor  of  Dublin.  The 
spectacle  of  their  great  leader  clothed  in  the  robes  of  the  chief 
magistrate  of  the  metropolis  was  a  sight  that  proved  delightful 
to  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  at  that  period,  in  a  way  that  few 
people  can  now  understand.  The  Corporation  of  Dublin  had 
been  the  great  home  of  Orange  Conservatism  ;  and  its  alder- 
men were  among  the  most  prominent  spokesmen  of  the  in- 
sulting and  maddening  creed  of  Protestant  ascendency.  To 
see  O'Connell  in  the  seat  that  up  to  this  time  had  been 
uninterruptedly  occupied  by  one  of  their  bitterest  enemies 
appeared  to  the  people  the  visible  sign  of  a  momentous 
triumph.  But  here  again  a  great  concession  was  accompanied 
by  a  villainous  proviso.  Neither  O'Connell  nor  the  people, 
in  their  enthusiastic  welcome  of  municipal  reform,  attached 
much  importance  to  the  condition  that  the  appointment  of 
the  high  sheriff  should  rest  in  the  hands  of  the  Crown.  By- 
and-by  the  importance  of  the  provision  was  brought  home  to 
O'Connell  when  he  was  placed  on  his  trial  ;  and  the  high 
sheriff  of  Dublin,  as  the  man  charged  with  the  impanelling  of 
the  jury,  held  O'Connell,  and  through  O'Connell,  the  fate  of 
all  Ireland,  in  his  grip. 

The  grant  of  municipal  reform  by  the  Whigs  once  more 
threw  O'Connell  into  their  hands  ;  and  he  trusted  that  other 
reforms  would  follow.  He  spoke  warmly  on  behalf  of  the 
ministry  of  Lord  Melbourne  ;  and  called  upon  the  Irish 
people  to  rally  around  it.  But  in  1841  the  period  of  Liberal 
ascendency  came  to  an  end  ;  and  Sir  Robert  Peel — the  bitter 
and  uncompromising  enemy  of  all  Irish  Reform — came  to  the 
head  of  the  Government  with  a  huge  majority  behind  him. 
O'Connell  lost  all  hope  of  redress  from  Parliament,  and  once 
more  started  the  Repeal  agitation. 

O'Connell's  first  move  was  to  raise  a  debate  on  Repeal  in 
the  Corporation  of  Dublin.  His  speech  on  the  occasion  is 
regarded  by  competent  critics  as  perhaps  one  of  the  finest  of 
his  whole  life.  It  may  still  be  read  with  advantage  as  an 


THE    FALL   OF   O'CONNELL  5 

epitome  of  the  case  against  the  Union  and  as  a  syllabus  of 
the  hideous  ruin  which  that  ill-starred  Act  has  inflicted  upon 
the  Irish  people.  A  full  and  interesting  description  of  it  will 
be  found  in  Sir  Charles  Gavan  Duffy's  '  Young  Ireland ' 
(pp.  191—207).  The  chief  antagonist  of  O'Connell  on  this 
occasion  was  a  man  who  afterwards  played  an  important  part 
in  Irish  history  and  who  will  often  appear  in  these  pages. 
Isaac  Butt,  at  this  time  a  young  man  of  thirty  years  of  age, 
was  the  rising  hope  of  the  Irish  Orange  party,  and  was 
thought  of  so  highly  as  to  be  put  forward  as  protagonist  to 
the  great  agitator.  O'Connell's  motion  was  carried  by  45 
votes  to  15.  This  debate  gave  the  new  agitation  an  extra- 
ordinary stimulus.  The  subscriptions  rushed  up  from  2397. 
in  March,  the  week  after  the  debate,  to  68 3/.  in  the  beginning 
of  May  ;  many  classes  of  the  population  which  had  held  back, 
flocked  in  ;  a  number  of  the  bishops  gave  their  adhesion  to 
the  movement  either  openly  or  silently  ;  and  as  time  went  on 
Repeal  of  the  Union  was  the  passionate  cry  of  a  unanimous 
nation. 

Doubt  is  still  felt  in  many  minds  whether  when  he  first 
started  on  this  new  enterprise,  O'Connell  really  meant  to  per- 
severe with  it ;  or  whether  he  intended  to  use  the  larger 
demand  of  Repeal  as  a  lever  for  obtaining  the  smaller  reforms 
of  tenant  right,  the  disestablishment  of  the  Irish  Church,  and 
other  reforms.  Whatever  his  original  motives,  the  story  of 
the  Repeal  agitation,  which  he  now  started,  was  that  it  was 
strong  almost  from  the  very  commencement ;  that  its  strength 
increased  in  geometrical  progression ;  and  that  finally  it 
reached  proportions  so  gigantic  that  it  controlled  its  leader 
instead  of  being  controlled  by  him. 

The  most  significant  and  imposing  sign  of  the  hold  which 
the  new  agitation  took  upon  the  country  were  the  popular 
gatherings.  These,  from  the  immense  numbers  that  attended 
them,  came  to  be  known  as  the  '  monster  meetings,'  and  pro- 
bably were  the  largest  assemblages  of  human  beings  that  a 
political  cause  ever  drew  together  in  the  history  of  the  world. 
These  meetings  were  held  in  almost  every  part  of  Ireland, 
and  gathered  volume  as  they  went  along  ;  until  at  Tara, 
sacred  with  the  most  ancient  and  proud  memories  of  the  Irish 


6  TOE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

nation,  there  was  a  demonstration  which  numbered  half  a 
million  of  human  beings. 

The  assembling  together  of  so  many  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  people,  all  inspired  by  the  same  thought,  excited 
something  like  a  national  frenzy.  The  country  was  quivering 
in  every  nerve,  and  there  was  a  state  of  excitement  that 
made  everybody  anticipate  a  morrow  either  of  complete 
victory  or  of  an  outbreak  of  baffled  hate.  The  condition  of 
England  was  one  of  excitement  almost  as  intense.  The 
attention  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  was  called  in  Parliament 
to  these  meetings  by  some  of  his  Irish  Orange  followers  ; 
and,  after  a  certain  amount  of  shillyshallying,  he  had  dis- 
tinctly pledged  himself  that  these  meetings  were  seditious, 
and  that  the  agitation  for  the  Repeal  of  the  Union  should, 
if  necessary,  be  drowned  in  blood.  '  I  am  prepared/  he  said, 
'  to  make  the  declaration  which  was  made,  and  nobly  made, 
by  my  predecessor,  Lord  Althorp,  that,  deprecating  as  I  do 
all  war,  but  above  all  civil  war,  yet  there  is  no  alternative 
which  I  do  not  think  preferable  to  the  dismemberment  of  this 
Empire.' 

The  effect  of  these  words  was  to  exasperate  public  opinion 
on  both  sides  of  the  Channel.  It  roused  by  insult  the  anger 
of  the  Irish  people,  and  by  provocation  the  anger  of  the  Eng- 
lish. The  two  nations  stood,  in  fact,  opposed  to  each  other, 
maddened  by  all  the  fierce  national  passions  that  immediately 
precede  sanguinary  warfare. 

It  is  O'Connell's  action  at  this  hour  that  has  given  rise  to 
the  most  frequent  and  bitter  controversies  over  his  career. 
His  enemies  and  many  of  his  warmest  admirers  have  ever 
since  declared  that  he  proved  unequal  to  the  situation  ;  that 
he  had  victory  in  his  own  hand,  and  threw  it  away,  from  want 
of  courage  and  want  of  insight. 

He  would  be  a  very  unsympathetic  or  a  very  unimagi- 
native man  who  would  not  pity  the  great  agitator  at  this 
supreme  crisis  of  his  career.  Never,  perhaps,  had  a  political 
leader  graver  difficulties,  more  perplexing  problems — a  re- 
sponsibility so  vast,  so  overwhelming,  so  undivided.  On  the 
one  side  he  saw  the  great  resources  of  the  Empire  arrayed 
against  him  :  and  Peel  and  the  Duke  of  Wellington  had 


THE   FALL   OF   O'CONNELL  7 

taken  care  that  the  reality  of  these  resources  should  be 
brought  home  to  the  mind  of  O'Connell  and  the  Irish  nation 
in  a  manner  the  most  galling  and  the  most  palpable.  Troops 
were  poured  into  the  country  until  there  were  no  less  than 
35,000  men  in  Ireland  ;  and  there  were  ships  of  war  around 
the  whole  coast.  O'Connell  knew  that  to  all  this  force  he 
had  nothing  to  oppose  but  the  bare  breasts  of  a  brave  but 
also  an  unarmed  and  an  undisciplined  people.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  was  the  whole  nation,  with  strained  eye  and  ear, 
wanting  something  they  knew  not  what — filled  with  wild 
hopes  and  passions,  longings,  and  dreams.  And  high  up- 
lifted above  all  these  surging  and  strained  millions  he  stood  : 
worshipped  as  an  inspired  and  resistless  prophet ;  omni- 
potent over  their  destinies,  their  hearts,  their  lives  ;  gigantic, 
solitary,  most  miserable. 

For  it  is  now  certain  that  at  this  period  O'Connell  knew 
moments  of  perhaps  deeper  anxiety  than  ever  he  had  expe- 
rienced during  the  many  chequered  years  of  his  previous  life. 
When  the  last  shout  had  died  away ;  when  he  had  been  pro- 
claimed, amid  such  tumults  of  cheers,  the  uncrowned  King  of 
Ireland,  and  he  found  himself  once  more  with  a  single  com- 
panion to  whom  he  could  show  the  nudity  of  his  soul,  he  fre- 
quently uttered  in  a  cry  of  anguish  and  despair,  '  My  God,  my 
God  !  what  am  I  to  do  with  this  people  ?  ' 

His  habits  at  this  period  throw  a  considerable  light  on  his 
motives  and  on  the  history  of  his  country.  In  spite  of  occa- 
sional laxity  of  moral  conduct,  he  was  all  his  life  a  devoted 
member  of  the  Catholic  Church  ;  and  towards  the  end  of  his 
days,  his  daily  life  was  that  rather  of  an  anchorite  in  a  state 
of  ecstasy  than  of  a  fierce  politician  in  the  midst  of  a  raging 
and  relentless  struggle.  He  used  not  only  to  attend  mass, 
but  also  to  receive  Holy  Communion  every  morning  of  his 
life  ;  and  it  was  marked  as  indicative  of  his  whole  theory  of 
political  duty,  that  he  always  wore  on  these  occasions  a  black 
glove  on  his  right  hand — the  hand  that,  having  shed  the  blood 
of  D'Esterre  in  a  duel,  was  unworthy  to  touch  even  the 
drapery  associated  with  the  mysteries  of  his  religion. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  was  the  fierce  democracy  demand- 
ing excitement,  encouragement,  inspiration  ;  and  O'Connell 


8  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

% 

would  have  been  more  than  human  if  the  fumes  of  this 
incense  from  millions  did  not  occasionally  disturb  his  brain, 
and  if  he  were  not  now  and  then  carried  away  on  the  spring- 
tide of  so  vast  and  enthusiastic  a  movement.  Finally, 
O'Connell's  hot  language  was  often  the  outcome  of  the  cold 
calculation  of  a  most  astute,  experienced,  and  successful 
politician.  For  Peel  he  had  a  feeling  of  both  loathing  and 
contempt.  He  thought  him  at  once  a  hypocrite  and  a  coward. 
His  smile,  he  used  to  say,  was  like  the  silver  plate  on  a  coffin. 
With  Peel  and  Wellington  a  bold  game  had  been  played 
before  ;  and  had  forced  Catholic  Emancipation,  with  hundreds 
of  broken  promises  and  abandoned  principles,  down  their 
throats.  The  tactics  that  had  won  Emancipation,  might  win 
Repeal. 

These  are  the  various  considerations  that  account  for  the 
strange  inconsistency  of  O'Connell's  language  and  acts  during 
this  momentous  time.  At  one  meeting  he  spoke  in  terms  of 
enthusiastic  loyalty — indeed,  he  never  was  anything  but  loyal 
in  his  language  to  the  throne — and  he  preached  the  doctrine 
that  he  would  not  purchase  the  freedom  of  Ireland  by  shed- 
ding one  drop  of  human  blood.  Soon  after,  stung  by  some 
insult  from  the  authorities  to  the  people,  he  burst  forth  in 
language  of  vehement  defiance.  There  was  one  speech  of  the 
latter  kind  which  especially  attracted  notice,  and  afterwards  was 
used  against  him  with  much  effect.  Speaking  at  the  banquet 
in  the  evening  after  a  meeting  in  Mallow,  he  used  these  remark- 
able words  :  '  Do  you  know,'  said  O'Connell,  'I  never  felt  such 
a  loathing  for  speechifying  as  I  do  at  present.  The  time  is 
coming  when  we  must  be  doing.  Gentlemen,  you  may  learn 
the  alternative  to  live  as  slaves  or  die  as  freemen.  No ;  you  will 
not  be  freemen  if  you  be  not  perfectly  in  the  right  and  your 
enemies  in  the  wrong.  I  think  I  see  a  fixed  disposition  on 
the  part  of  our  Saxon  traducers  to  put  us  to  the  test.  The 
efforts  already  made  by  them  have  been  most  abortive  and 
ridiculous.  In  the  midst  of  peace  and  tranquillity  they  are 
covering  our  land  with  troops.  Yes,  I  speak  with  the  awful 
determination  with  which  I  commenced  my  address,  in  con- 
sequence of  news  received  this  day.  There  was  no  House  of 
Commons  on  Thursday,  for  the  Cabinet  were  considering  what 


THE    FALL   OF    O'CONNELL  9 

they  should  do,  not  for  Ireland,  but  against  her.  But,  gentle- 
men, as  long  as  they  leave  us  a  rag  of  the  Constitution  we  will 
stand  on  it.  We  will  violate  no  law,  we  will  assail  no  enemy  ; 
but  you  are  much  mistaken  if  you  think  others  will  not  assail 
you.'  (A  voice,  (  We  are  ready  to  meet  them.')  '  To  be  sure 
you  are.  Do  you  think  I  suppose  you  to  be  cowards  or 
fools  ? ' 

And  a  little  later  on  in  the  speech  he  used  almost  the  best- 
remembered  words  of  his  life  :  *  What  are  Irishmen,'  he 
asked, '  that  they  should  be  denied  an  equal  privilege  ?  Have 
we  the  ordinary  courage  of  Englishmen  ?  Are  we  to  be  called 
slaves  ?  Are  we  to  be  trampled  under  foot  ?  Oh,  they  shall 
never  trample  me — at  least  (no,  no),  I  say  they  may  trample 
me,  but  it  will  be  my  dead  body  they  will  trample  on,  not  the 
living  man  ! ' 

Whatever  O'Connell  may  have  meant  by  these  words,  the 
interpretation  put  upon  them  by  at  least  all  the  young  and 
enthusiastic  and  brave  men  of  the  country  was  that  they  were 
meant  to  be  a  threat  of  violence  in  answer  to  Peel's  threat  of 
violence.  The  Repeal  movement  was  a  constitutional  move- 
ment, conducted  by  legal  and  constitutional  methods,  and  if 
an  attempt  were  made  to  deprive  Irish  citizens  of  their  con- 
stitutional right  of  public  meeting  for  advancing  this  move- 
ment, the  attempt  would  be  resisted  by  force. 

Meantime  O'Connell's  words  became  bolder  and  mgre 
encouraging  as  he  went  along.  He  declared  at  the  monster 
meeting  in  Roscommon  that  the  close  of  the  struggle  had 
almost  come.  'The  hour,'  he  said,  'is  approaching,  the  day 
is  near,  the  period  is  fast  coming,  when — believe  me  who 
never  deceived  you — your  country  shall  be  a  nation  once 
more.' l  '  And  this  poetry  of  the  orator/  sardonically  adds 
Sir  Charles  Gavan  Duffy,  '  was  translated  into  unequivocal 
prose  by  Mr.  John  O'Connell  at  the  next  meeting  of  the 
association.  "  The  Repeal  of  the  Union,"  he  declared,  "  could 
not  be  delayed  longer  than  eight  or  ten  months."  ' 2 

The  moment  at  last  came  when  O'Connell's  power  and 
determination  were  to  be  put  to  the  test.  A  meeting  was 
announced  for  Sunday,  October  5,  at  Clontarf— a  suburb  of 

1  Gavan  Duffy,  Young  Ireland,  p.  349.  2  Ib. 


10 


THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


Dublin  made  glorious  in  Irish  hearts  by  the  decisive  victory 
of  Brian  Boru  over  the  Danish  invaders.  The  Ministry  made 
up  their  minds  to  strike  the  blow  which  they  had  been  long 
preparing  :  they  proclaimed  the  meeting  ;  took  every  means 
to  carry  out  their  order  by  force — or,  as  some  people  even 
said,  to  provoke  violence  in  order  to  make  bloodshed  inevit- 
able. The  meeting  had  been  in  preparation  for  weeks  ;  but 
it  was  not  until  half-past  three  o'clock  on  the  Saturday  before 
the  meeting  that  the  proclamation  was  issued.  It  was  only 
by  the  despatch  of  special  mounted  messengers  that  the 
people,  who  were  swarming  in  from  the  surrounding  country, 
were  told  of  the  action  of  the  Government. 

There  had  already  grown  within  the  ranks  of  O'Connell's 
own  following  a  section  which  bitterly  differed  from  his 
policy  and  in  time  broke  his  power.  The  '  Nation  '  newspaper 
had  been  founded  in  October  1842  by  Mr.,  now  Sir  Charles 
Gavan  Duffy,  and  he  had  among  his  assistants  Thomas 
Davis,  John  Dillon,  and  subsequently  John  Mitchel.  The 
Young  Irelanders,  as  they  were  called,  represented  an 
entirely  new  phase  in  Irish  politics.  The  'Nation'  for  the 
first  time  presented  the  Irish  people  with  a  journal  of  real 
literary  merit  ;  and  the  writers  acquired  an  influence  over 
the  popular  mind  hitherto  unknown  in  Irish  journalism. 
Even  in  those  days  of  high-priced  newspapers  and  ill- de- 
veloped communication,  it  circulated  largely  in  the  remotest 
towns  in  Ireland.  It  was  devoured,  not  read.  It  convinced  ; 
it  inspired  ;  it  roused  loftiest  hopes  and  fiercest  passions. 
The  writers,  joining  the  Repeal  Association  of  O'Connell, 
soon  brought  a  new  force  into  its  councils.  In  the  first  place 
they  were  determined  not  to  submit  with  the  same  passiveness 
as  was  generally  the  custom  to  the  dictatorship  of  O'Connell. 
This  brought  them  into  collision  not  only  with  O'Connell 
himself  but  with  the  formidable  group  of  men  he  had 
gathered  around  him.  Many  of  these  intimates  of  the  great 
agitator  were  broken  in  health  and  fortune  and  character  ; 
but  O'Connell  stood  by  them  with  the  natural  constancy  of 
a  man  of  keen  affections  to  old  retainers  ;  and  one  of  the 
bitterest  quarrels  between  him  and  the  Young  Irelanders  was 
for  the  continuance  in  salaried  positions  of  these  men.  The 


THE    FALL   OF    O'CONNELL  II 

Young  Irelanders  made  demands  for  the  publication  of 
accounts,  which,  though  accompanied  by  strong  professions 
of  loyalty  to  O'Connell  himself,  produced,  not  unnaturally, 
irritation  in  his  mind.  In  short,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life, 
the  experienced  veteran  found  himself  face  to  face  with  young 
foes  who  had  not  the  same  regard  as  their  elders  for  his  past 
services,  who  depended  not  on  his  will,  and  who  wielded  an 
influence  outside  his  control.  There  was  in  addition  to  these 
causes  of  personal  difference  a  more  important  and  funda- 
mental difference  of  principle.  The  Young  Irelanders  main- 
tain that  they  were  pushed  by  other  forces,  and  especially  by 
O'Connell  himself,  into  the  doctrine  of  physical  force :  at  this 
moment  the  struggle  over  that  question  had  not  arisen. 
There  was,  however,  the  difference  in  the  preference  of  the 
younger  section  for  resolute,  and  of  the  older  for  moderate 
courses. 

John  Mitchel,  one  of  the  Young  Irelanders,  writing  many 
years  after  O'Connell's  death,  and  in  another  land,  deliberately 
repeated  the  opinion  he  held  at  the  time  as  to  O'Connell's  duty 
on  this  day.  '  If  I  am  asked,'  he  writes,  *  what  would  have  been 
the  very  best  thing  O'Connell  could  do  on  that  day  at  Clontarf, 
I  answer :  To  let  the  people  of  the  country  come  to  Clontarf 
—to  meet  them  there  himself,  as  he  had  invited  them  ;  but, 
the  troops  being  almost  all  drawn  out  of  the  city,  to  keep  the 
Dublin  Repealers  at  home,  to  give  them  a  commission  to  take 
the  Castle  and  all  the  barracks,  and  to  break  down  the  canal 
bridge  and  barricade  the  streets  leading  to  Clontarf.  The 
whole  garrison  and  police  were  5,000.  The  city  had  a  popula- 
tion of  250,000.  The  multitudes  coming  in  from  the  country 
would,  probably,  have  amounted  to  almost  as  many.  .  .  . 
There  would  have  been  horrible  slaughter  of  the  unarmed 
people  without,  if  the  troops  would  fire  on  them — a  very 
doubtful  matter — and  O'Connell  himself  might  have  fallen. 
...  It  were  well  for  his  fame  if  he  had  ;  and  the  deaths  of 
five  or  ten  thousand  that  day  might  have  saved  Ireland  the 
slaughter  by  famine  of  a  hundred  times  as  many.' 

These  words  represent  the  gospel  of  a  large  section  of 
Irishmen  for  many  a  day  afterwards  ;  they  led  to  the  almost 
contemptuous  tone  in  which  O'Connell's  memory  was  treated 


12  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

% 

by  a  vast  number  of  his  countrymen  during  a  considerable 
period  after  the  first  outburst  of  worship  after  his  death  ;  they 
formed  the  fundamental  idea  of  the  love  of  revolutionary 
methods  and  the  hatred  of  Parliamentary  leaders  which  is 
the  undercurrent  of  much  of  the  Irish  history  that  followed  ; 
above  all,  they  added  to  the  hideous  disaster  of  1846  and 
1847,  another  element  of  woe  in  the  thought  of  what  might 
have  been. 

The  immediate  consequence  was  the  break-up  of  O'Con- 
ncll's  mighty  movement.  He  himself  and  several  of  his  col- 
leagues were  immediately  afterwards  prosecuted  ;  and  the 
most  shameful  methods  were  adopted  for  obtaining  a  convic- 
tion. Out  of  the  entire  panel  one  slip,  containing  mostly 
Catholic  names,  was  lost ;  when  finally  there  were  left  eleven 
Catholics  out  of  a  panel  of  twenty-four,  the  Crown  used  their 
full  power  ©f  challenge,  and  every  single  one  of  the  eleven 
was  driven  from  the  box  ;  and  the  jury  consisted  exclusively  of 
Orange  Conservatives,  who  were  as  impartial  in  deciding  the 
case  of  O'Connell  in  these  days  as  would  be  a  jury  of  Southern 
slave-holders  in  the  case  of  an  Abolitionist  immediately  before 
the  civil  war  in  America.  Then  the  judges  were  notoriously 
partisan.  An  accidental  phrase  is  still  remembered  which 
brought  this  out  in  full  relief.  Chief  Justice  Pennefather,  in 
alluding  to  the  counsel  for  the  defence,  spoke  of  them  as  '  the 
other  side.'  Of  course,  before  such  a  judge  and  such  a  jury, 
conviction  was  a  foregone  conclusion.  Everybody  cried  out 
shame  on  the  iniquitous  proceedings  ;  O'Connell  walked  into 
the  House  of  Commons  amid  the  debate  upon  the  trial,  which 
was  at  the  moment  being  denounced  by  English  Liberals  as 
vehemently  as  it  could  have  been  by  himself.  It  was  generally 
expected  that  the  verdict  would  be  reversed  on  appeal — as  it 
was  ;  and  an  effort  was  made  to  have  a  bill  passed  which 
would  have  allowed  O'Connell  to  remain  out  on  bail  until 
the  case  was  finally  decided.  But  the  bill  was  rejected— 
principally  through  the  efforts  of  Brougham,  who  had  a  violent 
hatred  of  O'Connell  ;  and  the  end  of  it  all  was  that  O'Connell 
had  to  go  to  gaol.  This  was  the  beginning  of  the  end. 

But  it  did  not  look  so  at  the  time.  In  his  prison  O'Con- 
nell held  levees  more  like  those  of  a  prince  than  the  unofficial 


THE    FALL   OF    O'CONNELL  13 

head  of  a  democracy ;  bishops,  priests,  town  councillors, 
rushed  to  see  him  from  all  parts  of  Ireland.  *  Here,'  writes 
Mitchel  of  the  imprisonment  of  O'Connell  and  his  companions 
in  Richmond,  *  they  rusticated  for  three  months,  holding  levees 
in  an  elegant  marquee  in  the  garden  ;  addressed  by  bishops  ; 
complimented  by  Americans  ;  bored  by  deputations  ;  sere- 
naded by  bands  ;  comforted  by  ladies  ;  half  smothered  with 
roses  ;  half  drowned  in  champagne.' l  And  when  the  case 
was  brought  before  the  Court  of  Appeal,  the  verdict  was  re- 
versed ;  Chief  Justice  Denman  denounced  the  proceedings  of 
the  law  officers  as  reducing  trial  by  jury  to  a  'mockery,  a  de- 
lusion, and  a  snare ' :  and  O'Connell  was  released  from  prison 
amid  circumstances  of  wild  triumph. 

But  all  the  same,  the  fact  remained  that  O'Connell's  con- 
viction broke  up  his  movement.  The  mighty  dictator — to 
whom  millions  of  men  looked  up,  for  whom  thousands  would 
have  willingly  died — had  been  dragged  at  the  tail  of  a  police- 
man ;  and  the  hero  of  a  thousand  rights  had  been  beaten  for 
the  first  time  in  his  life.  The  prestige  of  unbroken  victory 
was  gone. 

'  The  Repeal  year,'  as  Mitchel  pointedly  puts  it,  '  had  con- 
ducted, not  to  a  parliament  in  College  Green,  but  to  a  peniten- 
tiary in  Richmond.'  O'Connell,  too,  left  the  prison  physically 
and  mentally  a  broken  man.  It  was  discovered  after  his 
death  that  he  had  been  for  years  suffering  from  softening 
of  the  brain,  and  the  date  generally  assigned  for  the  first 
appearance  of  the  disease  was  that  of  his  imprisonment.  He 
was  besides,  as  we  have  since  learned,  involved  in  domestic 
trouble.2 

When  the  fearful  excitement  of  the  Repeal  agitation  had 
broken  down  his  robust  frame,  he  remained  still  the  same  to 
the  people.  But  keen  observers  remarked  the  feebleness  of 
his  own  defence  at  his  trial ;  and  when  he  began  to  address 
meetings  again  after  his  release,  he  was  noted  to  carefully 
avoid  all  subjects  upon  which  the  people  were  most  eagerly 
desirous  of  information  and  direction.  Here,  again,  most 
of  the  critics  of  O'Connell  declare  that  he  lost  a  great 

1  Last  Conquests  of  Ireland. 

2  Duffy,  Young  Ireland,  pp.  530-32. 


I4  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

% 

opportunity.  Mitchel,  and  many  men  still  living,  and  with 
the  hot  blood  of  youth  cooled  by  mature  years,  declare  that 
he  ought  to  have  called  upon  the  people  to  make  some 
stand,  and  that  the  people  not  only  would  have  obeyed, 
but  at  the  time  panted  for  the  word.  The  population  of 
Ireland  at  this  period  was  eight  and  a  half  millions  ;  and 
though  there  was  terrible  poverty  in  the  country,  there  had, 
as  yet,  not  been  anything  like  universal  starvation.  The 
masses  of  men  who  marched  to  the  demonstrations  are  uni- 
versally described  as  stalwart,  bold,  and  well  drilled  ;  and  it 
is  argued  that  by  mere  force  of  overwhelming  numbers,  and  a 
frenzy  that  was  national,  they  would  have  borne  down  the 
defences  of  the  Government.  In  support  of  this  view,  and 
against  the  damning  testimony  of  subsequent  abortive 
attempts  at  insurrection,  the  argument  is  used  that  the  means 
and  methods  of  warfare  have  been  revolutionised  since  that 
period.  Soldiers  in  those  days  were  armed  with  no  better 
weapon  than  the  '  brown-bess '  ;  and,  as  an  ancient  revolu- 
tionary may  now  in  many  a  part  of  Ireland  be  heard  to 
exclaim,  with  a  sigh  :  '  In  those  days  every  man  had  his  pike.' 
The  first  charge  might  have  killed  hundreds  ;  but  after  the 
first  charge,  soldiers  at  that  time  would  have  been  impotent 
against  a  resolute  people  a  hundred-fold  more  numerous. 

But,  wisely  or  foolishly,  O'Connell  was  determined  not  to 
permit  any  bloodshed.  His  courage  was  proved  on  too  many 
a  scene  to  be  open  to  question  ;  but  it  was  not  the  desperate 
courage  that  stakes  life,  fortune,  and  a  whole  national  issue 
upon  a  single  cast  of  the  die.  Then  his  whole  training  had 
been  that  of  a  man  who  had  found  in  words  weapons  more 
potent  than  armies  and  navies.  The  victories  he  had  obtained 
were  victories  in  law  courts  and  in  deliberative  assemblies  ; 
and  possibly,  and  probably,  he  still  honestly  thought  he  would 
still  be  able  to  utilise  the  enthusiasm  of  the  people  in  wring- 
ing from  Parliament,  if  not  Repeal,  a  blessing  so  great  and  so 
needed  as  security  to  the  tenant-at-will  from  starvation  and 
eviction. 

There  was  one  fatal  obstacle  to  his  success  in  a  Parlia- 
mentary movement  ;  and  this  is  a  fact  which  should  always 
form  a  central  consideration  with  those  who  criticise  adversely 


THE   FALL   OF    O'CONNELL  15 

O'Connell's  career.  The  half  million  of  people  who  gathered 
around  him  at  Tara  were  not  those  to  whom  he  had  to 
appeal  for  the  most  potent  weapon  in  the  Parliamentary  con- 
flict. He  had  to  pass  away  from  them  to  the  miserable  hand- 
ful of  voters  who  had  the  fate  of  elections  in  all  the  smaller 
constituencies  in  their  hands ;  and  at  that  time,  and  for  many 
a  day  afterwards,  personal  interests  begot  of  abject  poverty,  a 
spirit  of  clique  or  other  mean  or  subsidiary  motives,  exercised 
deeper  influence  than  great  national  issues.  In  the  year  1843, 
when  he  was  still  at  the  very  height  of  his  power,  his  sup- 
porters in  the  House  of  Commons  did  not  reach  beyond  the 
miserable  total  of  twenty-six  members. 

From  this  time  forward  the  history  of  O'Connell  is  the 
history  of  Repeal  decay.  Arms  Acts  and  Coercion  Acts 
meantime  took  from  the  people  what  few  weapons  they  had, 
and  the  Government  filling  gaols  with  prisoners,  accelerated 
the  break-up  of  that  tide  of  passion,  enthusiasm,  and  desperate 
courage,  which,  if  taken  at  its  flood,  might  then  have  led  on 
to  fortune. 

With  disaster  comes  inevitable  disunion.  Between  him 
and  the  Young  Irelanders  the  quarrel  that  had  been  long 
smouldering  had  at  last  broken  into  open  flame.  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  by  the  concession  of  a  larger  grant  to  Maynooth,  still 
further  disintegrated  the  forces  of  O'Connell  by  bringing 
pressure  on  the  Vatican,  and  through  the  Vatican  on  some  of 
the  bishops  ;  and  so,  O'Connell's  power  began  gradually  to 
melt  away. 


16  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE   COMING   OF   THE   FAMINE. 

WHILE  thus  all  the  national  forces  of  Ireland  were  being 
reduced  to  impotence,  there  was  coming  over  the  country  a 
calamity  which  was  to  complete  the  work  of  national  de- 
struction ;  to  inflict  on  Ireland  one  of  the  most  widespread 
and  one  of  the  most  terrible  disasters  recorded  in  human 
history  ;  and  to  prove  the  need  of  a  native  legislature  by  the 
tragic  testimony  of  a  starving  nation. 

There  never  was  an  event  in  human  history  which  could 
have  been  more  clearly  foreseen,  or  that  was  more  frequently 
foretold,  than  the  Irish  famine  of  1 846-47.  The  circumstances 
of  which  it  was  the  final  outcome  had  been  in  progress  for 
centuries.  The  destruction  of  the  Irish  manufactures  by  the 
legislation  of  the  British  Parliament  had  thrown  the  entire 
population  for  support  on  the  land  ;  and  the  fierce  com- 
petition thus  induced  had  raised  the  rents  to  a  point  far 
beyond  anything  the  tenant  could  ever  hope  to  pay.  On  the 
other  side,  the  landlords,  brought  up  to  no  profession,  spend- 
thrift, separated  from  the  tenant  by  creed,  race,  and  caste, 
aggravated  all  the  evils  of  the  system.  According  to  testi- 
mony as  unanimous  as  that  on  any  human  affair,  they  left  to 
the  tenant  the  whole  improvement  of  the  farm  :  the  fencing, 
the  building  of  houses  and  offices — all  the  work  that  from 
time  immemorial  had  been  done  in  England  by  the  landlord  ; 
and  then,  when  the  tenancy  was  determined  either  by  the 
lease  or  by  caprice,  they  rewarded  the  tenant  by  eviction,  or 
a  rise  in  the  rent.  The  complaints  of  the  neglect  of  their 
duties  by  the  Irish  landlords  run  with  a  monotonous  itera- 
tion through  the  extensive  literature  of  the  Irish  land 
question.  Spenser  railed  against  the  Irish  landlord  in  1596 


THE   COMING  OF   THE    FAMINE  17 

for  his  preference  of  tenancies  at  will  to  the  grant  of  leases. 
The  exactions  of  the  landlords,  and  the  terrible  want  thereby 
caused  among  the  people,  suggested  to  Swift  his  perhaps 
most  terrible  satire — *  The  Modest  Proposal ' — and  his  bitterest 
passages.  In  1729  Mr.  Prior  wrote  a  pamphlet  to  expose 
the  evils  which  absenteeism  inflicted.  In  1791,  the  Protestant 
bishop,  Dr.  Woodward,  denounced  rack-renting,  and  the  '  duty- 
work  '  which  the  landlords  exacted  ;  and  so  on  with  scores  of 
writers  on  the  subject. 

The  land  question  had  been  the  stock  subject  of  poli- 
ticians as  of  litterateurs  ;  innumerable  Parliamentary  com- 
mittees had  sat  and  investigated  and  reported  upon  it.  To 
begin  with  the  period  after  the  Union,  a  Parliamentary 
committee,  appointed  on  the  motion  of  Sir  John  Newport  in 
1819,  reported  that  there  was  great  want  of  employment  : 
that  the  want  of  employment  was  due  to  the  want  of  capital  : 
and  that  the  want  of  capital  was  caused  on  the  one  hand 
by  the  absenteeism  of  a  number  of  the  landlords,  and  on  the 
other  through  the  consumption  of  all  their  capital  by  the 
tenants  on  the  improvement  of  their  holdings.  In  1823, 
another  committee  drew  attention  still  more  emphatically  to 
the  difference  between  the  action  of  the  English  and  the 
Irish  landlords,  and  denounced  strongly  the  prevalent  rack- 
renting.  In  1829  there  was  another  committee  which  con- 
sidered a  bill  brought  in  by  Mr.  Brownlow  in  favour  of  the 
reclamation  of  waste  lands  and  the  drainage  of  bogs — a 
favourite  remedy  of  those  days.  In  1830  a  committee  re- 
ported that  '  no  language  could  describe  the  poverty '  in 
Ireland,  and  recommended  the  settlement  of  the  relations 
of  landlord  and  tenant  on  '  rational  and  useful  principles.' 

There  is  an  equally  embarrassing  riches  both  of  speeches 
and  of  bills.  In  November  1830,  Mr.  Doherty,  the  then 
Solicitor-General  for  Ireland,  described  the  houses  of  the 
tenantry  as  such  as  the  lower  animals  in  England  would 
scarcely,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  did  not,  endure.  The  Duke 
of  Wellington  denounced  the  evils  of  absentee  landlordism  in 
the  same  year  ;  and  in  the  following  year  Lord  Stanley— 
afterwards,  as  Lord  Derby,  the  obstinate  advocate  of  the 
landlord  party — called  scornful  attention  to  the  fact  that 

C 


i8  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

% 

during  a  crisis  of  awful  distress  in  Mayo  there  had  been  but 
a  subscription  of  ioo/.  from  two  persons  out  of  a  rental  of 
io,400/.  a  year,  and  described  the  rents  at  the  same  time  as 
exorbitant.  In  the  same  year  Lord  Melbourne,  who  had  been 
Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland,  maintained  that  all  the  witnesses 
examined  before  the  different  select  committees  on  the  subject 
had  united  in  the  statement  that  the  disturbances  in  Ireland 
were  clue  to  the  relations  between  the  landlords  and  tenants. 
In  the  same  manner,  bill  after  bill  had  been  proposed.  Mr. 
Brownlow's  bill  was  brought  in  in  1829.  It  passed  through 
the  House  of  Commons  ;  it  passed  the  second  reading  in  the 
House  of  Lords  ;  it  was  referred  to  a  select  committee  ;  but 
they,  on  July  I,  reported  that  at  such  an  advanced  period  of 
the  session  it  was  impossible  to  proceed  any  further.1  In  the 
following  year  Mr.  Henry  Grattan  called  upon  the  Govern- 
ment to  bring  in  a  bill  for  the  improvement  of  the  waste 
lands.  In  the  next  year,  1831,  Mr.  Smith  O'Brien  introduced 
a  bill  for  the  relief  of  the  aged,  helpless,  and  infirm.  In  1835 
Mr.  Poulctt  Scrope  asked  in  vain  for  a  land  bill ;  in  the  same 
year  Mr.  Sharman  Crawford  brought  in  a  bill.2  In  the  following 
year  Mr.  Crawford  got  leave  to  introduce  his  bill  again  ;  but 
it  never  got  farther  than  that  stage.  In  the  following  year  a 
Mr.  Lynch  recurred  to  the  old  proposal  of  a  bill  for  the 
reclamation  of  waste  lands;  but  he  also  failed.  In  1842  a 
small  attempt  was  made  to  deal  with  the  question  of  the 
waste  lands  by  the  Irish  Arterial  Drainage  Act.  In  1843 
came  the  Devon  Commission  ;  this  caused  a  pause  in  the 
efforts  to  amend  the  law.  The  Devon  Commission  recom- 
mended, as  is  known,  legislation  in  the  most  emphatic  manner  ; 
bin.  no  legislation  came.  In  1845  Lord  Stanley  brought  in  a 
The  bill  was  read  a  second  time,  was  referred  to  a  select 

1  l\irliamcntary  History  of  tJie  Irish  Land  Question,  by  R.  Barry  O'Brien, 
P-  3<i  7- 

-  This  bill  put  no  restriction  whatever  on  the  power  of  eviction  ;  it  simply 
risked  that  when  a  tenant  was  evicted  he  should  receive  compensation  for  those 
permanent  improvements  which  he  had  made  with  the  consent  of  his  landlord. 
In  the  case  of  improvements  made  without  the  consent  of  the  landlord,  the  chair- 
man of  Quarter  Sessions  was  to  decide  whether  they  presented  a  case  for  compen- 
sation. This  was  the  basis  of  all  the  land  bills  which  followed  ;  and  Mr.  Sharman 
CrawforJ's  bill  will  often  recur  in  these  pages. 


THE    COMING   OF   THE    FAMINE  19 

committee,  and  was  then  abandoned.  In  the  same  session 
Mr.  Crawford  reintroduced  his  bill,  but  had  to  abandon  it. 
In  the  next  session,  after  some  severe  pressure,  the  Earl  of 
Lincoln  introduced  a  bill ;  this  was  destroyed  by  the  resig- 
nation of  the  Ministry. 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  rapid  sketch  that  the  conditions 
of  the  problem  were  intimately  known ;  that  all  parties — except 
a  few  of  the  Irish  landlords  themselves — were  in  favour  of  a 
change  in  the  law  ;  that  attempt  after  attempt  had  been  made 
to  create  this  change,  and  that  attempt  after  attempt  had 
failed.  Meanwhile  landlords  and  tenants  were  carrying  on 
their  warfare  after  their  own  lawless  fashion.  Allusion  has 
been  already  made  to  the  great  clearances  which  followed  the 
abolition  of  the  forty-shilling  freeholder  and  the  amendment 
of  the  Sub-letting  Act.  In  1843  there  were  no  less  than  5,244 
ejectments,  out  of  14,816  defendants,  from  the  Civil  Bill 
Courts,  and  1,784  ejectments  from  the  Superior  Courts,  out 
of  16,503  defendants — making  a  total  of  7,028  ejectments  fi 
and  31,319  defendants.  And  in  the  five  years  from  1839  to  A 
1843  no  less  than  150,000  'tenants  had  been  subjected  to 
ejectment  process.' l  Unprotected  by  the  law  from  robbery, 
and  face  to  face  with  starvation,  the  tenants  formed  secret  and 
murderous  organisations,  and  assassination  and  eviction  ac- 
companied each  other  in  almost  arithmetical  proportion.  As 
poverty  increased  indebtedness,  and  indebtedness  increased 
eviction,  times  of  poverty  and  times  of  disturbance  were  syn- 
onymous terms.  With  disturbance  the  Legislature  showed 
itself  ready  and  eager  to  deal — when  the  remedy  applied  took 
the  shape,  not  of  remedial  legislation,  but  of  Coercion  Acts. 
The  year  was  the  exception  in  which  Ireland  was  living  under 
the  ordinary  law.  The  Habeas  Corpus  Act  was  suspended  in 
1800,  in  1801,  in  1802,  in  1803,  in  1804,  in  1805;  it  was 

1  This  is  how  O'Connell  puts  it  (Hansard,  Ixxxv.  p.  520).  By  tenants,  he 
probably  means  heads  of  families.  Mr.  Bernal  Osborne,  who  spoke  in  the  same 
debate  subsequently  to  O'Connell,  puts  the  figures  in  another  way.  '•  There  were,' 
he  said,  '70, 982  civil  bill  ejectments  between  1839  and  1843,  exclusive  of  the 
number  of  individual  occupiers  served  with  process.  Counting,'  he  added,  '  five 
for  a  family,  this  would  show  a  total  of  354,910  persons  evicted  in  this  period  ' 
(ib.  p.  534).  It  will  be  seen  presently  what  became  of  the  persons  evicted,  and 
how  they  helped  to  bring  about  the  Famine. 

C  2 


20  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

£ 

suspended  again  from  1807  till  1810  ;  from  1 814  to  1817  ; 
from  1822  to  1828  ;  from  1829  to  1831  ;  again  from  1833  to 
1835.  Side  by  side  with  the  suspension  of  the  Habeas 
Corpus  Act  there  were  other  and  special  Coercion  Acts  ; 
frequently  there  were  two  Coercion  Acts  in  the  same  year, 
sometimes  in  the  same  session  :  in  the  very  first  year  of  the 
Union  Parliament  no  less  than  five  exceptional  laws  were 
passed.  These  Coercion  Acts  were  of  a  ferocious  character  : 
many  of  them  abolished  trial  by  jury  ;  some  of  them  esta- 
blished martial  law  ;  transportation,  flogging,  death,  were  the 
ordinary  sentences. 

It  is  a  singular  and  instructive  commentary  on  the  Act  ol 
Union,  that  the  Union  Parliament  had  not  only  passed  five 
Coercion  Acts  on  its  first  session,  but  that  it  had  sat  for  but 
two  months  when  it  passed  a  Coercion  Act  severer  than  any 
passed  even  in  the  stress  of  the  rebellion  of  1798.  This 
was  one  of  the  terrible  code  known  as  the  Insurrection  Acts. 
Under  the  Act  of  1800,  courts-martial  had  the  right  to  try 
prisoners  ;  two-thirds  of  the  officers  could  pronounce  sentence, 
and  the  sentence  might  be  the  sentence  of  death.  To  en- 
courage these  tribunals  in  doing  their  duty,  the  officers  were 
instructed,  in  the  words  of  the  Act, '  to  take  the  most  vigorous 
and  effective  measures ' ;  and  they  received  still  further  en- 
couragement by  being  made  absolutely  irresponsible  ;  *  no 
act,'  decreed  the  Legislature, '  done  by  these  tribunals  shall  be 
questioned  in  a  court  of  law.'  In  1817  a  modified  Insurrec- 
tion Act  was  passed,  which  in  some  respects  was  worse  than 
the  preceding  Acts.  A  body  of  justices— that  is,  of  landlords- 
were  entitled  to  form  a  tribunal  if  they  were  presided  over  by 
a  Serjeant-at-law  or  a  Queen's  Counsel,  and  this  tribunal 
had  the  right  to  pass  sentences  varying  from  one  year's 
imprisonment  to  seven  years'  transportation  ;  they  were,  like 
the  courts-martial,  irresponsible,  for  there  was  no  appeal  and 
no  certiorari.  These  courts  were  employed  in  the  trial  of 
persons  described  as  '  idle  and  disorderly,'  and  the  '  idle  and 
disorderly  '  were  included  in  the  following  extensive  category  : 

(i)  Anyone  found  out  of  his  or  her  dwelling-house  between  two 
hours  after  sunset  and  sunrise,  who  could  not  prove  to  the  satisfac- 
tion of  the  tribunal  that  he  or  she  was  upon  his  or  her  *  lawful  occa- 


THE    COMING   OF   THE   FAMINE  21 

sions ' — the  mere  fact  of  being  out  was  sufficient  authority  to  a 
policeman  to  arrest  and  detain  till  trial  ;  (2)  persons  taking  unlawful 
oaths,  or  (3)  having  arms,  or  (4)  found  between  9  P.M.  and  6  A.M.  in 
a  public-house  or  unlicensed  house  in  which  spirituous  liquors  were 
sold  and  not  being  inmates  or  travellers  ;  (5)  persons  assembled 
*  unlawfully  and  tumultuously ' ;  (6)  persons  hawking  '  seditious 
papers '  unless  they  disclose  the  persons  from  whom  they  received 
them. 

It  would,  of  course,  be  assumed  by  many  readers,  espe- 
cially English  readers,  that  these  statutes  were  severe  only  in 
wording  or  intention  and  not  in  practical  operation.  But 
there  was  not  one  of  these  Acts  which  was  not  carried 
not  only  to  the  full  lengths  authorised  by  the  words  and 
intentions  of  the  Act,  but  to  a  large  extent  farther.  In  order 
to  make  the  dread  provisions  of  the  Insurrection  Act  just 
described  applicable  to  a  locality  it  had  to  be  proclaimed, 
and  this  is  an  instance  of  how  such  a  proclamation  was 
brought  about : 

'  I  am  perfectly  acquainted  with  that  part  of  Kilkenny  now 
under  proclamation  adjoining  the  Queen's  County/  said 
Mr.  John  Dunn,  a  witness  examined  before  the  Lords'  Com- 
mittee of  1824. 

'  Had  there  been  any  disturbance,'  asked  one  of  their 
lordships,  '  at  the  time  the  Act  was  put  into  execution  ?  '  *  Not 
in  the  barony  of  Innisfadden  adjoining  the  Queen's  County  ; 
I  am  aware  of  none.' 

'  Can  you  state,'  goes  on  the  examination,  '  on  what  ground 
it  was  the  Insurrection  Act  was  applied  for,  so  far  as  respects 
that  barony  and  the  circumstances  attending  it  ? '  '  I  under- 
stand that  some  few  trees — some  two  or  three — had  been  felled 
in  the  domain  of  Lady  Ormonde,  and  I  am  not  aware  of  any 
other  transaction  at  all  that  would  justify  the  application  of 
such  a  measure.' l 

Thus  the  felling  of  two  or  three  trees  was  sufficient  to 
expose  everybody  in  this  Kilkenny  barony  to  the  chance  of 
being  transported  for  seven  years  by  a  Queen's  Counsel  and 
a  body  of  landlords  to  whom  he  was  for  any  reason  obnoxious 

1  Report  Lords'  Committee,  1824,  p.  432.     Quoted  by  O'Connell  (Hansard, 
Ixxxv.  p.  503). 


22  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

% 

if  he  only  happened  to  stay  beyond  nine  o'clock  in  a  public- 
house. 

An  Irish  writer  who  has  written  an  excellent  article  on 
the  coercive  legislation  of  Ireland  in  the  'Pall  Mall  Gazette' 
of  September  18,  1885,  will  doubtless  appear  far-fetched 
when  he  says  of  the  Insurrection  Act  of  1822-25,  tnat  if. 
1  it  had  been  in  force  in  England  during  the  Anti-Corn  Law 
agitation,  Mr.  Cobden  and  Mr.  Bright  might  have  been  trans- 
ported for  seven  years  by  justices  or  landlords  interested  in 
maintaining  the  tax  on  food.'  But  the  illustration  is  literally 
and  strongly  justified,  for  in  1814  the  Insurrection  Act  was 
used  by  Sir  Robert  Peel  to  put  down  the  Catholic  Board  and 
to  prevent  popular  demonstrations  ;  that  is  to  say,  to  suppress 
all  agitation  against  the  exclusion  of  the  millions  of  Irish 
Catholics  from  any  share  in  the  government  of  their  own 
country  ;  and  that  was  an  object  as  legitimate,  legal,  and  con- 
stitutional as  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws. 

There  were  several  Acts  for  the  purpose  of  putting  down 
the  disturbances  which  the  terrible  sufferings  of  the  tenantry 
generated,  and  some  of  these  Acts  permitted  the  sentence  of 
'  whipping.'  Here,  again,  it  will  be  thought  that  the  words 
were  formal  and  minatory  ;  but,  says  O'Connell,  who  lived  all 
through  these  Coercion  laws,  '  I  have  known  instances  where 
men  have  been  nearly  flogged  to  death.'  l 

Besides  the  Insurrection  Acts,  supplemented  by  suspensions 
of  the  Habeas  Corpus,  there  were  special  Coercion  Acts  for 
every  form  of  defence  that  the  tenantry  could  devise.  It  has 
become  the  fashion  of  modern  English  statesmen  to  eulogise 
O'Connell  ;  when  he  was  alive  English  statesmen  met  him 
at  every  point  in  his  career  by  every  agency  of  coercion  that 
the  Legislature  could  devise.  It  has  been  seen  how  the 
Insurrection  Act  was  employed  by  Peel  in  1814  to  put  down 
the  Catholic  Board  in  which  O'Connell  had  a  part.  Between 
1825  and  1836  no  less  than  four  Acts  of  Parliament  were 
passed  for  the  purpose  of  suppressing  political  organisations 
which  he  had  founded,  arid  as  the  organisations  were  under 
the  control  of  O'Connell,  it  is  needless  to  say  that  they  were 
legal,  constitutional,  and  peaceful  in  their  methods.  The 

1  Hansard,  Ixxxv.  p.  503. 


THE    COMING   OF   THE   FAMINE  23 

Irish  people,  driven  from  open  agitation,  were  then  met  by 
a  disarming  code  lest  they  should  seek  their  emancipation 
by  force,  and  when,  finally,  they  thought  of  secret  organisa- 
tion, they  were  confronted  by  another  code  of  laws  with 
terrible  penalties.  Anybody  who  administered  or  aided  in 
administering  an  oath  for  what  were  called  '  seditious 
purposes '  might  be  transported  for  life  by  one  of  the 
tribunals  consisting  of  landlords  and  a  Queen's  Counsel, 
and  anybody  who  took  the  oath  might  be  transported  for 
seven  years. 

Nor  does  this  represent  the  complete  case  in  the  contrast 
between  the  action  of  the  Legislature  towards  the  landlord 
and  the  tenant.  While  every  attempt  had  failed — no  matter 
how  moderate — to  improve  the  condition  of  the  tenant,  the 
Legislature  had  passed  law  after  law  to  increase  the  power  of 
the  landlord.  Thus  the  56  Geo.  III.  cap.  88  gave  to  the 
landlord  a  power  of  distraint  which  he  never  had  enjoyed 
up  to  this  period.  Under  this  Act  the  landlord  could  distrain  / 
the  growing  crops  of  a  tenant,  could  keep  them  till  ripe,  / 
could  save  and  sell  them  when  ripe,  and  could  charge  the  J; 
tenant  with  the  accumulated  expenses.  This  terrible  Act 
was  the  starting-point  of  the  great  evictions  which  have  been 
the  chief  causes  of  agrarian  crime  in  Ireland.  Two  years 
afterwards  came  another  Act  to  complete  the  evil  work 
begun.  The  58  Geo.  III.  cap.  39  established  the  power  of 
civil  bill  ejectment.  The  previous  Act  had  given  the  land- 
lord the  means  of  ruining  the  tenant  by  the  seizure  of  his 
crops  ;  this  Act  enabled  the  landlord  to  complete  the  ruin 
by  turning  the  tenant  off  his  holding.  The  I  Geo.  IV. 
cap.  41  extended  still  further  the  power  of  civil  bill  eject- 
ment ;  the  I  Geo.  IV.  cap.  87  enabled  the  landlord  to  get 
security  for  costs  from  defendants  in  ejectments — that  is  to 
say,  took  away  in  a  large  proportion  of  cases  any  chance 
from  the  tenant  of  resisting  the  demand  for  the  verdict  of 
eviction;  the  I  &  2  Wm.  IV.  cap.  31  gave  the  land- 
lord the  right  of  immediate  execution  in  ejectment  cases  ; 
the  6  &  7  Wm.  IV.  gave  still  further  facilities  for  civil 
bill  ejectments ;  and  thus  the  whole  eviction  code  was 
made  entirely  complete,  without  chink,  without  flaw,  without 


24  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

possibility  of  improvement.1  These,  then,  were  the  legisla- 
tive benefits  by  which  the  Irish  people  were  taught  the 
enormous  gain  of  having  their  interests  attended  to  by  an 
Imperial  and  United  Legislature.  It  should  also  be 
remarked  that  these  Eviction  Acts,  and  some  of  the  worst 
of  these  Coercion  Acts,  were  passed  when  the  late  Sir  Robert 
Peel  was  Chief  Secretary  ;  for,  as  we  are  told  in  Cates's 
'Dictionary  of  General  Biography,'  'in  1812  Peel  was  made 
Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland— an  office  which  he  held  with  much 
advantage  to  the  country  till  1 8 1 8.' 2  The  '  advantage  '  to  the 
country  was  the  preparation  of  the  famine. 

Let  us  now  put  the  whole  case  in  tabular  form  by  way  of 
making  it  more  intelligible. 

FOR  THE  LANDLORD. 

1 800.  Habeas  Corpus  suspended  ;  Coercion  Act. 

1 80 1.  Habeas  Corpus  suspended  ;  two  Coercion  Acts. 

1802.  Habeas  Corpus  suspended  ;  two  Coercion  Acts. 

1803.  Habeas  Corpus  suspended  ;  two  Acts. 

1804.  Habeas  Corpus  suspended. 

1805.  Habeas  Corpus  suspended  ;  one  Coercion  Act. 

1807.  February  I,  Coercion  Act. 

,,       Habeas  Corpus  suspended  ;  August  2,  Coercion  Act. 

1808.  Habeas  Corpus  suspended. 

1809.  Habeas  Corpus  suspended. 

1814.  Habeas  Corpus  suspended  ;  one  Coercion  Act. 

1815.  Habeas  Corpus  suspended  ;  Insurrection  Act  continued. 

1816.  Habeas    Corpus   suspended;    first    Eviction    Act;    Insurrection   Act 

continued. 

1817.  Habeas  Corpus  suspended  ;  one  Coercion  Act ;  second  Eviction  Act. 

1818.  Second  Eviction  Act. 

1820.  Third  Eviction  Act  ;  same  year,  fourth  Eviction  Act. 

1822.  Habeas  Corpus  suspended  ;   two  Coercion  Acts. 

1823  to  1828.   Habeas  Corpus  suspended,  and  one  Coercion  Act  in  1823. 

1829.  Habeas  Corpus  suspended. 

1830.  Habeas  Corpus  suspended  ;  Importation  of  Arms  Act. 

1831.  Whiteboy  Act  ;  Stanley's  Arms  Act  ;  fifth  Eviction  Act. 

1832.  Importation  of  Arms  and  Gunpowder  Act. 

1833.  Habeas  Corpus  suspended  ;  Suppression  of  Disturbance  Act;  Change 

of  Venue  Act. 

1831.    Habeas  Corpus  suspended  ;  Suppression  of  Disturbance  Amendment 
and  Continuance  Act  ;  Importation  of  Arms  and  Gunpowder  Act. 

1835.  Public  Peace  Act. 

1836.  Another  Arms  Act  ;  sixth  Eviction  Act. 

1  O'Connell,  in  Hansard,  Ixxxv.  pp.  522,  523.  -  P.  857  (Second  edit.). 


THE   COMING   OF   THE   FAMINE  25 

1838.  Another  Arms  Act. 

1839.  Unlawful  Oaths  Act. 

1840.  Another  Arms  Act. 

1841.  Outrages  Act ;  another  Arms  Act. 

1843.  Another  Arms  Act ;  Act  consolidating  all  previous  Coercion  Acts. 

1844.  Unlawful  Oaths  Act. l 

FOR  THE  TENANT. 

1829.  Mr.  Brownlow's  Bill  dropped  in  House  of  Lords. 

1830.  Mr.    Grattan's  demand  for  an  Improvement   of  Waste    Lands   Bill 

refused. 

1831.  Mr.  Smith  O'Brien's  Bill  for  the  Relief  of  the  Aged  dropped. 

1835.  Mr.  Sharman  Crawford's  Bill  dropped. 

1836.  Mr.  Sharman  Crawford's  Bill  dropped. 
,,  Mr.  Lynch's  Reclamation  Bill  dropped. 

1842.  Irish  Arterial  Drainage  Act  passed. 

1845.  Lord  Stanley's  Bill  dropped. 

,,      Mr.  Sharman  Crawford's  Bill  dropped. 

Nor  had  outraged  nature  neglected  to  give  abundant  warn- 
ing of  the  Nemesis  she  exacts.  The  famine  of  1 846-47  differs 
in  degree  only  from  the  famines  which  had  recurred  at  almost 
regular  intervals  in  preceding  periods  of  Irish  history.  Begin- 
ning with  the  last  century,  it  was  the  chronic  starvation 
among  a  considerable  portion  of  the  people  that  drew  from 
Swift  in  1729  the  savage  satire  already  alluded  to;  and  in 
the  year  of  the  publication  of  *  The  Modest  Proposal '  there 
had  been  three  years  of  dearth,  and  the  people  were  reduced 
to  the  last  extremity.  In  1725,  1726,  1727,  and  in  1728 
the  harvests  were  very  bad  ;  and  in  1739  there  was  a  pro- 
longed frost  that  produced  in  the  following  years  a  famine 
which  was  one  of  the  worst  on  record.  Of  that  famine — 
the  famine  of  1740-41 — we  have  many  contemporaneous  de- 
scriptions. According  to  one  writer,  four  hundred  thousand 
persons  died.  Bishop  Berkeley  has  left  behind  touching 

1  This  list  I  have  compiled  from  O'Connell  (Hansard,  Ixxxv.  p.  505),  and 
from  a  pamphlet  by  Mr.  I.  S.  Leadarn,  quoted  by  Mr.  Healy  in  his  pamphlet, 
Why  there  is  a  Land  Question  and  an  Irish  Land  League,  pp.  68,  69,  1st  edition. 
O'Connell's  calculation  is  that  there  were  seventeen  Coercion  Acts  up  to  August, 
1837.  There  were  nearly  double  that  number— if  not  of  Acts  generally  called 
Coercion,  at  least  of  an  exceptional  and  restrictive  character.  Thus  O'ConneJ 
enumerates  three  Coercion  Acts  in  the  first  year  after  the  Union  :  there  were  five. 
Nor  does  he  include  Arms  Acts  in  his  list ;  though,  of  course,  Arms  Acts  are 
Coercion  Acts.  Thus,  in  1807,  he  mentions  two  Coercion  Acts  ;  there  were, 
besides,  two  Arms  Acts. 


26  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

% 

descriptions  of  the  misery  that  came  before  his  own  eyes  and 
smote  his  loving  heart ;  and  another  writer  gives  a  pic- 
ture as  terrible  as  any  even  in  the  history  of  famines.  '  I 
have  seen/  says  this  writer,  '  the  labourer  endeavouring  to 
work  at  his  spade,  but  fainting  for  want  of  food,  and  forced  to 
quit  it.  I  have  seen  the  aged  father  eating  grass  like  a  beast, 
and  in  the  anguish  of  his  soul  wishing  for  his  dissolution.  I 
have  seen  the  helpless  orphan  exposed  on  the  dunghill,  and 
none  to  take  him  in  for  fear  of  infection  ;  and  I  have  seen 
the  hungry  infant  sucking  at  the  breast  of  the  already  expired 
parent.' l 

In  1822  there  was  again  a  serious  famine  of  considerable 
dimensions.  Colonel  Patterson,  stationed  at  the  time  in 
Galway,  tells  how  hundreds  of  half-starved  wretches  arrived 
daily  from  a  distance  of  fifty  miles,  many  of  them  so  exhausted 
by  want  of  food  that  means  taken  to  restore  them  failed, 
owing  to  the  weakness  of  their  digestive  organs  (quoted  from 
John  Mitchel's  'History  of  Ireland/  p.  15).  And  certain 
official  returns  of  the  time  state  that  in  the  month  of  June  in 
Clare  County  alone,  99,630  persons  subsisted  on  daily  charity  ; 
and  in  Cork,  122,000  (Alison's  '  History  of  Europe,'  quoted  in 
John  Mitchel's  'History  of  Ireland/  p.  154).  Yet  there  was 
in  1821  a  good  grain  crop,  amounting  to  1,822,816  quarters, 
and  in  1822  to  more  than  1,000,000  quarters  (Thorn's  '  Direc- 
tory/ quoted  by  John  Mitchel,  p.  I23).2 

It  was  the  peculiarity  of  the  Act  of  Union  and  of  the 
land  legislation,  that  it  was  ultimately  a  curse  as  great  to  the 
landlord  as  to  the  tenant.  In  the  pages  which  immediately 
follow  there  will  be  terrible  stones  of  cruelty  by  the  Irish 
landlords  ;  and  these  stories  will  often  tempt  the  reader  to  ask 
whether  the  men  who  perpetrated  such  crimes  could  have  had 

1   Lecky,  History  of  England,  ii.  218,  219. 

Cobbett,  in  his  Register,  remarked  upon  this  strange  phenomenon  of  abundant 
food  and  widespread  starvation.  'Money  it  seems,'  he  wrote,  'is  wanted  in 
Ireland.  Now,  people  do  not  eat  money.  No,  but  the  money  will  buy  them 
something  to  eat.  \Vhat?  The  food  is  there,  then.  Pray  observe  this,  and  let 
the  parties  get  out  of  the  concern  if  they  can.  The  food  is  there  ;  but  those  who 
have  it  in  their  possession  will  not  give  it  without  the  money.  And  we  know 
that  the  food  is  there  :  for  since  this  famine  has  been  declared  in  Parliament, 
thousands  of  quarters  of  corn  have  been  imported  every  wtek  from  Ireland  to 
England.'— Quoted  in  Mitchel's  History  of  Ireland,  p.  153. 


THE    COMING   OF   THE    FAMINE  27 

the  same  flesh  and  blood  as  himself.  The  landlords  of  Ireland 
were  no  less  human  beings  than  the  Southern  planters  who 
upheld  the  slavery  of  the  negro,  or  than  the  noblesse  whose 
tyranny  produced  the  horrors  of  the  French  Revolution.  Like 
their  serfs,  they  were  the  victims  to  some  extent  of  circum- 
stances. Behind  their  action  in  the  days  of  the  famine,  there 
stood  at  least  a  century  of  extravagance.  In  the  last  century 
the  Irish  squire  never  dreamt  that  the  time  would  come  when 
the  native  Parliament  of  Ireland  would  be  destroyed  ;  and 
acted  as  if  Ireland  were  to  be  always  his  chief  home,  and 
Dublin  always  the  capital  to  which  the  Parliament  of  his 
country  would  bring  the  fashion  and  the  society  of  Ireland. 
The  result  was  that  he  spent  more  in  proportion  to  his  means 
on  the  construction  of  his  house  than  probably  his  English 
brother.  The  aristocratic  mansions  in  Dublin — which,  if  they 
be  fortunate,  are  now  occupied  as  public  offices  ;  and  if  unfor- 
tunate, have  sunk  to  the  degradation  of  tenement  houses — 
were  finer  in  the  days  before  the  Union  than  most  of  the 
houses  which  were  then  occupied  by  the  aristocracy  that 
dwelt  in  London. 

Then  came  the  Union  ;  the  price  for  which  a  large  num-  . 
ber  of  the  Irish  nobility  betrayed  the  liberties  of  their  country 
was  a  step  in  the  peerage.  Dublin  ceased  with  the  departure  ' 
of  the  Irish  Legislature  to  be  the  seat  of  Irish  fashion  ;  the 
Irish  peer  suddenly  found  himself  obliged  to  live  in  the  richer 
and  more  expensive  country,  in  the  larger  and  more  expensive 
metropolis  ;  and  then  began  the  creation  of  debt,  alleviated 
occasionally  by  the  Irishman's  proverbial  luck  in  the  capture  of 
a  rich  parti.  When  the  famine  came,  a  vast  number  of  the  Irish 
landlords  were  inextricably  in  debt  ;  the  Encumbered  Estates 
Act  had  not  yet  been  passed;  and  accordingly  there  was 
no  means  whatever  of  rescue.  It  often  happened,  therefore, 
that  the  nominal  and  the  real  owner  were  two  different  per- 
sons. The  nominal  owner  was  an  O'Flaherty  or  a  Blake  ;  \ 
the  real  owner  was  the  Hebrew  gentleman  resident  in  London 
from  whom  the  O'Flaherty  or  the  Blake  had  borrowed  as 
much,  or  more,  than  the  estate  could  bear.  The  Irish  landlord 
of  the  period — as  to  a  very  recent  date — was  insolent,  tyran- 
nical, ignorant ;  a  spendthrift,  a  gambler,  often  a  drunkard  ; 


28  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

% 

but  he  often  stood  to  be  shot  at  for  deeds  which  were  the 
natural  sequence,  not  of  his  own  follies  and  vices,  but  of  the 
follies  and  vices  of  those  who  had  gone  before  him. 

The  future  of  the  Ireland  which  all  these  causes  were 
preparing  was  forecast  in  several  of  the  official  reports 
already  alluded  to,  and  above  all  in  the  Report  of  the  Devon 
Commission. 

A  few  extracts  from  these  reports  will  complete  the  picture 
of  Ireland  in  the  days  before  the  famine.  These  extracts  will 
be  very  few  and  very  brief,  but  they  are  sufficient  to  justify 
the  assertion  already  made,  that  the  famine  was  inevitable 
without  land  reform  ;  and  that  its  advent  could  only  fail 
to  be  foreseen  by  invincibly  ignorant  Ministers  and  Parlia- 
ments. 

I  have  seen  a  great  deal  of  the  peasantry  (said  the  well-known 
engineer  Alexander  Nimmo,  whose  name  is  perpetuated  by  a  pier  in 
the  town  of  Gahvay,  in  his  evidence  before  the  Committee  of  1824). 
I  have  sometimes  slept  in  their  cabins,  and  had  frequent  intercourse 
with  them,  especially  in  the  south  and  west  of  Ireland.  I  conceive 
the  peasantry  in  Ireland  to  be  in  the  lowest  possible  state  of  exist- 
ence ;  their  cabins  are  in  the  most  miserable  condition,  and  their  food 
is  potatoes,  with  water,  very  often  without  anything  else,  frequently 
without  salt,  and  I  have  frequently  had  occasion  to  meet  persons  who 
begged  of  me  on  their  knees,  for  the  love  of  God,  to  give  them  some 
promise  of  employment,  that  from  the  credit  they  might  get  the  means 
of  supporting  themselves  for  a  few  months  until  I  could  employ 
them.1 

Nothing  can  be  worse  than  the  condition  of  the  lower  classes  of 
the  labourers,  and  the  farmers  are  not  much  better  (said  Mr.  J. 
Driscoll  before  the  1824  Committee)  ;  they  have  nothing  whatever, 
1  think,  but  the  potatoes  and  water  ;  they  seldom  have  salt.  / 

The  Committee  before  whom  this  and  the  like  evidence 
was  brought  reported  : 

That  a  very  considerable  proportion  of  the  population,  variously 
estimated  at  a  fourth  or  a  fifth  of  the  whole,  is  considered  to  be  out 
oi  employment  ;  that  this,  combined  with  the  consequences  of  an 
altered  system  of  managing  land,  is  stated  to  produce  misery  and 

1  P.  226  of  the  Report.     Quoted  by  O'Connell  (Hansard,  Ixxxv.  p.  507). 


THE    COMING   OF   THE    FAMINE  29 

suffering  which  no  language  can  possibly  describe,  and  which  it  is 
necessary  to  witness  in  order  fully  to  estimate.1 

The  situation  of  the  ejected  tenantry,  or  of  those  who  are  obliged 
to  give  up  their  small  holdings  in  order  to  promote  the  consolidation 
of  farms,  is  necessarily  most  deplorable.  It  would  be  impossible  for 
language  to  convey  an  idea  of  the  state  of  distress  to  which  the 
ejected  tenantry  have  been  reduced,  or  of  the  disease,  misery,  or 
even  vice  which  they  have  propagated  where  they  have  settled  • 
so  that  not  only  they  who  have  been  ejected  have  been  rendered 
miserable,  but  they  have  carried  with  them  and  propagated  that 
misery.  They  have  increased  the  stock  of  labour,  they  have  rendered 
the  habitations  of  those  who  have  received  them  more  crowded,  they 
have  given  occasion  to  the  dissemination  of  disease,  they  have  been 
obliged  to  resort  to  theft  and  all  manner  of  vice  and  iniquity  to 
procure  subsistence  ;  but  what  is  perhaps  the  most  painful  of  all,  a 
vast  number  of  them  have  perished  of  want.2 

The  Poor  Law  Inquiry  of  1835  reported  that  2,235,000   ,/ 
persons  were  out  of  work  and  in  distress  for  thirty  weeks  in   j 
the  year.3 

Finally,  the  Devon  Commission  reported  that  it  '  would  be  u 
impossible  to  describe  adequately  the  sufferings  and  priva-   \ 
tions  which  the  cottiers  and  labourers  and  their  families  in 
most  parts  of  the  country  endure,'  '  their  cabins  are  seldom  a 
protection  against  the  weather,'  '  a  bed  or  a  blanket  is  a  rare    '. 
luxury,'  'in  many  districts    their   only  food    is    the   potato, 
their  only  beverage  water.' 4 

The  evidence  which  I  have  now  quoted  as  to  the  Land 
question  may  be  best  summed  up  in  the  words  of  Mr.  Mill : 
'  Returning  nothing,'  he  writes  of  the  Irish  landlords,  '  to 
the  soil,  they  consume  its  whole  produce  minus  the  potatoes 
strictly  necessary  to  keep  the  inhabitants  from  dying  of 
famine.' 5 

It  was  this  state  of  relations  between  landlord  and  tenant 
that  gave  to  the  potato  its  fatal  importance  in  the  economy 

1  Pp.  380,  381  of  the  Report  of  1824.  Quoted  by  O'Connell  (Hansard,  Ixxxv. 
p.  508). 

'2  Quoted  by  O'Connell,  ib.  Report  of  Select  Committee  of  1850,  p.  8. 
Quoted  by  O'Connell,  ib.  pp.  508,  509. 

8  Quoted  by  Mr.  Labouchere,  Annual  Register,  1847,  P-  9- 

4  Quoted  by  O'Connell  (Hansard,  Ixxxv.  p.  509). 

5  Quoted  in  Healy,  Why  there  is  a  Land  Question,  &c.  p.  55. 


3o  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

% 

of  Irish  life.  The  compromise  between  the  two  sides  was  that 
all  the  wheat  and  oats  which  were  grown  on  the  land  should 
go  to  the  payment  of  the  rent ;  and  also  so  much  of  the 
potato  crop  as  was  not  required  to  keep  the  tenant  and  his 
family  from  absolute  starvation.  The  potato  was  found  to 
be  particularly  well  suited  for  the  position  of  the  tenant.  It 
produced  a  larger  amount  per  acre  than  any  other  crop  ;  it. 
suited  the  soil  and  the  climate  ;  it  supplied  a  vegetable  which, 
alone  among  vegetables,  supported  life  without  anything  else. 
The  potato  meant  abundant  food  or  starvation,  life  or  whole- 
sale death.  It  was  the  thin  partition  between  famine  and 
the  millions  of  the  Irish  people. 

The  plant  that  had  so  dread  a  responsibility  had  its  bad 
qualities  as  well  as  its  good  ;  it  was  fickle,  perishable,  liable 
to  wholesale  destruction,  and  more  than  once  already  had 
given  proof  of  its  terrible  uncertainty.  It  will  be  seen  by-and- 
by  that  the  readiness  of  the  potato  to  fail  played  a  very 
important  part,  and,  indeed,  was  the  main  factor  in  Irish 
life,  not  merely  in  the  epoch  with  which  we  are  now  dealing, 
but  in  a  period  a  great  deal  nearer  to  our  own  time. 

There  was,  however,  no  anticipation  of  disaster  in  1845. 
The  fields  everywhere  waved  green  and  flowery,  and  there 
was  the  promise  of  an  abundant  harvest.  There  had  been 
whispers  of  the  appearance  of  disease  ;  but  it  was  in  countries 
that  in  those  days  appeared  remote— in  Belgium  or  Germany, 
in  Canada  or  the  Western  States  of  America.  It  was  not 
until  the  autumn  of  1845  that  it  made  its  appearance  for  the 
first  time  in  the  United  Kingdom.  It  was  first  detected  in 
the  Isle  of  Wight,  and  in  the  first  week  of  September  the 
greater  number  of  the  potatoes  in  the  London  market  were 
found  to  be  unfit  for  human  food.  In  Ireland  the  autumnal 
weather  was  suggestive  of  some  calamity.  For  weeks  the 
air  was  electrical  and  disturbed  :  there  was  much  lightning, 
unaccompanied  by  thunder.  At  last  traces  of  the  disease 
began  to  be  discovered.  A  dark  spot — such  as  would 
come  from  a  drop  of  acid — was  found  in  the  green  leaves  ; 
the  disease  then  spread  rapidly,  and  in  time  there  was 
nothing  in  many  of  the  potato-fields  but  bleached  and 
withered  leaves  emitting  a  putrid  stench. 


THE   COMING   OF   THE   FAMINE  31 

The  disease  first  appeared  on  the  coast  of  Wexford,  and 
before  many  weeks  were  over  reports  of  an  alarming  cha- 
racter began  to  come  from  the  interior.  It  was  still  a  hopeful 
sign  that  a  field  of  potatoes  remained  sound  long  after  all  the 
surrounding  fields  had  been  touched  by  the  blight.  The 
plague,  however,  was  stealthy  and  swift,  and  a  crop  that  was 
sound  one  day  the  next  was  rotten.  As  time  passed  on,  the 
disaster  spread  ;  potatoes,  healthy  when  they  were  dug  and 
pitted,  were  found  utterly  decayed  when  the  pit  was  opened. 
All  kinds  of  remedies  were  proposed  by  scientific  men- 
ventilation,  new  plans  of  pitting  and  of  packing,  the  separa- 
tion of  the  sound  and  unsound  parts  of  the  potato.  All 
failed  ;  the  blight,  like  the  locust,  was  victor  over  all  obstacles, 
omnipotent  over  all  opposing  forces. 

O'Connell  and  the  public  bodies  of  the  country  called  the 
attention  of  the  Government  to  the  impending  calamity. 
The  Royal  Agricultural  Society — an  association  of  land- 
lords— declared  that  a  great  portion  of  the  potato  crop 
was  seriously  affected.  The  Dublin  Corporation  called  a 
public  meeting  under  the  presidency  of  the  Lord  Mayor, 
which  O'Connell  attended.  He  there  drew  attention  to  one 
of  the  facts  which  excited  the  most  attention,  and,  afterwards, 
the  fiercest  anger  of  the  time.  This  was,  that  while  whole- 
sale starvation  was  impending  over  the  nation,  every  port  was 
carrying  out  its  wheat  and  oats  to  other  lands.  Side  by  side 
with  the  fields  of  blighted  potatoes  in  1845,  were  fields 
of  abundant  oats.  In  one  week — according  to  a  quotation 
from  the  '  Mark  Lane  Express '  in  O'Connell's  speech — no 
less  than  16,000  quarters  of  oats  were  exported  from  Ire- 
land to  London.  O'Connell  joined  in  the  proposal  that  the 
export  of  provisions  to  foreign  countries  should  be  imme- 
diately prohibited,  and  that  at  the  same  time  the  Corn  Laws 
should  be  suspended,  and  the  Irish  ports  opened  to  receive 
provisions  from  all  countries. 

Here  it  is  well  to  pause  for  a  moment  on  this  point.  In 
favour  of  the  proposal  of  closing  the  ports,  O'Connell  was 
able  to  adduce  the  example  of  Belgium,  of  Holland,  of  Russia, 
and  of  Turkey  under  analogous  circumstances.  Testimony  is 
as  unanimous  and  proof  as  clear  as  to  the  abundance  of  the 


32  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

% 

grain  crop  as  they  are  to  the  failure  of  the  potato  crop. 
«  Everyone,'  said  Lord  John  Russell,  in  a  letter  he  wrote  to 
the  Duke  of  Leinster  in  1847,  'who  travels  through  Ireland 
observes  the  large  stacks  of  corn  which  are  the  produce  of 
the  late  harvest.'1  This  corn  was  scattered  far  and  wide. 
John  Mitchel  quotes  the  case  of  the  captain  who  saw  a  vessel 
laden  with  Irish  corn  at  the  port  of  Rio  in  South  America. 
On  this  point,  more  will  be  said  by-and-by. 

The  complaint  of  the  Irish  writers  is  that  this  wholesale 
exportation  was  not  arrested,  and  on  this  they  founded  charges 
against  the  Ministers  of  the  period,  some  grotesque,  but  some 
most  true.  It  is  grotesque  to  charge  it  as  a  crime  against  the 
English  people  that  they  ate  the  food  which  was  supplied  to 
them  from  Ireland  :  they  obtained  the  right  to  eat  the  food 
by  having  paid  for  it.  But  the  charge  is  just  that  it  was  the 
land  legislation  which  the  British  Parliament  had  passed 
and  maintained  that  rendered  necessary  the  export  of  these 
vast  provisions  amidst  all  the  stress  and  horrors  of  famine. 
There  was  scarcely  a  single  head  of  all  these  cattle,  there  was 
scarcely  a  sheaf  of  all  this  corn,  the  price  of  which  did  not  go 
to  pay  the  landlord  over  whose  exorbitance  and  caprice  the 
Legislature  had  again  and  again  refused  to  place  any  legisla- 
tive restraint.  The  Irish  land  system  necessitated  the  export  of 
food  from  a  starving  nation.  The  English  Parliament  was  the 
parent  of  this  land  system  ;  the  English  Parliament  was  then 
responsible  for  the  starvation  which  this  exportation  involved. 

The  appeals  which  O'Connell,  the  Dublin  Corporation,  and 
other  bodies  in  Ireland  addressed  to  the  Government,  grew  in 
intensity  and  urgency  as  the  crisis  advanced,  and  as  the  re- 
ports began  to  reach  Dublin  of  numerous  cases  of  starvation 
throughout  the  country.  These  appeals  met  with  dilatory 
answers.  The  Government  were  noting  all  that  took  place  ; 
then  they  were  inquiring  ;  finally  they  had  appointed  a  scien- 
tific commission  to  investigate  the  facts  of  the  case  ;  and  so 
on.  Meantime  the  destroying  angel  was  advancing  with  a 
certain  and  swift  wing  over  the  doomed  country. 

It  was  one  of  the  necessary  consequences  of  the  legislative 

1  Quoted  in  His'.ory  of  the  Irish  Famine,  by  Rev.  J.  O'Rourke,  p.  248. 


THE    COMING   OF   THE   FAMINE  33 

union  that  Ireland  was  inextricably  involved  in  the  struggles 
of  English  parties.  And  at  this  moment  England  was  in  the 
very  agony  of  one  of  her  greatest  party  struggles.  The  advent 
of  the  Irish  famine  was  the  last  event  that  broke  down  Peel's 
faith  in  protection.  When  these  warnings  of  impending  dis- 
aster and  these  urgent  prayers  for  relief  came  from  Ireland, 
Peel  was  in  the  unfortunate  position  of  being  convinced  of  the 
danger,  and  at  the  same  time  impotent  as  to  the  remedies.  He 
was  at  that  moment  in  the  midst  of  his  attempts  to  carry  over 
his  colleagues  to  free  trade  ;  and  so  his  hands  were  tied. 
He  did  propose  that  the  ports  should  be  opened  by  Order 
in  Council,  but  to  this  proposal  he  could  not  get  some  of  his 
colleagues  to  agree.  Then  there  came  a  Ministerial  crisis  :  Peel 
resigned  ;  Lord  John  Russell  was  unable  to  form  an  Admin- 
istration ;  and  Peel' again  resumed  office.  The  result  of  these 
various  occurrences  was  that  the  ports  were  not  opened  and 
that  Parliament  was  not  summoned  ;  and  thus  three  months — 
every  single  minute  of  which  involved  wholesale  life  or  death — 
were  allowed  to  pass  without  any  effective  remedy. 

Assuredly  under  such  circumstances,  O'Connell  and  the 
other  leaders  of  the  National  party  were  justified  in  drawing 
a  contrast  between  this  deadly  delay  and  the  promptitude  that 
a  native  Legislature  would  have  shown.  *  If/  he  exclaimed  at 
the  Repeal  Association,  '  they  ask  me  what  are  my  proposi- 
tions for  relief  of  the  distress,  I  answer,  first,  Tenant-right.  I 
would  propose  a  law  giving  to  every  man  his  own.  I  would 
give  the  landlord  his  land,  and  a  fair  rent  for  it ;  but  I  would 
give  the  tenant  compensation  for  every  shilling  he  might  have 
laid  out  on  the  land  in  permanent  improvements.  And  what 
next  do  I  propose  ?  Repeal  of  the  Union.' ] 

And  then  he  went  on  with  still  greater  force  :  '  If  we  had 
a  domestic  Parliament,  would  not  the  ports  be  thrown  open- 
would  not  the  abundant  crops  with  which  Heaven  has  blessed 
her  be  kept  for  the  people  of  Ireland — and  would  not  the  Irish 
Parliament  be  more  active  even  than  the  Belgian  Parliament 
to  provide  for  the  people  food  and  employment  ? ' 2 

But  Ireland  had  not  won  her  Legislature  ;  and  she  had 
accordingly  to  wait  patiently  until  January  22,  when  it  suited 

1  History  of  Ireland,  by  John  Mitchel,  ii.  205.  2  Ib. 

D 


34  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

% 

the  English  Premier  to  call  Parliament  together.  The  mys- 
terious replies  of  the  Ministers— the  perfect  paralysis  of 
independent  effort  which  these  suggestions  had  caused  in 
Ireland— all  tended  to  turn  the  eyes  of  the  Irish  people  with 
feverish  longing  and  expectation  to  this  event.  The  opening 
hours  of  the  session  were  sufficient  to  damp  all  these  hopes. 
On  means  of  affording  relief  the  Queen's  Speech  was  vague  ; 
but  on  the  question  of  Coercion  it  spoke  in  terms  of  unmis- 
takable plainness.  '  I  have  observed,'  said  that  document, 
'  with  deep  regret,  the  very  frequent  instances  in  which  the 
crime  of  deliberate  assassination  has  been  of  late  committed 
in  Ireland.  It  will  be  your  duty  to  consider  whether  any 
measures  can  be  devised  calculated  to  give  increased  protection 
to  life  and  to  bring  to  justice  the  perpetrators  of  so  dreadful 
a  crime.'  I  will  deal  with  the  justification  for  the  new  Coercion 
Bill  when  I  come  to  describe  the  memorable  struggle  that  took 
place  on  the  Ministerial  measure.  Meantime,  let  it  suffice  to 
say  that  the  characteristic  contrast  between  the  tender  solici- 
tude of  the  Government  for  the  landlords,  and  its  half-hearted 
regard  for  the  tenants — at  the  moment  when  of  the  tenants 
a  thousand  had  died  through  eviction  and  hunger  for  every  one 
of  the  landlords  who  had  met  death  through  assassination — 
roused  the  bitterest  resentment  in  Ireland.  *  The  only  notice/ 
exclaimed  the  *  Nation,'  ( vouchsafed  to  this  country  is  a  hint 
that  more  gaols,  more  transportation,  and  more  gibbets  might 
be  useful  to  us.  Or,  possibly,  we  wrong  the  minister  ;  perhaps 
when  her  Majesty  says  that  "  protection  must  be  afforded  to 
life,"  she  means  that  the  people  are  not  to  be  allowed  to  die 
of  hunger  during  the  ensuing  summer — or  that  the  lives  of 
tenants  are  to  be  protected  against  the  extermination  of 
clearing  landlords — and  that  so  "deliberate  assassination" 
may  become  less  frequent ; — God  knows  what  she  means — the 
use  of  Royal  language  is  to  conceal  ideas.' 

The  measures  proposed  by  the  Government  for  dealing 
with  the  distress  were,  first,  the  importation  of  corn  on  a 
lowered  duty  through  the  repeal  of  the  Corn  Laws  ;  and, 
secondly,  the  advance  of  two  sums  of  5o,ooo/.,  one  to  the 
landlords  for  the  drainage  of  their  lands,  and  the  other  for  public 
works.  The  ridiculous  disproportion  of  these  sums  to  the 


THE   COMING   OF   THE  FAMINE  35 

magnitude  of  the  calamity  was  proved  before  very  long  ; 
but  to  all  representations  the  Government  replied  in  the 
worst  and  haughtiest  spirit  of  official  optimism.  '  Instruc- 
tions have  been  given/  said  Sir  James  Graham,  '  on  the 
responsibility  of  the  Government  to  meet  any  emergency.' l 
Only  one  good  measure  was  covered  by  the  generous  self- 
complacency  of  this  round  assertion.  Under  a  Treasury 
minute  of  December  19,  1845,  the  Ministry  had  instructed 
Messrs.  Baring  and  Co.  to  purchase  ioo,ooo/.  worth  of  Indian 
•corn.  This  they  introduced  secretly  into  Ireland,  and  its 
distribution  proved  most  timely. 

Still  the  Irish  members  pressed  for  more  definite  assur- 
ances and  larger  proposals.  But  their  suggestions  and  Peel's 
beneficent  intentions  were  frustrated  by  the  fatal  entangle- 
ment of  Irish  sorrows  in  the  personal  ambitions  and  the 
partisan  warfare  of  St.  Stephen's.  Peel  had  put  forward  the 
Irish  famine  as  the  main  reason  for  his  change  of  opinion  on 
the  Corn  Laws  ;  and  the  Irish  famine  became  one  of  the 
great  debatable  topics  between  the  adherents  of  free  trade 
and  of  protection.  All  the  protectionist  party  in  Parliament, 
all  the  organs  of  the  landlords  in  Ireland,  united  in  the  state- 
ment that  the  reports  of  distress  were  unreal  and  exaggerated. 
'  The  potato  crop  of  this  year,'  wrote  the  '  Evening  Mail '  of 
November  3,  1845,  *  far  exceeded  an  average  one  ' ;  '  the  corn 
of  all  kinds  is  so  far  abundant ' — which,  indeed,  was  quite 
true — '  the  apprehensions  of  a  famine  are  unfounded,  and 
are  merely  made  the  pretence  for  withholding  the  payment 
of  rent.'  Some  days  after  it  repeated, '  there  was  a  sufficiency, 
an  abundance  of  sound  potatoes  in  the  country  for  the  wants 
of  the  people.'  *  The  potato  famine  in  Ireland,'  exclaimed 
Lord  George  Bentinck,  *  was  a  gross  delusion,  a  more  gross 
delusion  had  never  been  practised  upon  any  country  by  any 
Government.' 2  '  The  cry  of  famine  was  a  mere  pretence  for 
a  party  object.' 3  '  Famine  in  Ireland,'  said  Lord  Stanley,  was 
*  a  vision — a  baseless  vision.' 4 

The  second  great  obstacle  to  the  proper  consideration  of 
measures  to  meet  the  distress  was  the  Coercion  Bill.     It  was 

1  Mitchel,  ii.  205.  2  Quoted  by  O'Rourke,  p.  104. 

3  Annual  Register,  1846,  p.  68.  *  Ib.  p.  80. 

D  2 


36  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

quite  true  that  there  had  been  several  atrocious  murders  in 
Ireland  ;  but  the  provocation  to  outrage  had  been  terrible. 
A  passion— that  looked  something  like  an  epidemic  of  homi- 
cidal mania — had  seized  many  of  the  landlords  for  wholesale 
clearances  at  the  very  moment  when   the  people  were  con- 
fronted with  universal  hunger.     One   of  the  very  worst  of 
these  cases  had  taken  place  within  a  few  days  of  the  discus- 
sion on    the    Coercion    Bill.     A   Mr.  and  Mrs.   Gerard  had 
turned  out  in  one  morning  the  entire  population  of  the  village 
of   Ballinglass,    in   the  county  of   Galway — 270  persons   in 
number.     Neither  the  old,  the  young,  nor  the  dying  had  been 
spared  ;  and   even  after   the  eviction  the  tenants  had  been 
pursued  with  a  frenzied  hate.     The  roofs  had  been  taken  off 
their  sixty  houses  ;  and  when  the  villagers  took  refuge  under 
the  skeleton  walls,  they  were  driven  thence,  and  the  walls  were 
rooted  from  their  foundations.    Then  they  took  shelter  in  the 
ditches,  where  they   slept   for  two    nights  huddled  together 
before  fires — some  of  them   old   men  eighty   years   of  age, 
others  women  with  children  upon  their  breasts.     They  were 
forced  from  the  ditches  as  from  their  hearths.     The  fires  were 
quenched,  and  the  outcasts  were  driven  to  wheresoever  they 
might  find  a  home  or  a  grave. 

The  proposals  of  the  Coercion  Bill  of  the  Government 
were  certainly  startling.  Under  the  bill  the  Lord-Lieutenant 
could  proclaim  any  district,  and  could  order  every  person 
within  it  '  to  be  and  to  remain '  within  his  own  house  from 
one  hour  before  sunset  to  one  hour  before  sunrise.  No 
person  could  with  safety  visit  a  public-house,  or  a  tea-  or 
coffee-shop,  or  the  house  of  a  friend.  A  justice  of  the  peace 
had  the  power  to  search  for  and  drag  out  all  such  persons. 
The  penalty  was  as  terrible  as  the  offence.  Any  person 
outside  his  own  house,  whether  wandering  on  the  highway  or 
inside  another  house,  was  liable  to  be  transported  beyond  the 
seas  for  seven  years.  '  From  four  or  five  o'clock/  said  Earl 
Grey,  criticising  the  bill  in  the  House  of  Lords,1  'in  the  after- 
noon, till  past  eight  on  the  following  morning,  during  the 
month  of  December,  no  inhabitant  of  a  proclaimed  district 
in  Ireland  was  to  be  allowed  to  set  his  foot  outside  the  door 

'  Hansard,  Ixxxiv.  p.  697. 


THE    COMING   OF    THE    FAMINE  37 

of  his  cabin  without  rendering  himself  liable  to  this  severe 
punishment.  He  might  not  even  venture  from  home  during 
that  time  to  visit  a  friend,  or  to  enjoy  at  any  place  a  few 
hours  of  harmless  recreation.  Nay,  he  dared  not  even  go  to 
his  work  in  the  morning,  or  return  from  his  work  in  the 
evening,  so  as  to  gain  the  advantage  of  the  hours  of  daylight, 
without  rendering  himself  liable  to  arrest  at  the  will  of  a 
police  constable,  and  to  be  kept  in  confinement,  in  default  of 
proving  what  no  man  could  prove — that  he  was  out  with 
innocent  intentions.' 

Such  a  bill,  ferocious  at  any  time,  was  still  more  ferocious 
in  the  circumstances  of  Ireland  at  that  moment.  The  man 
found  outside  a  house  between  sunset  and  sunrise  was  liable 
to  transportation  for  seven  years  ;  and  in  this  year  the  roads 
of  all  Ireland  were  crowded  with  wanderers,  houseless,  home- 
less, starving,  and  dying.  Then  the  bill  enabled  the  Lord- 
Lieutenant  to  inflict  taxation  on  the  proclaimed  district  for 
additional  police,  for  additional  magistrates,  for  compensation 
to  the  relations  of  murdered  or  injured  persons  ;  and  it  was 
especially  enacted  that  the  taxation  could  be  levied  by 
distress,  and  levied  on  the  occupiers  only.  The  landlords, 
who,  through  absenteeism,  or  rack-renting,  or  the  clearances, 
were  the  direct  authors  and  instigators  of  the  despair  that  led 
to  the  crimes,  were  especially  exempted  from  all  taxation.1 
Every  tenant  was  liable  ;  and  so  resolute  were  the  Govern- 
ment to  inflict  the  tax,  that  the  merciful  exemptions  by  the 
Poor  Law  were  abrogated.  Under  the  Poor  Law  all  persons 
in  houses  under  4/.  valuation  were  free  from  the  rates  ;  under 
the  Coercion  Bill  the  occupier  of  any  house,  whether  above 
4/.  or  under  4/.,  was  liable  to  the  tax.  And  this  at  the 

1  Earl  Grey  :  '  It  was  not  just  to  exempt  the  landlords  ;  though  they  were 
not  the  cause  of  these  outrages  and  evils,  Ireland  never  would  have  got  into  its 
present  state,  the  existing  state  of  society  there  would  never  have  been  such  as  it 
was,  if  the  landlords,  as  a  body,  had  done  their  duty  to  the  population  under 
them  ;  ...  he  believed  that  of  late  years  an  improvement  had  taken  place  in  the 
conduct  of  the  landlords  of  Ireland  towards  their  tenantry;  but  if  they  looked  to 
the  past  history  of  that  land,  the  awful  state  of  things  now  existing  would  be  seen 
to  be  a  direct  consequence  of  the  dereliction  of  their  duty  by  the  upper  classes  of 
that  country,  which  was  an  historical  fact  known  not  only  to  England  but  to  all 
Europe. '—Hansard,  Ixxxiv.  pp.  694,  695. 


38  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

moment  when  the  inhabitants  of  the  greater  number  of  the 
houses  in  Ireland  had  not  one  meal  of  potatoes  a  day  ! 

But  cruel  as  was  such  a  bill  at  such  a  time,  it  would  have 
been  passed  with  a  light  heart,  and  by  huge  majorities  from 
all  English  parties,  if  the  exigencies  of  English  party  warfare 
had  not  at  this  moment  produced  a  curious  and  a  not  very 
moral  alliance  between  the  English  Whigs,  the  English  pro- 
tectionists, and  the  O'Connellites.  The  English  Whigs  were 
anxious  to  return  to  office  ;  the  protectionists  raged  with  the 
desire  to  be  avenged  on  Peel  for  the  abandonment  of  protec- 
tion ;  and  the  two  parties  saw  in  a  combination  against  this 
bill  an  opportunity  of  attaining  their  different  ends.  There 
were  some  slight  obstacles,  it  was  true,  in  the  way.  Lord 
John  Russell  had  voted  for  the  first  reading  of  the  bill,  and 
Lord  George  Bentinck,  in  response  to  some  overtures  to  use 
it  against  the  ministers,  had  responded  with  fierce  indigna- 
tion and  a  vehement  defence  of  the  measure.  But  Lord 
John  Russell  had  a  counsellor  in  his  own  ambition,  and  Lord 
George  Bentinck  as  sinister  an  adviser  in  Mr.  Disraeli :  with 
the  result  that  each  performed  a  volte-face  as  prompt  as  it 
was  shameless.  They  both  condescended,  of  course,  to 
supply  most  excellent  and  strictly  decorous  reasons  for  their 
change  of  attitude.  Lord  John  Russell  announced  the  dis- 
covery— made  with  the  suddenness,  and,  as  will  be  seen 
by-and-by,  lost  again  with  the  suddenness  of  a  modern 
miracle — that  coercion  aggravated,  instead  of  curing  the  evils 
of  Ireland  ;  and  Lord  George  Bentinck,  declaring  that  the 
Government  had  displayed  insincerity  in  postponing  the  bill 
so  long,  proceeded  to  prove  his  own  sincerity  by  taking  care 
that  it  should  be  postponed  to  the  Greek  Kalends.  It  was 
under  conditions  like  this  that  an  Irish  Coercion  Bill  was 
defeated  for  the  first,  and  up  to  the  present,  for  the  last, 
time  in  the  whole  history  of  the  Imperial  Parliament. 

On  June  26,  1846,  the  second  reading  of  the  Coercion 
Bill  was  rejected  by  292  votes  to  217.  On  June  29  Sir 
Robert  Peel  announced  his  resignation.  In  the  opinion  of 
the  majority  of  the  Irishmen  who  survive  from  that  period, 
the  change  of  administration  was  dearly  bought  by  Ireland, 
even  by  the  defeat  of  a  Coercion  Bill.  The  steps  that  had 


THE   COMING   OF   THE    FAMINE  39 

been  taken  by  Peel  were  certainly  grossly  insufficient ;  but 
the  disaster  with  which  he  had  to  deal  was  small  in  compari- 
son with  that  which  confronted  Lord  John  Russell ;  and  the 
opinion  of  posterity — at  least  of  Irish  posterity — is  that,  as  a 
minister,  Lord  John  Russell  was  vastly  inferior  to  Peel,  and, 
therefore,  much  less  competent  to  deal  with  the  terrible  crisis 
which  had  now  come  upon  Ireland. 

Amidst  the  throes  of  these  great  struggles,  Ireland  was 
entering  upon  a  new  and  a  still  more  terrible  chapter  in  her 
tragic  annals.  The  Famine  of  1846  was  coming ! 


40  THE    PARNELL  MOVEMENT 


CHAPTER    III. 
THE   FAMINE. 

NOTHING  brings  the  desperate  position  of  the  Irish  tenant 
home  with  more  terrible  clearness  to  the  mind  than  the  fact 
that  the  awful  warning  of  1845  was,  and  had  to  be,  unheeded. 
The  potato  was  still  cherished  as  the  only  friend,  the  one 
refuge,  the  single  resource  of  the  peasant.  He  stuck,  then, 
to  the  plant — not  with  the  tenacity  of  despair  ;  not  with  the 
obstinacy  of  incurable  fatuity  ;  but  because  in  his  circum- 
stances the  potato,  and  the  potato  alone,  offered  him  hope. 

Strangely  enough,  it  was  in  no  spirit  of  apprehension  that 
the  tenantry  set  to  work  in  the  preparation  of  the  potato  crop 
of  1846.  Contemporary  testimony  is  unanimous  in  describing 
them  as  working  at  that  period  with  an  energy  that  was 
frantic,  with  a  hopefulness  that  was  tragic — with  a  determi- 
nation to  risk  all  on  the  one  cast  that  exhibited  for  once  a 
nation  carried  in  the  maelstrom  of  the  gambler's  desperation. 
'  Although/  writes  Mr.  A.  M.  Sullivan,1  '  already  feeling  the 
pinch  of  sore  distress,  if  not  actual  famine,  they  worked  as  if 
for  dear  life  ;  they  begged  and  borrowed  on  any  terms  the 
means  whereby  to  crop  the  land  once  more.  The  pawn- 
offices  were  choked  with  the  humble  finery  that  had  shone  at 
the  village  dance  or  christening  feast ;  the  banks  and  local 
money-lenders  were  besieged  with  appeals  for  credit.  Meals 
were  stinted  ;  backs  were  bared.' 

The  signs  of  the  seasons  were  watched  throughout  the 
year  with  fierce  anxiety.  The  spring  was  unpromising 
enough.  Snow,  hail,  and  sleet  fell  in  March  ;  and  in  Belfast 
there  was  snow  as  late  as  the  first  week  in  April.  But  when 
the  summer  came,  it  made  amends  for  all  this.  The  weather 

1  Nciv  Ireland,  p.  59  (Eighth  edit.). 


THE    FAMINE  41 

in  June  was  of  tropical  heat ;  vegetation  sprang  up  with 
something  of  tropical  rapidity ;  and  everybody  anticipated  a 
splendid  harvest.  Towards  the  end  of  June  there  was  again 
a  change  for  the  worse.  The  weather  broke  ;  in  Limerick 
there  was  on  the  ipth  a  sudden  downfall  of  copious  rain  ; 
then  came  thunder  and  lightning,  and  after  that  intense  cold. 
So  also  in  July,  there  was  the  alternation  of  tropical  heat 
and  thunderstorm,  of  parching  dryness  and  excessive  rain. 
St.  Swithin's  Day  was  looked  forward  to  with  great  eager- 
ness. There  was  a  continuous  downpour  of  rain  ;  and  on 
the  following  day  a  fearful  thunderstorm  burst  over  Dublin. 
Still  the  crop  went  on  splendidly ;  and  all  over  the  country 
once  again  wide  fields  of  waving  green  and  flowery  stalks 
promised  exuberant  abundance  of  the  staple  product  of 
Ireland. 

It  was  in  the  early  days  of  August  that  the  first  symptoms 
of  the  coming  disaster  were  seen.  The  calamity  was  heralded 
by  a  strange  portent  that  was  seen  simultaneously  in  several 
parts  of  Ireland,  and  that  at  once  suggested  the  ghastly 
truth  to  those  who  had  carefully  watched  the  signs  of  the 
previous  year.  A  fog — which  some  describe  as  extremely 
white  and  others  as  yellow — was  seen  to  rise  from  the 
ground  ;  the  fog  was  dry  and  emitted  a  disagreeable  odour. 
A  Mr.  Cooper  saw  it  on  the  Ox  Mountains  in  Sligo  ;  Justin 
McCarthy  remembers  to  have  seen  it  in  Bantry  Bay  in 
county  Cork.  Mr.  Cooper  at  once  suspected  the  real  truth, 
and  caused  inquiries  to  be  made.  The  companion  who  was 
with  Mr.  McCarthy  at  the  time  at  once  exclaimed  that  the 
blight  was  coming.  And  they  were  right  ;  the  fog  of  that 
night  bore  the  blight  within  its  accursed  bosom.  The  work 
of  destruction  was  as  swift  as  it  was  universal.  In  a  single 
night  and  throughout  the  whole  country  the  entire  crop 
was  destroyed,  almost  to  the  last  potato.  '  On  the  2/th  of 
last  month '  (July),  writes  Father  Mathew,  '  I  passed  from 
Cork  to  Dublin,  and  this  doomed  plant  bloomed  in  all  the 
luxuriance  of  an  abundant  harvest.  Returning  on  the  3rd 
instant  (August),  I  beheld  with  sorrow  one  wide  waste  of 
putrefying  vegetation.' 1 

1   The  Census  for  Ireland  for  the  Year  1851.    Part  V.      «  Table  of  Deaths,' 
vol.  i.  p.  270. 


42  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

The  meaning  of  the  dread  calamity  burst  upon  the  people 
at  once  ;  but  the  suffering  was  yet  to  come.  In  the  mean- 
time, they  gave  way  to  the  poignancy  of  their  grief  or  to  the 
apathy  of  their  despair.  *  In  many  places/  writes  Father 
Mathevv,  '  the  wretched  people  were  seated  on  the  fences  of 
their  decaying  gardens,  wringing  their  hands  and  wailing 
bitterly  the  destruction  that  had  left  them  foodless.' l  '  Blank 
stolid  dismay,  a  sort  of  stupor,  fell  upon  the  people,'  writes 
Mr.  A.  M.  Sullivan,  '  contrasting  remarkably  with  the  fierce 
energy  put  forth  a  year  before.  It  was  no  uncommon  sight  to 
see  the  cottier  and  his  little  family  seated  on  the  garden  fence, 
gazing  all  day  long  in  moody  silence  at  the  blighted  plot  that 
had  been  their  last  hope.  Nothing  could  arouse  them.  You 
spoke  ;  they  answered  not.  You  tried  to  cheer  them  ;  they 
shook  their  heads.  I  never  saw  so  sudden  and  so  terrible  a 
transformation.' 2 

'  Famine  advances  on  us  with  giant  strides,' 3  wrote 
Captain  Wynne,  one  of  the  officials  of  the  time,  from  Ennis  in 
the  autumn  of  1846;  and  his  words  were  soon  confirmed. 
Towards  the  end  of  August  the  calamity  began  to  be 
universal  and  its  symptoms  everywhere  to  be  seen.  Some  of 
the  people  rushed  into  the  towns,  others  wandered  listlessly 
along  the  high  roads  in  the  vague  and  vain  hope  that  food 
would  somehow  or  other  come  to  their  hands.  They  grasped 
at  everything  that  promised  sustenance  ;  they  plucked  turnips 
from  the  fields  ;  many  were  glad  to  live  for  weeks  on  a  single 
meal  of  cabbage  a  day.4  In  some  cases  they  feasted  on  the 
dead  bodies  of  horses  and  asses  5  and  dogs  ; 6  and  there  is  at 
least  one  horrible  story  of  a  mother  eating  the  limbs  of  her 
dead  child.7  In  many  places  dead  bodies  were  discovered 
with  grass  in  their  mouths  and  in  their  stomachs  and  bowels.8 
In  Mayo,  a  man  who  had  been  observed  searching  for  food  on 
the  seashore,  was  found  dead  on  the  roadside,  after  vainly 
attempting  to  prolong  his  wretched  life  by  means  of  the  half- 

1  The  Census  for  Ireland  for  the  Year  1851.  Part  V.  <  Table  of  Deaths,' 
vol.  i.  p.  270.  2  New  Ireland,  p.  59. 

3  O'Rourke,  p.  366.  «  Census  Commissioners,  p.  273. 

3  O'Rourke,  pp.  390,  391.  6  Census  Commissioners,  p.  243. 

7  /*•  P-  3io.  "  Ibm  pp>  243j  283> 


THE    FAMINE  43 

masticated  turf  and  grass  which  remained  unswallowed  in  his 
mouth.  Nettle-tops,  wild  mustard,  and  watercress  were 
sought  after  with  desperate  eagerness.  The  assuaging  of 
hunger  with  seaweed  too  often  meant  the  acceleration  of 
death,  but  seaweed  was  greedily  devoured,1  so  also  were 
diseased  cattle,2  and  there  were  inquests  in  many  places  on 
people  who  had  died  from  eating  diseased  potatoes.3  Another 
general  effect  of  the  famine  was  that  the  characteristic  merri- 
ment of  the  peasantry  totally  disappeared.4  People  went 
about,  not  speaking  even  to  beg,  with  '  a  stupid  despairing 
look  ; ' 5  children  looked  '  like  old  men  and  women  ; ' 6  and 
even  the  lower  animals  seemed  to  feel  the  surrounding  despair  ; 
*  the  few  dogs/  says  a  visitor  to  Mayo, '  were  poor  and  piteous, 
and  had  ceased  to  bark.'7  Even  the  ties  of  kindred  were 
rent  asunder.  Parents  neglected  their  children,  and  in  a 
few  localities  children  turned  out  their  aged  parents.8  But 
such  cases  were  very  rare,  and  in  the  most  remote  parts 
of  the  country.  There  are,  on  the  other  hand,  numberless 
stories  of  parents  willingly  dying  the  slow  death  of  starvation 
to  save  a  small  store  of  food  for  their  children.9 

The  workhouse  was  then,  as  it  is  now,  an  object  of  dread 
and  loathing.  Within  its  walls  were  accustomed  to  take 
refuge  the  rustic  victims  of  vice  and  the  outcasts  of  the 
towns.  Entrance  into  the  workhouse  then  was  regarded  not 
merely  as  marking  the  advent  of  social  ruin,  but  of  moral 
degradation.  Thus  it  came  that  fathers  and  mothers  died 
themselves,  and  allowed  their  children  to  die  along  with 
them  within  their  own  hovels,  rather  than  seek  a  refuge 
within  those  hated  walls.10  But  the  time  came  when  hunger 
and  disease  swept  away  these  prejudices,  and  the  people 
craved  admission  to  the  once-dreaded  bastilles.  Here  again, 
however,  hope  was  cheated  ;  the  accommodation  in  the  work- 
houses was  far  below  the  requirements  of  the  people.  At 
Westport  3,000  persons  sought  relief  in  a  single  day,  when  the 

1  Census  Commissioners,  p.  272.  2  Ib.  p.  243. 

3  Jb.  pp.  271,  277.                               «  Ib.  p.  242.                         5  Ib.  p.  283. 

6  Ib.  p.  273.                                        •>  Ib.  p.  284.                        8  Ib.  p.  242. 

9  Ib.  p.  242  ;  O'Rourke,  pp.  401,  402. 

10  Census  Commissioners,  p,  92. 


44  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

workhouse,  though  built  to  accommodate  1,000  persons,  was 
already  '  crowded  far  beyond  its  capacity.' l  It  was  this  town 
that  Mr.  Forster  described  as  showing  '  a  strange  and  fearful 
sight  like  what  we  read  of  in  beleaguered  cities  :  its  streets 
crowded  with  gaunt  wanderers  sauntering  to  and  fro  with 
hopeless  air  and  hunger-struck  look.' 2  At  Carrick-on-Shannon 
there  were  no  applications  in  one  day  ;  there  were  30  vacan- 
cies.3 Driven  from  the  workhouses,  they  began  to  die  on  the 
roadside,  or,  alone  in  their  despair,  within  their  own  cabins. 
Corpses  lay  strewn  by  the  side  of  once-frequented  roads,  and 
at  doors  in  the  most  crowded  streets  of  the  towns.  c  During 
that  period/  writes  Mr.  Tuke,  '  roads  in  many  places  became 
as  charnel-houses,  and  several  car  and  coach  drivers  have 
assured  me  that  they  rarely  drove  anywhere  without  seeing 
dead  bodies  strewn  along  the  roadside,  and  that  in  the  dark 
they  had  even  gone  over  them.  A  gentleman  told  me  that 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Clifden  one  inspector  of  roads  had 
caused  no  less  than  140  bodies  to  be  buried  which  he  found 
along  the  highway.' 4  '  In  our  district,'  writes  Mr.  A.  M. 
Sullivan,5  '  it  was  a  common  occurrence  to  find  on  opening  the 
front  door  in  early  morning,  leaning  against  it,  the  corpse  of 
some  victim  who  in  the  night-time  had  rested  in  its  shelter. 
We  raised  a  public  subscription,  and  employed  two  men 
with  horse  and  cart  to  go  around  each  day  and  gather  up  the 
dead.' 

The  scenes  that  were  revealed  when  some  of  the  cabins 
were  entered  were  even  more  horrible.  When  the  inmates 
found  that  death  was  inevitable,  they  made  no  further 
struggle,  sought  the  assistance  neither  of  the  Government  nor 
of  their  neighbours  ;  and  occasionally,  as  Mr.  Tuke  tells  us, 
the  last  survivor  of  a  whole  family  *  earthed  up  the  door  of  his 
miserable  cabin  to  prevent  the  ingress  of  pigs  and  dogs,  and 
then  laid  himself  down  to  die  in  this  fearful  family  vault.' (i 
Men  entering  the  cabins  found  the  dead  and  the  dying  side 
by  side  lying  on  the  same  pallet  of  rotting  straw,  covered 
with  the  same  rags.  '  The  only  article,'  says  an  eye-witness 

1  O'Rourke,  p.  393.  2  Census  Commissioners,  p.  283. 

3  //'.  p.  273.  4  O'Rourke,  p.  384. 

5  New  Inland,  p.  65.  «  O'Rourke,  pp.  384,  385. 


THE   FAMINE  45 

of  a  scene  in  Windmill  Lane,  Skibbereen,  '  that  covered  the 
nakedness  of  the  family,  that  screened  them  from  the  cold, 
was  a  piece  of  coarse  packing  stuff  which  lay  extended  alike 
over  the  bodies  of  the  living  and  the  corpses  of  the  dead  ; 
which  served  as  the  only  defence  of  the  dying  and  the 
winding-sheet  of  the  dead.' l 

1  The  first  remarkable  sign,'  writes  Mr.  A.  M.  Sullivan,  '  of 
the  havoc  which  death  was  making  was  the  decline  and  the 
disappearance  of  funerals.' 2  The  annals  of  the  time  are  full 
of  the  instances  of  this  sinister  change  in  the  habits  of 
Christian  lands.  The  bodies  of  those  who  had  fallen  on  the 
road  lay  for  days  unburied.  Husbands  lay  for  a  week  in  the 
same  hovels  with  the  bodies  of  their  unburied  wives  and 
children.  Often  when  there  was  a  funeral  it  bore  even 
ghastlier  testimony  to  the  terror  of  the  time.  '  In  this  town,' 
writes  a  special  correspondent  of  the  '  Cork  Examiner '  from 
Skibbereen,  'have  I  witnessed  to-day  men,  fathers,  carry- 
ing perhaps  their  only  child  to  its  last  home,  its  remains 
enclosed  in  a  few  deal  boards  patched  together  ;  I  have  seen 
them,  on  this  day,  in  three  or  four  instances,  carrying  those 
coffins  under  their  arms  or  upon  their  shoulders,  without  a 
single  individual  in  attendance  upon  them  ;  without  mourner 
or  ceremony — without  wailing  or  lamentation.  The  people 
in  the  street,  the  labourers  congregated  in  the  town,  regarded 
the  spectacle  without  surprise  ;  they  looked  on  with  indiffer- 
ence, because  it  was  of  hourly  occurrence.'3  A  Catholic 
priest,  who  was  a  curate  in  county  Galway  during  the  famine 
tells  a  story  of  meeting  a  man  with  a  cart  drawn  by  an  ass 
on  which  there  were  three  coffins,  containing  the  bodies  of  his 
wife  and  two  children.  When  he  reached  the  churchyard  he 
was  too  weak  to  dig  a  grave,  and  was  only  able  to  put  a  little 
covering  of  clay  on  the  coffins.  The  next  day  the  priest 
found  ravenous  dogs  making  a  horrid  meal  from  the  corpses.4 
In  another  part  of  the  country  a  woman  with  her  own  hands 
dug  the  grave  of  her  dead  son.5 

Meantime,  what  had  the  Government  been  doing  ?  They 
had,  to  put  it  briefly,  been  aggravating  nearly  all  the  evils 

1  O'Rourke,  p.  272.  2  New  Ireland,  p.  64. 

3  O'Rourke,  pp.  272,  273.  *  Ib.  p.  379.  5  16.  p.  405. 


46  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

that  were  reaping  so  rich  a  harvest  of  suffering  and  death  in 
Ireland.  The  measures  which  Sir  Robert  Peel  had  taken 
during  the  recess  of  1845  and  in  the  early  portions  of  the 
session  of  1846  have  been  already  mentioned.  As  time  went 
on  he  had  taken  other  steps  to  meet  the  crisis.  Donations 
to  the  amount  of  ioo,ooo/.  had  been  given  from  the  Treasury 
in  aid  of  subscriptions  raised  by  charitable  organisations.  A 
still  more  important  step  was  the  setting  on  foot  of  works  for 
the  employment  of  the  destitute. 

The  initial  blunder  of  Lord  John  Russell  was  suddenly  to 
close  the  works  which  had  been  set  on  foot  by  Peel.  At  the 
time  when  this  decree  went  forth  there  were  no  less  than 
97,900  persons  employed  on  the  relief  works  ;  and  the  effect 
of  adding  this  vast  army  of  unemployed  to  the  population 
whose  condition  has  just  been  described,  can  easily  be 
imagined. 

The  speech  in  which  he  announced  his  own  policy  fol- 
lowed on  August  17,  1846  ;  and,  well-intentioned  as  it  doubt- 
less was,  there  was  scarcely  a  sentence  in  it  which  did  not  do 
harm,  not  a  proposal  that  did  not  work  mischief.  The  first 
important  statement  was  that  the  Government  did  not  pro- 
pose to  interfere  with  the  regular  mode  by  which  Indian  corn 
and  other  kinds  of  grain  might  be  brought  into  Ireland.  The 
Government  proposed  '  to  leave  that  trade  as  much  at  liberty 
as  possible.'  '  They  would  take  care  not  to  interfere  with  the 
regular  operations  of  merchants  for  the  supply  to  the  country 
or  with  the  retail  trade.' 1  Then  he  described  the  new  legisla- 
tion which  he  proposed.  Relief  works  were  to  be  set  on  foot 
by  the  Board  of  Works  when  they  had  previously  been  pre- 
sented at  presentment  sessions.  For  these  works  the  Govern- 
ment were  to  advance  money  at  the  rate  of  3-^  per  cent, 
repayable  in  ten  years.  In  the  poorer  districts  the  Govern- 
ment were  to  make  grants  to  the  extent  of  5o,ooo/.  This  bill, 
when  it  became  law,  was  known  as  the  '  Labour  Rate  Act.' 

The  evil  effects  of  this  speech  and  this  legislation  were 
not  long  in  showing  themselves.  The  declarations  with 
regard  to  non-intervention  with  trade  were  especially  dis- 
astrous. The  price  of  grain  at  once  went  up,  and  while  the 

1  Hansard,  Ixxxviii.  p.  776. 


THE   FAMINE 


A7 


deficiency  of  food  was  thus  enormously  increased,  speculators 
were  driven  to  frenzy  by  the  prospect  of  fabulous  gains. 
Strange  and  almost  incredible  results  followed.  Wheat  that 
had  been  exported  by  starving  tenants  was  afterwards  reim- 
ported  from  England  to  Ireland  ;  sometimes  before  it  was 
finally  sold,  it  had  crossed  the  Irish  Sea  four  times — delirious 
speculation  offering  new  bids  and  rushing  in  insane  eagerness 
from  the  Irish  to  the  English  and  from  the  English  to  the 
Irish  market  in  search  of  the  daily  increasing  prices.  Stories 
are  still  told  in  Ireland  with  grim  satisfaction  of  the  abject 
ruin  that  was  the  Nemesis  to  the  greedy  speculators  in  a 
nation's  starvation.  More  than  one  who  kept  his  corn  obsti- 
nately in  store  while  the  people  around  him  were  dying  by 
the  thousand,  when  he  at  last  opened  the  doors  found,  not 
his  longed-for  treasure-house,  but  an  accumulation  of  rotten 
corn,  which  had  to  be  emptied  into  the  river.  '  A  client  of 
mine,'  writes  the  late  Master  Fitzgibbon,1  '  in  the  winter  of 
1 846-47  became  the  owner  of  corn  cargoes  of  such  number  and 
magnitude  that  if  he  had  accepted  the  prices  pressed  upon 
him  in  April  and  May,  1847,  he  would  have  realised  a  profit 
of  7O,ooo/.  He  held  for  still  higher  offers,  until  the  market 
turned  in  June,  fell  in  July,  and  rapidly  tumbled,  as  an  abun- 
dant harvest  became  manifest.  He  still  held,  hoping  for  a 
recovery,  and  in  the  end  of  October  he  became  a  bankrupt.' 

*  The  Government,'  said  Lord  John  Russell,  '  did  not  pro- 
pose to  interfere  with  the  regular  mode  by  which  Indian  corn 
might  be  brought  into  Ireland.'  What  was  the  result  of  this  ? 
According  to  a  report  from  Commissary  John  Hewetson, 
dated  December  30,  1846,  Indian  corn  which  had  been  bought 
for  9/  or  io/.  a  ton  was  selling  for  \jL  $s.  in  Cork  ;  was  not 
to  be  had  at  any  price  in  Limerick,  but,  in  the  shape  of  meal, 
was  fetching  from  i8/.  los.  to  igl.  a  ton.  'These,'  said  he, 
'are  really  famine  prices  ;'2  and  then  he  tells  how  in  Cork 
alone  one  firm  was  reported  to  have  cleared  4O,ooo/.,  and 
another  8o,ooo/.,  from  corn  speculations.  The  reason  for  the 
non-intervention  with  the  supply  of  Indian  corn  was  that  the 
retail  trade  might  not  be  interfered  with  ;  and  at  this  period 
retail  shops  were  so  few  and  far  between  for  the  sale  of  corn 

1  Ireland  in  1868,  p.  205.  2  O'Rourke,  p.  171. 


48  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

that  the  labourer  in  the  public  works  had  sometimes  to  wait 
twenty  or  twenty-five  miles  in  order  to  buy  a  single  stone  of 
meal.1 

It  will  be  seen,  presently,  how  the  inflated  price  of  corn, 
and  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  it  at  any  price  high  or  low,  co- 
operated with  some  provisions  of  the  Labour  Rate  Act  to 
enormously  increase  the  sum  of  suffering  and  the  total  of 
deaths. 

These  were  the  days  when  free  trade  was  a  doctrine 
professed  with  all  the  exaggeration  and  misconception  of  a 
new  faith.  The  reader  need  not  fear  that  I  am  about  to 
inflict  upon  him  any  of  the  senseless  and  utterly  unmean- 
ing abuse  of  free  trade  and  political  economy  with  which 
ignorant  or  half-educated  writers  are  in  the  habit  of  vexing 
intelligent  men.  The  free  trade  under  which  Lord  John 
Russell  and  his  subordinates  justified  their  fatal  errors  in 
1846  and  1847  was  not  free  trade,  but  ghastly  travesties  of 
the  doctrine,  and  hideous  misunderstandings  of  the  teach- 
ings of  sound  political  economy.  It  will  be  seen  by-and-by 
that  Lord  John  Russell  and  all  his  subordinates  had  them- 
selves to  make  this  acknowledgment,  and  to  announce  a  pali- 
node as  shameful  as  any  in  Parliamentary  history.  But  in 
the  end  of  1846  they  were  still  unshaken  in  their  crazy  mis- 
understanding of  the  subject — and  indeed  lectured  the  starving 
Irish  nation  with  the  supremacy  of  superior  beings  and  the 
remote  calm  of  dwellers  on  Olympian  heights.  The  offen- 
siveness  of  the  attitude  and  the  absurdity  of  the  doctrines 
were  a  good  deal  intensified  by  the  fact  that,  with  character- 
istic tenderness  for  Irish  feeling,  the  preachers  selected  to 
announce  those  doctrines  were  self-sufficient  English  civil 
servants,  or  Scotchmen  with  more  than  the  usual  amount  of 
the  rancorous  dogmatism  characteristic  of  their  race.2 

1  O'Rourke,  p.  172. 

;  As  an  instance  :  a  deputation  waited  on  Sir  R.  Routh,  head  of  the 
Commissary  Department,  from  Achill,  representing  the  total  destruction  of  the 
potatoes  there,  the  absence  of  green  crops,  and  asking  for  a  supply  of  food  from 
the  Government  stores,  for  which  the  inhabitants  were  ready  to  pay.  The  reply 
of  Sir  R.  Routh  was  a  peremptory  refusal,  coupled  with  the  statement  that 
'nothing  was  more  essenlial  to  the  welfare  of  a  country  than  strict  adherence  to 
free  trade.'  '  Then  he  begged  to  assure  the  reverend  gentleman— meaning  one  of 


THE.  FAMINE  49 

There  was  to  be  no  interference  with  the  ordinary  opera- 
tions of  trade.  Thus  it  was  decreed  that  the  food  which  was 
in  the  food  depots  that  had  been  established  at  various  points 
in  Ireland  should  not  be  sold  at  moderate  prices — and,  in  fact, 
should  not  be  sold  at  all  until  the  autumn.  The  result  was 
that  people  with  money  in  their  hands  died  vainly  begging 
food  from  the  Government  stores.1 

The  Labour  Rate  Act  was  made  even  worse  in  operation 
by  the  rules  of  these  same  officials.  First,  the  whole  policy 
of  the  Act  was  to  make  the  famine  a  Government  business. 
It  was  Government  that  had  the  carrying  out  of  all  the  works  ; 
the  Government  had  to  be  consulted  about  everything,  to 
give  their  approval  to  everything.  The  result  was  that  all 
independent  initiative  and  effort  were  stifled  ;  local  bodies  in 
their  paralysis  were  sent  from  one  department  of  the  circum- 
locution office  to  another  ;  then,  in  their  despair  and  distrac- 
tion, did  nothing.  The  rule  of  Red  Tape  was  established 
with  plenary  powers  and  disastrous  results.  In  April  1846, 
Messrs.  Jones,  Twistleton  and  Co.  were  able  to  report  that  they 
had  sent  to  Ireland  '  ten  thousand  books,  besides  fourteen  tons 
of  paper.'  *  Over  the  whole  island,'  writes  John  Mitchel,  '  for 
the  next  few  months  was  a  scene  of  confused  and  wasteful 
attempts  at  relief — bewildered  barony  sessions  striving  to 
understand  the  voluminous  directions,  schedules,  and  specifica- 
tions under  which  alone  they  could  vote  their  own  money  to 
relieve  the  poor  at  their  own  doors  :  but  generally  making 
mistakes — for  the  unassisted  human  faculties  never  could  com- 
prehend these  ten  thousand  books  and  fourteen  tons  of  paper  ; 
insolent  commissioners  and  inspectors  and  clerks  snubbing 
them  at  every  turn  and  ordering  them  to  study  the  docu- 
ments ;  efforts  on  the  part  of  the  proprietors  to  expend  some 
of  the  rates  at  least  on  useful  works — reclaiming  land  or  the 
like — which  efforts  were  always  met  with  flat  refusal  and  a 
lecture  on  political  economy.  .  .  .  plenty  of  jobbing  and 
peculation  all  this  while.' 2 

With  a  view  to  prevent  competition  with  private  enter- 

the  deputation — that  if  he  had  read  carefully  and  studied  Bourke,  his  illustrious 
countryman,  he  would  agree  with  him  (Sir  R.  Routh).' — O'Rourke,  pp.  222,  223. 
1  O'Rourke,  p.  226.  2  History  of  Ireland,  ii.  215. 

E 


5o  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

prise,  the  money  was  all  to  be  devoted  to  exclusively  '  unpro- 
ductive works,'  by  which  were  excluded  railways,  reclamation, 
and  the  like.  The  positive  and  the  negative  results  of  this 
restriction  were  equally  prejudicial.  There  were  railways 
demanding  extension  ;  millions  of  waste  land  demanding  re- 
clamation ;  miles  of  marsh  ready  to  be  drained  ; — all  such 
work  was  forbidden.  The  look-out  was  then  for  unproduc- 
tive work  ;  and  unproductive  work,  in  a  sense  a  good  deal 
more  literal  than  the  Government  wanted,  was  discovered, 
The  stories  told  of  the  kind  of  work  done  under  these  loans 
would  be  incredible  if  they  were  not  so  well  attested— among 
other  things  by  solid  monuments  that  exist  to  this  day. 
Roads  were  made  leading  to  nowhere  ;  hills  were  dug  away 
and  then  were  filled  up  again  ;  and  so  utterly  useless  was 
this  kind  of  labour  that  sometimes  good  roads  were  actually 
spoiled,  and  traffic  was  impeded  for  some  time  by  these  sup- 
posed improvements.  Hardly  any  of  the  roads  were  ever 
finished.  '  Miles  of  grass-grown  earthworks,'  writes  Mr.  A.  M. 
Sullivan,1  'throughout  the  country  now  mark  their  course 
and  commemorate  for  posterity  one  of  the  gigantic  blunders 
of  the  famine  time.'  '  While  on  the  subject  of  mistakes,'  said 
the  Knight  of  Glin,  a  well-known  landlord  of  the  period,  '  he 
might  mention  on  the  Glin  Road  some  people  are  filling  up 
the  original  cutting  of  a  hill  with  the  stuff  they  had  taken 
out  of  it.  That,'  he  added  naively,  '  is  another  slice  of  our 
45O/.' — the  sum  lent  to  the  Shanagolden  Union  for  relief 
works.2 

Even  this  useless  work — as  has  been  seen — was  not  allowed 
to  be  done  without  the  maddening  preliminaries  of  vexatious 
and  imbecile  official  delays.  But  this  was  not  from  the  want 
of  a  sufficiently  large  staff.  There  were  no  less  than  io,OOO 
officials  ;  and  these  appointments  were  given  from  the  most 
corrupt  motives.  This  example  of  corruption  at  the  top  had 
a  good  deal  to  do  with  the  disastrous  and  universal  spirit  of 
corruption  below.  And  the  most  heart-rending  feature  of  it 
all  was  that  all  this  machinery,  all  this  vast  army  of  officials, 
all  these  vast  sums  of  money,  not  only  did  no  good,  but  were 
productive  of  an  increase  instead  of  a  diminution  of  the 
1  New  Ireland^  p.  64.  2  Mitchel,  ii.  216. 


THE   FAMINE  51 

miseries  of  the  country.  As  to  a  large  portion  of  the  people, 
the  relief — such  as  it  was — came  too  late.  '  The  wretched 
people  were  by  this  time  too  wasted  and  emaciated  to  work. 
The  endeavour  to  do  so  under  an  inclement  winter  sky  only 
hastened  death.  They  tottered  at  daybreak  to  the  roll-call, 
vainly  tried  to  wheel  the  barrow  or  ply  the  pick,  but  fainted 
away  on  the  cutting,  or  lay  down  by  the  wayside  to  rise  no 
more.' l 

But  officialism  was  not  convinced,  and  insisted  on  making 
the  Act  still  more  cruel  by  the  regulations  under  which  it 
was  to  be  worked.  '  Those  who  choose  to  labour  may  earn 
good  wages/ wrote  Colonel  Jones  to  Mr.  Trevelyan2 — the  one 
the  head  of  the  Board  of  Works,  the  other  the  representative 
of  the  Treasury  ;  and  in  accordance  with  this  superfine  dictum 
of  the  official  mind,  it  was  decreed  that  the  work  done  should 
be  task-work.  In  other  words,  the  feebler  a  man  was,  the 
less  help  he  was  entitled  to  receive  ;  the  nearer  to  starvation, 
the  more  quickly  he  should  be  pushed  by  labour  into  the 
grave.  Hapless  wretches,  often  with  wives  and  several  chil- 
dren dying  of  hunger  at  home — sometimes  with  the  wife  or 
one  of  the  children  already  a  putrid  corpse — crawled  to  their 
work  in  the  morning,  there  drudged  as  best  they  could,  and  at 
the  end  of  the  day  often  had  as  their  wage  the  sum  of  fivepence 
— sometimes  it  went  as  low  as  threepence.3  To  earn  this  sum 
too,  it  often  happened  that  the  starving  man  had  to  walk  three, 
four,  five,  eight  Irish  miles  to,  and  the  same  distance  from,  his 
work.  Finally,  owing  to  blunders,  he  was  frequently  unable 
even  to  get  this  pittance  at  the  end  of  the  week  or  fortnight : 
and  then  he  returned  to  his  cabin  to  die — unless,  as  often 
happened,  he  died  on  the  wayside.4 

Even  when  he  was  paid,  the  meal-shop  was  miles  away — 
for  the  retail  trade,  with  which  the  Government  would  not 
interfere,  existed  only  in  Government  imagination  ;  and  meal- 
shops  were  only  to  be  found  at  long  intervals.  Or,  if  he 
reached  the  meal-shop,  Government  measures  again  had  raised 
the  price  of  meal  beyond  the  reach  of  relief  work  wages  ; 
and  if  he  knocked  at  the  doors  of  the  Government  depots,  a 

1  New  Ireland,  p.  64.  3  Ib.  206. 

2  O'Rourke,  p.  209.  4  Ib.  p.  258. 

E  2 


52  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

harsh  Scotch  Voice  replied  that  in  the  name  of  political  eco- 
nomy he  should  die.1 

Finally,  the  evil  done  by  the  Labour  Rate  Act  was  in 
attracting  from  the  cultivation  of  their  own  fields  nearly  all 
the  farmers  of  the  country.  The  prospect  of  immediate  wages 
proved  more  enticing  than  the  uncertainty  of  a  remote  and 
fickle  harvest ;  and  the  universal  peculation,  combined  with 
the  absolute  uselessness  of  the  works  done,  spread  a  spirit  of 
hideous  demoralisation.  The  farmers  flocked  to  them  '  solely/ 
as  Mr.  Fitzgibbon  puts  it,  '  because  the  public  work  was  in 
fact  no  work,  but  a  farcical  excuse  for  getting  a  day's  wages.'2 
The  labourers,  having  the  example  of  a  great  public  fraud 
before  their  eyes,  are  described  by  Mitchel  as  'themselves 
defrauding  their  fraudulent  employers — quitting  agricultural 
pursuits  and  crowding  the  public  works,  where  they  pretended 
to  be  cutting  down  hills  and  filling  up  hollows,  and  with 
tongue  in  cheek  received  half  wages  for  doing  nothing.' 3 

The  Conservative  organs  of  the  period,  which  were  no 
friends  of  the  national  newspapers,  joined  them  in  the  de- 
scriptions of  the  hideous  demoralisation  which  these  works 
were  producing  :  and  they  foretold  with  a  fatal  accuracy  the 
effects  of  it  all  on  the  following  year.  '  There  is  not  a  labourer 
employed  in  the  county  except  on  public  works,'  wrote  the 
'  Dublin  Evening  Mail,'  '  and  there  is  prospect  of  the  lands 
remaining  untilled  and  unsown  for  the  next  year.'  '  The  good 
intentions  of  the  Government,'  wrote  the  '  Cork  Constitution,' 
1  are  frustrated  by  the  worst  regulations — regulations  which, 
diverting  labour  from  its  legitimate  channels,  left  the  fields 
without  hands  to  prepare  them  for  the  harvest.' 4  To  sum  up 
the  case  in  reference  to  this  effect  of  the  Labour  Rate  Act — 
the  means  that  were  taken  to  meet  the  famine  of  1846  proved 
the  precursors  and  the  preparers  of  the  famine  of  1847. 

The  records  of  the  sufferings  from  hunger  in  that  year 
are  almost  more  revolting  and  terrible  than  those  of  1846. 

Meantime  another,  and  a  bitter  calamity  was  added  to 
those  from  which  the  people  were  already  suffering.  Pesti- 
lence always  hovers  on  the  flank  of  famine,  and  combined 

1  O'Rourke,  p.  225.  2  lreland  in  1868,  p.  206. 

3  History,  ii.  p.  215.  «  Ib.  p.  216. 


THE   FAMINE  53 

with  wholesale  starvation  there  were  numerous  other  circum- 
stances that  rendered  a  plague  inevitable — the  assemblage  of 
such  immense  numbers  of  people  at  the  public  works  and  in 
the  workhouses,  the  vast  number  of  corpses  that  lay  unburied, 
and  finally  the  consumption  of  unaccustomed  food.  The 
plague  which  fell  upon  Ireland  in  1846-47  was  of  a  peculiarly 
virulent  kind.  It  produced  at  once  extreme  prostration,  and 
every  one  struck  by  it  was  subject  to  frequent  relapses  ;  in 
Kinsale  Union,  out  of  250  persons  attacked,  240  relapsed.1 

The  name  applied  to  it  at  the  time  sufficiently  signified 
its  origin.  It  was  known  as  the  '  road  fever.' 2  Attacking  as 
it  did  people  already  weakened  by  hunger,  it  was  a  scourge 
of  merciless  severity.  Unlike  famine,  too,  it  struck  alike  at 
the  rich  and  poor — the  well-fed  and  the  hungered.  Famine 
killed  one  or  two  of  a  family  ;  the  fever  swept  them  all  away. 
Food  relieved  hunger ;  the  fever  was  past  all  such  surgery. 

Many  of  the  people,  worn  out  by  famine,  had  not  the 
physical  or  mental  energy  even  to  move  from  their  cabins. 
The  panic  which  the  plague  everywhere  created  intensified 
the  miseries  of  those  whom  it  attacked.  The  annals  of  the 
time  are  full  of  the  kindly,  but  rude  attempts  of  the  poor  to 
stand  by  each  other.  It  was  a  common  custom  of  the  period 
to  have  food  left  at  the  doors  or  handed  in  on  shovels  or  sticks 
to  the  people  inside  the  cabins  ;  but  very  often  the  wretched 
inmates  were  entirely  deserted.  Lying  beside  each  other, 
some  living  and  some  dead,  their  passage  to  the  grave  was  un- 
cheered  by  one  act  of  help,  by  one  word  of  sympathy.  Here 
is  a  brief,  but  complete,  picture  of  this  dread  phase  of  the 
days  of  the  plague  :  '  A  terrible  apathy  hangs  over  the  poor 
of  Skibbereen ;  starvation  has  destroyed  every  generous 
sympathy  ;  despair  has  made  them  hardened  and  insensible, 
and  they  sullenly  await  their  doom  with  indifference  and  with- 
out fear.  Death  is  in  every  hovel  ;  disease  and  famine,  its 
dread  precursors,  have  fastened  on  the  young  and  the  old, 
the  strong  and  the  feeble,  the  mother  and  the  infant  ;  whole 
families  lie  together  on  the  damp  floor  devoured  by  fever, 
without  a  human  being  to  wet  their  burning  lips  or  raise 

1  Census  Commissioners,  p.  304  2  Ib.  p.  278. 


54  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

their  languid  heads  ;  the  husband  dies  by  the  side  of  the 
wife,  and  she  knows  not  that  he  is  beyond  the  reach  of  earthly 
suffering ;  the  same  rag  covers  the  festering  remains  of 
mortality  and  the  skeleton  forms  of  the  living,  who  are  un- 
conscious of  the  horrible  contiguity  ;  rats  devour  the  corpse, 
and  there  is  no  energy  among  the  living  to  scare  them  from 
their  horrid  banquet ;  fathers  bury  their  children  without 
a  sigh,  and  cover  them  in  shallow  graves  round  which  no 
weeping  mother,  no  sympathising  friends  are  grouped  ;  one 
scanty  funeral  is  followed  by  another  and  another.  Without 
food  or  fuel,  bed  or  bedding,  whole  families  are  shut  up 
in  naked  hovels,  dropping  one  by  one  into  the  arms  of 
death.' » 

The  fever-stricken  wretches  who  had  energy  enough  to 
crawl  from  their  own  homes  and  seek  a  refuge,  became  the 
heralds  of  disease  wherever  they  went,  and  often  suffered 
tortures  more  prolonged  and  darker  than  those  who  had  lain 
down  and  died  by  their  own  hearthstones.  Many  of  them 
directed  their  steps  to  the  towns.  '  From  the  commencement 
of  1847,'  writes  Dr.  Callanan,  *  Fate  opened  her  book  in  good 
earnest  here,  and  the  full  tide  of  death  flowed  everywhere 
around  us.  During  the  first  six  months  of  that  dark  period, 
one-third  of  the  daily  population  of  our  streets  consisted  of 
shadows  and  spectres,  the  impersonations  of  disease  and 
famine,  crowding  in  from  the  rural  districts  and  stalking 
along  to  the  general  doom — the  grave — which  appeared  to 
await  them  but  at  the  distance  of  a  few  steps  or  a  few  short 
hours.' 2 

'  In  cases  succeeding  exhaustion  from  famine,'  says 
another  writer,  '  the  appearances  were  very  peculiar — the 
fever  assuming  a  low  gastric  type,  indicated  by  a  dry  tongue, 
shrunk  to  half  its  size,  and  brown  in  the  centre  ;  lips  thin  and 
bloodless,  coated  with  sordes  ;  skin  discoloured  and  sodden  ; 
general  appearance  squalid  in  the  extreme,  and  hunger- 
stricken.  These  symptoms,  and  a  loathsome,  putrid  smell 
emanating  from  their  persons,  as  if  the  decomposition  of  the 

1   Cork   Examiner—  quoted   by  Census  Commissioners'  'Tables  of  Deaths,' 
vol.  i.  p.  272. 

'-'  Census  Commissioners,  p.  301. 


THE    FAMINE  55 

vital  organs  had  anticipated  death,  rendered  these  unhappy 
cases  too  often  hopeless.  They  used  to  creep  about  the  city 
while  their  strength  allowed,  and  then  would  sink  exhausted 
in  some  shed  or  doorway,  and  often  be  found  dead.' l 

The  workhouses  and  the  hospitals  were  besieged  more  than 
ever  ;  and  death  now  raged  with  a  terrible  promptness  and 
universality.  There  was  the  same  difficulty  as  when  starving 
thousands  clamoured  for  admission  and  help  in  buildings  in 
which  only  hundreds  could  be  attended  to  ;  and  there  are 
descriptions  of  scenes  enacted  outside  the  hospitals  and  work- 
houses so  revolting  as  to  be  almost  incredible.  '  Before  ac- 
commodation for  patients/  write  the  Census  Commissioners, 
'approached  anything  like  the  necessity  of  the  time,  most 
mournful  and  piteous  scenes  were  presented  in  the  vicinity 
of  fever  hospitals  and  workhouses  in  Dublin,  Cork,  Waterford 
Galway,  and  other  large  towns.  There,  day  after  day,  numbers 
of  people,  wasted  by  famine  and  consumed  by  fever,  could  be 
seen  lying  on  the  footpaths  and  roads  waiting  for  the  chance 
of  admission  ;  and  when  they  were  fortunate  enough  to  be 
received,  their  places  were  soon  filled  by  other  victims  of 
suffering  and  disease ! ' 2 

'  At  the  gate  leading  to  the  temporary  fever  hospital, 
erected  near  Kilmainham,  were  men,  women,  and  children, 
lying  along  the  pathway  and  in  the  gutter,  awaiting  their 
turn  to  be  admitted.  Some  were  stretched  at  full  length, 
with  their  faces  exposed  to  the  full  glare  of  the  sun,  their 
mouths  open,  and  their  black  and  parched  tongues  and 
encrusted  teeth  visible  even  from  a  distance.  Some  women 
had  children  at  the  breast  who  lay  beside  them  in  silence 
and  apparent  exhaustion — the  fountain  of  their  life  being 
dried  up  ;  whilst  in  the  centre  of  the  road  stood  a  cart 
containing  a  whole  family  who  had  been  smitten  down  to- 
gether by  the  terrible  typhus,  and  had  been  brought  there  by 
the  charity  of  a  neighbour/  3 

'  Fever,'  writes  the  '  Freeman's  Journal,'  '  has  increased  in 
Galway  and  Loughrea  ;  numbers  may  be  seen  lying  in  rags 
or  straw  in  the  streets  in  the  height  of  disease.'  f  Alarming 
spread  of  fever  in  Dublin,'  is  the  language  of  the  same  journal ; 

1  Census  Commissioners,  p.  302.  2  Ib.  248.  3  Ib.  p.  297. 


56  THE   PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

'crowds  lying  on  the  ground  at  Glasnevin  and  in  Cork 
Street  waiting  for  admission  to  the  hospital.' 1 

Outside  the  workhouses  similar  scenes  took  place.  The 
case  of  Westport  workhouse  has  been  mentioned  already, 
where  as  many  as  three  thousand,  suffering  from  hunger 
and  fever,  sought  admission  on  the  same  day.  '  Those 
who  were  not  admitted — and  they  were,  of  course,  the  great 
majority — having  no  homes  to  return  to,  lay  down  and 
died  in  Westport  and  its  suburbs.' 2  Mr.  Egan  was  clerk  of 
the  union  at  the  period,  and  in  a  conversation  with  Father 
O'Rourke,  pointing  to  the  wall  opposite  the  workhouse  gate, 
said  :  '  There  is  where  they  sat  down  never  to  rise  again.  I 
have  seen  there  of  a  morning  as  many  as  eight  corpses  of 
those  miserable  beings  who  had  died  during  the  night. 

Father  G (then  in  Westport)  used  to  be  anointing  them 

as  they  lay  exhausted  along  the  walls  and  streets,  dying  of 
hunger  and  fever. ' 3 

Admission  to  the  fever  hospital,  and,  still  more,  to  the 
workhouse,  was  but  the  postponement,  and  often  the  ac- 
celeration of  death.  Owing  to  the  unexpected  demands 
made  upon  their  space,  the  officials  of  these  institutions  were 
utterly  unable  to  adopt  the  primary  and  fundamental  mea- 
sures for  diminishing  the  epidemic.  The  crowding  rendered  it 
impossible  to  separate  the  sick  and  the  healthy,  sometimes 
to  separate  even  the  dead  and  the  dying  ;  there  were  not 
beds  for  a  tithe  of  the  applicants  :  and  thus  the  epidemic  was 
spread  and  intensified,  instead  of  being  alleviated  and  di- 
minished. '  Inside  the  hospital  enclosure'  (the  fever  hospital 
at  Kilmainham),  says  a  writer  already  quoted,  '  was  a  small 
open  shed,  in  which  were  thirty-five  human  beings  heaped 
indiscriminately  on  a  little  straw  thrown  on  the  ground. 
Several  had  been  thus  for  three  days,  drenched  by  rain,  &c. 
Some  were  unconscious,  others  dying  ;  two  died  during  the 
night.' 4  '  We  visited  the  poorhouse  at  Glenties  '  (county  of 
Donegal),  says  Mr.  Tuke  in  the  *  Transactions  of  the  Relief 
Committee  of  Friends,' '  which  is  in  a  dreadful  state  ;  the  people 
were,  in  fact,  half  starved,  and  only  half  clothed.  They  had 

1  Census  Commissioners,  p.  297.  2  O'Rourke,  p.  393. 

3  Ib.  4  Census  Commissioners,  p.  272. 


THE    FAMINE 


57 


not  sufficient  food  in  the  house  for  the  day's  supply.  Some 
were  leaving  the  house,  preferring  to  die  in  their  own  hovels 
rather  than  in  the  poorhouse.  Their  bedding  consisted  of 
dirty  straw,  in  which  they  were  laid  in  rows  on  the  floor — 
even  as  many  as  six  persons  being  crowded  under  one  rug. 
The  living  and  the  dying  were  stretched  side  by  side  beneath 
the  same  miserable  covering.'  The  general  effect  of  all  this 
is  summed  up  thus  pithily  but  completely  in  the  report  of 
the  Poor  Law  Commissioners  for  1846 :  '  In  the  present  state, 
of  things  nearly  every  person  admitted  is  a  patient  ;  separa- 
tion of  the  sick,  by  reason  of  their  number,  becomes  impos- 
sible ;  disease  spreads,  and  by  rapid  transition  the  workhouse 
is  changed  into  one  large  hospital.' l 

The  workhouses  and  the  hospitals  were  not  the  only 
public  institutions  which  were  filled  to  overflowing.  The 
same  thing  happened  to  the  gaols.  The  prison  came  to  be 
regarded  as  a  refuge.  Only  smaller  offences  were  at  first 
committed  ;  and  an  epidemic  of  glass-breaking  set  in.  But 
as  times  went  on,  and  the  pressure  of  distress  became  greater 
and  the  hope  of  ultimate  salvation  less,  graver  crimes  became 
prevalent.  Thus  sheep-stealing  grew  to  be  quite  a  common 
offence  ;  and  a  prisoner's  good  fortune  was  supposed  to  be 
complete  if  he  were  sentenced  to  the  once  dreaded  and 
loathed  punishment  of  transportation  beyond  the  seas.  The 
Irishman  was  made  happy  by  the  fate  which  took  him  to  any 
land — provided  only  it  was  not  his  own.  And  Botany  Bay 
was  transformed  in  peasant  imagination  from  the  Inferno  of 
the  hopeless  to  the  Paradise  of  sufficient  food  and  a  great 
future. 

But  here  again  the  refugees  were  confronted  by  the  same 
horrors  which  awaited  those  who  obtained  admission  to  the 
workhouses  and  the  fever  hospitals.  The  prisons,  without  a 
tithe  of  the  accommodation  necessary  for  the  inmates,  became 
nests  of  disease ;  and  often  the  offender  who  hoped  for  the 
luck  of  transportation  beyond  the  seas,  found  that  the  sen- 
tence of  even  a  week's  imprisonment  proved  a  sentence  of 
death.  In  1846,  the  Inspectors-General  of  Prisons  reported 
that  the  increase  of  committals  in  that  year  over  1845  some- 

1  Census  Commissioners,  p.  272. 


58  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

% 
times  amounted   to  one  hundred  per  cent.,  and  then  stated 

that  '  in  a  very  great  number  of  instances  small  crimes  have 
been  committed  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  that  support  in 
prison  which  could  not  be  procured  elsewhere.'1  In  1847  they 
write  :  *  The  terrible  catastrophe  which  has  disorganised  the 
whole  framework  of  society  in  Ireland  fell  with  its  full  force 
on  establishments  under  our  charge.  Disease  and  death 
increased  to  a  degree  that  could  never  be  contemplated  by 
those  acquainted  with  the  usual  orderly  and  healthy  state  of 
our  gaols.  The  crowding  together  of  1 2,883  prisoners  in  gaols 
only  calculated  to  contain  5,655,  increased  the  deaths  in  the 
Irish  prisons,  in  a  single  year,  from  131  to  I,3I5.'2  'In 
March,'  writes  Dr.  Browne  of  the  Castlebar  gaol,  'our  county 
gaol  was  crowded  to  more  than  double  its  capability,  those 
committed  being  in  a  state  of  nudity,  filth,  and  starvation.' 
Typhus  broke  out,  and  '  by  the  end  of  April  we  were  in  a 
state  of  actual  pestilence.  Every  hospital  servant  was  at- 
tacked, and  from  our  wretched  overcrowded  state  the  mor- 
tality was  fearful — fully  forty  per  cent. ;  .  .  .  not  a  few  of  those 
committed  were  inmates  of  the  fever  wards  a  few  hours  after 
committal.' 3 

The  years  1848  and  1849  present  the  same  features. 
The  increase  of  committals  in  1848  over  those  of  1847  was 
no  less  than  34,105^ 

1  Census  Commissioners,  p.  304.  2  Ib.  pp.  304,  305. 

3  Ib.  pp.  300,  301. 

1  This  is  the  comment  of  the  Inspectors-General  :—' The  calamitous  visitation 
of  the  last  few  years,  operating  with  no  exclusive  pressure — affecting  the  most 
opulent  and  the  humblest  poor  alike— suspending  employment,  and  staying  the 
hand  of  charity— has  sorely  tried  the  integrity  of  our  people.  Larcenies  have 
multiplied,  because,  ordinarily,  men  will  steal  food  rather  than  die  ;  but  to  such 
as  have  made  criminal  compliance  with  necessity  must  be  added  vast  numbers 
who,  without  means  of  earning  subsistence,  and  unable  to  procure  charitable  aid, 
notoriously  appropriated  articles  of  'trifling  value  that  they  might  obtain  the  shelter 
of  a  prison  under  the  guise  of  a  commitment  for  a  criminal  offence.  —  Report  of 
Inspectors-General  of  Prisons  :  Census  Commissioners'  'Tables  of  Deaths,' 
p.  311. 

Here  is  a  grim  description  of  a  prison  of  the  period  :  it  is  written  of  Galway 
Gaol  under  date  February  8,  1848  :— « It  presented  the  appearance  not  only  of  a 
prison,  but  that  of  a  poorhouse  and  an  infirmary.  The  prisoners  were,  in  general, 
the  most  wretched  class  of  human  beings  I  ever  beheld-— badly  clothed,  and 
emaciated  from  the  destitution  to  which  they  had  been  exposed,  and  from  which 


THE   FAMINE  59 

In  1849  there  was  again  an  increase  of  committals,  to  the 
extent  of  3,467  on  the  previous  year,  and  the  Inspectors- 
General  comment  on  this  significant  phenomenon,  *  The  evil 
thus  produced  is  so  enormous  as  to  threaten  the  total  de- 
moralisation of  the  lower  orders,  showing  itself  in  the 
abolition  of  all  distinction  between  right  and  wrong,  and  ger- 
minating a  habit  of  committing  crimes  either  for  the  sake  of 
obtaining  board  and  lodging  in  a  gaol,  or  else  for  the  remoter 
advantages  of  superior  diet  in  the  convict  prisons,  and  the 
ultimate  benefit  of  gratuitous  emigration.' l 

Thus  the  plague  worked — within  the  cabins,  on  the  roads, 
in  workhouses,  in  hospitals,  in  gaols.  Of  the  numberless  proofs 
of  its  dread  activity  let  the  following  specimens  suffice  : — 

Fever  first  demands  attention.  In  one  week  50  persons 
died  in  the  workhouse  at  Castlerea.2  In  Carrick-on-Shannon 
there  were,  on  April  16,  1847,  300  cases  of  fever.  The 
weekly  deaths  were  5o.3  In  one  hospital  in  Dublin,  Cork 
Street,  12,000  cases  applied  in  ten  months.4  At  Cork 
there  were  174  deaths  in  seven  days,  or  more  than  a  death 
every  hour.5  In  one  day  in  the  beginning  of  February,  1 847, 
there  were  44  corpses  in  the  workhouse  in  the  same  city, 
and,  on  the  loth  of  the  same  month  in  that  year,  100 
bodies  were  conveyed  for  interment  to  a  single  graveyard 
outside  the  town.6  In  the  week  ending  April  3,  1847,  of 
the  entire  number  of  inmates  in  the  Irish  workhouses — viz. 
104,485 — 26,000  were  sick,  and  of  these  9,000  were  fever 
patients.7  During  that  week  the  number  of  deaths  was  2,706, 
and  the  average  of  deaths  in  each  week  during  the  month 
was  25  per  thousand  of  the  entire  inmates.8 

many  sought  refuge  in  the  gaol  by  asking  alms  and  by  the  commission  of  petty 
crimes.  Fever  and  dysentery  are  prevalent  amongst  the  prisoners,  and  some  die 
before  they  can  be  brought  to  the  hospital,  which  is  filled  with  the  sick  and  dying. 
Clad  in  miserable  rags,  crowded  together  during  the  day  and  heaped  together 
during  the  night,  contagious  disease  has  taken  root  within  the  prison  walls  ;  and 
an  extensive  mortality  was  apprehended  as  the  speedy  and  inevitable  result.'  It 
is  added  that  of  the  888  inmates,  more  than  120  were  suffering  from  fever  and 
dysentery. — Ib. 

1  Report  of  Inspectors-General  of  Prisons  :  Census  Commissioners'  '  Tables 
of  Deaths, 'p.  322.  ~  Ib.  p.  278. 

3  Ib.  p.  296.  *  Ib.  p.  298.  5  Ib.  p.  284. 

8  Ib.  p.  282.  7  Ib.  p,  304.  8  Ib. 


60  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

Fifty-four,  out  of  one  hundred  workhouse  officials  who 
were  attacked  with  the  fever,  died  between  January  I  and 
April  2,  1847.*  Of  the  entire  medical  staff  employed  in  the 
different  institutions  of  the  country,  one-fifteenth  died  in  the 
same  year.2  '  Taking  the  recorded  deaths  from  fever  alone/ 
write  the  Census  Commissioners,3  *  between  the  beginning  of 
1846  and  the  end  of  1849,  and  assuming  the  mortality  at  one 
in  ten,  which  is  the  very  lowest  calculation,  and  far  below 
what  we  believe  to  have  occurred,  above  a  million  and  a  half, 
or  1,595,040  persons — being  one  in  4'ii  of  the  population  in 
1851 — must  have  suffered  from  fever  during  that  period.' 
'  But,'  continued  the  writers,  '  no  pen  has  recorded  the  numbers 
of  the  forlorn  and  starving  who  perished'  by  the  wayside  or  in 
the  ditches,  or  of  the  mournful  groups,  sometimes  of  whole 
families,  who  lay  down  and  died  one  after  another  upon  the 
floor  of  their  miserable  cabin,  and  so  remained  uncoffined  and 
unburied  till  chance  unveiled  the  appalling  scene.' 4 

The  deaths  from  fever  in  1845  were  7,249.  From  that 
figure  they  rose  to  17,145  in  1846;  to  57,095  in  1847.  In 
1848  they  were  45,948  ;  in  1849  they  numbered  39,316;  in 
1850  they  fell  to  23,545.  Finally,  the  total  deaths  between 
1841  and  1851  from  fever  were  222,029.  But,  allowing  for 
'  deficient  returns,  250,000' — a  quarter  of  a  million  of  people — 
'  perished  from  fever  alone.' ft 

The  famine  and  the  fever  were  naturally  accompanied  and 
followed  by  all  those  other  maladies  which  result  from  in- 
sufficiency and  unsuitability  of  food.  The  potato  blight  con- 
tinued with  varying  virulence  until  1851,  its  existence  being 
marked  by  the  prevalence  in  more  or  less  severe  epidemics  of 
dysentery,  which  carried  off  5,492  persons  in  1846,  25,757  in 
1847,  the  annual  totals  swelling,  until  in  1849  the  deaths 
from  this  disease  alone  amounted  to  29,446  ; 8  cholera,  which 
destroyed  35,989  lives  in  1848-49;*  small-pox,  to  which 
38,275  persons  fell  victims  in  the  decennial  period  between 
1841  and  1 85 1.8  The  deaths  from  small-pox,  however,  did 
not  greatly  swell  the  total  of  mortality  between  1845  and 

1  Census  Commissioners'  '  Tables  of  Deaths,'  p.  293. 

2  Ib.  p.  30.  3  jb.  p.  243..  <  lb.  5  Ib. 
*  Ib.  p.  251.                                      -  lb.  p.  252.  8  Ib. 


THE   FAMINE  61 

1851.  It  should  be  added  that  as  a  direct  consequence  of 
the  famine  many  thousands  suffered  severely  from  scurvy,  and 
that  the  recorded  cases  of  ophthalmia  swell  from  13,812  in 
1849  to  45,947  in  185 1.1 

In  addition  to  this  appalling  loss  of  life  from  actual  disease, 
the  number  of  deaths  registered  by  the  Census  Commissioners 
under  the  heading  of '  Starvation  '  were  6,058  in  the  year  1847, 
and  21,770  during  the  decennial  period.  But  1 17  deaths  from 
starvation  were  registered  in  the  previous  decennial  period.2 
Under  heading  '  Infirmity,  Debility,  and  Old  Age/  the  Com- 
missioners record  10,609  deaths  in  1845,  23,285  in  1847  and 
from  1841  to  1851  inclusive,  a  total  of  133,923  ;  but  they  ac- 
knowledge that  many  of  these  cases  would  be  more  appro- 
priately ranked  among  the  deaths  from  '  starvation.' 3 

It  was  the  terrible  mortality  of  these  epidemics,  and  espe- 
cially of  the  fever,  that  led  to  the  most  sinister  invention  of 
the  time.  This  was  the  hinged  coffin.  The  coffin  was  made 
with  a  movable  bottom  ;  the  body  was  placed  in  it,  the  bottom 
unhinged,  the  body  was  thrown  into  the  grave,  and  then  the 
coffin  was  sent  back  to  the  workhouse  to  receive  another 
body.  Sometimes  scores  of  corpses  passed  in  this  way 
through  the  same  coffin.  The  hinged  coffin  was  used  exten- 
sively in  Cork.  Justin  McCarthy,  a  youth  of  seventeen,  just 
then  started  on  his  professional  career  as  a  reporter  on  the 
*  Cork  Examiner,'  many  times  saw  the  hinged  coffin  in  actual 
use.  In  Skibbereen,  which  was  one  of  the  worst  scourged 
places  or  districts,  the  hinged  coffin  was  perhaps  more  largely 
used  than  in  any  other  district.  The  traveller  is  to-day  pointed 
out,  as  historic  spots  of  the  town,  two  large  pits,  in  which 
hundreds  of  bodies  found  a  coffinless  grave. 

Appalled  by  the  spread  of  death,  the  Ministry  were  com- 
pelled in  1847  to  change  their  whole  procedure.  New  legis- 
lation was  introduced  ;  all  the  ideas  were  abandoned  to  which 
the  Government  had  adhered  with  an  obstinacy  that  the 
deaths  of  tens  of  thousands  of  people  could  not  for  months 
change.  The  Irish  Relief  Act  was  the  official  title  of  the  new 

1  Census  Commissioners'  '  Tables  of  Deaths,' p.  253.    Asa  result,  Ireland  had 
the  largest  proportion  of  blind,  compared  with  its  population,  except  Norway.  —  /*.. 

2  Census  Commissioners'  « Tables  of  Deaths,'  p.  253.  '  Ib.  p.  245. 


62  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

enactment  ;  it  was  familiarly  known  as  the  Soup  Kitchen  Act. 
Relief  committees  were  to  be  formed  throughout  the  different 
unions  ;  they  were  to  prepare  lists  of  persons  who  were  fit 
subjects  for  relief;  food  was  to  be  given — at  reasonable  prices 
to  some,  gratuitously  to  the  absolutely  destitute.  Here  was  a 
departure  with  a  vengeance  from  the  solid  principles  of 
political  economy  that  had  been  preached  with  such  unction 
to  the  benighted  Irish,  with  references  to  Burke,  by  the 
Scotch  and  English  prigs  who  had  undertaken  to  manage 
Irish  affairs  for  the  Irish  people,  and  had  managed  them  with 
such  disastrous  results. 

But  here  again  the  good  intentions  of  the  Government 
and  their  legislation  were  defeated  by  characteristic  blunders. 
One  of  the  objects  of  the  Government  was  to  induce  the 
people  to  till  their  own  fields  so  as  to  avoid  the  repetition  in 
1848  of  the  loss  of  the  harvest  that  had  followed  the  blunder- 
ing legislation  of  1846  ;  and,  accordingly,  it  was  ordered  that 
the  relief  works  should  be  gradually  dropped,  and  that  relief 
through  the  soup  kitchens  should  take  their  place.  At  the  end 
of  March  the  number  of  persons  employed  was  to  be  reduced 
by  twenty  per  cent.,  and  by  May  I  the  works  were  to  be 
entirely  discontinued.  It  was  intended,  too,  that  by  the  time 
the  relief  works  came  to  an  end  the  soup  kitchens  would 
be  in  existence ;  and  thus  the  people  would  be  supplied  with 
a  substitute. 

The  number  of  people  employed  on  the  relief  works  was 
gigantic.  In  the  weekending  October  3,  1846 — the  first  week 
of  the  relief  works — the  number  of  persons  employed  was  but 
20,000  ;  but  in  March  1847,  when  the  number  on  the  works 
began  to  be  reduced,  the  total  had  reached  the  enormous  number 
of  734,000.  The  disarrangement  of  a  scheme  on  which  so 
man)'  people  depended  for  food  was  a  project  of  strange  rash- 
ness, and,  as  usual,  it  was  carried  out  by  the  officials  of  the 
Government  in  a  manner  to  aggravate  all  the  evil  tendencies 

oo 

of  the  original  plan.  The  intention  of  the  Government  was 
that  the  reduction  of  twenty  per  cent,  was  to  take  place  in 
the  aggregate,  and  not  in  each  place — the  object,  of  course, 
being  that  regard  should  be  had  to  the  different  conditions  of 
each  locality  :  the  officials  lowered  the  number  of  persons 


THE   FAMINE  63 

employed  in  every  district  with  perfect  uniformity.  Then  the 
intention  of  the  Government  was  that  the  Soup  Kitchen  Act 
should  be  in  full  working  order  when  the  relief  works  came 
to  an  end.  By  May  I,  when  the  whole  mighty  army  of  three- 
quarters  of  a  million  of  people  were  turned  away  from  work, 
there  was  not  a  single  relief  committee  in  full  working  order, 
not  a  single  can  of  soup  had,  in  all  probability,  been  manu- 
factured. The  result  was  that  there  was  in  1847,  as  there  had 
been  in  1846,  a  hideous  interregnum  during  which  some  of  the 
worst  sufferings  of  the  famine  days  were  repeated. 

But  when  the  scheme  did  get  into  working  order,  it  proved 
on  the  whole  effective  and  beneficial.  Deaths  from  starvation 
came  to  an  end  ;  fever  grew  less  intense  in  the  hospitals ;  and 
the  fields  were  fairly  well  tilled.  Thus  the  severest  verdict  on 
the  early  incompetence  of  the  Government  was  passed  by  the 
results  of  their  own  later  legislation.  And,  indeed,  with  an 
appalling  candour,  the  Ministers  themselves  confessed  to  their 
own  tragic  mistake.  In  the  preamble  to  the  Soup  Kitchen 
Act  the  measure  is  justified  :  it  has  become  necessary  because, 
1  by  reason  of  the  great  increase  of  destitution  in  Ireland, 
sufficient  relief  could  not  be  given '  under  the  Labour  Rate 
Act.1  M.  Jules  Sandeau  tells  in  one  of  his  stories  how  a  royal 
prince  gave  the  child  of  a  faithful  Breton  family  a  smile,  and 
comments  that  the  royal  smile  had  been  purchased  by  three 
lives.  The  preamble  to  the  Soup  Kitchen  Act  had  been  pur- 
chased by  many  and  many  thousands  of  lives  that  might 
have  been  saved. 

But  all  these  things  came  too  late,  and  especially  too  late 
to  retain  the  population.  Emigration  received  a  terrible 
impetus,  and  the  people  fled  in  a  frenzy  of  grief  and  despair 
from  their  doomed  land.  But  even  in  their  flight  they  were 

1  The  testimony  is  overwhelming  that  if  the  policy  of  the  Soup  Kitchen  Act 
had  been  originally  adopted,  a  large  amount  of  the  horrors  of  the  famine  would 
have  been  prevented.  '  The  cost  of  the  Ken  mare  soup  kitchen/  reports  the 
Relief  Committee,  'from  April  25  to  September  I  amounted  to  2,2C>5/.  13.$-.  $d.  ; 
the  amount  of  money  paid  for  public  works  in  the  same  district  from  Novem- 
ber 23,  1846,  to  May  I  was  5. 5837.,  during  which  time  the  people  were  dying  on 
the  roads  and  dropping  in  the  streets.  Since  the  soup  kitchens  were  set  on  foot,  we 
can  safely  affirm  that  not  one  human  being  died  from  starvation? — Census  Com- 
missioners, p.  290. 


64  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

pursued  by  th*e  demons  they  had  endeavoured  to  leave  be- 
hind. The  brotherhood  of  humanity,  powerless  to  frame  just 
laws  and  to  give  national  rights,  asserted  itself  in  disease 
and  death.  To  England,  as  the  nearest  refuge,  the  Irish 
exiles  first  fled.  No  less  than  180,000  are  said  to  have 
landed  in  Liverpool  between  Jan.  15  and  May  4,  1847.*  In 
Glasgow,  between  June  15  and  August  17,  26,335  arrived 
from  Ireland.  Many  were  *  aged  people  unfit  for  labour  ; '  out 
of  1,150  patients  in  the  Glasgow  fever  hospital  at  the  period, 
750  were  Irish.2  At  last  the  Government  had  to  interfere 
to  protect  the  English  people  from  the  horrors  which  the 
errors  and  folly  of  British  administration  had  created  in 
Ireland.  An  Order  in  Council  was  issued  by  which  deck 
passengers  were  subjected  to  quarantine.  Shortly  afterwards, 
at  the  request  of  the  Government,  the  fares  for  deck  pas- 
sengers were  increased  by  the  owners  of  four  steamships 
plying  between  England  and  Ireland.  These  passengers 
were  all  Irish  tenants,  fleeing  from  their  farms,  voluntarily 
or  by  compulsion,  through  hunger  or  through  eviction. 

Vast  masses  tried  to  make  their  way  to  America.  In  the 
year  1845,74,969  persons  emigrated  from  Ireland;  in  1846 
the  number  had  risen  to  105,955  ;  during  1847  it  rose  to 
215,444.  No  means  were  taken  to  preserve  these  poor  people 
from  the  rapacity  of  shipowners.  The  landlords,  delighted  at 
getting  rid  of  them,  made  bargains  for  their  conveyance  whole- 
sale and  at  small  prices  ;  and  in  those  days  emigrant-ships 
were  under  no  sanitary  restrictions  of  any  effectiveness.  Thus 
the  emigrants,  already  half-starved  and  fever-stricken  were 
pushed  into  berths  that  '  rivalled  the  cabins  of  Mayo,  or  the 
fever-sheds  of  Skibbereen.'  '  Crowded  and  filthy,  carrying 
double  the  legal  number  of  passengers,  who  were  ill-fed  and 
imperfectly  clothed,  and  having  no  doctor  on  board,  the 
holds,'  says  an  eyewitness,  '  were  like  the  Black  Hole  of 
Calcutta,  and  deaths  in  myriads.' 3 

The  statistics  of  mortality  bear  out  these  words.  Of  493 
passengers  during  the  year  in  the '  Queen,'  136  died  on  the 
voyage  ;  of  552  in  the  '  Avon,'  236  died  ;  of  476  in  the  '  Vir- 

1  Census  Commissioners,  p.  305.  2  Ib. 

3  Sir  Charles  Gavan  Duffy,  Four  Years  of  Irish  History,  p.  531. 


THE   FAMINE  65 

ginius/  267  died;  of  440  on  the  'Larch,'  108  died  and  150 
were  seriously  diseased.  89,783  persons  altogether  embarked 
for  Canada  in  1847.  The  Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland  re- 
ported with  regard  to  these  that  6, 100  perished  on  the  voyage  ; 
4,100  on  their  arrival ;  5,200  in  hospital;  1,900  in  towns  to 
which  they  repaired.  '  From  Grosse  Island  up  to  Port  Sarnia, 
along  the  borders  of  our  great  river,  on  the  shores  of  Lakes 
Ontario  and  Erie,  wherever  the  tide  of  emigration  has  ex- 
tended, are  to  be  found  one  unbroken  chain  of  graves,  where 
repose  fathers  and  mothers,  sisters  and  brothers,  in  a  com- 
mingled heap,  no  stone  marking  the  spot.  Twenty  thousand 
and  upwards  have  gone  down  to  their  graves/  l 

1  Sir  Charles  Gavan  Duffy,  Four  Years  of  Irish  History,  p,  532. 


66  •  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE   GREAT   CLEARANCES. 

IT  was  at  the  moment  when  Ireland  was  being  scourged  with 
all  these  plagues  that  her  political  leaders  aggravated  her 
sufferings  by  their  dissensions.  It  is  not  my  intention  at 
this  moment  to  enter  upon  a  discussion  as  to  the  persons  on 
whom  responsibility  for  these  dissensions  must  rest ;  perhaps 
events  were  too  powerful  for  any  of  the  men  engaged  ;  and 
the  episode  may  be  one  of  those  which  show  how  impotent  are 
the  bravest  hearts  and  the  strongest  wills  and  minds  against 
a  combination  of  untoward  circumstances.  For  the  Irish 
people  of  to-day  the  moral  to  be  drawn  from  the  disasters 
which  these  dissensions  brought  on  their  country  is  much 
more  important  than  the  discussion  of  the  now  academical 
question  of  which  side  was  most  to  blame. 

It  has  already  been  told  that  the  rise  of  the  '  Nation  ' 
newspaper  introduced  into  the  counsels  of  O'Connell  a  new 
clement,  which  he  found  it  impossible  to  control.  As 
disaster  came  upon  the  country  these  differences  were  bound 
to  increase  ;  defeat  outside  being  always  the  solvent  of  unity 
inside  a  political  organisation.  The  hideous  magnitude  of 
the  sufferings  of  Ireland  at  this  moment,  too,  was  another 
element  which  was  bound  to  increase  the  tendency  to  discord. 
The  young  and  strong  and  brave  can  never  reconcile  them- 
selves to  the  gospel  that  there  is  such  a  thing  in  this  world  as 
inevitable  evil.  The  sight  of  so  many  thousands  of  people 
perishing  miserably  naturally  suggested  a  frenzied  temper, 
and  the  extreme  course  that  such  a  temper  begets.  Among 
the  young  men,  therefore,  who  gathered  round  the  leaders 
of  the  'Nation'  newspaper,  there  was  a  constant  feelino- 


THE    GREAT   CLEARANCES  67 

that  enough  was  not  being  done  to  save  the  people. 
O'Connell,  on  the  other  hand,  was  now  approaching  the  close 
of  a  long  and  busy  life.  As  has  been  already  mentioned,  he 
had  been  at  the  period  when  the  famine  broke  out  already 
suffering  for  some  years  from  the  lethargising  influence  of 
brain  disease ;  and  there  was,  therefore,  on  his  side  as  strong 
a  tendency  towards  lethargy  as  there  was  on  the  other  side 
to  the  activity  of  frenzy  or  despair.  It  would  take  me  far 
beyond  my  purpose  to  go  through  the  details  of  the  many 
questions  upon  which  the  two  sides  came  into  collision.  One 
of  the  great  causes  of  the  split  between  Young  and  Old 
Ireland  was  in  reference  to  what  are  called  the  '  peace  reso- 
lutions.' Some  of  the  utterances  of  the  Young  Irelanders 
had  suggested  the  employment  of  physical  force  under  certain 
circumstances  ;  and  O'Connell,  whose  alarms  were  fed  and 
increased  by  disreputable  retainers,  and  by  his  eldest  son — an 
intellectual  pigmy  of  gigantic  ambition — insisted  upon  the 
Repeal  Association  solemnly  renewing  its  adhesion  to  the 
resolutions.  These  resolutions,  passed  at  its  formation,  laid 
down  the  memorable  doctrine  that  no  political  reform  was 
worth  purchasing  by  the  shedding  of  even  one  drop  of  blood. 
It  is  hard  to  believe  that  O'Connell  ever  did  accept  in  its 
entirety  the  doctrine  that  physical  force  was  not  a  justifiable 
expedient  under  any  imaginable  circumstances.  There  is  no 
record  in  his  speeches — at  least,  none  that  I  remember — of 
his  reprobation  of  the  American  Colonies  for  having  laid  the 
foundation  of  their  liberty  and  of  their  present  greatness  in 
armed  insurrection.  There  is  a  famous  speech,  which  formed 
part  of  the  case  of  the  Crown  against  him,  in  which  he  spoke 
of  himself  as  the  Bolivar  of  Ireland — and  the  triumphs  of 
Bolivar  were  not  gained  without  the  shedding  of  blood.  All 
O'Connell  probably  meant  to  say,  in  the  moments  when  he 
was  free  from  a  certain  kind  of  devotional  ecstasy,  was  that 
Ireland  was  so  weak  at  that  time  when  compared  to 
England,  that  an  exercise  of  physical  force  could  have  no 
possible  chance  of  success,  and  that  it  was  as  well  to  recon- 
cile the  people  to  their  impotence  by  raising  it  to  the  dignity 
of  a  great  moral  principle.  The  Young  Irelanders  left  the 
Repeal  Association ;  and  from  this  time  forward  there  were 


68  .THE  PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

rival  organisations,  rival   leaders,   and    rival   policies  in  the 
National  party. 

O'Connell  did  not  survive  to  see  the  complete  wreck  of 
the  vast  organisation  which  he  had  held  together  for  so  long 
a  period.  Rarely  has  a  great,  and  on  the  whole  successful, 
career  ended  in  gloom  so  appalling  and  so  unbroken.  The 
imprisonment  of  1843  was  so  ignoble  an  ending  to  the  glorious 
promise  and  the  wild  and  tempestuous  triumph  of  that  period 
that  it  probably  gave  his  spirit  a  shock  from  which  it  never 
recovered.  He  worked  on  as  energetically  as  ever,  for  he 
was  a  man  whose  industry  never  paused.  But  both  he  and 
his  policy  had  lost  their  prestige.  The  young  and  ardent 
began  to  question  his  power,  and  still  more  to  doubt  his 
policy.  Then  came  1846  and  1847,  with  the  people  whom 
he  had  pledged  himself  to  bring  into  the  promised  land  of 
self-government  and  prosperity  dying  of  hunger  and  disease, 
fleeing  as  from  an  accursed  spot,  and  bound  to  the  fiery 
wheel  of  oppression  more  securely  than  ever.  In  breaking 
health  and  with  broken  spirits  the  old  man  fought  doggedly 
on.  On  April  3,  1846,  he  delivered  a  lengthened  speech 
to  the  House  of  Commons,  of  which  an  historic  but  an 
entirely  inaccurate  description  is  given  in  Lord  Beaconsfield's 
1  Life  of  Lord  George  Bentinck.' 

The  speech,  whether  supplied  to  the  newspapers  or  not, 
appears  in  '  Hansard  '  ;  and,  however  much  the  voice  and  other 
physical  attributes  of  O'Connell  may  have  appeared  to  have 
decayed,  this  speech,  in  its  selection  of  evidence,  and  in  its 
arrangement  of  facts  and  its  presentation  of  the  whole  case 
against  the  land  system  of  Ireland,  may  be  read  even  to-day 
as  the  completest  and  most  convincing  speech  of  the  times 
on  the  question.  In  Dublin,  too,  the  old  man  attended  the 
relief  committees  day  after  day.  He  spoke  in  the  House  of 
Commons  for  the  last  time  in  February  1847,  and  then  it 
was  that  he  displayed  that  utter  debility  which  is  transposed 
in  the  '  Life  of  Bentinck  '  to  the  April  of  the  previous  year. 
He  was  next  day  seriously  ill,  and  was  ordered  change  of 
air.  He  went  abroad,  and  was  everywhere  met  by  demon- 
strations of  respect  and  affection.  But  his  heart  was  broken. 


THE   GREAT   CLEARANCES  69 

A  gloom  had  settled  over  him  which  nothing  could  shake  off. 
He  did  not  even  reach  the  goal  of  his  journey.  He  died  at 
Genoa  on  May  15,  1847.  His  last  will  was  that  his  heart 
should  be  sent  to  Rome,  and  his  body  to  Ireland.  He  lies  in 
Glasnevin  Cemetery. 

Meantime,  the  removal  of  his  imposing  personality  from 
Irish  politics  aggravated  the  dissensions  between  Old  and 
Young  Ireland.  O'Connell  was  largely  dominated  in  his 
later  years  by  his  eldest  son,  John  O'Connell ;  and  the  father 
bent  much  of  his  efforts  towards  handing  on  to  his  son  the 
dignity  of  popular  leader.  But  there  is  no  divine  right  in 
popular  command,  except  that  which  is  given  by  supreme 
talents  ;  and  John  O'Connell  was  utterly  devoid  of  qualifica- 
tions for  the  new  position.  He  was  weak,  vain,  and  shallow  ; 
and  the  disproportion  between  his  pretensions  and  his  abili- 
ties did  much  to  aggravate  the  bitterness  and  accelerate  the 
rupture  between  the  two  schools  of  political  thought. 

The  evils  of  the  country  grew  daily  worse  ;  hope  from 
Parliamentary  agitation  died  in  face  of  a  failure  so  colossal 
as  that  of  O'Connell  ;  and  some  of  the  Young  Irelanders, 
seized  with  a  divine  despair,  resolved  to  try  what  physical 
force  might  bring. 

The  first  important  apostle  of  this  new  gospel  was  John 
Mitchel — one  of  the  strangest,  most  picturesque,  and  strongest 
figures  of  Irish  political  struggles.  He  was  the  son  of  an 
Ulster  Unitarian  clergyman  ;  and  he  was  one  of  the  early 
contributors  to  the  '  Nation.'  He  separated  in  time  from  Sir 
(Mr.)  Charles  Gavan  Duffy,  and  started  a  paper  on  his  own 
account.  In  this  paper  insurrection  was  openly  preached  ; 
and  especially  insurrection  against  the  land  system.  The 
people  were  asked  not  to  die  themselves,  nor  let  their  wives 
and  children  die,  while  their  fields  were  covered  with  food 
which  had  been  produced  by  the  sweat  of  their  brows  and  by 
their  own  hands.  It  was  pointed  out  that  the  reason  why  all 
this  food  was  sent  from  a  starving  to  a  prosperous  nation  was 
that  the  rent  of  the  landlord  might  be  paid,  and  that  the 
rent  should  therefore  be  attacked ;  in  short,  Mitchel  attempted 
to  start  a  '  No  Rent '  movement. 

The  Ministry,  in  order  to  cope  with  such  writing  and  the 


7o  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

other  results  of  a  period  of  universal  hunger  and  disease,  suc- 
ceeded in  having  a  whole  code  of  coercion  laws  passed.  The 
Cabinet  had  changed  its  political  complexion.  The  fall  of 
Peel  had,  as  has  been  seen,  been  brought  about  by  the  defeat 
of  his  Coercion  Bill  through  a  combination  of  the  Whigs,  the 
Protectionists,  and  the  O'Connellites.  Lord  John  Russell  had 
been  the  leader  of  the  Whigs  in  the  triumphant  attack  on 
coercion  ;  and  Lord  John  Russell,  now  transformed  from  the 
leader  of  Opposition  to  the  head  of  the  Government,  brought 
in  Coercion  Bills  himself. 

Nor  was  this  the  only  way  in  which  the  Whigs  in  office 
borrowed  all  the  weapons  of  the  Tories.  It  has  already  been 
told  ho\v,  when  O'Connell  was  tried  and  convicted  by  packed 
juries  and  partisan  judges,  the  Whig  leaders  in  the  House 
of  Commons — Lord  John  Russell,  Mr.  (afterwards  Lord) 
Macaulay,  and  others — denounced  jury-packing  as  the  vilest 
and  meanest  of  expedients  to  crush  political  opponents ; 
within  a  year  or  so  of  these  declarations  the  Whigs  were 
packing  juries  before  partisan  judges,  and  were  getting  ver- 
dicts to  order  which  sent  political  opponents  to  transporta- 
tion beyond  the  seas.  Nay,  the  Whigs  adopted  expedients 
that,  as  they  were  not  employed,  we  may  charitably  assume 
were  too  strong  for  even  the  stomachs  of  the  Tories.  There 
was  in  these  years  in  Dublin  a  sheet  called  the  'World,'  a  black- 
mailing organ,  somewhat  after  the  type  of  certain  low  papers 
in  our  day  in  London.  Its  editor — a  man  named  Birch — had 
been  tried  and  convicted  of  attempting  to  obtain  hush-money 
from  helpless  men  and  women  whom  chance  had  placed  in 
his  power.  Lord  Clarendon,  the  Whig  Lord-Lieutenant,  was 
forced  to  confess  in  a  trial  }  in  public  court  some  years  after- 
wards, that  he  had  given  Birch  as  much  as  between  2,ooo/. 
and  3,ooo/.  in  order  to  turn  his  slanderous  pen  against  Duffy, 
Mitchcl,  Smith  O'Brien,  and  the  other  leaders  of  the  Young 
Ireland  party.  It  is  such  recollections,  as  well  as  some  others 
which  will  be  presented  in  this  book,  that  account  for  the  un- 
questioning love  and  confidence  which  Irish  Nationalists  have 
for  the  professions  and  promises  of  English  Liberals. 

1   Uirch  v.    Kedington.     Redington   was  the   Irish   Under  Secretary  of  those 
days,  and  Birch  took  an  action  against  him  for  the  recovery  of  his  wages. 


THE   GREAT   CLEARANCES  71 

Mitchel  was  the  first  of  the  Young  Irelanders  who  was 
attacked.  He  was  brought  to  trial  ;  Lord  John  Russell, 
questioned  in  the  House  of  Commons  about  the  trial  a  few 
days  before  it  took  place,  pledged  himself  that  it  should  be  a 
fair  trial.  He  had  written,  he  declared,  to  his  noble  friend 
(Lord  Clarendon)  that  he  trusted  there  would  not  arise  any 
charge  of  any  kind  of  unfairness  as  to  the  composition  of  the 
juries,  as,  for  his  own  part,  '  he  would  rather  see  those  parties 
acquitted  than  that  there  should  be  any  such  unfairness.' 
Most  Englishmen  who  read  this  statement  came  to  the  con- 
clusion— the  very  natural  conclusion — that  the  word  of  an 
English  Prime  Minister  thus  solemnly  pledged  was  carried 
out ;  and  if  there  were  any  complaints  by  Irish  members 
afterwards,  they  were  dismissed  as  the  emanations  of  the 
hopeless  mendacity  or  the  incurable  folly  of  a  race  of  per- 
sistent grumblers.  Yet  was  the  pledge  most  flagrantly  broken  ; 
and  the  packing  of  the  jury  of  John  Mitchel  under  the 
premiership  of  Lord  John  Russell  was  as  open,  as  relentless, 
as  shameless,  as  the  packing  of  the  jury  of  O'Connell  under 
the  premiership  of  Sir  Robert  Peel.  The  Crown  challenged 
thirty-nine  of  the  jurors — of  these  thirty-nine,  nineteen  were 
Catholics,  the  rest  were  Protestants  suspected  of  National 
leanings — with  the  final  result  that  there  was  not  a  single 
Catholic  on  the  jury,  and  that  the  Protestants  were  of  the 
Orange  class  who  would  be  quite  willing  to  hang  Mitchel,  or 
any  other  man  of  his  opinions,  without  the  formality  of  trial, 
or  without  any  evidence  at  all. 

With  such  a  jury  Mitchel  was,  of  course,  convicted.  He 
was  sentenced  to  fourteen  years'  transportation  ;  in  a  few 
hours  after  the  sentence  he  was  in  a  Government  boat,  on  the 
way  already  to  the  land  to  which  he  was  now  exiled.  The 
story  of  Mitchel's  trial  points  other  lessons  beside  the  men- 
dacity of  Whig  promises.  The  prompt  throttling  of  a  man 
who  was  calling  upon  people  to  fight  rather  than  starve  and 
allow  their  children  to  starve  by  apparently  due  process  of  law 
in  the  capital  of  his  own  country,  and  by  the  representatives  of 
the  power  which  was  the  parent  of  all  this  national  starvation, 
was  assuredly  a  tragedy  that  might  have  eclipsed  the  gaiety 
of  at  least  the  chief  town  of  Ireland,  or  might  have  stung  to 


72  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

frenzy  its  populace.  But  Mitchel  himself  tells  how,  as  he  was 
being  driven  to  his  doom  through  the  city,  he  saw  a  great 
crowd  of  people  hurrying  somewhere  in  evidently  agreeable 
anticipation,  and  he  learned  that  they  were  going  to  a  flower 
show !  One  of  the  questions  debated  at  the  time  most 
seriously  was  whether  Mitchel  should  be  allowed  to  be  taken 
out  of  the  country  without  some  attempt  at  rescue.  His  own 
expectation  was  that  the  Government  would  never  be  allowed 
to  conquer  him  without  a  struggle,  and  that  his  sentence 
would  be  the  longed-for  and  the  necessary  signal  for  the  rising. 
But  it  was  deemed  wisest  by  the  other  leaders  of  the  Young 
Ireland  party  that  the  attempt  at  insurrection  should  be  post- 
poned until  the  people  were  organised  and  armed.  By  suc- 
cessive steps  these  men  were  in  their  turn  driven  to  extremi- 
ties, and  to  the  conviction  that  an  attempt  at  insurrection 
should  be  made. 

The  leader  of  this  movement  was  Mr.  Smith  O'Brien. 
Mr.  O'Brien  was  the  member  of  an  aristocratic  family.  His 
brother  afterwards  became  Lord  Inchiquin,  and  was  the 
nearest  male  relative  to  the  Marquis  of  Thomond.  For  years 
he  had  been  a  member  of  the  English  Liberal  party,  honestly 
convinced  that  the  Liberal  party  would  remedy  all  the  wrongs 
of  the  Irish  people.  But  as  time  went  on,  and  all  these  evils 
seemed  to  become  aggravated  instead  of  relieved,  he  was 
driven  slowly  and  unwillingly  into  the  belief  that  the  legisla- 
tive Union  was  the  real  source  of  all  the  evils  of  his  country  ; 
and  he  joined  the  Repeal  party  under  O'Connell.  By  suc- 
cessive steps,  which  I  have  not  time  to  trace  here,  he  was 
driven  into  the  ranks  of  Young  Ireland,  and  by  degrees  into 
revolution.  When  he,  Mr.  John  Blake  Dillon,  Mr.  D'Arcy 
M'Gcc,  and  Mr.  (now  Sir)  Charles  Gavan  Duffy  were  finally 
forced  into  the  attempt  to  create  an  insurrection,  they  pro- 
bably had  a  strong  feeling  that  the  attempt  was  hopeless, 
and  that  they  were  called  upon  to  make  it  rather  through  the 
calls  of  honour  than  the  chances  of  success.  The  attempt 
at  all  events  proved  a  disastrous  failure.  After  an  attack 
on  a  police  barrack  at  Ballingarry,  the  small  force  which 
O'Brien  had  been  able  to  call  and  keep  together  was  scattered. 
He  and  the  greater  number  of  the  leaders  were  arrested 


THE    GREAT   CLEARANCES  73 

after  a  few  days,  and  were  put  on  their  trial.  The  juries  were 
packed  as  before,  the  judges  were  partisans  of  the  Orange 
school,  and  O'Brien  and  the  rest  were  convicted,  were  sen- 
tenced to  death,  and,  this  sentence  being  commuted,  were 
transported.  Dillon  and  M'Gee  succeeded  in  escaping  to 
America. 

This  was  the  end  of  the  Young  Ireland  party.  The  party 
of  O'Connell  did  not  survive  much  longer.  In  1847  there  was 
a  general  election.  The  graphic  account  of  that  election  in 
Sir  Charles  Gavan  Duffy's  book  is  one  of  the  most  depressing 
and  most  instructive  chapters  in  Irish  history,  and  makes 
several  years  of  Irish  history  intelligible.  The  election  was 
fought  out  between  the  Young  Irelanders  and  Conciliation 
Hall — the  place  where  O'Connell's  Repeal  Association  used  to 
meet — on  the  principle  whether  there  should  or  should  not  be 
a  pledge  against  taking  office. 

The  idea  of  Gavan  Duffy  and  the  other  Young  Irelanders 
was  an  independent  Irish  party — independent  of  Liberal  as 
of  Tory  Governments.  But  O'Connell's  heirs,  as  he  himself, 
taught  a  very  different  creed.  It  was  O'Connell's  persistent 
idea  that  his  supporters  were  justified  in  taking  offices  under 
the  Crown.  It  is  easy  to  understand,  though  it  may  be  hard 
to  forgive,  his  reasons  for  adopting,  such  a  policy.  When 
O'Connell  started,  as  to  a  large  extent  when  he  ended,  his 
political  career,  every  post  of  power  in  Ireland  was  held 
by  the  enemies  of  the  popular  cause.  The  Lord-Lieutenant, 
the  Chief  Secretary,  all  the  judges,  all  the  county  court 
barristers,  all  the  sheriffs,  all  the  men  in  any  public  position, 
great  or  small,  were  Protestants,  and  most  of  them  Orange 
Conservatives.  Irish  history  teaches  this  lesson,  if  no  other, 
that  apparently  popular  and  even  Liberal  institutions  may 
exist  in  name  and  be  the  mask  for  the  worst  vices  of  un- 
checked despotism.  Ireland  had  all  the  forms  which  in 
England  are  the  guarantees  of  freemen  and  freedom,  but 
these  forms  became  the  bulwarks  and  instruments  of  tyranny. 
It  was  in  vain  that  there  were  in  Ireland  judges  who  had  the 
same  independence  of  the  Crown  as  their  brethren  in  England, 
if,  from  violent  political  partisanship,  they  could  be  relied  upon 
to  do  the  behests  of  the  Government  as  safely  as  if  they  were 


74  .THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

the  creatures  of  the  Crown.  Trial  by  jury  was  a  '  mockery,  a 
delusion,  and  a  snare,'  if  it  meant  trial,  not  by  one's  peers,  but 
by  a  carefully  selected  number  of  one's  bitterest  political  and 
religious  opponents.  And  no  laws  could  establish  political  or 
social  or  religious  equality  when  their  administration  was  left 
to  the  unchecked  caprice  of  a  hierarchy  of  unscrupulous 
political  partisans. 

O'Connell  found  how  true  this  was  in  the  days  that  suc- 
ceeded Catholic  Emancipation  ;  and  he  thought,  therefore,  that 
one  of  the  first  necessities  of  Irish  progress  was  that  the 
judiciary  and  the  other  official  bodies  of  the  country  should 
be  manned  by  men  belonging  to  the  same  faith  and  sympa- 
thising with  the  political  sentiments  of  the  majority  of  their 
countrymen. 

There  were  some  other  reasons,  too,  of  a  less  creditable 
character.  O'Connell  was  the  leader  of  a  democratic  move- 
ment with  no  revenue  save  such  as  the  voluntary  subscriptions 
of  his  followers  supplied.  It  was  not  an  unwelcome  relief 
to  his  cause  if  occasionally  he  was  able  to  transform  the 
pensioners  on  his  funds  into  pensioners  on  the  coffers  of  the 
State.  It  is  to  be  remembered,  too,  that  at  this  period  the 
Irish  leader  had  a  much  more  circumscribed  class  from  which 
to  draw  his  Parliamentary  supporters  than  at  the  present  day. 
The  property  qualifications  still  existed  ;  a  member  of  Par- 
liament was  obliged  to  have  3OO/.  a  year  to  be  a  borough, 
and  6oo/.  a  year  to  be  a  county  member.  There  are  many 
amusing  and  many  sad  stories  of  the  strange  characters 
which  this  necessity  compelled  O'Connell  to  introduce  as 
advocates  of  the  sacred  cause  of  Irish  nationality.  There 
were  large  classes  of  the  population  who,  while  they  had  the 
property  qualification,  were  in  other  respects  entirely  unsuited 
for  the  position  of  members  of  a  popular  party.  The  land- 
lords were  almost  to  a  man  on  the  side  of  existing  abuses 
and  the  greater  number  of  the  members  of  this  body  whom 
O'Connell  was  able  to  recruit  to  his  ranks  were  declasses. 
They  were  usually  men  of  extravagant  habits  and  of  vicious 
lives,  and  politics  was  the  last  desperate  card  with  which  their 
fortunes  were  to  be  marred  or  mended.  Next,  the  consti- 
tuencies of  Ireland  had  at  this  moment  a  very  narrow  electo- 


THE   GREAT   CLEARANCES  75 

rate.  It  was  all  very  well  for  half  a  million  of  people  to  meet 
O'Connell  at  Tara,  or  at  any  other  of  the  monster  meetings, 
and  to  show  that  he  commanded,  as  never  did  popular  leader 
before,  the  affections,  the  opinions,  and  the  right  arms  of  a 
unanimous  nation.  But  when  it  came  to  the  time  for  obtain- 
ing a  Parliamentary  supporter — the  only  available  weapon 
for  his  struggle  with  English  Ministries— it  was  not  upon 
the  voice  of  the  people  that  the  decision  rested.  He  could 
carry  most  of  the  counties,  even  though  support  of  him  meant 
sentences  of  eviction,  and,  through  eviction,  of  death  or  of 
exile  to  thousands  of  his  adherents.  In  the  boroughs  it  was 
half  a  dozen  shopkeepers,  face  to  face  with  the  always  im- 
pending bankruptcy  of  small  towns  in  an  impoverished 
country,  who  had  the  decision  of  an  election  in  their  hands. 
This  is  a  central  fact  in  the  consideration  of  O'Connell's 
career,  and  must  always  be  taken  as  supplying  at  least  some 
explanation  of  his  many  mistakes  and  his  many  disastrous 
failures.  Finally,  O'Ccnnell,  in  this  matter  of  place-hunting, 
as  in  so  many  others,  was  led  astray  by  that  reliance  upon 
the  English  Whig  party  which  is  the  great  and  the  inefface- 
able blot  upon  his  career. 

The  result  of  this  theory  of  O'Connell's  was  the  creation 
in  Ireland  of  a  school  of  politicians  which  has  been  at  once 
her  dishonour  and  her  bane.     This  was  the  race  of  Catholic 
place-hunters.     Throughout  the  following  pages  men  of  this 
type  play  a  large  part ;  it  will  be  found  that  in  exact  propor- 
tion to  their  success  and  number  were  the  degradation  and  the 
deepening  misery  of  their  country  ;  that  for  years  the  struggle  I 
for  Irish  prosperity  and  self-government  was  impeded  mainly  j 
through  them  ;  and  that  hope  for  the  final  overthrow  of  the  J 
whole  vast  structure  of  wrong  in  Ireland  showed  some  chance 
of  realisation  for  the  first  time  when  they  were  expelled  for 
ever  from  Irish  political  life. 

The  way  in  which  the  system  worked  was  this.  A  pro- 
fligate landlord,  or  an  aspiring  but  briefless  barrister,  was 
elected  for  an  Irish  constituency  as  a  follower  of  the  popular 
leader  of  the  day  and  as  the  mouthpiece  of  his  principles. 
When  he  entered  the  House  of  Commons  he  soon  gave  it  to 
be  understood  by  the  distributors  of  State  patronage  that  he  . 


76  .THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

was  open  to  a  bargain.  The  time  came  when  in  the  party 
divisions  his  vote  was  of  consequence,  and  the  bargain  was  then 
struck  —the  vote  from  him,  and  the  office  from  them. 

Under  O'Connell  this  hideous  system  had  not  reached  the 
proportions  to  which  it  afterwards  attained  ;  but  it  had  gone 
so  far  as  to  create  a  vast  scandal ;  and,  along  with  the 
wretched  tail  which  in  the  course  of  his  long  struggle 
O'Connell  had  gathered  about  him,  gave  that  uncleanness 
to  his  proceedings  which  excited  the  just  indignation  of  the 
young  and  ardent  and  high-minded  men  who  formed  the 
Young  Ireland  party.  The  final  event  that  made  separation 
between  O'Connell  and  the  Young  Irelanders  inevitable  was 
the  struggle  between  the  demand  for  an  independent  Irish 
party,  with  no  mercy  to  place-hunters,  and  the  resolve  of 
O'Connell  to  stand  by  the  old  and  evil  system  of  compromise. 
Richard  Lalor  Sheil,  one  of  the  most  eloquent  colleagues  of 
O'Connell  in  the  old  struggle  for  Catholic  Emancipation,  had 
never  joined  in  the  agitation  for  Repeal,  had  kept  out  of  all 
popular  movements — some  said  because  the  despotic  will  of 
the  great  tribune  made  life  intolerable  to  any  but  slaves — and 
had  in  time  sunk  to  the  level  of  a  Whig  office-holder.  In 
1846,  having  been  appointed  Master  of  the  Mint  in  the 
Ministry  of  Lord  John  Russell,  he  stood  for  Dungarvan,  and 
the  Young  Irelanders  demanded  that  he  should  be  opposed 
by  a  man  who  was  in  favour  not  of  the  government  of  Ireland 
by  English  Ministers,  whether  Liberal  or  Tory,  but  of  the 
government  of  Ireland  by  the  Irish  people  themselves. 
O'Connell  stood  by  his  old  associate  and  his  old  creed,  and 
Shcil  was  elected. 

The  struggle  on  this  point,  which  had  raged  in  the  days 
of  O'Connell,  burst  out  with  even  greater  fury  when  he  was 
dead  ;  and  the  Young  Irelanders  had  to  contend  with  his 
puny  and  contemptible  successor.  The  Young  Irelanders 
proposed  that  no  man  should  be  elected  who  did  not  pledge 
himself  to  take  no  office  under  the  Crown.  And  assuredly 
if  such  a  pledge  were  ever  necessary  or  justifiable  it  was  at 
that  moment.  Between  Parliament  and  Ministers,  between 
the  land  laws  and  the  landlords,  the  Irish  nation  was  being 
murdered  ;  and  the  demand  for  relief  should  come,  not  from 


THE   GREAT  CLEARANCES  77 

beggars  seeking  the  pence  of  the  Treasury,  but  from  inde- 
pendent men  caring  only  for  the  redress  of  the  hideous 
wrong  and  the  cure  of  the  awful  suffering  of  their  country. 

But  Mr.  John  O'Connell  and  the  Repeal  Association  re- 
fused to  accede  to  any  such  pledge  ;  and  at  this  supreme 
crisis,  raised  those  false  side-issues  which  are  the  favourite 
resort  of  unscrupulous  traffickers  in  political  struggles.  A 
favourite  expedient  was  to  whisper  doubts  of  the  religious 
orthodoxy  of  the  Young  Irelanders  ;  and  their  proposals  being 
first  described  as  revolutionary,  dread  warnings  were  by  an 
easy  transition  drawn  from  the  sanguinary  teachings  and 
acts  of  the  revolutionaries  of  France.  But  the  great  side- 
issue  was  the  attitude  the  Young  Irelanders  had  adopted 
towards  O'Connell.  They  were  described  as  having  '  murdered 
the  Liberator.'  The  disappearance  of  O'Connell,  especially  in 
circumstances  of  such  tragic  and  pitiful  gloom,  had  produced 
on  the  whole  Irish  people  the  impression  which  Mrs.  Carlyle 
so  well  describes  as  her  feeling  when  the  news  came  to  Eng- 
land that  Byron  was  dead.  It  seemed  as  if  the  sun  or  moon 
had  suddenly  dropped  out  of  the  heavens.  In  such  a  condition 
of  the  popular  mind  it  was  easy  to  raise  a  howl  of  execration 
against  the  men  who  had  opposed  his  policy  ;  the  Young 
Irelanders  were  everywhere  denounced  ;  in  many  places  they 
were  set  upon  by  mobs,  and  were  in  danger  of  their  lives. 

The  revulsion  of  public  feeling  against  them  threw  great  dif- 
ficulties in  the  way  of  the  policy  which  they  recommended  :  and 
that  policy  did  not  receive  anything  like  a  fair  hearing.  Their 
candidates  were  everywhere  defeated,  and  in  their  stead  were 
chosen  men  who  were  openly  for  sale.  The  one  title  for  election 
in  many  cases  was  a  hasty  adhesion  to  the  Repeal  Associa- 
tion just  before  the  general  election.  The  subscription  to  this 
body  was  5/.  :  hence  these  men  came  to  be  known  as  the  *  Five 
Pound  Repealers.'  Thus,  instead  of  seventy  independent  and 
honest  Irish  representatives,  there  was  returned  a  motley  gang 
of  as  disreputable  and  needy  adventurers  as  ever  trafficked  in 
the  blood  and  tears  of  a  nation.  The  expected  result  soon 
followed.  Of  the  entire  number  no  less  than  twenty  after- 
wards accepted  places  for  themselves,  and  twenty  more  were 
continually  pestering  the  Government  Whips  for  places  for 


7g  .THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

their  dependents.  Mr.  John  O'Connell  himself  had  refused 
to  take  the  pledge  against  office-taking,  on  the  ground  that  if 
the  name  he  bore  was  not  a  sufficient  guarantee,  he  would 
condescend  to  no  more.  The  guarantee  was  scarcely  trust- 
worthy ;  for  he  had  at  the  time  a  brother  and  two  brothers- 
in-law  and  a  train  of  cousins  in  office.  He  himself,  within  a 
short  time  afterwards,  was  being  trained  as  a  captain  of 
militia  to  fight  against  the  men  whom  the  sight  of  their 
country's  ruin  was  driving  to  the  desperate  resort  of  rebellion  ; 
and,  finally,  ended  as  Clerk  of  the  Hanaper. 

Thus  the  Repeal  party  broke  up,  and  Ireland  was  left 
without  an  advocate  in  Parliament.  The  ruin  and  helpless- 
ness of  the  country  was  now  complete.  Insurrection  had 
been  tried  and  had  failed  ;  constitutional  agitation  had  pro- 
duced a  gang  of  scoundrels  who  were  ready  to  sell  them- 
selves to  the  highest  bidder.  Ireland,  starving,  plague-stricken, 
disarmed,  unrepresented,  lay  at  the  mercy  of  the  British 
Government  and  of  the  Irish  landlords.  It  will  not  be  un- 
instructive  to  see  what  use  the  two  classes  made  of  their 
omnipotence  over  the  country  which  death,  hunger,  and 
plague,  abortive  rebellion  and  political  treachery  had  given 
over  to  their  hands. 

First  as  to  the  landlords.  The  potato  crop  in  1848  and 
1  849  had  again  failed,  and  there  were  throughout  the  country 
the  same  scenes  —  especially  in  1849  —  of  starvation  and  plague 
as  in  1846  and  1847.  In  1848,  2,043,505  persons  received 
poor  law  relief,  610,463  being  in  the  workhouses  and 
1,433,042  receiving  out-door  relief.1  Fever  and  dysentery 
raged  in  the  workhouses,2  the  gaols,3  the  schools,4  and  in 
some  places  along  the  western  coast  with  such  destructive- 
ness  as  to  almost  entirely  depopulate  them.  '  Along  the 
coast  of  Connemara,'  says  a  medical  writer,  '  for  near  thirty 
miles,  where  the  villages  are  very  small  and  hundreds  of 
cabins  detached,  sickness  and  death  walked  hand  in  hand 
until  they  nearly  depopulated  the  whole  coast.'5  In  Mayo 
hundreds  of  people  died  of  starvation  ;6  in  the  townland  of 
Moyard,  County  Gahvay,  five  persons—  four  sons  and  a 
1  Census  Commissioners,  p.  310.  -  Il>.  p.  310.  3  Ib.  p.  311. 


4     >.  o      m  p.  3I2. 


THE   GREAT   CLEARANCES  79 

daughter — died  in  one  family  ; l  in  Ballinahinch,  in  the  same 
county,  six  persons  in  the  same  family  died — the  husband,  two 
daughters,  and  three  sons  ; 2  in  Ballinasloe,  in  the  same 
county,  eight  persons  died  in  the  same  family.  '  The  survi- 
vors have  endeavoured  to  live  on  nettles  and  watercresses.' 3 
Though  there  were  41,083  fewer  deaths  than  in  1847,  the 
total  reached  the  enormous  figure  of  208,352,  and  of  these 
97,076  died  of  epidemic  —  that  is,  of  famine-produced 
diseases.4  And  eventually,  although  there  was  a  decrease  of 
37,285  on  the  emigration  of  1847,  no  less  than  178,159  persons 
left  Ireland. 

The  failure  was  not  so  complete  as  in  1847,  but  still  it 
was  very  extensive,  and  there  was  terrible  and  widespread 
suffering.  In  1849  the  blight  worked  more  disastrously.  The 
potatoes  were  *  almost  universally  blighted.'5 

The  year  1 849  was  a  return  to  the  greater  ghastliness  and  \ 
more  multitudinous  horrors  of  1847.  As  in  previous  years,  the 
harvest  began  with  promises  of  abundance.  In  May  the  ' 
crops  looked  '  luxuriant  and  flourishing '  ; 6  but  as  early  as 
June  the  blight  appeared  in  County  Cork  and  County  Tip- 
perary  ;  in  July  and  August  it  appeared  in  several  other 
counties.  By  the  i8th  of  the  latter  month,  in  passing  along 
the  roads  in  the  Mourne  district  of  County  Down,  *  the 
peaty  smell — a  symptom  of  the  fatal  disaster — was  perceived 
distinctly.'  By  September  14  the  report  was  :  '  The  potato 
blight  has  now  become  unmistakable,  changing  in  one  night's 
time  the  green  and  healthy-looking  appearances  of  the  potato 
stalks  to  blackness  and  decay.'  October  I  :  '  The  potatoes  are 
bad  everywhere.' 7 

As  in  the  autumn  of  1845,  the  people  had  staked  their  all 
on  the  success  of  the  potato  crop.  '  Should  the  crop  fail,' 
wrote  the  '  Irish  Farmers'  Gazette,'  '  the  country  will  be  in  a 
wretched  condition,  for  the  poor  people  have  risked  their  all 
in  the  planting  of  potatoes  this  year.' 8  One  of  the  agricul- 
tural instructors  sent  out  by  the  Lord-Lieutenant  to  lecture 
on  improved  methods  cf  farming,  reports  from  Roscommon 
instances  of  people  having  '  sold  their  only  cow  to  procure 

1  Census  Commissioners,  p.  311.  2  Ib.  s  Ib.  p.  312. 

4  Ib.  p.  314.        5  Ib.  p.  319.         6  Ib.  p.  315.         7  Ib.  p.  315.         8  Ib.  p.  319. 


8o  'THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

seed  potatoes,  and  of  persons  having  sold  their  beds  for  the 
same  purpose.' l  Another  instructor  gives  an  account  which 
it  will  be  well  to  remember  in  reading  an  account  of  the 
working  of  landlordism  some  pages  farther  on  :  *  They  ' — the 
tenants — '  have  nothing  now  left  but  the  shelter  of  a  miser- 
able cabin,  and  themselves  and  the  land  in  a  corresponding 
state  of  misery  ;  though  they  are  still  clinging  to  their 
huts  with  the  greatest  tenacity,  and  seem  better  pleased  to 
perish  in  the  ruins  than  surrender  what  they  call  their  last 
hope  of  existence.' 2 

The  same  suffering  as  in  1847  followed  the  failure  of  the 
staple  crop.  *  The  earlier  months  of  1849,' report  the  Poor 
Law  Commissioners,  '  were  marked  by  a  greater  degree  of 
suffering  in  the  western  and  south-western  districts  than  any 
period  since  the  fatal  season  of  1846-47.  Exhaustion  of 
resources  by  the  long  continuance  of  adverse  circumstances 
caused  a  large  accession  to  the  ranks  of  the  destitute. 
Clothing  had  been  worn  out  and  parted  with  to  provide  food 
or  seed  in  seed  time.'3 

Reports  of  all  kinds  present  pictures  as  terrible  as  those  of 
1 847,  with  deeper  elements  of  tragedy  in  many  cases,  as  the  evils 
of  1849  came  upon  a  people  already  exhausted  by  their  dread 
experiences  of  the  previous  years.  Then  there  had  been 
added  another  burden  to  the  famine-stricken  people  in  the 
additional  taxation  imposed  by  the  legislation  of  the  Imperial 
Parliament,  for  the  people  had  to  pay  for  the  legislation  that  had 
so  terribly  aggravated  their  sufferings,  and  that  had  murdered 
instead  of  saving  hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  nation.  '  The 
people,'  reports  one  of  the  agricultural  instructors,  '  complain 
bitterly  [of  the  immense  poor  rate]  ;  they  say  it  will  be 
impossible  for  them  to  stand  the  payment  of  the  taxes  for 
another  season.  They  likewise  say,'  adds  this  instructor, 
'  that  if  they  improve  their  farms,  they  know  in  their  hearts 
they  are  doing  so  for  other  persons.' 4 

And  now  for  a  few  pictures  of  the  state  of  things  which 
existed  among  the  people.  '  The  state  of  the  country  here/ 
writes  one  of  the  instructors  from  Clifden,  Connemara,  as  '  in 

1  Census  Commissioners,  p.  317.  2  Ib. 

3    Ib.    p.    320.  4    /£    p.    317. 


THE    GREAT   CLEARANCES  81 

many  other  places,  is  utterly  hopeless,  and  exhibits  the  most 
horrifying  picture  of  poverty  and  destitution.  The  neglected 
state  of  the  land — the  death-like  appearance  of  the  people 
crawling  from  their  roofless  cabins  .  .  .  the  pitiful  petitions  of 
the  desponding  poor  craving  that  charity  which  the  "  rate  " 
of  235-.  id.  to  the  pound  puts  out  of  the  power  of  humanity 
to  bestow — some  may  conceive,  but  few  can  describe.  It  is 
not  very  likely,  indeed,  that  any  good  can  accrue  to  such 
people  from  my  visits.  "We  will  not  sow,  for  we  cannot 
work  without  food,"  is  the  general  answer  made  to  me  by 
those  patient  sufferers.' l 

'  Anything,'  writes  another  instructor  from  the  Ballinrobe 
Union,  County  Mayo,  '  to  equal  the  misery  and  starved 
appearance  of  the  people  here  I  have  not  yet  seen — no  more 
sign  of  tillage,  or  any  preparation  for  it,  than  on  the  top  of  a 
barren  mountain,  though  very  fine  land  ...  I  begged  of  them 
to  prepare  the  land  ;  their  reply  was,  "  How  can  a  hungry 
man  work,  sir  ?  we  are  all  nearly  starved  ;  "  and  really  they 
had  starvation  in  their  worn  faces  ...  I  meet  half-starved 
creatures  in  the  fields  everywhere  picking  weeds  and  herbs 
to  eat  them.  I  have  no  hesitation  in  saying  that  five  out  of 
six  of  the  really  destitute  will  be  dead  on  July  I.'2 

'  Deaths  from  starvation  occur  almost  daily,'  writes 
another  instructor  from  Ballynahinch  Estate,  Connemara, 
'  and  the  remains  of  hunger's  victims  are  quietly  laid  in  the 
ground  unrecorded.'3  In  the  neighbouring  islands,  'which 
had  quite  run  out  of  cultivation,'  the  inhabitants  were  'either 
dead  or  supported  by  public  relief  and  by  that  system  of 
petty  theft  which  unfortunately  pervades  the  country,  as  the 
food  supplied  is  barely  sufficient  to  enable  the  living  skeletons 
to  go  in  search  of  a  further  supply.' 

Finally,  here  are  a  few  extracts  from  the  newspapers  of 
the  time  :  '  The  distress  in  the  west  of  Ireland  was  very 
great  ;  many  died  of  want.'  '  Great  destitution  at  Athlone  ; 
never  were  the  poor  in  so  deplorable  a  condition.'  '  A  family 
of  six  lived  for  one  week  upon  the  carcase  of  an  ass  in  the 
parish  of  Ballymackey,  County  Tipperary.'  '  Great  distress 

1  Census  Commissioners,  p.  321.  2  Ib.  '  Ib. 

G 


82  .THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

in  Ulster— people  eating  ass-flesh.'  '  Deaths  from  starvation 
were  reported  from  Cong,  County  Mayo,  from  Lettermore, 
County  Tipperary,  and  also  from  the  County  Clare.'  '  January 
17  :  Twenty-two  deaths  from  famine  and  destitution  reported 
throughout  the  country.' l 

As  has  already  been  stated,  the  epidemic  of  cholera  was 
added  to  the  other  scourges  which,  in  the  latter  part  of  1848 
and  all  through  1849,  followed  on  the  other  epidemics.  The 
total  number  of  deaths  in  1849  was  240,797,  being  the 
greatest  number  for  any  one  year  in  the  decennial  period  be- 
tween 1841  and  1851  except  1847.  The  deaths  from  zymotic 
diseases  were  larger  than  in  1847,  being  123,386,  which  is 
7,021  more  than  in  i847.2 

Such,  then,  was  the  state  of  Ireland  in  these  two  years. 
I  now  proceed  to  describe  the  conduct  of  the  landlords.  It 
would  be  easy  to  quote  the  denunciations  of  them  which  appeared 
in  the  speeches  and  newspapers  even  of  England,  but  I  have 
thought  it  a  better  plan  to  take  up  one  particular  district  and 
show  the  landlords  at  work  there. 

To  anybody  who  desires  to  obtain  a  detailed  and  realistic 
picture  of  what  Irish  landlordism  in  the  days  of  the  famine 
really  meant,  the  perusal  of  the  paper  No.  1089,  entitled 
'  Reports  and  Returns  relating  to  Evictions  in  the  Kilrush 
Union,'  will  be  of  absorbing  interest.  The  Ministers,  in  order 
to  give  Parliament  some  idea  as  to  the  merits  of  the  con- 
troversy between  them  and  the  landlords,  presented  in  this 
volume  a  series  of  extracts  from  the  report  of  Captain 
Kennedy,  who  had  been  sent  down  to  this  union  as  represen- 
tative of  the  Poor  Law  Commissioners.  These  extracts  begin 
on  November  25,  1847,  and  conclude  on  June  19,  1849. 
They  tell  over  and  over  again  the  same  tale,  until  the  heart 
grows  sick  with  the  repetition  of  ghastly  and  almost  incredible 
horrors.  Kilrush  was  one  of  the  unions  in  which  neither 
famine  nor  fever  worked  with  such  deadly  effect  as  in  some 
other  parts  of  the  country. 


s;oncr 


Journal  and  Saundcris  Newsletter,  quoted  by  Census  Commis- 
PP-  320»  32i-  -  Census  Commissioners,  pp.  323,  324. 


THE    GREAT    CLEARANCES  83 

The  following  extracts  from  Captain  Kennedy's  report 
are  given  without  comment,  and  may  be  trusted  to  speak 
for  themselves : — 

November  25,  1847. — An  immense  number  of  small  landholders 
are  under  ejectment,  or  notice  to  quit,  even  where  the  rents  have 
been  paid  up.1 

February  n,  1848. —  .  .  .  upwards  of  120  houses  have  been 
'-tumbled'  on  one  property  within  a  few  weeks,  containing  families  to  a 
greater  number,  many  of  whom  are  burrowing  behind  the  ditches, 
without  the  means  of  procuring  shelter.2 

March  16,  1848. — We  admitted  a  considerable  number  of 
paupers,  among  whom  were  some  of  the  most  appalling  cases  of 
destitution  and  suffering  it  has  ever  been  my  lot  to  witness.  The  state 
of  most  of  these  wretched  creatures  is  traceable  to  the  numerous 
evictions  which  have  lately  taken  place  in  the  union.  When  driven 
from  their  cabins  they  betake  themselves  to  the  ditches  or  the  shelter 
of  some  bank,  and  there  exist  like  animals,  till  starvation  or  the 
inclemency  of  the  weather  drives  them  to  the  workhouse.  There 
were  three  cartloads  of  these  creatures,  who  could  not  walk,  brought 
for  admission  yesterday,  some  in  fever,  some  suffering  from  dysentery, 
and  all  from  want  of  food.3 

March  23,  1848. — Whole  districts  are  being  cleared  and  re-let  in 
larger  holdings.4 

March  28,  1848. — I  have  the  honour  to  inform  you  that  the 
Kilrush  workhouse  contained  two  above  the  authorised  number,  on 
yesterday.  This  rapid  filling  is  attributable  to  the  numerous  evictions 
on  the  25th  instant  and  demolition  of  cabins.  To  meet  the  emergency 
I  immediately  proceeded  with  Mr.  Meagher,  Vice-Guardian,  and 
selected  fifty  cases  for  discharge,  principally  widows  with  one  child 
dependent,  and  some  elderly  widows  without  any.  I  anticipate  a 
considerable  pressure  during  the  next  fortnight.  Cabins  are  being 
thrown  down  in  all  directions,  and  it  is  really  extraordinary  and,  to  me, 
unaccountable  where  or  how  the  evicted  find  shelter? 

March  30,  1848. —  .  .  .  The  pressure  is  coming,  and  will  con- 
tinue ;  and  this  will  not  surprise  the  Commissioners  when  I  state  my 
conviction  that  1,000  cabins  have  been  levelled  in  this  union  within  a 
very  few  months.  The  occupants  of  many  of  these  were  induced 
to  give  them  up  on  receipt  of  a  small  sum  of  money  ;  and  that  once 
spent  they  must  seek  the  workhouse  or  starve.6 

1  Blue-book  No.  1089  :  Reports  and  Returns  relating  to  Evictions  in  the 
Kilrush  Union,  1849,  p.  3.  2  Ib.  3  Ib.  4  Ib. 

5    Ib.  p.  4.  6  Ib. 

G  2 


84  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

April 6,  1848.— A  timely,  well  organised,  and  well  superintended 
labour  test,  in  and  out  of  doors,  is  the  only  hope  of  stemming  the 
torrent.  The  destitution  in  degree  and  character  is,  I  trust,  unknown 
elsewhere  ;  improvident,  ignorant,  thriftless  parents,  scarcely  human  in 
habits  and  intelligence,  only  present  themselves,  with  nine  or  ten  skeleton 
children,  when  they  themselves  can  no  longer  support  the  pangs  of  hunger 
and  their  wretched  offspring  are  beyond  recovery.  The  state  of  this 
union  must  be  seen  to  be  believed  or  comprehended.1 

April  6,  1848. — While  hundreds  are  being  turned  out  houseless 
and  helpless  daily  on  one  small  property  in  Killard  division,  no  less 
than  twenty-three  houses,  containing  probably  one  hundred  souls, 
were  tumbled  in  one  day,  March  27.  I  believe  the  extent  of  land 
occupied  with  these  twenty-three  houses  did  not  exceed  fifty  acres. 
The  suffering  and  misery  attendant  upon  these  wholesale  evictions  is 
indescribable.2  The  number  of  houseless  paupers  in  this  union  is 
beyond  my  calculation  ;  those  evicted  crowd  neighbouring  cabins  and 
villages,  and  disease  is  necessarily  generated.  On  its  first  appearance 
the  wretched  sufferer,  and  probably  the  whole  family  to  which  he  or 
she  belongs,  is  ruthlessly  turned  out  by  the  roadside.  The  popular 
dread  of  fever  or  dysentery  seems  to  excuse  any  degree  of  inhumanity. 
The  workhouse  and  temporary  hospital  are  crowded  to  the  utmost 
extent  they  can  possibly  contain  ;  the  crowding  of  the  fever  hospital 
causes  me  serious  anxiety.  The  relieving  officer  has  directions  to 
send  no  more  in  :  yet,  notwithstanding  this  caution,  panic-stricken 
and  unnatural  parents  frequently  send  in  a  donkey-load  of  children 
in  fever  a  distance  of  fourteen  or  fifteen  miles  for  admission.  How 
to  dispose  of  them  I  know  not.3 

April  %,  1848. — I  calculate  that  6,000  houses  have  been  levelled 
since  November,  and  expect  500  more  before  July.4 

April  13,  1848. — Destitution,  I  am  concerned  to  say,  steadily 
increases,  together  with  a  corresponding  increase  of  disease.  The 
numerous  evictions  tend  to  this  when  (as  is  frequently  the  case) 
thirty  or  forty  cabins  are  levelled  in  a  single  day  ;  the  inmates  crowd 
into  neighbouring  ones  till  disease  is  generated,  and  they  are  then 
thrown  out  without  consideration  or  mercy.  The  relieving  officers 
thus  find  them,  and  send  them  to  the  hospital  when  beyond  medical 
aid.  These  wholesale  evictions  are  most  embarrassing  to  the 
guardians.  The  wretched  and  half-witted  occupiers  are  too  often 
deluded  by  the  specious  promises  of  under-agents  and  bailiffs,  and 
induced  to  throw  down  their  own  cabin  for  a  paltry  consideration  of  a 

1  nine-book  No.  1089  :  Reports  and  Returns  relating  to  Evictions  in  the 
Kilrush  Union,  1849,  p.  4.  2  /^  p>  ^  3  ^  4  ^ 


THE   GREAT   CLEARANCES  85 

few  shillings,  and  an  assurance  of  'outdoor  relief.'  I  am  compiling 
a  return  of  the  number  of  evictions  in  each  electoral  division  since 
last  November,  with  the  extent  of  holding  and  amount  of  yearly  rent. 

April  1 6,  1848. — In  the  week  ending  April  8,  the  number  of 
'cases'  receiving  out-door  relief  numbered  4,594,  making  a  total  of 
14,292  souls,  at  a  cost  of  2967.  75-.  nd.  for  the  week.  There  has 
been  considerable  increase  in  the  week  ending  the  i5th  instant.  I 
do  not  anticipate  the  numbers  will  stop  short  of  18,000  before 
August.  This  will  be  understood  from  what  I  have  hitherto  stated  of 
the  utter  absence  of  employment,  and  the  large  number  evicted  and 
houseless.1 

June  27,  1848. — Several  of  those  wretched  dens  were  without 
light  or  air,  and  I  was  obliged  to  light  a  piece  of  bog-fir  to  see  where 
the  sick  lay,  while  many  good  and  substantial  houses  lay  in  ruins 
about  them.  Whatever  the  necessity,  or  whatever  future  good  these 
clearances  may  effect,  they  are  productive  of  an  amount  of  present 
suffering  and  mortality  which  would  scare  the  proprietors  were  they 
to  see  it.  And  the  evil  still  goes  on.  During  the  last  week  about 
sixty  more  souls  have  been  left  houseless  on  one  small  property,  to 
crowd  into  the  already  over-crowded  cabins  and  create  disease.2 

July  5,  1848. — Twenty  thousand,  or  one-fourth  of  the  population, 
are  now  in  receipt  of  daily  food,  either  in  or  out  of  the  workhouse. 
Disease  has  unfortunately  kept  pace  with  destitution,  and  the  high 
mortality  at  one  period  since  last  November,  in  and  out  of  the  work- 
house, was  most  distressing.  I  have  frequently  been  astonished  by 
the  sudden  and  unexpected  pressure  from  certain  localities  ;  this 
naturally  induced  an  inquiry  into  the  causes,  and  eventually  into  a 
general  review  of  the  whole  union.  The  result  of  this  inquiry  has 
convinced  me  that  destitution  has  been  increased  and  its  character 
fearfully  aggravated  by  the  system  of  wholesale  evictions  which  has  been 
adopted ;  that  a  fearful  amount  of  disease  and  mortality  has  also  re- 
sulted from  the  same  causes,  I  cannot  doubt.  I  have  painful  experi- 
ence of  it  daily.  To  make  this  understood,  I  may  state,  in  general 
terms,  that  about  900  houses,  containing  probably  4,000  occupants, 
have  been  levelled  in  this  union  since  last  November.  The 
wretchedness,  ignorance,  and  helplessness  of  the  poor  on  the  western 
coast  of  this  union  prevent  them  seeking  a  shelter  elsewhere  ;  and, 
to  use  their  own  phrase,  '  they  don't  know  where  to  face ' ;  they 
linger  about  the  localities  for  weeks  or  months,  burrowing  behind 
the  ditches,  under  a  few  broken  rafters  of  their  former  dwelling, 

1  Blue-book  No.    1089  :  Reports  and  Returns  relating  to  Evictions  in  the 
Kilrush  Union,  1849,  p.  6.  2  Ib.  p.  7. 


86  *  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

refusing  to  enter  the  workhouse  till  the  parents  are  broken  down  and 
the  children  half  starved,  when  they  come  into  the  workhouse  to 
swell  the  mortality  one  by  one.  Those  who  obtain  a  temporary 
shelter  in  adjoining  cabins  are  not  more  fortunate.  Fever  and  dysen- 
tery shortly  make  their  appearance,  when  those  affected  are  put  out 
by  the  roadside  as  carelessly  and  ruthlessly  as  if  they  were  animals  ; 
when  frequently,  after  days  and  nights  of  exposure,  they  are  sent  in 
by  the  relieving  officers  when  in  a  hopeless  state.  These  inhuman 
acts  are  induced  by  the  popular  terror  of  fever.  I  have  frequently 
reported  cases  of  this  sort.  The  misery  attendant  upon  these  whole- 
sale and  simultaneous  evictions  is  frequently  aggravated  by  hunting 
these  ignorant,  helpless  creatures  off  the  property,  from  which  they 
perhaps  liave  never  wandered  five  miles.  It  is  not  an  unusual  oc- 
currence to  see  forty  or  fifty  houses  levelled  in  one  day,  and  orders 
given  that  no  remaining  tenant  or  occupier  should  give  them  even  a 
night's  shelter.  I  have  known  some  ruthless  acts  committed  by 
drivers  and  sub-agents,  but  no  doubt  according  to  law,  however  re- 
pulsive to  humanity  ;  wretched  hovels  pulled  down,  where  the  in- 
mates were  in  a  helpless  state  of  fever  and  nakedness,  and  left  by  the 
roadside  for  days.  As  many  as  300  souls,  creatures  of  the  most 
helpless  class,  have  been  left  houseless  in  one  day,  and  the  suffering 
and  misery  resulting  therefrom  attributed  to  insufficient  relief  or  mal- 
administration of  the  law  :  it  would  not  be  a  matter  of  surprise  that 
it  failed  altogether  in  such  localities  as  those  I  allude  to.  When 
relieved,  charges  of  profuse  expenditure  are  readily  preferred.  The 
evicted  crowd  into  the  back  lanes  and  wretched  hovels  of  the  towns 
and  villages,  scattering  disease  and  dismay  in  all  directions.  The 
character  of  some  of  these  hovels  defies  description.  I  not  long 
since  found  a  widow,  whose  three  children  were  in  fever,  occupying 
the  piggery  of  their  former  cabin,  which  lay  beside  them  in  ruins  ; 
however  incredible  it  may  appear,  this  place  where  they  had  lived  for 
weeks,  measured  five  feet  by  four  feet,  and  of  corresponding  height 
1  offered  her  a  free  conveyance  to  the  workhouse,  which  she  steadily 
refused  ;  her  piggery  was  knocked  down  as  soon  as  her  children 
were  able  to  crawl  out  on  recovery  ;  and  she  has  now  gone  forth  a 
wanderer.  I  could  not  induce  any  neighbour  to  take  her  in,  even 
for  payment ;  she  had  medical  aid,  and  all  necessary  relief  from  the 
union.1 

August  13,  1848. — I  regret  to  say  that  these  monster  evictions  still 
continue.     During  the  last  week  forty- four  families  were  evicted,  and 

1  Blue-book  No.  1089  :    Reports  and   Returns  relating  to  Evictions  in  the 
Kilrush  Union,  1849,  PP-  7j  8- 


THE   GREAT   CLEARANCES  87 

the  houses  levelled,  on  one  property.  ...  A  band  of  paupers,  taken 
from  some  distant  stone-breaking  depots,  and  armed  with  spades, 
crowbars,  and  pickaxes,  completed  this  work  of  destruction.  .  .  . 
These  helpless  creatures,  not  only  unhoused  but  driven  off  the  lands, 
no  one  remaining  on  the  lands  being  allowed  to  lodge  or  harbour 
them.  .  .  .  When  winter  sets  in  these  evicted  destitute  will  be  in 
awful  plight,  as  their  temporary  sheds,  behind  ditches  or  old  fences, 
are  quite  unfit  for  human  habitation,  and  if  they  attempted  to  build 
anything  permanent  they  would  be  immediately  abolished.  If  the 
records  of  the  sheriffs  office  connected  with  the  union  for  the  last 
nine  months  were  produced,  they  would  account  for  much  of  the 
death  and  destitution  of  the  union.1 

August  25,  1848. — In  reply  to  your  communication  of  the  24th 
instant,  I  have  the  honour  to  inform  you  that  the  band  of  paupers 
therein  adverted  to  were  hired  by  the  sub-agent  and  taken  away 
from  the  stone-breaking  depot  for  the  purposes  I  have  stated. 
They,  of  course,  received  no  relief  for  the  day  they  were  absent,  nor 
for  some  days  after,  as  the  relieving  officer  ascertained  that  they  re- 
ceived a  high  rate  of  wages  for  this  service.  I  did  not  intend  to  convey 
that  the  implements  used  by  these  paupers  were  union  or  public 
property.2 

August  27,  1848. — Numerous  evictions  have  taken  place  during 
the  last  week  :  the  number  and  particulars  will  be  forwarded  on  an 
early  day.  The  ultimate  fate  of  this  class  is  a  matter  of  curious 
speculation  when  their  utter  destitution  and  helplessness  are  fully 
understood.3 

EXTRACT  FROM  THE  VICE-GUARDIANS'  REPORT. 

October  21,  1848. — The  number  of  houses  now  thrown  down,  and 
of  families  thereby  rendered  totally  destitute,  is  daily  increasing  to  a 
fearful  extent.4 

EXTRACT  FROM  REPORT  OF  CAPTAIN  KENNEDY. 

November  7,  1848. — I  cannot  lead  the  Commissioners  to  expect 
other  than  a  rapid  increase  of  numbers  becoming  chargeable  to  the 
rates,  and  it  cannot  under  existing  circumstances  be  otherwise.  The 
extent  of  destitution  which  I  anticipate,  and  which  exists  in  the 
union,  may  be  readily  accounted  for.  Large  numbers  are  employed 
during  the  summer  cutting  and  saving  turf,  but  at  a  scale  of  remu- 
neration barely  sufficient  to  support  existence.  Many  more  earn  a 

1  Blue-book  No.    1089  :  Reports  and  Returns  relating  to   Evictions  in  the 
Kilrush  Union,  1849,  p.  19. 

2  Ib.  p.  20.  3  Ib.  p.  23.  *  11}.  p.  30' 


SS  .THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

precarious  livelihood  by  fishing  in  the  summer  months,  but  in  the 
winter  they  cannot  venture  out  with  their  wretched  boats  and  tackle 
on  this  iron-bound  coast.  The  money  spent  by  summer  visitors  is 
also  wanting.  To  these  must  be  added  all  those  small  landholders 
who  have  been  since  last  spring  evicted.  I  believe  that  this  class 
alone  numbers  9,000  souls,  and  that  8,000  of  these  are  without  even 
shelter,  as  an  eviction  seldom  occurs  without  the  demolition  of  the 
house.  They  are  swarming  over  the  union  in  temporary  sheds  and 
huts  which  are  unfit  for  human  occupation,  and  from  which  they  are 
daily  driven  by  the  inclement  weather.1 

EXTRACT  FROM  REPORT  OF  CAPTAIN  KENNEDY. 
December  4,  1848. — My  acquaintance  with  the  state  of  this  union 
does  not  allow  me  to  believe  that  the  numbers  becoming  chargeable 
to  the  rates  will  stop  short  of  20.000.  This  can  hardly  be  a  matter 
of  surprise  when  I  state  (what  the  Commissioners  are  in  possession 
of)  that  I  have  forwarded  returns  of  the  eviction  of  6,090  souls  since 
last  July.2 

EXTRACT  FROM  REPORT  OF  CAPTAIN  KENNEDY. 

January  22,  1849. — I  cannot  estimate  the  evictions  in  the  union 
much  under  150  souls  per  week.3  .  .  .  The  destitution  in  this  union 
is  a  mighty  and  fearful  reality  ;  it  is  in  vain  to  strive  to  falsify  or 
forget  its  existence ;  yet  no  combined  effort,  and  hardly  an  individual 
one,  is  made  to  alleviate  or  arrest  it.  A  few  philanthropic  individuals 
continue  to  afford  their  unit  of  relief  and  employment,  but  their 
example  is  not  taking.  There  is  a  general  lack  of  energy ;  the  better 
part  of  the  community  seem,  for  the  most  part,  as  apathetic  as  if  the 
country  were  comparatively  prosperous  ;  while  demoralisation,  disease, 
and  death  are  spreading  like  a  cancer.  I  see  the  masses  of  the 
people  starving,  and  the  land,  which  could  be  made  to  feed  treble 
the  number,  lying  all  but  waste.4 

EXTRACT  OF  REPORT  FROM  THE  VICE-GUARDIANS. 
January  22,  1849. — Evictions  and  throwing  down  houses  con- 
tinue to  be  carried  on  to  large  extent,  and  the  quarter  sessions,  now 
going  on,  shows  that  a  large  number  of  ejectments  are  in  process ; 
and  we  know  that  within  a  fortnight  upwards  of  800  beings  have 
been  evicted  from  their  houses.  We  cannot,  therefore,  make  any 
calculation  that  may  come  near  the  amount,  but  are  of  opinion  that 

1  Blue-book  No.  1089  :  Reports  and  Returns  relating  to  Evictions  in  the 
Kilrush  Union,  1849,  p.  32. 

3  Ib.  p.  43-  4  Ib.  p.  45- 


THE    GREAT    CLEARANCES  89 

at  least  2,000  persons  will  be  added  in  some  parts  of  the  intermediate 
season  ;  and  that  about  the  same  number  will  be  off  the  list  in  the 
months  of  April  to  June ;  they  increase  from  that  to  October.1 

EXTRACT  FROM  REPORT  OF  CAPTAIN  KENNEDY. 

April  3,  1849. — On  one  farm  alone,  in  Kilmurry  (the  most 
miserable  district  in  the  union),  where  there  were  73  houses  within 
the  last  ten  months,  there  are  now  but  thirteen.  I  also  enclose  a 
petition,  marked  *  E,'  being  one  of  hundreds  which  I  have  received  to 
the  same  purport.  This  houseless  class  becomes  more  embarrassing 
daily,  and  I  fear  a  money  allowance  for  lodging,  in  addition  to  food, 
will  ere  long  be  forced  upon  the  Vice-Guardians.2 

The  following  is  the  petition  : — 

*  The  humble  petition  of  Patt  Lumane 
1  Sheweth, 

*  That  he  has  neither  house  nor  home,  nor  place  to  shelter  him  ; 
no  person  would  admit  him,  or  give  him  a  night's  lodging.  He  has 
five  in  family,  exposed  to  all  sorts  of  persecution  ;  therefore  he  applies 
to  the  Board  of  Guardians  to  admit  him  and  family  into  the  work- 
house to  shelter  them. 

'  He  was  upon  outdoor  relief,  and  had  no  asylum  to  eat  it.' 3 

EXTRACT  FROM  REPORT  OF  CAPTAIN  KENNEDY. 

May  7,  1849. — I  nnd  that  my  constant  and  untiring  exertions  make 
but  little  impression  upon  the  mass  of  fearful  suffering.  As  soon  as  one 
horde  of  houseless  and  all  but  naked  paupers  are  dead,  or  provided  for 
in  the  workhouse,  another  wholesale  eviction  doubles  the  number,  who, 
in  their  turn,  pass  through  the  same  ordeal  of  wandering  from  house 
or  burrowing  in  bogs  or  behind  ditches,  till,  broken  down  by  privation 
and  exposure-  to  the  elements,  they  seek  the  workhouse,  or  die  by 
the  roadside.  The  state  of  some  districts  of  the  union  during  the 
last  fourteen  days  baffles  description  ;  sixteen  houses,  containing 
twenty-one  families,  have  been  levelled  in  one  small  village  in 
Killard  division,  and  a  vast  number  in  the  rural  parts  of  it.  As 
cabins  become  fewer,  lodgings,  however  miserable,  become  more 
difficult  to  obtain.  And  the  helpless  and  houseless  creatures,  thus 
turned  out  of  the  only  home  they  ever  knew,  betake  themselves  to 
the  nearest  bog  or  ditch,  with  their  little  all,  and,  thus  huddled  to- 
gether, disease  soon  decimates  them. 

Notwithstanding  that  fearful,  and  (I  believe)  unparalleled  numbers 

1  Blue-book  No.  1089  :  Reports  and  Returns  relating  to  Evictions  in  the 
Kilrush  Union,  1849,  p.  45.  2  Ib.  43.  3  Ib.  p.  46. 


90  '  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

have  been  unhoused  in  this  union  within  the  year  (probably  15,000), 
it  seems  hardly  credible  that  1,200  more  have  had  their  dwellings 
levelled  within  a  fortnight. 

I  have  a  list  of  760  completed,  and  of  above  400  in  preparation. 
It  appears  to  me  almost  impossible  to  successfully  meet  such  a  state 
of  things  ;  and  the  prevailing  epidemic,  or  the  dread  of  it,  aggravates 
the  evil.  None  of  this  houseless  class  can  now  find  admittance,  save 
into  some  overcrowded  cabin,  whose  inmates  seldom  survive  a  month. 
I  have  shown  Dr.  Phelan  some  of  these  miserable  nests  of  pestilence, 
which  I  am  at  a  loss  to  describe. 

Five  families,  numbering  twenty  souls,  are  not  unfrequently  found 
in  a  cabin  consisting  of  one  small  apartment.  At  Doonbeg,  a  few 
days  since,  I  found  three  families,  numbering  sixteen  persons,  one  of 
whom  had  cholera,  and  three  in  a  hopeless  stage  of  dysentery.  The 
cabin  they  occupied  consisted  of  one  wretched  apartment  about 
twelve  feet  square.  It  was  one  of  the  few  refuges  for  the  evicted, 
and  they  were  unable  to  reckon  how  many  had  been  carried  out  of 
it  from  time  to  time  to  the  grave.' * 

There  are  one  or  two  further  extracts  which  illustrate 
very  forcibly  the  working  of  the  land  system.  Thus,  the 
following  extracts  from  Captain  Kennedy's  report  show  the 
manner  in  which  the  excessive  competition  for  land  brought 
up  prices  far  beyond  their  value  and  far  beyond  the  capacity 
of  the  tenant  to  pay  : — 

Hundreds  of  instances  occur  where  an  acre  of  land  worth  i$s.  is 
let  for  3/.,  and  the  occupier,  in  default  of  full  payment,  bound  to  give 
140  days'  labour  to  his  lessor  during  spring  and  harvest,  when  the 
occupier  himself  requires  them  most ;  this  would  (valuing  his  labour 
at  M.  per  day)  amount  to  4/.  ly.2 

The  farmer,  oppressed  himself,  naturally  acted  in  like 
manner  with  regard  to  the  labourer : — 

The  same  system  obtains  as  to  the  letting  of  cabins  ;  100  or  120 
days'  labour,  during  the  only  period  the  wretched  labourer  would 
earn,  is  exacted  for  a  cabin  worth  perhaps  js.  6d.  a  year. 

The  occupiers,  having  thus  pauperised  the  labouring  class,  get 
their  work  done  for  nothing,  and  complain  of  rates.  I  think  I  could 
show  that  the  sum  required  to  keep  the  paupers  in  this  union  would, 

'  Blue-book  No.  1089  :  Reports  and  Returns  relating  to  Evictions  in  the 
Kilrush  Union,  1849,  p.  46.  2  /^  p>  4> 


THE    GREAT    CLEARANCES  91 

if  expended  in  labour,  keep  the  people  and  pay  20  per  cent. 
Employment  or  wages  there  is  none. 

The  farmers  and  occupiers  in  the  neighbourhood  take  advantage 
of  these  occurrences,  get  their  labour  done  in  exchange  for  food 
alone  to  the  member  of  the  family  he  employs,  till  absolute  starva- 
tion brings  the  mother  and  helpless  children  to  the  workhouse. 
This  is  the  history  of  hundreds.1 

I  can,  even  in  the  neighbourhood  of  a  town,  procure  the  services 
of  a  good  able-bodied  labourer  for  his  food  alone.2 

And  here  is  a  definition  of  an  able-bodied  labourer  that 
suggests  curious  reflections  : — 

.  .  .  There  are  but  few  who  realise  any  idea  of  an  able-bodied 
labourer  ;  the  great  mass  of  them  are  called  so,  more  in  relation  to 
their  years  than  their  physical  power,  or  in  contradistinction  to 
those  who  are  in  the  last  stage  of  disease  or  existence.  Men  are  called 
able-bodied  here  who  would  not  be  so  designated  elsewhere.3 

Then,  as  to  the  action  of  the  landlord,  here  are  two  ex- 
tracts which  give  a  curious  idea  of  his  feelings  and  conduct : — 

The  lands  have  been  already  literally  swept  for  rent.  I  fre- 
quently travel  fifteen  miles  without  seeing  five  stacks  of  grain  of  any 
kind  ;  all  threshed  and  sold.  Rent  has  seldom  or  ever  been  looked 
for  more  sharply,  and  levied  more  unsparingly,  than  this  year.4 

Of  the  proprietors  there  are  but  few  resident.  I  cannot  speak  of 
their  means  ;  I  only  know  that  there  has  not  been  any  amount  of 
poor  rate  levied  in  this  union  seriously  to  injure  them  ;  no  more 
than  any  man  of  common  humanity  ought  voluntarily  to  bestow  in 
disastrous  times.  That  they  are,  generally  speaking,  embarrassed,  I 
fear  is  a  melancholy  truth,  and  goes  far  to  account  for  the  existing 
want  of  employment  and  consequent  destitution.5 

The  result  of  these  wholesale  clearances  was  to  extort 
from  Parliament  an  Act  which  compelled  the  landlord  to 
give  forty-eight  hours  notice  to  the  Poor  Law  guardians  of 
his  district,  so  that  they  might  be  able  to  make  provision  for 
giving  food  and  shelter  to  those  whom  his  eviction  had  left 
starving  and  homeless.  The  Act  was  called  '  An  Act  for  the 
protection  and  relief  of  the  destitute  poor  evicted  from  their 

1  Blue-book  No.  1089  :    Reports  and   Returns  relating    to  Evictions  in  the 
Kilrush  Union,  1849,  p.  5.  2  2b.  p.  36. 

8  &  P.  44-  *  Ib.  *  Ib.  pp.  44,  45. 


92  -THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

dwellings  in  Ireland.'  There  is  no  Act  of  the  Legislature 
which  throws  so  ghastly  a  light  on  the  social  condition  of 
Ireland.  The  first  section  enacts  that  notice  of  an  eviction 
must  be  given  forty-eight  hours  before  to  the  relieving 
officers,  and  prohibits  evictions  two  hours  before  sunset  or 
sunrise,  and  on  Christmas  Day  and  Good  Friday !  The 
seventh  section  made  the  pulling  down,  demolition,  or  un- 
roofing of  the  house  of  a  tenant  about  to  be  evicted  a  mis- 
demeanour. The  fact  that  such  an  Act  could  be  passed 
through  two  Houses  of  Parliament  in  either  of  which  the 
landlord  interest  was  predominant  is  the  strongest  evidence 
of  the  dread  condition  of  things  then  existing  in  Ireland. 
But  even  the  merciful  provisions  of  this  extraordinary  Act, 
small  as  they  were,  the  landlords  and  their  agents  managed 
to  evade.  The  correspondence  between  Captain  Kennedy 
and  the  Poor  Law  Commissioners  abounds  with  instances  of 
inquiries  with  regard  to  the  violation  of  the  law  in  this  respect. 
But  the  landlords  ultimately  found  out  the  way  in  which  the 
Act  might  be  evaded,  as  will  be  seen  from  the  following 
extract  from  the  Vice-Guardians'  Report,  dated  October  21, 
1848:— 

In  most  instances,  the  plan  adopted  by  the  landlords  has  been  to 
proceed  by  civil  bill  against  the  person  of  the  tenant,  and,  on  his 
being  arrested,  to  discharge  him  from  gaol  on  his  having  the  house 
thrown  down,  and  possession  given  to  landlord  by  the  remainder  of 
his  family,  or  by  his  friends  ;  in  other  cases,  a  small  sum  is  given  to 
the  tenant,  and  discharge  from  all  claim  of  rent,  on  the  house  being 
tin-own  down  and  possession  given  up.  In  both  these  cases,  the 
landlord  is  not  obliged  to  give  notice  ;  nor  does  he  incur  any  penalty, 
as  no  ejectment  or  legal  process  has  been  instituted  for  the  recovery 
of  the  lands  and  premises,  and  the  object  intended  by  the  Act,  'to 
allow  preparation  to  be  made  for  the  reception  or  subsistence  of  the 
families,'  is  totally  defeated.1 

As  Captain  Kennedy  observed  2 : — 

It  may  be  asked  why  the  occupier  submits  to  what  is  illegal  ? 
The  answer  is,  simply,  that  the  great  mass  are  tenants-at-will,  and 
dare  not  resist  ;  and  on  many  properties  notice  to  quit  is  served 

1  Blue-book  No.  1089  :  Reports  and  Returns  relating  to  Evictions  in  the 
Kilrush  Union,  1849,  P-  30.  2  lb.  p.  5. 


THE   GREAT    CLEARANCES  93 

every  six  months,  to  enable  the  lessor  to  turn  out  the  occupiers  when 
he  pleases.     This  is  a  ruinous  system,  and  one  much  complained  of. 

An  extract  from  the  report  of  Mr.  Phelan,  one  of  the  Poor 
Law  officials,  dated  May  16,  1849,  shows  even  more  plainly 
than  do  the  many  extracts  from  Captain  Kennedy  that  it  was 
eviction  rather  than  famine  and  fever  which  was  accountable 
for  this  horrible  state  of  the  people.  He  says  : — 

I  have,  in  many  of  the  western  and  southern  unions,  seen  sights 
of  the  most  harrowing  description,  but  I  do  not  think  that  I  have 
ever  seen  so  much  wretchedness  arising  from  destitution  as  in  these 
places  in  1847-48.  Epidemic  fever  and  dysentery,  produced,  it  is  true, 
in  considerable  measure  by  want,  caused  great  misery ;  but  here,  in 
the  absence  of  fever  and  of  dysentery,  except  that  arising  from  want 
of  food,  destitution,  although  endeavoured  to  be  met  by  indoor  and 
outdoor  relief,  has  assumed  a  shape  which  even  in  Clifden  was  not, 
I  think,  presented.  Families  are  here  literally  naked,  and  at  the  same 
time  progressing  surely  and  quickly  to  the  grave  by  diarrhoea  and 
dropsy. l 

EXTRACT  FROM  REPORT  OF  CAPTAIN  KENNEDY. 

May  7,  1849.— In  a  cow-shed  adjoining  this  wretched  cabin,  I 
found  '  Ellen  Lynch '  lying  in  an  almost  hopeless  stage  of  dysentery. 
She  had  been  carried  thither  by  her  son  when  '  thrown  out '  of  her 
miserable  lodging,  and  was  threatened  with  momentary  expulsion  from 
even  this  refuge  by  the  philanthropic  owner  of  it;  her  only  safety 
rested  in  the  fears  of  all  but  her  son  to  approach  her.  I  was  ankle- 
deep  in  manure  while  standing  beside  her.  This  poor  woman  is 
nearly  related  to  an  elective  member  of  the  Ennis  Board  of  Guardians, 
and  also  to  one  of  the  late  Kilrush  Board.  Her  husband  had  been 
lately  evicted  and  died.  I  had  all  conveyed  to  the  workhouse.  They 
were  all  in  receipt  of  out-relief,  and  had  even  got  medical  assistance. 

While  inspecting  a  stone-breaking  depot  a  few  days  since,  I  observed  j 
one  of  the  men  take  off  his  remnant  of  a  pair  of  shoes  and  started  / 
across  the  fields;  I  followed  him  with  my  eye,  and  at  a  distance  saw  ' 
the  blaze  of  a  fire  in  the  bog.     I  sent  a  boy  to  inquire  the  cause  of 
it,  and  the  man  running  from  his  work,  and  was  told  that  his  house 
had  been  levelled  the  day  before,  that  he  had  erected  a  temporary 
hut  on  the  lands,  and  while  his  wife  and  children  were  gathering  shell- 
fish on  the  strand,  and  he  stone-breaking,  the  bailiff  or  *  driver '  fired 

1  Blue-book  No.  1089  :  Reports  and  Returns  relating  to  Evictions  in  the 
Kilrush  Union,  1849,  p.  47. 


94  .THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

it.     These  ruthless  acts  of  barbarity  are  submitted  to  with  an  unre- 
sisting patience  hardly  credible.1 

EXTRACT  FROM  MR.  PHELAN'S  REPORT. 

May  1 6,  1849.—  .  .  .  Many  of  these  wretched  creatures  have 
not  the  benefit  of  a  one-roomed  house,  nor  even  of  a  hut.  I  felt  it 
my  duty  to  go  into  several  temporary  shelters  got  up  on  the  road- 
side, in  fields  and  in  bogs,  which  shelters  were  merely  a  few  hurdles 
thrown  across  from  the  ground  to  the  ditch  or  wall,  with  some  loose 
straw  or  rushes  or  scraws  laid  on.  These  places  can  only  be  entered 
on  hands  and  knees;  the  utmost  height  is  not  above  three  feet,  even 
a  boy  or  girl  cannot  stand  up  in  them;  yet  I  found  a  family  of  four 
or  five  in  these  places,  usually  all  or  most  sick.  But  in  some  I  have 
found  the  children  naked  in  bed,  the  mother  gone  for  the  'relief,'  and 
the  father  'stone-breaking.'2 

In  order  to  make  the  picture  complete,  I  will  give  some 
few  names  from  the  nominal  lists  of  the  evicted  which 
Captain  Kennedy  was  in  the  habit  of  appending  to  his  re- 
ports, with  the  observations  made  upon  them.  (Pp.  95-100). 

Such  is  the  picture  of  Irish  landlordism  drawn  by  the  pen 
of  a  Crown  official  in  the  days  of  Ireland's  supreme  agony. 

And  now  for  the  second  part  of  the  inquiry.  What  were 
the  Government  doing  ?  They  were  not  ignorant  of  what 
was  going  on  in  Ire'and.  If  official  reports  could  have  spared 
the  country  any  misery,  there  were  enough  reports  to  have 
defeated  the  worst  efforts  of  famine  ;  and  Parliament,  besides, 
was  being  constantly  reminded  by  debates  of  what  was  going 
on.  The  great  clearances  were  the  subject  of  constant  and 
persistent  discussion,  and  Sir  Robert  Peel  was  far  more 
energetic  than  Lord  John  Russell  or  any  of  the  other  Liberal 
Ministers  in  denouncing  their  cruelty.  The  reports  of  Cap- 
tain Kennedy,  from  which  extracts  have  just  been  given, 
supplied  him  with  material  for  making  a  strong  speech  upon 
these  evictions.  '  I  must  say,'  he  remarked,  '  that  I  do  not 
think  that  the  records  of  any  country,  civil  or  barbarous, 
present  materials  for  such  a  picture  as  is  set  forth  in  the 
statement  of  Captain  Kennedy.'  Then  the  Conservative 

1  Blue-book  No.  1089  :  Reports  and  Returns  relating  to  Evictions  in  the 
Kllrusa  Union,  1849,  p.  47.  2  2b.  p.  48. 


THE   GREAT   CLEARANCES 


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John  O'Neill  . 

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•     THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


1 

Observations 

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O  ^  vo\O   t^             t-»        00    O 

THE   GREAT   CLEARANCES  101 

leader  takes  up  some  of  the  instances  which  stand  out  in    / 
relief  even  in  this  catalogue  of  horrors.     These  are  the  cases  j 
of  the  two  children  lying  asleep  on  the  corpse  of  their  dead  i 
father  while  their  mother  was  dying  fast  of  dysentery  ;   the   < 
case  of   Ellen  Lynch  (Captain    Kennedy's    report,   see  ante, 
p.  93) ;  and  the  case  of  the  man  who  ran  away  from  breaking   i 
stones  when  he  saw  the  fire  put  to  the  hovel  in  which  he  had  ; 
placed  his  wife  and  children  (Captain  Kennedy's  report,  see 
ante,  pp.  93-4).     '  Three  such  tragical  instances/  he  went  on, 
'  I  do  not  believe  were  ever  presented  either  in  point  of  fact, 
or  as  conjured  up  even  in  the  imagination  of  any  human  I 
being.' l 

It  is  in  a  speech  of  Sir  Robert  Peel,  too,  that  one  finds 
another  of  the  worst  cases  of  eviction  in  this  period  disin- 
terred from  the  voluminous  reports  in  the  Blue-books.  It  is 
the  case  of  an  eviction  by  a  man  named  Blake — a  justice  of 
the  peace  in  Galway.  Quoting  the  account  given  by  Major 
McKie — an  official  employed  like  Captain  Kennedy  by  the 
Poor  Law  Commissioners  -Sir  Robert  Peel  said  :  '  It  would 
appear  from  the  evidence  recorded  that  the  forcible  ejectments 
were  illegal,  that  previous  notices  had  not  been  served,  and 
that  the  ejectments  were  perpetrated  under  circumstances  of 
great  cruelty.  The  time  chosen  was  for  the  greater  part 
nightfall  on  the  eve  of  the  New  Year.  The  occupiers  were 
forced  out  of  their  houses  with  their  helpless  children,  and 
left  exposed  to  the  cold  on  a  bleak  western  shore  in  a  stormy 
winter's  night  ;  that  some  of  the  children  were  sick  ;  that  the 
parents  implored  that  they  might  not  be  exposed,  and  their 
houses  left  till  morning  ;  that  their  prayers  for  mercy  were  in 
vain,  and  that  many  of  them  have  since  died.  "  I  have  visited 
the  ruins  of  these  huts  (not  at  any  great  distance  from  Mr. 
Blake's  residence)  ;  I  found  that  many  of  the  unfortunate 
people  were  still  living  within  the  ruins  of  these  huts,  en- 
deavouring to  shelter  themselves  under  a  few  sticks  and  sods, 
all  in  the  most  wretched  state  of  destitution  ;  many  were  so  ' 
weak  that  they  could  scarcely  stand  when  giving  their  evi-  ; 
dence.  The  site  of  these  ruins  is  a  rocky  wild  spot  fit  for  ' 
nothing  but  a  sheep-walk."  '2 

1  Hansard,  June  8,  1849.  2  Ib. 


102  'THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

It  will  be  seen  from  these  extracts  that  Parliament  was 
perfectly  familiar  with  the  horrible  intensity  of  the  problem 
that  demanded  redress  ;  and  again  the  story  is  that  Parliament 
did  nothing,  or  worse  than  nothing. 

The  expulsion  of  bankrupt  landlords  appeared  for  a  time 
to  commend  itself  to  the  minds  of  English  statesmen  as  the 
one  remedy  required.  This  led  to  the  passage  of  the  En- 
cumbered Estates  Act  in  1848.  The  object  of  this  Act  was 
to  enable  the  estates  of  landlords  to  be  sold,  in  spite  of  the 
elaborate  machinery  by  which  the  feudal  laws  of  the  country 
guarded  against  alienation.  Under  the  operation  of  this  Act 
some  of  the  most  ancient  families  of  Ireland  were  driven  from 
their  properties.  Here  again  the  land  legislation  devised  by 
the  British  Parliament  proved  once  more  a  curse  to  the  land- 
lord as  to  the  tenant.  The  landlords,  forced  to  sell  at  a  time 
of  terrible  depression,  were  unable  to  get  anything  like  the 
true  value  of  their  lands.  Then  the  new  race  of  proprietors 
that  were  substituted  for  the  old  were  in  rare  cases  an  im- 
provement. They  came  from  the  shopkeeper  class  who  had 
amassed  money  in  trade  :  the  class  of  promoted  bourgeois 
does  not  shine  in  the  history  of  any  race  or  country,  and  in 
Ireland  it  is  made  by  the  circumstances  of  the  country, 
political  and  social,  a  peculiarly  odious  generation.  The  new 
landlords  were  more  insolent  than  the  old,  looked  on  the 
land  as  purely  an  investment,  almost  always  signalised  their 
advent  of  possession  by  an  increase  of  rent,  and  mercilessly 
evicted  when  the  tenant  at  last  found  the  struggle  between 
hunger  and  the  rack-rent  unequal.  To  the  class  of  new  pro- 
prietors, too,  we  owe  many  of  the  place-hunting  generation  of 
politicians — the  meanest,  most  unscrupulous,  and  most  pesti- 
lent race  of  politicians  that  ever  shamed  or  cursed  a  race. 

Finally  the  main  object  of  the  Encumbered  Estates  Act, 
and  of  much  other  legislation  of  the  period,  was  the  introduc- 
tion into  Ireland  of  a  new  element  of  proprietor.  It  was  one 
of  the  chief  dreams  of  that  period  that  the  Celtic  race  should 
be  replaced  by  the  sturdier  and  more  self-reliant  race  that 
populated  England  and  Scotland — the  assumption  being  of 
course  that  it  was  Irish  vice,  laziness,  and  incapacity,  and 
not  English  laws,  that  caused  the  hideous  breakdown  of  the 


THE    GREAT   CLEARANCES  103 

English  land  system  in  Ireland.  The  commencement  was  to 
be  made  with  the  landlords.  This  was  one  of  the  objects  of 
the  Encumbered  Estates  Act  ;  and  in  March  1850,  as  that 
Act  did  not  seem  to  fulfil  the  purpose,  another  bill  was 
introduced  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  land  debentures. 
*  They  had  devised  a  plan/  said  the  Solicitor-General  in 
introducing  the  measure,  '  which  he  hoped  would  induce 
capitalists  from  England  to  take  an  interest  in  the  sales.' 
And  Sir  Robert  Peel  himself  took  the  trouble  of  elaborating 
in  several  speeches  before  the  House  of  Commons  a  scheme 
for  a  new  plantation  of  Ireland  by  the  substitution  of  English 
and  Scotch  for  Irish  landlords. 

But  it  was  not  the  landlords  of  the  Celtic  race  that  were 
to  be  got  rid  of ;  these  the  country  could  very  well  afford  to 
do  without ;  and  possibly  a  generation  of  English  or  Scotch 
landlords  would  have  been  incapable  of  the  hideous  cruelty 
depicted  by  Captain  Kennedy  and  so  many  other  writers  of 
the  times  ;  it  required  the  training  in  centuries  of  unchecked 
racial  and  religious  ascendency,  through  which  the  Irish 
land  had  passed,  to  inure  their  hearts  to  such  revolting 
crimes.  It  was  apparently  the  desire  of  the  English  states- 
men of  that  period  to  get  rid  of  as  many  of  the  peasantry  of  the 
Celtic  race  as  possible.  In  these  days,  when  emigration  as  a 
panacea  for  all  evils  is  denounced  vehemently  by  so  frigid  a 
champion  of  popular  rights  as  Sir  William  Harcourt,  it  will 
scarcely  be  believed  that  after  all  the  ravages  of  hunger,  the 
decimation  through  fever,  the  terrible  emigration,  it  was  i 
deemed  that  the  true  remedy  for  Ireland  was  more  emigra-  : 
tion  !  Indeed,  the  unfitness  of  Ireland  for  the  Irish  race  and  i 
the  Irish  race  for  Ireland,  was  a  dogma  preached  with  some- 
thing like  the  fine  frenzy  of  a  new  revelation  in  those  days. 
'  Remove  Irishmen/  wrote  the  'Times'  (February  22,  1847), 
'  to  the  banks  of  the  Ganges  or  the  Indus,  to  Delhi,  Benares, 
or  Trincomalee,  and  they  would  be  far  more  in  their  element 
there  than  in  a  country  to  which  an  inexorable  fate  has  con- 
fined them'  A  select  committee  of  the  House  of  Lords  was 
equally  catholic  in  its  search  for  a  better  land  for  Irishmen 
than  the  land  which  had  given  them  birth.  They  relate  that 
they  had  taken  evidence  respecting  the  state  of  Ireland — 


io4  'THE  PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

Where?  the  reader  will  ask.  'In  British  North  American 
colonies  (including  Canada,  New  Brunswick,  Nova  Scotia, 
Newfoundland),  the  West  India  Islands,  New  South  Wales, 
Port  Philip,  South  Australia,  Van  Diemen's  Land,  and  New 
Zealand/  And  not  satisfied  with  this,  they  actually  apologise 
for  not  having  examined  other  countries  as  well.  '  The 
committee,'  says  the  Report  sorrowfully,  'are  fully  aware 
that  they  have  as  yet  examined  into  many  points  but  super- 
ficially, and  that  some — as,  for  example,  the  state  of  the 
British  possessions  in  Southern  Africa  and  in  the  territory  of 
Natal — have  not  yet  been  considered  at  all.'  *  The  important 
discoveries  of  Sir  T.  Mitchell  in  Australia  have  also  been  but 
slightly  noticed,'  is  added  with  a  final  sigh. 

An  association  consisting  of  six  peers  and  twelve  com- 
moners, styled  'The  Irish  Committee,'  also  devoted  itself 
very  earnestly  to  the  question  of  emigration.  In  this  Irish 
Committee  were  two  Englishmen — Mr.  Godley  and  Dr. 
Whately — the  latter  the  well-known  Archbishop  of  Dublin. 
Dr.  Whately 's  name  is  still  held  in  affectionate  and  respectful 
remembrance  by  many  people  in  England.  At  this  epoch, 
and,  as  will  be  seen,  still  more  in  a  subsequent  epoch  of  Irish 
history,  his  counsels  were  among  the  most  fatal  to  the  pro- 
sperity of  Ireland.  This  body  drew  out  an  elaborate  scheme 
under  which  a  million  and  a  half  of  the  Irish  people  were  to 
be  sent  to  Canada  at  a  cost  of  9,ooo,OOO/,,  which  was  to  be 
levied  in  the  shape  of  an  income  tax. 

But  all  this  time  the  idea  never  occurred  to  any  of  the 
English  leaders  that  there  should  be  the  slightest  interference 
with  the  power  of  the  landlords.  The  power  of  the  landlords 
had  been  the  main  cause  of  the  horrors  through  which 
Ireland  was  passing;  and  yet  the  landlords  were  to  be  left 
that  power.  The  mass  of  the  people  were  to  be  exported  to 
Canada  or  Australia,  to  Natal  or  Van  Diemen's  land — and 
the  country  was  to  be  delivered  entirely  to  their  lords  and 
in  asters.  The  land  of  Ireland  was  to  be  laid  waste  of  as 
many  of  six  millions  of  people  as  ten  thousand  landlords 
chose  to  condemn  to  banishment.  Such  was  the  theory  of 
the  time. 

The  Imperial  Parliament  continued  to  act  as  it  had  done 


THE   GREAT   CLEARANCES  105 

ever  since  the  Union.  Its  neglect  of  remedial  legislation  had 
rendered  the  famine  inevitable  ;  the  famine  had  come,  and 
the  neglect  went  on  just  the  same  as  before.  Lord  John 
Russell,  as  has  been  seen,  had  come  into  office  in  July  1846, 
and  naturally  there  were  hopes  then,  as  there  had  often  been 
before,  that  the  accession  of  a  Liberal  Minister  would  have 
brought  in  its  train  Liberal  measures. 

At  this  point  it  will  be  instructive  to  pause  for  a  moment, 
and  consider  the  action  not  only  of  the  Imperial  Parliament 
party  but  of  the  Liberal  leaders  in  particular.  Lord  John 
Russell,  as  has  been  seen,  had  got  into  office  on  the  rejection 
of  an  Irish  Coercion  Bill.  He  had  objected  to  the  Coercion 
Bill  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  not  merely  on  account  of  the  harshness 
of  its  provisions,  the  weakness  of  the  case  in  its  favour,  the 
sufficiency  of  the  ordinary  law  ;  his  chief  ground  of  objection 
was  that  Ireland  was  in  crying  need  of  remedial  legislation, 
and  that  no  Coercion  Bill  ought  to  be  considered  by  Parlia- 
ment unless  it  was  accompanied,  and  accompanied  even  stage 
by  stage,  by  remedial  proposals.  His  reference  to  the  ills  of 
Ireland  were  pitched  in  as  high  a  key  as  even  the  most 
vehement  of  Irish  repealers  could  have  wished.  He  had 
recapitulated  the  well-worn  evidence  before  the  multitudinous 
committees  which  in  drear  succession  had  inquired  into  the 
Irish  problem,  and  then  he  went  on  : — 

We  have  here  the  best  evidence  that  can  be  procured — the  evidence 
...  of  magistrates  for  many  years,  of  farmers,  of  those  who  have 
been  employed  by  the  Crown— and  all  tell  you  that  the  possession  of 
land  is  that  which  makes  the  difference  between  existing  and  starving 
amongst  the  peasantry,  and  that  therefore  ejections  out  of  their 
holdings  are  the  cause  of  violence  and  crime  in  Ireland.  In  fact,  it 
is  no  other  than  the  cause  which  the  Great  Master  of  human  nature 
describes  when  he  makes  a  tempter  suggest  it  as  a  reason  to  violate 
the  law. 

Then  he  quoted  Romeo's  address  to  the  Apothecary,  and 
went  on  : — 

Such  is  the  incentive  which  is  given  to  the  poor  Irish  peasant  to 
break  the  law,  which  he  considers  deprives  him  of  the  means,  not  of 
being  rich,  but  of  the  means  of  obtaining  a  subsistence.  On  this 
ground,  I  say,  then,  if  you  were  right  to  introduce  any  measure  to 


I06  •  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

repress  crime  beyond  the  ordinary  powers  of  the  law,  it  would  have 
been  right  at  the  same  time  to  introduce  other  measures  by  which  the 
means  of  subsistence  might  be  increased,  and  by  which  the  land  upon 
which  alone  the  Irish  peasant  subsists,  might  be  brought  more  within 
his  reach,  and  other  mode  of  occupation  allowed  to  him  more  than 
he  now  possesses.1 

So  strong  was  Lord  John  Russell  in  this  demand  for  the 
accompaniment  of  coercive  by  remedial  legislation  that  he  even 
wanted  that  the  two  classes  of  measures  should  go  on  side  by 
side,  stage  by  stage— either  both  or  none  should  be  accepted 
by  Parliament. 

I  know  (he  said),  indeed,  the  noble  lord  (the  Earl  of  Lincoln) 
has  introduced  within  the  last  two  or  three  days  measures  upon  a  very 
complicated  subject,- — the  law  of  landlord  and  tenant ;  but  I  think 
those  measures  should  have  been  introduced  at  the  same  time  with  the 
measure  now  before  the  House.  How  is  it  possible  for  this  House, 
upon  such  a  subject,  to  be  able  to  tell,  from  the  noble  lord's  enumera- 
tion of  them,  whether  upon  such  a  delicate  subject  such  measures  are 
sufficient  ? 2 

And  shortly  afterwards  he  declared  that,  while  he  opposed 
the  measure,  the  state  of  crime  did  not  supply  ( sufficient 
ground  for  passing  a  measure  of  extraordinary  severity.'  The 
reason,  '  above  all,'  of  his  hostility  was  that  the  Coercion  Bill 
had  '  not  been  accompanied  .  .  .  with  such  measures  of  relief, 
of  remedy,  and  conciliation,  affecting  the  great  mass  of  the 
people  of  Ireland,  who  are  in  distress,  as  ought  to  accompany 
any  measure  tending  to  increased  rigour  of  the  law'  3 

And  then  he  sketched  the  measures  by  which  the  con- 
dition of  the  peasantry  might  be  relieved.  He  proposed  a 
grant  for  the  reclamation  of  waste  lands,  and  he  proposed  a 
Bill  for  '  securing  at  the  same  time  the  lives  and  properties  of 
those  who  reside  on  the  land  '  ;  in  other  words,  a  scheme  of 
tenant  right.  If  such  measures  were  not  proposed  promptly, 
there  might  come  'a  dreadful  outbreak,  when,  indeed,  you 
will  hastily  resort  to  measures  of  remedy  and  conciliation, 
but  which  measures  will  lose  half  their  practical  effect  and 
almost  all  their  moral  effect.' 5 

1   Hansard,  Ixxxvii.  pp.  507-8.  2  Ib.  p.  508.  3  Ib,  p,  510. 

4  Ib.  p.  514.  s  Ib. 


THE    GREAT   CLEARANCES  107 

And  this  remarkable  speech  wound  up  with  an  exhor- 
tation in  favour  of  making  the  Union  acceptable  to  Irish- 
men, by  proving  that  the  Imperial  Legislature  was  as  anxious 
as  a  native  parliament  could  be  to  remedy  the  grievances  of 
Ireland.1 

Again  in  1847,  while  the  stress  of  the  famine  made  the 
neglect  of  Irish  reform  too  shameful  a  thing  for  even  the 
British  Parliament  to  stomach,  Lord  John  Russell  was  strongly 
in  favour  of  reform.  In  the  speech  at  the  beginning  of  the 
session,  in  which  he  proposed  the  Soup  Kitchen  Act,  he  de- 
clared that  there  was  urgent  necessity  for  some  permanent 
alteration  in  the  land  laws.  The  miseries  of  Ireland,  he  laid 
down  in  the  most  emphatic  language,  were  not  due  to  the 
character  of  the  soil. 

'  There  is  no  doubt,'  exclaimed  Lord  John  Russell,  '  of 
the  fertility  of  the  land  ;  that  fertility  has  been  the  theme  of 
admiration  with  writers 2  and  travellers  of  all  nations.' 

He  was  equally  emphatic  in  denying  that  these  miseries 
were  due  to  the  character  of  the  people. 

'  There  is  no  doubt  either,  I  must  say,  of  the  strength  and 
industry  of  the  inhabitants.  The  man  who  is  loitering  idly 
by  the  mountain-side  in  Tipperary  or  in  Derry,  whose  potato- 
plot  has  furnished  him  merely  with  occupation  for  a  few 
days  in  the  year,  whose  wages  and  whose  pig  have  enabled 
him  to  pay  his  rent  and  eke  out  afterwards  a  miserable  sub- 
sistence— that  man,  I  say,  may  have  a  brother  in  Liverpool, 
or  Glasgow,  or  London,  who  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow,  from 
morning  to  night,  is  competing  with  the  strongest  and  steadiest 
labourer  of  England  and  Scotland,  and  is  earning  wages 
equal  to  any  of  them. 

' I  do  not,  sir,  therefore  think,'  wound   up    Lord     John 

1  '  If  you  wish  to  maintain  the  Union — if  you  wish  to  improve  the  Union,  to 
make  the  Union  a  source  of  happiness,  a  source  of  increased  rights,  a  source 
of  blessing  to  Ireland  as  well  as   England,  a  source  of  increased  strength  to  the 
United  Empire,  beware  lest  you  in  any  way  weaken   the  link  which  connects 
the  two  countries.     Do   not  let  the  people  of  Ireland  believe  that  you  have 
no  sympathy  with  their  afflictions,  no  care  for  their  wrongs,  that  you  are  intent 
only  upon  other  measures  in  which  they  have  no  interest.' — Hansard,  Ixxxvii. 
p.  516. 

2  Quoted  in  O'Rourke,  p.  322. 


Icg  .THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

Russell  emphatically,  '  that   either  the  fertility  of  the  soil  of 
Ireland  or  the  strength  and  industry  of  its  inhabitants  is  at 

fault'  ! 

Earl  Grey,  another  eminent  Whig,  was  equally  outspoken 
in  his  declarations.  Like  Lord  John  Russell,  he  had  declared 
against  coercion  unaccompanied  by  remedial  measures.  He 
enumerated  that  long  list  of  Coercion  Acts  which  I  have 
already  set  forth,2  winding  up  with  the  Insurrection  Act, 
passed  in  1833,  renewed  in  1834,  and  but  five  years  expired. 
'  And  again,'  he  said,  '  in  1846,  we  are  called  on  to  renew  it. 
We  must  look  further,'  continued  his  lordship  ;  '  we  must  look 
to  the  root  of  the  evil ;  the  state  of  the  law  and  the  habits  of 
the  people,  in  respect  to  the  occupation  of  the  land,  are  almost 
at  the  roots  of  the  disorder  ;  it  was  undeniable  that  the  clear- 
ance system  prevailed  to  a  great  extent  in  Ireland  ;  and  that 
such  things  could  take  place,  he  cared  not  how  large  a  popula- 
tion might  be  suffered  to  grow  up  in  a  particular  district,  was 
a  disgrace  to  a  civilised  country.'  3 

In  1848  the  famine  had  not  passed  away.  As  has  been 
seen,  the  succeeding  year  was  the  very  worst  in  the  century, 
except  1847.  But  the  British  people  and  the  Imperial  Par- 
liament had  by  this  time  grown  accustomed  to  the  deaths  of 
thousands  by  starvation  and  plague  in  Ireland  as  a  thing  of 
little  meaning,  though  the  sound  was  strong,  and  Lord  John 
Russell  entirely  changed  his  tune.  He  met  every  demand 
for  reform  with  an  uncompromising  negative.  The  Irish 
tenants  had  no  grievances  to  speak  of— self-reliance,  industry, 
that  is  what  they  should  rely  on. 

While  (said  Lord  John  Russell)  I  admit  that,  with  respect  to  the 
franchise  and  other  subjects,  the  people  of  Ireland  may  have  just 
grounds  of  complaint,  I,  nevertheless,  totally  deny  that  their  griev- 
ances are  any  sufficient  reason  why  they  should  not  make  very  great 
progress  in  wealth  and  prosperity,  if,  using  the  intelligence  which  they 
possess  in  a  remarkable  degree,  they  would  fix  their  minds^  on  the 
advantages  which  they  might  enjoy  rather  than  upon  the  evils  which 
they  suppose  themselves  to  suffer  under.4 

Then  he  made  allusion  to  a  Bill  which  had  been  brought 

1  Quoted  in  O'Rourke,  p.  322.  2  See  ante. 

3  Quoted  in  Mitchel,  ii.  p.  228.  <  Hansard,  C.,  p.  943. 


THE   GREAT   CLEARANCES  109 

in  by  Sir  William  Somerville,  the  Chief  Secretary,  for  dealing 
with  the  Land  question.  Its  proposals  were  indeed  modest. 
It  gave  compensation  to  tenants  for  permanent  improve- 
ments ;  but  those  improvements  had  to  be  made  with  the 
consent  of  the  landlords,  and  it  was  not  proposed  that 
the  Bill  should  be  retrospective. 

But  modest  as  these  proposals  were,  it  did  not  gain  the 
full  approval  of  the  Prime  Minister,  and  they  did  not  secure 
the  safety  of  the  Bill.  '  I  have  yielded  my  own  conviction,' 
said  Lord  John  Russell,  '  to  what  appears  to  be  the  universal 
opinion.  I  think  we  have  gone  as  far  as  we  can  with  respect 
to  that  subject5  But  whether  the  Premier  had  gone  far 
enough  or  not  did  not  much  matter  ;  for  '  there  will  not/  said 
he, '  be  time  to  pass  it  during  the  present  session,  and  there- 
fore it  will  be  postponed.' l 

To  any  such  proposal  as  fixity  of  tenure  the  Liberal  Prime 
Minister  could  offer  his  strongest  hostility.  '  The  Tenant 
Right  advocated  by  the  honourable  member ' — Mr.  Sharman 
Crawford,  who  had  introduced  a  motion  calling  for  the  redress 
of  the  grievances  of  the  Irish  tenantry — '  would  amount  to  this, 
that  the  tenant  in  possession  has  a  right  to  the  occupation  of 
the  land  provided  he  pay  his  rent  punctually.  Can  anything 
be  more  completely  subversive  of  the  rights  of  property.  .  .  .  ? 
It  is  impossible  for  the  Legislature,  with  any  regard  for  justice, 
to  pass  such  a  law  ;  and  if  such  a  law  were  passed  for  Ireland, 
it  would  strike  at  the  root  of  property  in  the  whole  United 
Kingdom.' 

And,  finally,  he  concluded  with  this  proposal  for  the  solu> 
tion  of  the  great  Irish  Land  problem  :— 

But,  after  all  (said  Lord  John  Russell),  that  which  we  should  look 
to  for  improving  the  relations  between  landlord  and  tenant  is  a  better 
mutual  understanding  between  those  who  occupy  those  relative 
positions.  Voluntary  agreements  between  landlords  and  tenants, 
carried  out  for  the  benefit  of  both,  are,  after  all,  a  better  means  of 
improving  the  land  of  Ireland  than  any  legislative  measure  which  can 
be  passed.2 

The  '  better  mutual  understanding '  on  which  the  Prime 

1  Hansard,  C.,  p.  945.  2  Ib.  p.  945. 


110  "   THE   PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

Minister  relied  for  an  improvement  in  the  relations  of  land- 
lord and  tenant  at  this  moment  was  hounding  the  landlords 
to  carry  on  those  wholesale  clearances  which  have  been 
described  in  the  words  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  Captain 
Kennedy  ;  which,  in  the  opinion  of  Earl  Grey,  were  '  a  dis- 
grace to  a  civilised  country '  ;  which  had  been  denounced 
over  and  over  again  by  Lord  John  Russell  himself;  and 
which,  in  the  opinion  of  most  men,  remain  as  one  of  the 
blackest  records  in  all  history  of  man's  inhumanity  to  man. 
In  the  year  following  the  exhortation  of  the  Prime  Minister 
to  voluntary  agreements  '  for  the  benefit  of  both,'  the  landlords 
had  evicted,  according  to  some  authorities,  no  less  than  half  a 
million  of  tenants  from  their  estates. 

As  the  Ministers  were  opposed  to  any  land  legislation, 
no  success  naturally  attended  the  efforts  of  private  members 
to  deal  with  the  question. 

Two  other  facts  must  also  be  recollected  in  connection  with 
this  period.  The  final  split  between  Young  Ireland  and 
O'Connell  was  precipitated,  it  will  be  remembered,  by  the 
attitude  which  O'Connell  insisted  on  taking  up  towards  the 
Whig  ministry.  The  Young  Irelanders  maintained  that  the 
Irish  party  should  hold  towards  Russell  the  same  independent 
attitude  as  had  been  taken  up  towards  the  Tory  ministry  of 
Peel,  that  the  repeal  agitation  should  be  continued,  and  that 
the  nominees  of  the  Whig  ministry,  like  Sheil,  should  meet 
the  same  opposition  as  all  other  opponents  of  repeal  and 
all  other  British  office-holders.  O'Connell's  main  argument 
against  these  demands  of  the  Young  Irelanders  were  the  good 
intentions  and  the  promises  of  Lord  John  Russell  ;  and  he 
over  and  over  again  asserted  that  the  Whig  ministry  would 
pass  measures  of  reform  for  Ireland,  among  others,  of  course, 
a  Bill  of  Tenant  Right.  The  Young  Irelanders  would  not 
place  the  same  faith  in  Whig  promises  as  O'Connell,  the 
organisation  was  broken  up,  O'Connell's  power  was  de- 
stroyed, the  Irish  people  were  divided  and  impotent  in  face 
of  the  most  awful  crisis  in  their  history,  and  O'Connell  died 
of  a  broken  heart.  And  here  was  Lord  John  Russell,  on 
whom  O'Connell  had  placed  his  reliance,  to  whose  good  faith 
O'Connell  sacrificed  his  party  and  himself  and  his  country, 


THE   GREAT   CLEARANCES  ill 

justifying  the  very  worst  predictions  of  the  Young  Irelanders, 
wrecking  the  hopes  and  blasting  the  lives  of  the  Irish  nation. 
It  is  the  second  great  occasion,  described  in  these  pages,  of 
an  Irish  leader  placing  confidence  in  a  Liberal  minister.  In 
each  case  the  result  was  exactly  the  same  ;  the  trust  was 
betrayed,  openly,  shamelessly,  heartlessly.  Further  instances 
.will  be  found  in  the  following  pages  where  the  Irish  people, 
untaught  by  their  experiences,  again  placed  their  faith  in  the 
Whig  party,  and  again  found  that  they  relied  on  a  rotten 
reed. 

Furthermore,  it  will  be  remembered  that  the  great  point 
of  dispute  between  the  Young  Irelanders  and  John  O'Connell 
in  the  General  Election  of  1847  was  whether  the  Irish  party 
should  consist  of  men  pledged  to  accept  no  office  from  a 
British  minister,  and  bound  to  a  policy  of  independence  alike 
of  Whig  and  Tory.  John  O'Connell  maintained  that  such  a 
pledge  was  unnecessary,  and  succeeded  in  defeating  the 
Young  Irelanders  hip  and  thigh.  The  fruit  was  now  showing 
itself.  The  Whig  minister  was  able  to  answer  with  flouts 
and  jibes  and  sneers  to  every  demand  for  justice,  for  he  had 
nothing  to  fear  from  a  party  of  beggars  and  adventurers  who 
daily  besieged  his  doors  with  petitions  for  themselves  or  their 
friends.  This  is  the  fact  that  explains  the  brutal  and  shame- 
ful tergiversation  of  the  British  Premier,  that  lies  at  the 
foundation  of  the  rejection  of  all  the  Irish  demands  for  a 
redress  of  the  grievances  that  had  already  shorn  the  nation 
of  two  millions  and  a  half  of  her  people,  and  that  in  the  next 
decade  was  to  reduce  the  population  by  still  another  million. 
Faith  in  Whig  promises— a  dependent  Irish  party — these 
were  the  chief  parents  of  these  disasters. 

Let  us  continue  the  dreary  chapter  of  Land  proposals  in 
the  House  of  Commons. 

On  February  25,  1847,  Mr.  Sharman  Crawford  brought  in 
a  Bill  proposing  to  extend  to  the  rest  of  Ireland  the  tenant- 
right  custom  which  existed  in  Ulster.  So  little  did  the 
Ministers  think  of  the  importance  of  this  proposal  that  not  a 
single  member  of  the  Cabinet  was  present  when  the  Bill  was 
proposed  ;  and  after  the  debate  had  been  adjourned,  it  was 
rejected  by  the  decisive  majority  of  112  to  25.  In  February 


U2  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

1848,  Sir  William   Somerville,  Chief  Secretary   for  Ireland, 
introduced  a  Bill  dealing   with  the   question.      The    fate  of 
that  measure  has  just  been  indicated.     It  was  read  a  second 
time,  it  was  referred   to   a  select  committee,  and  the  select 
committee  had    not  time  to    report   before  the  close  of  the 
session.     In  the  same  year  (1848)  Mr.   Sharman    Crawford 
again    brought  in     his  Bill.       It    was    denounced     by    Mr. 
Trelawney,   an    English    member,    as    a    measure    of  confis- 
cation.    Sir  William    Somerville  demolished  the  suggestion 
of  extending  the  tenure  of  Ulster  to  the  rest  of  Ireland  by 
the  epigram  that  the  Ulster  custom  was  a  good  custom  but  a 
bad  law  ;  and  the  Bill  was  defeated.     On  July  23,  1849,  Mr. 
Horsman  moved  an  address  on  the  state  of  Ireland,  pointing 
out  that  that  country  was  now  entering  on  its  fourth  year  of 
famine,  and   that   sixty   per  cent,  of  its   population  were  in 
receipt  of  relief.     '  What  are  the  causes  which  have  produced 
such  results  ? '  asked  Mr.  Horsman.    *  Bad  legislation,  careless 
legislation,  criminal  legislation,  has  been  the  cause  of  all  the 
disasters  we  are  now  deploring/    But  bad  legislation,  careless 
legislation,  criminal  legislation  remained  untouched,  for  the 
debate  was  followed  by  no  measure.     In   1850  Sir  William 
Somerville  brought  in  another  Bill.     It  was  read  a  second 
time,  it  was  sent  into  committee,  and  then  it  was  no  longer 
heard    of.      On    June   10    in    the    same   year    Mr.    Sharman 
Crawford  again  brought  in  his  Bill,  and  again  was  defeated. 
On  April  8,  1851,  Sir  Henry  Barron  moved  for  a  committee 
'  to  inquire  into  the  state  of  Ireland,  and  more  especially  the 
best  means  for  amending   the  relationships  of  landlord  and 
tenant.'     But  Lord  John  Russell  would  hear  nothing  of  such 
a    resolution.     If  the   law   of  landlord    and    tenant   needed 
amendment,    said    the    Liberal     Prime   Minister,  the   proper 
course  to  be  taken  was  for  some  private  member  or  for  the 
Government  to  bring  in  a  Bill  on  the  subject,  not  to  raise  the 
question   by   way   of  a  resolution   of  a  character   so  vague. 
And   Lord  John  Russell   from   that  day  until  he  left  office 
never  brought  in  a  bill  himself  on  the  subject,  nor   supported 
a  Bill  brought  in  by  a  private  member. 

The  neglect  of  all  reform  in  the  land  tenure  of  Ireland  at 
this  epoch,  as  in  previous  epochs,  is  made  the  more  remark-  I 


THE    GREAT   CLEARANCES  113 

able  by  its  contrast  with  the  action  of  the  Legislature  in 
reference  to  demands  upon  its  attention  by  the  landlords. 
The  frightful  state  of  things  in  1847  naturally  produced  a 
considerable  amount  of  disturbance.  Many  of  the  tenants 
were  indecent  enough  to  object  to  being  robbed  of  their 
own  improvements  even  with  the  sanction  of  an  alien 
Parliament,  and  went  the  length  of  revolting  against  their 
wives  and  children  being  massacred  wholesale,  after  the 
fashion  described  in  Captain  Kennedy's  reports.  In  short,  the 
rent  was  in  danger,  and  in  favour  of  that  sacred  institution  all 
the  resources  of  British  law  and  British  force  were  promptly 
despatched.  The  Legislature  had  shown  no  hurry  whatever 
to  meet  in  '46  or  '47  when  the  question  at  issue  was  whether 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  Irish  tenantry  should  perish  of 
hunger  or  of  the  plague.  Parliament  came  together  at  the 
usual  time  in  1846,  and  at  the  usual  time  in  the  beginning  of 
1 847.  Now  Parliament  could  not  be  summoned  too  soon,  and  a 
Coercion  Bill  could  not  be  carried  with  too  much  promptitude. 
The  Coercion  Bill  of  Lord  John  Russell  and  of  1847  was  in 
all  essentials  the  Coercion  Bill  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  and  1846. 
There  were  powers  to  proclaim  districts  by  the  Lord-Lieu- 
tenant, and  when  a  district  was  proclaimed,  everybody  was 
obliged  to  stop  within  his  house  from  dusk  till  morning  under 
pain  of  transportation.  There  were  orders  for  the  delivery  of 
arms,  for  the  drafting  of  additional  police  into  districts,  and 
for  the  addition  of  the  burdens  thus  imposed  to  the  rates 
already  payable  by  the  starving  tenants. 

The  reader  will  not  fail  to  notice  the  abject  inconsistency 
between  the  action  of  Lord  John  Russell  and  the  other 
Liberal  leaders  in  opposition  and  in  power.  It  will  not  be 
necessary  to  recall  the  quotations  which  have  just  been  made 
from  the  speech  of  Lord  John  Russell  in  opposing  the 
Coercion  Bill  of  1846.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  while  in  1846 
he  had  objected  to  the  Coercion  Bill,  '  above  all '  because  it 
was  not  accompanied  with  measures  *  of  relief,  of  remedy, 
and  conciliation,'  and  that  he  had  gone  so  far  as  to  pledge 
himself  to  the  principle  that  some  such  proposals  ought  to  ac- 
company any  measure  which  tended  to  *  increased  rigour  of  the 
law,'  Lord  John  Russell  was  now  himself  proposing  a  measure 

I 


II4  -THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

for  greatly  '  increased  rigour  of  the  law,'  not  only  without 
accompanying  it  with  any  measure  of  '  relief,  of  remedy,  of 
conciliation'  on  his  own  part,  but  vehemently  opposing  any 
such  measure  when  brought  in  by  any  other  person.  Lord  Grey 
has  been  quoted  for  his  opinion  on  the  clearance  system,  and 
here  was  the  clearance  system  going  on  worse  than  ever,  and 
Lord  Grey  remaining  a  member  of  the  Ministry  which  through 
Coercion  gave  that  clearance  system  an  enormous  impetus. 

The  police  at  the  same  time  were  urged  to  unusual 
activity,  and  large  bodies  of  the  military  even  were  pressed 
into  the  service  of  the  landlords,  seized  the  produce  of  the 
fields,  carried  them  to  Dublin  for  sale— acted  in  every  respect 
as  the  collectors  of  the  rent  of  the  landlord,  and  thus  shared 
with  the  landlord  the  honour  of  starving  the  tenants. 

A  second  contrast  between  the  acceptance  of  remedial 
and  coercive  legislation  by  the  Imperial  Parliament  occurred 
in  1848.  A  number  of  Irishmen,  as  has  been  seen,  driven  to 
madness  by  the  dreadful  suffering  they  everywhere  saw 
around,  and  by  the  neglect  or  incapacity  of  Parliament,  had 
sought  the  desperate  remedy  of  open  revolt.  The  men  who, 
for  wrongs  much  less  grievous,  rose  in  the  same  year  in 
Hungary  or  France  or  Italy  were  the  idols  of  the  British 
people,  and  were  aided  and  encouraged  by  British  statesmen. 
Their  action  towards  Ireland  was  to  pass  a  brand-new  Treason 
Felony  Act,  and  to  suspend  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act.  The 
circumstances  under  which  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  was 
suspended  are  very  instructive. 

'  The  next  day,  although,  being  Saturday,  it  was  out  of  course 
for  the  House  of  Commons  to  sit,'  says  the  'Annual  Register/  l 
Parliament  came  together.  Lord  John  Russell  brought  forward 
his  Bill.  Sir  Robert  Peel  at  once'  gave  his  cordial  support  to 
the  proposed  measure.' 2  Mr,  Disraeli  '  declared  his  intention 
of  giving  the  measure  of  government  his  unvarying  and  un- 
equivocal support.' 3  Mr.  Hume  was  *  obliged,  though  reluc- 
tantly, to  give  his  consent  to  the  measure  of  the  Government.' 4 
And  when  the  division  came,  there  were  for  the  amendment 
against  the  Bill  proposed  by  Mr.  Sharman  Crawford  8  votes, 
and  for  the  first  reading  of  the  Bill  27 1.5  But  this  was  only 

1    Annual  Register -for  1848,  p.  100.  2  Jb.  p.  102. 

8  16.  p.  105.  4  Ib.  p.  106.  5  Ib.  p.  107. 


THE   GREAT   CLEARANCES  115 

the  beginning  of  the  good  day's  work.  Lord  John  Russell 
said  that,  '  as  the  House  had  expressed  so  unequivocally  its 
feeling  in  favour  of  the  Bill,  it  would  doubtless  permit  its 
further  stages  to  be  proceeded  with  instanter.  He  moved 
the  second  reading.' l  Of  course  the  House  permitted  the 
further  stages  to  be  proceeded  with  instanter,  and  the  Bill, 
having  passed  through  Committee,  '  Lord  Russell  moved 
the  third  reading,'  which  was  agreed  to,  '  and  the  Bill  was 
forthwith  taken  up  to  the  House  of  Lords.'  '  On  the  next  day 
but  one,  Monday,  July  26,'  goes  on  the  'Annual  Register/  '  the 
Bill  was  proposed  by  the  Marquis  of  Lansdownc,  who  con- 
cluded his  speech  in  its  favour  by  moving  "  That  the  public 
safety  requires  that  the  Bill  should  be  passed  with  all  possible 
despatch." '  Of  course  the  motion  was  accepted  by  their 
Lordships  £  that  the  Bill  should  be  passed  with  all  possible 
despatch.'  Lord  Brougham  'cordially  seconded  the  motion 
of  Lord  Lansdowne,'  and,  as  the  '  Record  '  winds  up,  '  the  Bill 
passed  nem.  dis.  through  all  its  stages.' 

Such  was  the  action  of  the  Imperial  Parliament  upon  the 
Irish  question.  The  reader  will  not  forget  that  in  the  year 
up  to  which  I  have  now  brought  the  story  of  legislation  upon 
the  land  question,  Ireland  was  perfectly  tranquil.  The  agita- 
tion for  Repeal,  which  had  reached  such  mighty  and  appar- 
ently resistless  proportions  in  1843,  had  vanished  amid  dissen- 
sions, hunger,  fever,  emigration,  and  a  vast  multitude  of 
corpses.  The  upholders  of  the  Legislative  Union  were  able 
to  look  abroad  on  the  face  of  Ireland,  and  to  rejoice  that 
sedition,  in  the  shape  of  the  demand  for  Repeal,  and  treason, 
'in  the  form  of  open  insurrection,  was  gone.  The  Imperial 
Parliament  was  unchecked  mistress  of  the  destinies  of  Ireland  ; 
and  this  was  how  it  was  fulfilling  its  mission. 

And  now,  having  described  the  Famine,  but  two  things 
remain  to  be  discussed.  Was  the  Famine  inevitable?  Or 
was  it  preventable  evil — evil  that  was  created  by  bad,  and 
that  could  have  been  prevented  by  good,  government  ? 

I  have  sufficiently  discussed  already  the  measures  which 
were  taken  by  the  English  Ministers  to  meet  the  calamity. 
I  think  most  impartial  men  will  see  in  the  results  which 

1  Annual  Register  for  1848,  p.  108. 

I  2 


ii6  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

followed  these  measures  a  dread  condemnation  of  these 
Ministers.  Most  persons  will  hold  that  a  civilised,  highly 
organised,  and  extremely  wealthy  government  ought  to  be 
able  to  meet  such  a  crisis  so  effectually  as  to  prevent  the  loss 
of  one  single  life  by  hunger.  In  the  present  generation, 
India  was  menaced  by  a  famine.  The  Marquis  of  Salisbury 
was  Secretary  for  India,  and  public  opinion  in  England 
demanded  of  him  that  not  one  of  our  Indian  fellow-subjects 
should  die  of  hunger  ;  and  not  one  did  die.  I  have  already 
alluded  to  the  language  in  which  some  Irish  writers  are 
accustomed  to  speak  of  the  action  and  intentions  of  the 
Government.  Their  theory  is  that  the  terrors  and  horrors  of 
the  Famine  were  the  result  of  a  deliberate  conspiracy  to 
murder  wholesale  an  inconvenient,  troublesome,  and  hostile 
nation.  Such  a  theory  may  be  rejected,  and  yet  leave  a 
heavy  load  of  guilt  on  the  Ministers.  In  political  affairs,  we 
have  to  look  not  so  much  to  the  intentions  as  to  the  results 
of  policies;  and  it  is  undeniable  that  in  1846  and  in  1847, 
there  were  as  many  deaths  as  if  the  deliberate  and  wholesale 
murder  of  the  Irish  people  had  been  the  motive  of  English 
statesmanship.  Statesmen,  I  say,  must  be  judged  by  the 
results  of  their  policy.  The  policy  which  created  the  Famine 
was  the  land  legislation  of  the  British  Parliament.  The 
refusal  of  the  British  Legislature  to  interfere  with  rack  rents  ; 
the  refusal  to  protect  the  improvements  of  the  tenants  ;  the 
facilities  and  inducements  to  wholesale  eviction — these  were 
the  things  that  produced  the  Famine  of  1846;  and  such 
legislation,  again,  was  the  result  of  the  government  of  Ire- 
land by  a  Legislature,  independent  of  Irish  votes,  Irish  con- 
stituencies, Irish  opinion. 

This  must  also  be  said,  that  the  Act  of  Union,  which  pro- 
duced the  Famine,  and  then  aggravated  it  to  the  unsurpassable 
maximum,  had  also  the  effect  of  increasing  the  existing 
hatred  between  the  English  and  the  Irish  nations.  While  the 
Famine  was  giving  such  tragic  testimony  in  favour  of  the 
Repeal  of  the  Union,  and  in  justification  of  the  agitation  of 
the  Irish  people  for  Repeal,  the  movement  had  left  in  the 
minds  of  the  English  people  a  strong  feeling  of  antagonism 
to  the  Irish.  Peel  declared  deliberately  in  his  political 


THE    GREAT   CLEARANCES  117 

memoranda  at  this  period  l  that  the  agitation  for  Repeal  and 
the  tribute  to  O'Connell  would  seriously  interfere  with  the 
tendency  of  the  English  people  to  come  to  the  assistance  of 
Ireland.  On  the  other  hand,  it  is  easy  to  understand  how 
the  Irish  should  have  been  embittered  to  frenzy  when  they 
saw  the  dominant  nation,  that  claimed  and  had  carried  its 
superior  right  to  govern,  so  performing  its  functions  of  govern- 
ment that  roads  throughout  Ireland  were  impassable  with  the 
gaunt  forms  of  the  starving,  or  the  corpses  of  the  starved, 
and  that  every  ship  was  freighted  with  thousands  fleeing 
from  their  homes.  To  this  day  the  traveller  in  America  will 
meet  Irishmen  who  were  evicted  from  Ireland  in  the  great 
clearances  of  the  Famine  time,  and  they  speak  even  to  this 
hour  with  a  bitterness  as  fresh  as  if  the  wrong  were  but  of 
yesterday.  It  was  these  clearances  and  the  sight  of  wholesale 
starvation  and  plague,  far  more  than  racial  feelings,  that  pro- 
duced the  hatred  of  English  government  which  strikes  impar- 
tial Americans  as  something  like  frenzy.  It  was  the  events 
of  '46  and  '47,  of  '48  and  '49,  that  sowed  in  Irish  breasts 
the  feelings  that  in  due  time  produced  eager  subscribers  to 
the  dynamite  funds.  Yet  the  English  people  not  only  did 
nothing  to  deserve  such  hatred,  but  rather  did  much  to  earn 
very  different  sentiments.  '  No  one,'  writes  Justin  McCarthy, 
whose  feelings  in  these  days,  as  will  be  seen,  were  keen  enough 
to  make  him  a  rebel,  '  could  doubt  the  good  will  of  the 
English  people.' 2  Relief  societies  were  formed  almost  every- 
where. '  The  British  Association  for  the  Relief  of  Extreme 
Distress  in  Ireland,  and  the  Highlands  and  Islands  of  Scot- 
land,' collected  no  less  a  sum  than  263,2 5 1/.3  A  Queen's 
letter  was  raised  with  the  same  object,  and  no  less  than 
171, 533/.  were  collected.  I  have  myself  heard  an  Englishman 
say  that  he  remembered  the  Famine  because,  being  a  child  at 
the  time,  he  was  not  permitted  to  take  butter  with  his  bread 
m  order  that  some  money  might  be  saved  for  the  starving 
poor  of  Ireland.  It  was,  then,  not  the  English  people  that 
were  to  blame  for  the  horrors  of  the  Irish  Famine,  excepting 
so  far  as  they  were  responsible  for  their  choice  of  representa- 

1  Memoirs,  part  iii.  2  History  of  Our  Ozvn  Times. 

3  Census  Commissioners,  quoted  from  Trevelyan's  Irish  Crisis,  p.  288. 


THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


tives,  and  for  the  maintenance  of  English  institutions  in 
Ireland.  It  was  the  British  Parliament  and  the  British 
Ministers  that  worked  the  wholesale  slaughter  of  Irishmen 
which  has  produced  the  murderous  hatred  of  so  many  of  their 
race  for  England.  In  other  words,  the  Act  of  Union  is  the 
great  criminal.  It  is  the  government  of  Ireland  by  English- 
men and  by  English  opinion  that  has  the  double  result  of  ruin- 
ing Ireland  and  endangering  England— of  producing  much 
undeserved  and  preventable  suffering  to  Irishmen,  and  much 
undeserved  and  preventable  trouble  and  hatred  to  England. 

The  second  point  that  requires  discussion  is,  whether  the 
Famine  was  avoidable  or  unavoidable.  John  Mitchel  speaks 
of  the  Famine  as  an  '  artificial '  famine,  and  other  Irish  writers 
maintain  that,  in  spite  of  the  loss  of  the  potato,  there  was 
enough  of  food  produced  in  Ireland  during  these  very  famine 
years  to  have  prevented  a  single  person  in  the  country  from 
dying  of  starvation.  I  have  already  made  mention  of  the  fact 
that  ships  were  bearing  away  from  the  ports  of  Ireland  wheat 
and  cattle  in  abundance  :  and  I  have  quoted  the  observation 
of  Lord  John  Russell,  pointing  to  the  fact  that  in  the  year  1847 
the  wheat  crop,  instead  of  being  under,  was  above  the  average. 

We  have  no  trustworthy  statistics  in  reference  to  the  live 
stock  and  agricultural  produce  of  Ireland  in  the  years  1845 
and  1846 — for  it  was  not  till  1847  that  means  were  taken  for 
having  statistics  on  this  subject  collected  in  a  regular  manner. 
But  we  have  fairly  trustworthy  statistics  with  regard  to  the 
export  of  produce  in  the  first  of  those  two  years,  and  also  to 
the  export  of  produce  and  live  stock  in  the  second.  First 
dealing  with  the  year  1845,  the-  following  are  the  statistics  of 
the  export  of  produce  for  1845  and  the  four  preceding  years  : 1 


Wheat  and 

_  Barley 

Year 

wheaien 
flour 

including 
Bere  or 

Oats  and 
Oatmeal 

Rye 

Peas 

Beans 

Malt 

Total 

Bigg 

1841 
1842 

qrs. 
218,708 
201,998 

qrs. 

75,568 
50,297 

qrs. 
2,539,380 
2,261,435 

qrs. 
172 
76 

qrs. 
855 

i,55J 

qrs. 
15,907 
19,831 

qrs. 

4,935 

3,046 

qrs. 
2,855,525 
2  538,234 

1843 

413,466 

110,449 

2,648,032 

371 

1,192 

24,329 

8,643 

3,206,482 

l844 

440,152 

90,656 

2,242,308 

264 

1,091 

18,580 

8,155 

2,8OI,2O4 

J845 

779,H3 

93,095 

I,3H,592 

— 

2,227 

14,668 

H,329 

3,251,90! 

1  McCulIoch,  Dictionary  of  Commerce,  latest  edition,  by  A.  J.  Wilson,  p.  450. 


THE   GREAT   CLEARANCES  119 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  that  the  export  of  wheat  and 
wheaten  flour,  instead  of  being  diminished  in  1845  by  the 
blight  of  the  potato  and  the  consequent  famine,  was  enor- 
mously increased.  The  number  of  quarters  exported  in  1845, 
779,113,  is  nearly  double  that  exported  in  the  two  preceding 
years,  and  considerably  more  than  treble  that  exported  in  the 
years  1841  and  1842.  The  export  of  barley,  93,095  quarters, 
is  larger  than  any  of  the  preceding  years  except  1843.  In 
the  oats  alone  is  there  any  diminution.  The  grand  total  is 
nearly  1,000,000  quarters  beyond  the  exports  of  1841,  1842, 
and  1844,  and  is  higher  than  the  export  of  1843,  which  was 
the  largest  of  the  preceding  four  years.1 

The  exports  of  articles  of  food  in  1 846  were  : — 

Quarters 

Wheat  and  wheat  flour      ....  393,462 

Barley,  &c.       .                                   .  92,854     % 

Oats  and  oatmeal     .....  1,311,592 

Peas         .......  2,227 

Beans 14,668 

Malt 11,329 


Total 1,826,1322 

Here  there  is  a  considerable  reduction  as  compared  with 
the  figures  of  the  preceding  years,  but  still  there  remains  a 
total  of  1,826,132  quarters  of  food  exported  from  a  starving 
nation.  Coming  now  to  the  export  of  live  cattle,  here  are 
the  figures  for  1846  :— 

Quarters 

Oxen,  bulls,  and  cows          ....  186,483 

Calves 6,363 

Sheep  and  lambs         .                  .                  .  259,257 

Swine          ...                                   .  480,8273 

These  figures  of  exported  cattle  from  Ireland  in  the  midst 
of  the  horrors  of  1846  make  a  very  formidable  total  indeed. 

1     Thorn's  Almanac  for  1848  states  that  the  total  imports  of  Irish  produce  into 
Liverpool  alone,  increased  from  4,149,4287.  in  1842  to  6,383,498/.  in  1845. 
2  McCulloch,  Diet,  of  Com.  p.  450.  3  Ib. 


I2O 


.THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


Passing  on  to  1847,  we  find  the  exportation  of  food  to  be 


as  follows : — 


Wheat  and  wheat  flour 

Barley,  etc. 

Oats  and  oatmeal 

Rye    .... 

Peas    . 

Beans 

Malt  .... 

Total 


Quarters 
184,024 

•  47,527 

•  703,465 

1,498 

4,659 

22,361 


.     969,490 


This  is   the    total  quantity  of  produce,  excluding  pota- 
toes ]  : — 


Description  of  Crops 

Extent  under  Crops 

Quantity  of  Produce 

Statute  acres 

Quarters 

Wheat  ..... 

743,^71 

2,926,733 

Oats      

2,2OO,87O 

II,521,6o6 

Barley  ..... 

283,587 

1,379,029 

Bere      

49,068 

274,016 

Rye     

12,415 

63,094 

Beans    ..... 

23,768 

84,456 

Total 

3,3*3,579 

16,248,934 

The  live  stock  of  the  year  is  estimated  in  the  agricultural 
returns  as  being  of  the  value  of  24,820,54/7.,  and  Thorn  cal- 
culates that  the  value  of  the  stock  and  agricultural  produce 
together  amounted  to  3 8, 5  2 8, 2 24/.2 

In  1848  the  agricultural  returns  of  cereal  crops  were3: — 


Description  of  Crops 

Extent  of  land  under 
Crops 

Quantity  of  Produce 

Wheat  
Oats       .... 

Statute  acres 
565,746 

Quarters 
1,555,500 

Barley  
Bere      .... 
Rye        .... 

243,235 
53,058 

9,O5O,49O 
1,135,120 

263,415 

Beans  and  peas 

50,749 

105>375 
172,508 

1    Census  Commissioners' Report,  1851,  p.  281. 

"  Thorn's  Almanac,  1848. 

4  Census  Commissioners'  Report,  1851,  p.  308, 


THE   GREAT   CLEARANCES 


121 


Exports  of  produce  in  1848  are  : — 

Quarters 

Wheat  and  wheat  flour      .         .  .  304,873 

Barley      ....  .  79.885 

Oats  and  oatmeal 1,546,568 

Rye *  »  15 

Peas .  2,572 

Beans       .         ...    *         .         .  .  12,314 

Malt      .  .-   -     .  '      „  .  6,365 

Total 1,952,592  l 

In  the  same  year  the  value  of  the  live  stock  is   given  in 

the  official  returns  as  23,ii2,5i8/.2 

Official  returns  give  the  subjoined  figures  as  to  the  cereal 

crops  in  1 849  : — 3 


Description  of  Crops 

Extent  under  Crops 

Quantity  of  Produce 

Wheat  .                  ... 
Oats      .                   ... 
Barley  .                   ... 
Bere      .                   ... 
Rye       .                   ... 
Beans  and  peis 

Statute  acies 
687,646 
2,061,185 
290,690 
60,819 
20,168 
59,916 

Barrels 
3,641,198 

15.738,073 
2,441,176 
496,037 
164,877 
1,436,262  bushels 

Total  cereal  crops  . 

3>I74>424 

2,182,514  tons 

In  the  same  year  the  value  of  the  live  stock  was 
2 5, 692,6 1 7/.4  Food  produce  sent  to  Great  Britain  in  1849 
amounted  to : — 

Quarters 

Wheat  and  wheat  flour      ....  234,680 

Barley      .......  46,400 

Oats  and  oatmeal      .....  1,123,469 

Rye 414 

Peas         .         .         .  3,369 

Beans 22,450 

Malt 5,181 

Total    .  .     1,435,963 5 

1  McCulloch,  Did.  of  Com.  p.  450. 

2  The  valuation  of  the  live  stock  is  founded  on  the  same  estimate  of  prices  as 
in  1841.     The  returns  for  1848  do  not  include  Waterford,   Tipperary,  and  the 
metropolitan  district  of  Dublin,  the  enquiry  in  these  parts  of  the  country  being 
abandoned  on  account  ot  the  disturbed  state  of  the  country. 

8  Census  Commissioners'  Report,  1851,  p.  315.  4  Ib. 

5  McCulloch,  Diet,  of  Com.  p.  450. 


122  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

These  figures  may  well  be  left  to  tell  their  own  tale.  One 
thing  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  in  considering  the  number  of 
quarters  of  foods  exported  from  Ireland  is  that  one  quarter  of 
wheat  is  equal  to  392  pounds  of  flour,  or  to  470  pounds  of 
bread,1  and  this  has  been  calculated  as  about  the  average 
annual  consumption  of  an  individual.  It  is  a  simple  sum  in 
multiplication  to  find  how  many  daily  rations  of  bread  for 
starving  peasants  were  exported  in  each  of  these  years. 

A  second  basis  of  calculation  is  a  comparison  between  the 
value  of  the  live  stock  and  the  agricultural  produce  in  any  of 
these  years,  and  the  amount  of  money  which  was  required  for 
meeting  the  distress.  The  Soup  Kitchen  Act  (Relief  Act, 
10  Viet  c.  7)  came  into  operation  in  March  1847,  and  ceased 
on  September  12,  in  the  same  year.  Under  this  Act  there 
were  in  July,  1847,  three  million,  twenty  thousand,  seven 
hundred  and  twelve  persons  who  received  separate  rations  in 
one  day.  We  have  thus  an  easy  means  of  calculating  what 
the  feeding  of  the  people  in  distress  in  Ireland  would  cost  for 
these  months.  The  period  of  distress  during  which  this  Act 
operated  was  the  very  worst  period  of  the  whole  cycle  of 
years.  The  number  requiring  relief  then  reached  the  highest 
point,  and  therefore  we  have  in  this  sum,  spent  under  this 
Act,  a  maximum  beyond  which  the  numbers  depending  on 
governmental  or  public  aid  ought  not  to  go.  The  sum,  then, 
authorised  under  this  Act  was  2,2OO,ooo/.  ;  the  sum  actually 
spent  was  i,676,268/.2 :  in  other  words,  about  a  million  and  a 
half.  Put  this  sum  of  a  million  and  a  half  beside  some  of 
the  figures  which  have  just  been  quoted.  It  is,  for  instance, 
one-sixteenth  of  the  value  of  the  live  cattle  in  Ireland  in 
this  same  year  of  1847.  Taking  the  value  of  the  cattle, 
sheep,  and  swine  on  the  figures  of  1841,  the  value  of  the 
totals  exported  was  1,988,4927.  Thus  there  was  exported 
in  cattle,  sheep,  and  swine  alone  in  this  year — to  say  nothing 
whatever  of  the  969,490  qrs.  of  cereals — nearly  half  a 
million  more  in  money  value  than  was  required  to  feed 
three  millions  of  starving  people  in  the  same  year.  Finally, 
a  million  and  a  half  was  the  amount  spent  under  the  Soup 

1  Thorn's  Almanac,  1848. 

2  Census  Commissioners'  Report.,  pp.  287,  288. 


THE   GREAT   CLEARANCES  123 

Kitchen  Act,  and  the  absentee  rents  alone  were  five  millions 
sterling. 

The  position,  then,  is  this.  The  landlords  took  from  the 
tenants  all  the  produce,  '  minus  the  potatoes,  necessary  to  keep 
them  from  famine' — to  fall  back  upon  the  phrase  of  John 
Stuart  Mill.  When  the  potatoes  failed,  the  remainder  of  the 
produce,  instead  of  being  divided  between  the  landlords  and 
the  tenants,  was  sent  to  either  home  or  foreign  markets  for 
the  purpose  of  paying  the  rent  of  the  landlords.  In  other 
words,  it  was  the  consumption  of  food  by  rent  instead  of  by 
the  people  that  produced  the  famine.  It  was,  as  Mitchel 
calls  it,  an  artificial  famine — starvation  in  the  midst  of  food. 

Meantime  a  change  had  come  over  Ireland  which  has 
been  noted  by  every  writer,  either  during  or  since  that  time. 
Testimony  is  unanimous  as  to  the  sadness  and  the  complete- 
ness of  this  change.  '  Here  are  twenty  miles  of  country,  sir/ 
said  a  dispensary  doctor  to  me,  '  and  before  the  famine  there 
was  not  a  padlock  from  end  to  end  of  it.  Under  the  pressure 
of  hunger,  ravenous  creatures  prowled  around  barn  and  store- 
house, stealing  corn,  potatoes,  cabbage,  turnips — anything,  in  a 
word,  that  might  be  eaten.  Later  on,  the  fields  had  to  be 
watched,  gun  in  hand,  or  the  seed  was  rooted  up  and  devoured 
raw.  This  state  of  things  struck  a  fatal  blow  at  some  of  the 
most  beautiful  traits  of  Irish  life.  It  destroyed  the  simple 
confidence  that  bolted  no  door  ;  it  banished  for  ever  a  custom 
which  throughout  the  island  was  of  almost  universal  obliga- 
tion— the  housing  for  the  night,  with  cheerful  welcome,  of 
any  poor  wayfarer  who  claimed  hospitality.  Fear  of  "the 
fever,"  even  where  no  apprehension  of  robbery  was  enter- 
tained, closed  every  door,  and  the  custom  once  killed  off  has 
not  revived.  A  thousand  kindly  usages  and  neighbourly 
courtesies  were  swept  away.  When  sauve  qui  pent  has  re- 
sounded throughout  a  country  for  three  years  of  alarm  and 
disaster,  human  nature  becomes  contracted  in  its  sympathies, 
and  "every  one  for  himself"  becomes  a  maxim  of  life  and 
conduct  long  after.  The  open-handed,  open-hearted  ways  of 
the  rural  population  have  been  visibly  affected  by  the  "  Forty- 
seven  ordeal."  Their  ancient  sports  and  pastimes  everywhere 
disappeared,  and  in  many  parts  of  Ireland  have  never  returned. 


124  '  THE   PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

The  outdoor  games,  the  hurling-match,  and  the  village  dance 
are  seen  no  more.' 1 

'The  famine,'  says  Gavan  Duffy,  'swallowed  things  more 
precious  than  money  and  money's  worth,  or  even  than 
human  lives.  The  temperance  reformation,  the  political 
training  of  a  generation,  the  self-respect,  the  purity  and  gene- 
rosity which  distinguished  Irish  peasants,  were  sorely  wasted. 
Out  of  the  place  of  the  damned,  a  sight  of  such  piercing  woe 
was  never  seen  as  a  Munster  workhouse,  with  hundreds  of 
a  once  frank  and  gallant  yeomanry  turned  into  sullen  beasts, 
wallowing  on  the  floor  as  thick  as  human  limbs  could  pack. 
Unless,  indeed,  it  were  that  other  spectacle  of  the  women  of 
a  district  waiting  in  pauper  congregation  around  the  same 
edifice  for  outdoor  relief.  New  and  terrible  diseases  sprang 
out  of  this  violation  of  the  laws  of  nature.  There  was  soon  a 
workhouse  fever,  a  workhouse  dysentery,  a  workhouse  ophthal- 
mia ;  and  children,  it  was  said,  were  growing  up  idiots  from 
imperfect  nourishment.  In  eight  of  the  worst  poor-law  unions, 
the  contract  coffin  left  the  workhouse  seventy  times  a  week  with 
the  corpse  of  a  human  being.  The  ophthalmia  often  carried 
with  it  consequences  more  painful  than  death,  when  it  left 
the  sufferer  unfit  to  earn  his  bread  any  more  in  the  world. 
There  were  upwards  of  2,000  cases  of  this  disease  within  ten 
months  in  the  Tipperary  union,  and  as  many  in  the  Limerick 
union.  In  Tipperary,  Sir  William  Wilde,  one  of  the  Census 
Commissioners,  saw  eighty-seven  patients  whose  sight  was 
permanently  damaged,  eighteen  incurably  blind  figures,  thirty -- 
two  who  had  lost  one  eye.  In  Connaught,  where  poverty 
was  long  the  chronic  condition  of  the  country,  the  famine 
had  actually  created  a  new  race  of  beggars,  bearing  only  a 
distant  and  hideous  resemblance  to  humanity.  Wherever  the 
traveller  went  in  Galway  or  Mayo,  he  met  troops  of  wild, 
idle,  lunatic-looking  paupers  wandering  over  the  country. 
Grey-headed  old  men,  with  faces  settled  into  a  leer  of  hardened 
mendicancy,  and  women  filthier  and  more  frightful  than 
harpies,  who  at  the  jingle  of  a  coin  on  the  pavement  swarmed 
in  myriads  from  unseen  places,  struggling,  screaming,  shriek- 
ing for  their  prey  like  monstrous  and  unclean  animals. 
1  A.  M.  Sullivan's  New  Ireland,  pp.  67,  68. 


THE   GREAT   CLEARANCES  125 

Beggar-children,  beggar-girls,  with  faces  grey  and  shrivelled, 
met  you  everywhere  ;  and  women  with  the  more  touching 
and  tragic  aspect  of  lingering  shame  and  self-respect  not  yet 
effaced.  I  saw  these  accursed  sights,  and  they  are  burned 
into  my  memory  for  ever.  Poor,  mutilated,  and  debased 
scions  of  a  tender,  brave,  and  pious  stock,  they  were  martyrs 
in  the  battle  of  centuries  for  the  right  to  live  in  their  own 
land,  and  no  Herculaneum  or  Pompeii  covers  ruins  so  memo- 
rable to  me  as  those  which  lie  buried  under  the  fallen  roof- 
trees  of  an  "  Irish  extermination."  '  l 

These  two  pictures  from  brilliant  writers  agree  with  hun- 
dreds of  others  drawn  by  Irish  pens.  It  is  certain  that  to- 
day, Ireland  is  the  saddest  country  in  this  world  of  many 
countries  and  many  tears.  With  the  Famine  joy  died  in 
Ireland  ;  the  day  of  its  resurrection  has  not  yet  come. 

One  word  finally.  The  population  of  Ireland  by  March  30, 
1851,  at  the  same  ratio  of  increase  as  held  in  England  and 
Wales,  would  have  been  9,018,799 — it  was  6,5  5 2,3 8 5. 2  It  was 
the  calculation  of  the  Census  Commissioners  that  the  deficit, 
independently  of  the  emigration,  represented  by  the  mortality 
in  the  five  famine  years,  was  985,366,3  nearly  a  million  of 
people.  The  greater  proportion  of  this  million  of  deaths 
must  be  set  down  to  hunger  and  the  epidemics  which  hunger 
generated.  To  those  who  died  at  home  must  be  added  the 
large  number  of  people  who,  embarking  on  vessels  or  landing 
in  America  or  elsewhere  with  frames  weakened  by  the  famine, 
or  diseases  resulting  from  the  famine,  perished  in  the  manner 
already  described.  Father  O'Rourke,4  calculating  these  at 
17  per  cent,  of  the  emigration  of  1,180,409,  arrives  at  the  total 
of  200,668  persons  who  died  either  on  the  voyage  from  their 
country  or  on  their  arrival  at  their  destination.  This  would 
raise  the  total  of  deaths  caused  through  the  Irish  Famine  to 
upwards  of  a  million  of  people. 

1  Extract  from  Lecture  on  '  Why  is  Ireland  poor  and  discontented  ?  '  delivered 
in   the   Polytechnic    Hall,    Melbourne,    on  February    23,    1870,    by   the    Hon. 
Gavan  Duffy,  M.P.     London  :  Burns,  Gates  &  Co.,  and  Dublin  :  James  Duffy. 
Printed  with  '  Is  Ireland  irreconcilable  ? '  an  article,   reprinted  from  The  Dublin 
Review,  by  John  Cashel  Hoey. 

2  Census  Commissioners'  Report,  1851,  p.  245. 

3  Ib.  p.  246.  *  16.  p.  499. 


126  •  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


CHAPTER    V. 
THE   GREAT   BETRAYAL. 

AT  last  it  seemed  as  if  the  very  excess  of  the  evil  was  about 
to  produce  its  own  remedy.  The  wholesale  evictions  filled 
the  peasants  of  the  south  with  a  desperate  resolve  to  make 
another  attempt  for  the  relief  of  their  position  ;  and  the  rack- 
renter  in  Ulster  was  gradually  working  up  that  province  to  a 
state  of  feeling  as  bitter  as  that  of  the  southern  counties.  For 
the  Ulster  farmer  was  finding  that  the  Ulster  custom  gave 
him  no  security  against  the  increase  of  his  rent,  and  that 
thus  the  large  amount  of  capital  he  invested  in  the  purchase 
of  the  tenant  right  of  the  farm  was  turning  out  a  disastrous 
investment.  In  this  way  the  north  and  south  were  ripe  for  a 
new  movement  in  favour  of  tenant  right  The  movement 
when  started  was  not  long  in  gaining  strength  ;  the  leaders 
in  the  different  parts  of  the  country  saw  and  understood  each 
other  ;  and  a  combination  was  made  between  the  tenant-right 
leaders  of  the  north  and  of  the  south. 

This  union  had  elements  of  hope  for  the  future  of  Ireland 
beyond  the  mere  chance  of  settling  the  land  question.  Every- 
body knows  that  religious  dissensions  have  been  the  most 
fruitful  cause  of  that  division  among  the  Irish  people  by  which 
their  oppressors  have  been  able  to  conquer  and  to  hold  them. 
Here  were  the  Presbyterians  of  the  north  standing  on  the 
same  platform  as  the  Catholics  of  the  south — fighting  against 
the  same  relentless  enemy,  and  for  the  same  sacred  rights. 
The  hopefulness  of  the  spectacle  is  best  proved  by  the  fears 
and  condemnation  which  it  received.  Religious  bigots  were 
in  a  terrible  state  of  alarm,  and  prophesied  woeful  things. 
The  leader  of  this  odious  feeling  in  the  north  was  a  clergyman 
named  Doctor  Cook,  a  man  of  great  eloquence  and  of  great 


THE   GREAT   BETRAYAL  127 

force  of  character,  who  was  for  nearly  half  a  century  the  most 
commanding  force  in  the  Presbyterian  Church.  He  was  a 
Conservative  of  the  Conservatives,  and  hated  his  religious 
opponents  with  the  fervour  of  the  Middle  Ages.  But  the 
demand  for  tenant  right  made  itself  heard  even  in  the  con- 
ventions where  he  was  the  most  prominent  and  powerful 
figure.  For  such  demands  he  had  nothing  but  condemna- 
tion. They  were  Socialism,  Communism,  and  the  like,  and  it 
all  came  from  the  original  abomination  of  Presbyterian  clergy- 
men associating  with  the  servants  of  Baal  in  the  shape  of  the 
Catholic  clergymen. 

Nevertheless  this  unholy  alliance  went  on,  gathered 
strength  as  it  proceeded,  and  might  have  led  to  a  permanent 
alliance  on  the  basis  of  common  triumphs  which  would  have 
been  full  of  blessings  for  all  the  Irish  race.  The  movement 
at  last  took  shape,  and  a  circular  was  sent  around  calling  for 
a  Tenant  Right  convention.  The  circular  itself  was  a  proof  of 
the  change  that  was  coming  over  the  times.  It  was  signed 
by  three  men,  among  others — all  members  of  different  creeds 
—by  Dr.  (afterwards  Sir  John)  Gray,  an  Episcopalian  Pro- 
testant ;  by  Dr.  MacKnight,  a  Presbyterian  ;  and  by  Mr. 
Frederic  Lucas,  a  Catholic.  In  obedience  to  this  call  an  in- 
fluential meeting  was  assembled  on  August  6,  1850,  in  the 
City  Assembly  House,  William  Street,  Dublin. 

*  The  sharp  Scottish  accent  of  Ulster,'  writes  A.  M.  Sulli- 
van, describing  the  gathering,  *  mingled  with  the  broad  Doric 
of  Munster.  Presbyterian  ministers  greeted  Popish  priests 
with  fraternal  fervour.  Mr.  James  Godkin,  editor  of  the 
staunch  covenanting  "  Derry  Standard  "...  sat  side  by  side 
with  John  Francis  Maguire,  of  the  ultramontane  "  Cork 
Examiner."  Magistrates  and  landlords  were  there  ;  while  of 
tenant  delegates  every  province  sent  up  a  great  army.'  * 

It  is  curious  to  look  back  in  this  year  on  the  proposals 
put  forward  at  this  convention.  The  resolutions  practically 
demanded  what  have  since  come  to  be  known  as  the  three 
'  F's  ' — Fixity  of  Tenure,  Free  Sale,  and  Fair  Rents.  Another 
question  which  has  since  been  made  familiar  also  came  before 
the  convention.  This  was  the  question  of  the  arrears  of  rent. 

1  New  Ireland,  p.  149. 


I2g  'THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

It  was  represented  that  during  the  period  of  famine  it  was 
perfectly  impossible  for  the  tenants  to  pay  any  rent,  large  or 
small  ;  and  that  if  the  landlords  chose  to  insist  on  their  rights 
they  could  evict  the  greater  part  of  the  whole  Irish  population. 
Accordingly  a  resolution  was  passed  to  the  effect  that  the 
arrears  should  be  subjected  to  inspection  by  a  valuator  ;  that 
he  should  estimate  the  amount  due  on  consideration  of  the 
prices  and  other  circumstances  of  the  famine  period  ;  that  he 
should  compare  the  actual  amount  paid  in  rent  by  the  tenant 
to  the  landlord  ;  and  that  if  there  were  any  balance  still  due 
on  such  a  comparison,  it  should  be  paid  to  the  landlords  in 
instalments  spread  over  a  certain  period. 

To  any  impartial  reader  who  has  read  the  pages  in  which 
the  story  of  the  famine  has  been  told,  this  proposal  will  not 
appear  to  be  very  unreasonable  ;  but  the  times  were  not  ripe 
for  reason  on  the  Irish  land  question.  The  arrears  of  the 
famine  period  were  allowed  to  continue  ;  they  came  to  form 
a  dread  feature  of  the  Irish  peasant's  life  under  the  name  of 
the  '  hanging  gale  ; '  and  for  thirty-four  years  the  '  hanging 
gale  '  was  allowed  to  realise  its  ill-omened  name,  leaving  the 
fortunes  and  the  lives  of  nearly  a  hundred  thousand  families 
at  the  absolute  mercy  of  their  landlords. 

The  movement  which  was  thus  initiated  took  the  country 
by  storm,  and  was  the  first  break  in  the  disastrous  gloom 
that  had  overhung  everything  since  the  advent  of  the  famine 
and  the  downfall  of  O'Connell.  Famine  had  now  apparently 
clone  with  the  country — at  least  for  an  interval  ;  the  cataclysm 
under  which  the  wretched  party  returned  in  1847  naci  been 
able  everywhere  to  debauch  or  deceive  constituencies  and 
drive  all  public  honesty  out  of  the  representation  of  the 
country,  was  now  in  the  past,  and  there  seemed  a  chance 
once  more  for  the  country,  for  constitutional  agitation,  and 
for  honest  and  unselfish  public  men.  Gavan  Duffy  thought 
the  season  so  promising  that  he  consented  to  stand  for  a 
constituency  ;  and  his  newspaper  wrote  of  the  movement  and 
of  the  coming  time  in  a  strain  of  sanguine  expectation,  which, 
representing  as  it  did  the  hopes  of  the  country  generally, 
makes  darker  the  tragedy  in  which  these  hopes  were  eclipsed. 

1  On    as  solemn  a  summons,'  writes  the  '  Nation',  Duffy's 


THE   GREAT   BETRAYAL  129 

paper,  '  as  ever  drew  men  together  in  any  nation  of  this  earth, 
since  the  sun  first  reached  her  solstice  over  it,  do  the  delegates 
of  the  Irish  people  assemble  on  next  Tuesday.  ...  In  a 
people  beggared,  broken,  brutalised  in  some  sense,  they  have 
undertaken  to  inspire  the  vigour  and  the  comeliness  of  in- 
dependence. They  gird  their  strength  to  redeem  a  fallen 
land  to  its  true  place  in  the  zodiac  of  nations.  And,  before 
God  and  man,  they  are  amenable  for  grievous  ignorance  of 
the  opportunity,  and  a  heavy  dereliction  of  duty,  if  the  next 
week  pass  unused  or  misused  by  them.' 

The  most  promising  feature  of  the  new  movement  was 
that  it  put  a  definite,  a  single,  a  great  and  absorbing  issue 
before  the  country.  The  farmers  formed  still  the  majority  of 
the  electorate  :  they  were  known  to  be  ready  to  stand  by  the 
representatives  of  their  interests,  in  spite  of  the  omnipotence 
still  exercised  over  them  by  the  landlord  ;  and  of  course  they 
were  united  to  a  man  in  the  demand  for  security  for  their 
industry  and  their  homes.  They  had  the  will  and  they  had 
the  power  to  return  a  majority  of  the  Irish  representatives  ; 
and  an  Irish  party  has  since  shown  that  a  body  of  men, 
earnest  and  honest,  resolute  and  united,  can  wring  from  a 
Ministry  a  great  measure  of  land  reform,  without  even  having 
the  majority  of  the  Irish  representatives.  It  is  no  exaggera- 
tion, then,  to  say  that  the  Tenant  Right  movement  of  1850 
might  have  succeeded  in  all  its  purposes  :  might  have  won 
fixity  of  tenure  and  free  sale  and  fair  rent,  and  might  have  ; 
saved  Ireland  a  quarter  of  a  century  of  the  darkest  and  most 
bitter  events  in  her  history. 

But  it  was  not  to  be.  The  movement  that  began  in  such 
hope  and  with  so  many  promises  of  complete  success  ended 
in  fiercer,  completer,  more  enduring  disaster  than  any  of  those 
which  had  preceded  it.  Two  men  were  mainly  responsible 
for  this :  the  one  was  a  weak  and  foolish  Englishman,  the 
other  a  strong  and  an  evil  Irishman.  The  two  men  were 
Lord  John  Russell  and  William  Keogh. 

The  conference  of  the  Tenant  League  took  place,  as  has 
been  seen,  on  August  6,  1850;  in  November  4  in  the  same 
year  Lord  John  Russell  published  the  '  Durham  Letter.' 
This  was  the  letter  addressed  to  the  Bishop  of  Durham  in 

K 


1 30  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

which  he  denounced  the  movement,  howled  at  in  that  period 
and  laughed  at  in  this,  as  '  Papal  aggression.'  The  Pope  had 
changed  the  titles  of  the  Catholic  archbishops  and  bishops  in 
England  and  Scotland  from  titles  m  partibus  into  titles 
borrowed  from  English  places.  Thus  Cardinal  Wiseman  was 
created  Archbishop  of  Westminster.  This  innocent  step 
called  forth  a  tempest  of  indignation  among  the  ignorant  and 
fanatical  in  the  English  population.  There  rose  one  of  those 
1  No  Popery '  storms  which  can  always  be  provoked  among 
the  English  masses,  and  there  was  a  panic-stricken  cry  for 
legislation  against  the  revival  of  the  rule  of  the  Pope.  Lord 
John  Russell  was  weak  enough  or  mean  enough  to  allow 
himself  to  be  carried  away  by  the  ruling  frenzy,  wrote  a 
letter  in  denunciation  of  the  action  of  the  Pope,  and  promised 
legislation. 

In  Ireland  this  new  move  on  the  part  of  the  British 
Minister  provoked  a  counter-storm  of  popular  passion  as 
wild  and  as  widespread.  As  the  English  people  were 
startled  by  the  bugbear  of  the  ever-hateful  Pope,  the  Irish 
were  roused  to  fury  by  the  dread  that  their  religion  was  once 
more,  and  in  the  nineteenth  century,  to  be  subjected  to  some 
renewal  of  the  penal  code  that  is  one  of  the  worst  and 
bitterest  recollections  in  the  history  of  English  rule  and  Irish 
suffering.  It  was  probable  that  in  this  feeling  all  other 
interests  and  passions  would  be  swrallowed  up. 

This  was  the  danger  which  the  really  honest  members  of 
the  Tenant  League  foresaw.  The  '  No  Popery '  agitation 
roused  up  again  those  passions  between  Irishmen  of  different 
creeds  which  had  been  submerged  in  the  great  movement 
for  tenant  right  ;  and  the  different  creeds,  forgetting  their 
common  wrongs  and  sufferings,  might  be  drawn  off  from  the 
land  question.  While,  then,  the  southern  tenant  righters 
sympathised  with  their  countrymen  in  their  hatred  and  con- 
tempt of  the  bigotry  of  Englishmen  and  the  imbecility  of 
•Lord  John  Russell,  they  saw  with  considerable  misgiving  the 
prominence  which  the  new  and  the  sectarian  agitation  was 
taking  in  the  popular  mind. 

There  was  another  body  of  men,  however,  to  which  this 
new  movement  was  a  godsend.  Of  this  party  William  Keogh 


THE   GREAT   BETRAYAL  131 

and  John  Sadleir  were  the  chief  spokesmen  —two  of  the  most 
remarkable  and  most  sinister  figures  in  Irish  history. 

Physically  and  mentally  Keogh  was  intended  for  a  leader 
of  democracy.  Though  small  of  stature  he  had  a  chest  of 
enormous  depth,  had  a  muscular  and  powerful  frame,  and  a 
courage  that  was  arrogant,  audacious,  inflexible.  The  face 
bespoke  the  immense  moral  and  mental  force  of  the  man. 
In  his  earlier  years  it  bore  a  singular  resemblance  to  that  of 
the  first  Napoleon,  and  even  when  it  had  grown  flaccid  and 
flabby  it  still  wore  an  appearance  of  dignity  and  strength. 
His  look  was  calculated  to  inspire  respect  and  even  awe. 
Though  ignorant  of  law  and  generally  illiterate,  he  had  a 
marvellous  command  of  fluent,  striking,  vigorous  language. 
He  was  coarse  and  vulgar  in  taste,  and  there  was  a  dash  of 
commonplace  in  everything  he  said.  The  '  Nation/  which 
was  his  chief  assailant  throughout  his  political  career,  de- 
scribed his  '  invective '  as  a  *  deluge  of  dirt,'  and  his  *  most 
pretentious  oratory  '  as  '  a  jumble  of  bog  Latin  and  flatulent 
English.'  But  his  words,  set  off  by  a  sonorous  voice,  vivid 
gesture,  and  his  expressive  and  commanding  face,  made  him 
the  idol  of  mobs  and  the  most  competent  orator  at  popular 
meetings.  At  the  time  when  he  entered  politics  he  embarked 
upon  his  new  career  as  on  a  desperate  chance  that  would  lead 
on  to  great  fortune  or  hopeless  ruin.  In  one  of  the  most  ex- 
citing and  critical  moments  of  his  career  the  bailiffs  were 
said  to  be  in  his  house,  and  even  when  he  was  fighting  one 
of  his  hard  electoral  contests  the  House  of  Commons  was 
wading  through  sheaves  of  his  unpaid  bills,  in  order  to  find 
whether  he  had  the  then  necessary  qualification  of  3OO/.  a 
year  over  all  his  debts.  But  of  this  afterwards. 

A  judicial  office  in  Ireland  was  then,  as  indeed  it  is  now, 
the  haven  in  which  the  hard-pressed  lawyer  discovered  wealth, 
ease,  and  dignity.  On  the  principle  that  runs  uniform 
through  all  the  veins  and  arteries  of  English  administration 
in  Ireland,  the  salaries  of  judicial  office  are  fixed  at  a  figure 
far  beyond  what  even  the  most  successful  lawyer  is  in  the 
habit  of  making  at  the  Bar.  In  fact,  a  puisne  judgeship  in 
Ireland  occupies  towards  the  working  lawyer  an  exactly 
reverse  position  to  that  which  it  holds  in  England.  In 

K  2 


132  -THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

England,  the  lawyer  who  accepts  a  puisne  judgeship,  or  even 
a  much  higher  office,  usually  does  so  at  an  immense  sacrifice 
of  income  ;  in  Ireland,  the  judicial  office  usually  gives  to  the 
lawyer  the  first  opportunity  in  his  life  of  making  something 
like  an  equilibrium  between  income  and  expenditure.  Then 
the  number  of  judges  being  far  in  excess  of  the  requirements 
of  public  business,  the  fortunate  holders  of  this  situation  spend 
all  the  year  in  comparative,  and  nearly  half  the  year  in  abso- 
lute, idleness.  The  judges  in  Ireland  too  are  members  of  the 
Privy  Council.  They  meet  and  discuss  with  the  other  great 
officers  of  the  State  questions  of  policy  and  of  government, 
with  a  mixture  of  judicial  and  executive  functions  which  in 
England  would  shock  every  accepted  principle  of  sound 
administration.  The  Irish  judge  is,  therefore,  after  his  eleva- 
tion to  the  Bench,  at  once  an  active  and  a  combative  politi- 
cian— one  of  the  rulers  of  the  State.  It  was  one  of  the  worst 
features  in  a  thoroughly  unsound  state  of  things  that  the 
puisne  judge  was  often  promoted  to  a  higher  office — the 
Chief  Justiceship  of  his  own  Court,  the  Mastership  of  the 
Rolls,  or  the  Lord  Chancellorship.  Sometimes  he  received  a 
solace  for  being  passed  over  in  a  great  and  highly-paid  com- 
mission ;  such  as  the  commissionership  of  the  Irish  Church 
Act,  with  a  salary  of  2,000!.  a  year,  that  was  conferred  on 
Mr.  Justice  Lawson. 

To  such  a  man  as  Keogh  such  an  office  offered  the 
highest  prize  of  fortune.  It  conferred  high  pay,  and  he  was 
dreadfully  needy  ;  dignity,  and  he  was  notoriously  disrepu- 
table ;  security,  and  his  life  was  a  series  of  hairbreadth  escapes 
in  the  tempestuous  sea  of  Irish  politics.  It  is  now  clea? 
that,  from  the  first  moment  he  embarked  on  a  political  career 
a  judgeship  was  Keogh's  single  purpose. 

Eor  this  end  he  was  ready  to  don  the  livery  of  every  political 
party  in  turn  ;  to  pass  through  mud-baths  of  deception,  lying 
and  broken  oaths  ;  to  assume  all  the  worst  arts  of  the 
demagogue  ;  to  be  foul-mouthed,  audacious,  sometimes  even 
murderous  in  advice  ;  and  then  to  betray  the  mob  as  quickly 
and  shamelessly  as  he  had  pandered  to  its  worst  passions. 

His  first  entrance  into  public  life  was  in  1847.  At  that 
time  he  was  known  as  a  barrister  without  clients  and  without 


THE    GREAT   BETRAYAL  133 

law  ;  indeed,  at  no  period  of  his  professional  career,  until  he 
became  a  law  officer  £>f  the  Crown,  did  he  obtain  as  much 
professional  business  as  would  keep  the  bloodhound  of  insur- 
mountable debt  from  the  door  ;  and  never,  to  his  dying 
day,  did  he  master  even  the  elementary  principles  of  his 
profession. 

It  was  for  my  native  town  of  Athlone  that  Keogh  stood. 
Tradition  still  retails  many  of  his  strange  exploits.  His 
courage,  for  instance,  was  over  and  over  again  proved  by  the 
absolute  fearlessness  with  which  he  encountered  mobs  in- 
flamed with  drink  and  the  violent  passions  that  election 
contests  excite.  He  was  known  to  march  through  the  streets 
when  a  perfect  hailstorm  of  stones  was  flying  against  him  and 
his  supporters.  On  one  occasion,  when  he  was  delivering  a 
speech  from  a  window  to  a  noisy  and  violent  crowd,  some- 
body threw  a  soda-water  bottle  at  his  head.  '  That's  a  mighty 

bad  shot,  ,'  said    Keogh,  mentioning  the  name  of  the 

person  who  had  fired  the  bottle — a  well-known  local  politician. 
Equally  are  there  stones  of  the  desperate  remedies  to  which  men 
resort  who  are  hard  pressed  for  money  and  troubled  neither 
by  scruples  nor  abashed  by  shame.  For  instance,  he  is  said 
to  have  raised  money  in  several  cases  by  the  trick  not  un- 
known to  the  London  police  courts  of  borrowing  five  pounds 
on  each  half  of  a  five-pound  note.  Then  there  is  the  dim 
recollection  of  a  strange  scene  which  forecast  the  tragic  end 
to  his  strange  and  evil  career.  One  night  he  was  expecting, 
as  the  tradition  goes,  some  money  from  one  of  the  political 
clubs  of  London  in  aid  of  his  candidature.  A  near  relative 
was  to  be  the  bearer  of  the  much-needed  treasure  ;  and  when 
he  arrived  he  had  to  announce  that  his  mission  was  a  failure. 
Keogh  fell  prone  on  the  floor,  grovelled  there  with  the  contor- 
tions and  groans  of  one  demented,  and  finally,  when  the  agony 
had  passed,  rose  up,  went  out  into  the  town,  and  harangued 
the  mobs  with  a  self-confidence  as  great,  a  wit  as  ready,  a 
hopefulness  as  inflexible  as  if  his  highest  expectations  had 
been  realised.  Another  reason  of  his  success  was  his  con- 
viviality. He  was  all  through  his  life  a  heavy  drinker,  and 
loved  all  the  pleasures  of  the  table.  However  late  the  night 
or  heavy  the  drinking,  Keogh  was  always  the  first  to  rise  in 


I34  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

the  morning  ;  and  with  the  '  terrible  familiarity  '  with  men's 
names  and  characteristics,  which  was  one  of  his  talents,  he 
was  at  the  bedside  of  the  companions  of  his  debauch  the 
next  morning  with  a  brandy-and-soda  in  his  hand  and  the 
christian-name  of  the  scarcely  recovered  inebriate  in  his 
mouth. 

In  order  to  understand  the  history  of  the  time  it  is  also 
necessary  to  know  something  of  the  character  of  the  con- 
stituency in  which  Keogh  played  these  parts.  In  defence  of 
my  native  town,  I  must  premise  that  it  was  neither  better  nor 
worse  than  the  majority  of  the  Irish  and  the  English  consti- 
tuencies of  that  period.  Its  eminence  consisted  in  the  fact 
that  the  number  of  the  voters  was  small,  and  that,  therefore, 
the  amount  of  the  bribe  was  high.  It  was  generally  computed 
that  this  bribe  averaged  3<D/.  or  4O/.  the  vote  ;  and  there  were 
tales  of  a  vote  having  run  up  to  even  TOO/,  in  one  of  Keogh's 
most  hotly  contested  elections.  The  town,  finely  situated  on 
the  Shannon,  with  a  large  barracks  and  a  castle  old  in  story, 
plays  an  important  part  in  the  history  of  Ireland,  and  was  for 
many  centuries  the  most  prosperous  centre  in  the  midland 
counties  ;  but  the  famine  swept  the  country  round,  and  for 
years  before  the  period  at  which  Keogh  began  to  figure  in  its 
history  it  had  been  steadily  deteriorating.  A  large  number 
of  its  people  were,  therefore,  engaged  in  a  desperate  struggle 
with  hard  fortune,  and,  though  centuries  old,  the  position  of 
the  town  had  some  resemblance  to  one  of  the  mushroom 
towns  of  the  United  States — say  like  Virginia  City — which, 
owing  their  rise  to  some  accidental  and  transitory  cause,  like 
the  discovery  of  a  mine,  have  a  season  of  extreme  prosperity, 
and  then  for  years  continue  the  struggle  with  departing 
fortune.  In  such  a  town  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  election 
played  a  prominent  part.  With  many  of  the  people  the  I 
periodic  bribe  entered  into  the  whole  economy  of  their  poor,! 
shrivelled,  squalid,  weary  lives.  Men  continued  to  live  in 
houses  that  had  better  have  lived  in  lodgings,  because  the| 
house  gave  a  vote.  The  very  whisper  of  a  dissolution  sent 
visible  thrill  through  the  town,  and  the  prospect  of  commonj 
gain  swallowed  up  amid  the  people  all  other  passions,  religious 
and  political,  and  united  ordinarily  discordant  forces  in  amit; 


THE   GREAT   BETRAYAL  135 

and  brotherhood.  There  was,  as  there  is,  a  tolerably  strong 
minority  of  Protestants  in  the  town  ;  between  the  Protes- 
tant and  the  Catholic  there  was  irreconcilable  difference  of 
political  as  well  as  of  religious  feeling  ;  and,  indeed,  there  was 
rarely  any  social  intercourse  between  people  of  the  two  creeds. 
But  at  election  time  the  Catholic  and  the  Protestant  forgot 
their  rivalries,  remembered  the  interests  only  of  their  town, 
and  fought  strenuously  and  side  by  side  in  loving  union  for 
the  man  who  gave  the  highest  bribe.  There  was  a  highly 
respected  Protestant  tradesman  in  the  town  when  I  was 
a  boy  who  had  a  large  repute  for  political  wisdom,  and  was 
generally  esteemed  ;  and  I  remember  hearing  a  well-known 
saying  of  his  quoted,  which  put  the  philosophy  of  Irish  elec- 
tioneering in  these  times  in  a  compendious  form.  '  I  am  a 

Protestant,'   Ned  used    to  say,  '  and  my  father  was   a 

Protestant,  and  his  father  before  him  ;  but  the  man  I  want 
to  see  returned  for  Athlone  is  the  man  that  leaves  the  money 
in  the  town.' 

Such  was  the  constituency,  the  representation  of  which 
Keogh  sought  in  1847.  The  circumstances  of  his  candidature 
sufficiently  foreshadowed  his  subsequent  career.  In  that  year, 
as  is  known,  the  supreme  struggle  in  Ireland  was  between 
"Young  Ireland  and  the  Repeal  party.  But  Keogh  had  no 
part  in  this  struggle  between  different  sections  of  Irish 
nationalists.  He  knew  his  own  purpose  and  he  knew  his 
constituency.  Attachment  to  either  of  these  two  sections 
might  have  been  inconvenient  in  subsequent  years  to  a  seeker 
after  English  office,  and  the  constituency  cared  for  the  money 
arid  not  for  the  politics  of  its  candidates.  He  stood,  then, 
as  a  member  of  an  English  party  ;  he  called  himself  a 
Peelite.  This  political  character  had  the  additional  advantage 
of  being  entirely  indefinite  ;  for  this  was  the  period  of  the 
schism  between  the  Free  Trade  Conservatives  under  Sir 
Robert  Peel  and  the  Protectionist  Conservatives  under  Mr. 
Disraeli ;  and  it  was  still  an  undecided  question  whether  the 
healing  of  the  schism  would  turn  the  Peelites  back  into  the 
Conservative  fold  or  its  continuance  would  transform  them 
into  Liberals.  Another  curious  fact  about  the  candidature 
cf  Keogh  was  that  the  expenses,  or  a  portion  of  them, 


136  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

were  paid  by  an  Englishman.     This  was  Mr.  Attwood,  the 
well-known  banker. 

Mr.  Attwood  had  some  doctrines  on  the  currency  ques- 
tion which  he  was  anxious  to  have  advocated  in  Parliament, 
and  he  thought  that  the  expenses  of  a  contest  in  Athlone 
would  be  compensated  for  by  the  assistance  of  the  glib  and 
brilliant  tongue  of  Keogh.  Keogh  was  opposed  by  a  local 
gentleman  named  O'Beirne.  Keogh  was  elected.  The  num- 
bers at  the  poll  tell  their  own  tale  of  the  state  of  the  country 
and  the  character  of  the  constituency.  They  were  : 

Keogh,  William  .         .         .         .  101 

O'Beirne,  William        ....       95 

But  this  success  did  not  for  some  years  bring  Keogh  any 
change  in  his  desperate  fortunes.  It  rather  aggravated  his 
difficulties.  Professional  business  did  not  come  ;  the  elec- 
tion for  Athlone  was  an  expensive  luxury,  and  cost  more 
than  Mr.  Attwood  had  supplied,  and  Keogh  was  sunk  in  a 
profounder  morass  of  debt  than  before. 

At  the  same  election  of  1847  John  Sadleir  had  been 
returned  for  Carlow.  In  every  respect  Sadleir  was  the  anti- 
thesis of  Keogh.  Keogh  was  garrulous  ;  Sadleir  was  taci- 
turn ;  Keogh  was  the  boisterous  and  familiar  bon  vtvazt,with 
exuberant  health  and  spirits  ;  Sadleir  was  reserved,  unsocial, 
and  had  the  sallow  complexion  of  the  man  who  neither  cares 
for  nor  enjoys  the  pleasures  of  the  table  ;  finally,  Keogh  was 
hopelessly  poor,  and  Sadleir  had  the  reputation  of  boundless 
wealth.  John  Sadleir  was  trained  as  a  solicitor,  and  was 
intended  by  his  people  probably  for  the  quiet  life  of  an  Irish 
lawyer.  But  he  was  ambitious  and  self-confident,  and  made 
for  London.  Here  he  became  a  '  Parliamentary  agent,'  and 
gained  an  acquaintance  with  the  financial  state  of  Ireland 
which  he  afterwards  turned  to  great  use.  He  gradually 
drifted  into  a  financier,  and  conceived  the  idea  of  making  a 
fortune  rapidly.  He  adopted  an  excellent  plan  to  start  with. 
The  Irish  farmer  had  not  yet  become  to  any  large  extent  a 
depositor  in  banks  ;  Sadleir  established  the  Tipperary  Joint- 
Stock  Bank.  He  came  of  a  family  that  had  the  reputation 
of  being  wealthy,  his  own  claim  to  financial  ability  was 


THE   GREAT   BETRAYAL  137 

everywhere  admitted,  and  the  people  deposited  their  money 
with  the  confidence  of  unquestioning  faith.  *  From  the 
Shannon  to  the  Suir,'  writes  A.  M.  Sullivan,1  '  "  Sadleir's  bank  " 
was  regarded  with  as  much  confidence  as  "the  old  lady  of 
Threadneedle  Street "  commands  from  her  votaries.'  The 
money  which  Sadleir  thus  obtained  from  the  grimy  pockets 
of  the  Irish  farmers  he  invested  in  English  speculations, 
became  in  this  way  intimate  with  the  money  market  of 
London,  and  was  made  chairman  of  the  London  and  County 
Joint-Stock  Bank.  Every  day  he  was  credited  with  greater 
schemes  and  with  more  fabulous  success. 

To  such  a  man  Parliament  offered  chances  of  still  further 
increasing  his  wealth  and  satisfying  his  ambition.  His  large 
command  of  money  gave  him  a  great  advantage  in  that  dread 
period  of  desolation  and  demoralisation  in  the  political 
fortunes  of  Ireland,  and  he  conceived,  and  to  a  large  extent 
carried  out,  the  project  of  building  up  in  the  House  of 
Commons  a  party  bound  to  him  by  ties  of  blood  or  of 
financial  aid.  One  cousin — Robert  Keatinge — was  returned 
at  the  same  time  as  himself  for  County  Waterford  ;  Frank 
Scully,  another  cousin,  was  returned  for  Tipperary.  This 
was  at  the  1847  election  ;  subsequently,  in  1852,  Mr.  Vincent 
Scully,  his  nephew,  was  returned  for  County  Cork.  The 
Sadleirite  party  consisted,  besides,  of  two  brothers  named 
O'Flaherty  (Anthony  and  Edmund),  of  a  Doctor  Maurice 
Power,  of  Mr.  Monsell  (now  disguised  under  the  name  of 
Lord  Emly),  and  of  Mr.  William  Keogh.  How  far  and 
how  many  of  these  men  were  indebted  to  Sadleir  for  pecu- 
niary assistance  it  is  impossible,  of  course,  to  say  ;  but  two 
of  them  were  certainly  in  his  pay — Edmund  O'Flaherty  and 
William  Keogh.  The  desperate  fortunes  of  Keogh  craved 
for  help  wherever  it  might  come  from  ;  Sadleir  on  one  occa- 
sion, as  will  be  seen,  subscribed  ioo/.  for  his  election 
expenses ;  and  subsequently  the  name  of  Keogh  was  to 
many  of  the  bills  which  were  put  in  circulation  by  Edmund 
O'Flaherty.  Keogh  said  his  name  was  forged  ;  possibly  the 
statement  was  true  ;  but  it  would  not  be  surprising  if  it  were 

1  New  Ireland,  p.  157. 


138  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

false.     This  is  not  an  uncharitable  or  unwarrantable  conclu- 
sion, as  will  be  subsequently  seen. 

The  object  of  Sadleir  and  his  associates  was,  of  course, 
personal  advancement,  and  personal  advancement  alone. 
But  personal  advancement  could  only  be  obtained  from  an 
English  Minister ;  and  the  rise  of  the  new  Tenant  Right 
movement,  hostile  to  the  principles  of  every  English  Ministry 
of  that  period,  was  therefore  to  the  Sadleirites  the  omen  of 
defeat,  and  not  the  augury  of  hope.  It  seemed  probable  that 
the  movement  would  become— as  every  national  movement 
before  or  since,  that  has  ever  got  a  chance  in  Ireland,  has 
become — a  great  national  force,  impossible  to  resist  ;  and  that 
no  constituency  would  accept  any  man  who  did  not  fight  in 
its  ranks.  Then  an  idea  was  being  put  forward  which  would 
be  still  more  fatal  to  such  purposes  as  those  of  Sadleir  and 
Keogh.  It  will  be  remembered  that  the  great  point  of  con- 
troversy between  Old  and  Young  Ireland  was  as  to  the  pledge 
against  office-seeking.  The  break-up  of  the  hideous  party  of 
1847  gave  terrible  confirmation  to  the  objections  which  the 
Young  Irelandershad  brought  against  the  tribe  of  office-seekers  ; 
and  all  Ireland  now  agreed  in  the  opinion  that  nothing  was  to 
be  gained  from  any  Ministry  by  any  party  but  a  party  of 
independent  men.  Gavan  Duffy,  and  the  other  survivors  of 
Young  Ireland  who  had  joined  in  the  new  movement,  insisted 
that  the  old  pledge  should  be  revived,  pointing  out  that  the 
land  question  could  never  be  settled  in  any  other  way.  Thus, 
then,  the  Tenant  Right  movement  had  two  distinct  principles 
— a  principle  as  to  the  end  to  be  attained,  and  a  principle  as 
to  the  policy  for  attaining  it.  The  party  not  only  believed 
that  Tenant  Right  was  essential  for  the  prosperity  of  Ireland, 
but  believed  as  firmly  that  Tenant  Right  could  only  be  won 
by  an  Irish  party  which  would  oppose  every  Ministry  that 
did  not  make  Tenant  Right  a  policy  by  which  to  stand  or 
fall.  In  other  words,  the  policy  of  the  Tenant  Righters  was 
the  very  opposite  of  that  of  the  Sadleirites  ;  the  one  wanted 
Tenant  Right,  and  did  not  care  for  Ministries  ;  the  other 
wanted  office,  and  did  not  care  for  Tenant  Right.  The 
struggle  was  visible  in  the  very  earliest  days  of  the  Tenant 
Right  movement  ;  its  break-out  was  inevitable ;  and  if  a 


THE    GREAT   BETRAYAL  139 

struggle  had  taken  place  while  the  country  was  united  and 
enthusiastic  about  Tenant  Right,  it  is  probable  that  Sadleir 
and  Keogh  would  have  been  driven  from  public  life  and  the 
Tenant  Right  battle  have  been  won. 

But  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill  produced  the  disastrous 
diversion  that  postponed  this  struggle.  Sadleir  and  Keogh 
were  not  slow  to  see  the  use  to  which  Lord  John  Russell'? 
proposals  could  be  turned.  Of  course,  the  Ecclesiastical 
Titles  Bill  was  a  question  upon  which  certain  sections  of  the 
English  people  felt  strongly  at  that  moment.  But  Keogl 
and  Sadleir  probably  knew  that  such  outbursts  of  passion  an 
as  transitory  as  they  are  violent.  Then  the  Bill  was  not  a 
favourite  with  any  English  party  ;  Mr.  Disraeli  gave  it  at  first 
but  a  half-hearted  support  on  the  part  of  the  Conservatives  ; 
it  had  strong  opponents,  they  thought,  in  Mr.  Gladstone,  Sir 
James  Graham,  and  the  other  Peelites  ;  and  there  was  every 
reason  to  think  that  even  Lord  John  Russell  himself  had  no 
great  joy  in  his  legislative  child.  It  was  unlike  Tenant 
Right,  which  menaced  great  interests,  at  that  moment  as 
supreme  in  the  Lower  as  in  the  Upper  House  of  Parliament, 
and  which  was  equally  unacceptable  to  all  sections  of  Parlia- 
mentary opinion  except  the  insignificant  group  of  Radicals. 
On  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill,  then,  a  politician  could  be 
as  violent  as  he  pleased,  without  making  himself  everlastingly 
objectionable  to  anybody  except  to  Mr.  Newdegate  ;  while  a 
strong  position  on  the  land  question  might  mean  permanent 
exclusion  from  office.  Finally,  Sadleir  and  Keogh  knew  the 
passionate  attachment  of  the  Irish  people  to  their  religion  ; 
and  shrewdly  calculated  that  any  politician  who  was  able  to 
pose  as  a  defender  of  that  religion  would  establish  a  claim  to 
their  confidence  and  affections  which  it  would  take  much  to 
shake. 

Accordingly,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  Keogh  and 
Sadleir  opposed  the  Bill  with  extraordinary  vehemence  of 
language  and  of  tactics.  They  exhausted  the  forms  of  the 
House,  they  fought  the  Bill  obstinately  and  clause  by  clause. 
A  portion  of  the  Irish  people,  looking  on  at  this  struggle, 
were  easily  led  to  believe  that  it  was  heroic ;  and  the 
Sadleirites,  playing  upon  another  weakness,  endeared  them- 


I4o  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

selves  still  further  to  Irish  hearts  by  styling  themselves  '  the 
Irish  Brigade ' — the  name  of  those  exiled  Irish  warriors  who 
fought  heroically  on  every  battle-field  of  Europe,  after  unjust 
laws  had  exiled  them  from  their  own  country.  By  the 
English  the  party  were  known  by  the  less  flattering  title  of 
the  '  Pope's  Brass  Band.' 

In  Ireland,  meantime,  the  two  agitations  went  on  side  by 
side.  Great  Catholic  demonstrations  were  everywhere  held, 
and  Sadleir  was  the  organiser  and  Keogh  the  orator  of  these 
demonstrations.  At  these  meetings  the  Prelates  of  the 
Catholic  Church  attended,  and  Keogh  excelled  everybody 
else  in  the  extravagant  fulsomeness  of  the  eulogies  which  he 
poured  upon  their  heads.  It  was  a  singular  fatality  that  at 
this  very  period  an  Irish  Prelate  was  first  getting  into  pro- 
minence who  was  destined  to  be  a  main  though  unconscious, 
and  perhaps  innocent,  instrument  in  the  game  Keogh  and 
Sadleir  were  playing.  This  was  Paul  Cullen,  afterwards 
Cardinal  Cullen  and  Archbishop  of  Dublin.  At  this  period 
he  had  just  been  appointed  Archbishop  of  Armagh.  He  had 
been  for  many  years  the  head  of  the  Irish  College  in  Rome 
and  it  was  a  favourite  reproach  against  him  that  he  was  more 
of  a  Roman  monk  than  an  Irish  patriot.  So  far  as  I  can 
gather  his  policy,  he  regarded  it  as  his  main  if  not  sole  duty 
to  look  after  the  interest  of  his  Church,  rather  than  the 
purely  secular  interests  of  politics.  For  this  reason  his  whole 
political  influence  was  thrown  in  on  the  side  of  any  politician 
who  had  anything  to  give  the  Church.  In  after  struggles, 
Cardinal  Cullen  was  always  on  the  side  of  the  (  Government ' 
as  against  all  struggles  of  Nationalists,  on  the  principle  that 
Iingland  could  do  more  for  the  interests  of  the  Church  than 
any  National  Party.  England  could  serve  the  Church  in 
Ireland  through  concessions  on  the  education  question  ;  she 
could  serve  the  Church  generally  and  in  a  wider  area  by  her 
influence  as  a  great  power  in  the  Councils  of  Europe  ;  and  she 
could  tolerate  or  persecute  millions  of  Catholics  scattered 
through  her  world-wide  empire.  This  policy — intelligible 
from  the  standpoint  of  the  Churchman — Cardinal  Cullen 
pursued  for  upwards  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  with  a  purpose 
that  never  swerved,  and  with  a  devotion  that  belonged  to  a 


THE    GREAT   BETRAYAL  141 

man  whose  life  was  swallowed  up  in  his  principles.  At  a 
period  later  than  this,  Cardinal  Cullen  had  means  for  giving 
effect  to  his  will  so  large  as  to  make  him  the  greatest  stand- 
ing force  in  Irish  politics.  The  power  of  the  Catholic  clergy- 
man was  almost  unshaken  ;  throughout  every  town  and 
village  in  Ireland  the  Catholic  priest,  strong  in  the  affection  of 
his  flock,  and,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  the  best  educated  man 
in  his  district,  was  almost  a  political  autocrat ;  and  over  the 
action  of  nearly  every  priest  in  Ireland  Cardinal  Cullen  had 
control.  He  was  the  Prelate  whose  voice  was  practically  law 
at  the  Holy  See  in  regard  to  all  Irish  ecclesiastical  affairs  ;  a 
few  clergymen  who  resisted  his  will  were  summarily  crushed, 
and  every  vacancy  in  the  episcopate  was  filled  with  his 
nominees.  Archbishop  MacHale,  and  a  few  of  the  elder 
generation  of  prelates  who  had  shared  in  O'Connell's  struggle 
for  repeal  of  the  Union,  resisted  his  influence  to  the  end  ; 
but  practically,  for  many  years,  Cardinal  Cullen  was  the 
Catholic  Church  in  Ireland,  and  had  all  that  mighty  organi- 
sation under  his  word  of  command. 

On  August  19,  1851,  a  great  meeting  was  held  in  the 
Rotunda,  in  Dublin,  for  the  purpose  of  forming  a  '  Catholic 
Defence  Association.'  Over  this  meeting  Archbishop  Cullen 
presided.  Mr.  John  Sadleir  was  one  of  the  secretaries,  and 
William  Keogh  was  the  chief  speaker.  To  the  chairman  of 
the  meeting  Keogh  was  laboriously  complimentary.  '  I  now,' 
he  said,  '  as  one  of  her  Majesty's  Counsel,  whether  learned  or 
unlearned  in  the  law,  holding  the  Act  of  Parliament  in  my 
hand,  unhesitatingly  give  his  proper  title  to  the  Lord  Bishop 
of  Armagh.'  These  words  received  further  emphasis  as  he 
held  the  Act  of  Parliament  thus  defined  in  his  outstretched 
hand.  At  a  meeting  of  his  constituents  in  Athlone  he  paid 
even  higher  court  to  another  Catholic  prelate — Archbishop 
MacHale — who  then,  and  for  many  years  afterwards,  exer- 
cised enormous  influence.  *  I  see  here,'  said  Keogh,  ' the 
venerated  prelates  of  my  Church,  first  among  them,  "  the 
observed  of  all  observers,"  the  illustrious  Archbishop  of  Tuam, 
who,  like  that  lofty  tower  which  rises  upon  the  banks  of  the 
yellow  Tiber,  the  pride  and  protection  of  the  city,  is  at  once 
the  glory  and  the  guardian,  the  decus  et  tutamen  of  the  Catholic 


I42  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

religion.'  John  Sadleir  was  also  one  of  the  speakers  at  this 
meeting. 

Meantime  the  Tenant  Right  movement  had  been  growing, 
and  Keogh  and  Sadleir  found  it  necessary  to  affect  devotion 
to  its  purposes  and  policy.  Over  and  over  again  they  pledged 
themselves  not  to  accept  office  from  any  Ministry  that  did  not 
make  Tenant  Right  a  Cabinet  question.  Nor  was  this  all. 
Under  the  example  of  the  Tenant  League,  the  Catholic 
Association  also  formulated  the  policy  of  pledging  the  Irish 
members  to  accept  no  office  from  any  Ministry  which  did  not 
make  the  Repeal  of  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Act  a  Cabinet 
question ;  and  to  that  pledge  Keogh  over  and  over  again  gave 
his  adhesion. 

But  Gavan  Duffy,  the  other  writers  in  the  £  Nation  '  and 
( Freeman's  Journal,'  and  all  the  earnest  Tenant  Righters, 
still  disbelieved  in  the  '  Irish  Brigade/  and  Keogh  and 
Sadleir  were  more  than  once  accused  of  being  office-seekers. 
These  charges,  repeated  over  and  over  again,  made  wider  a 
distinct  line  of  cleavage  in  the  Tenant  League,  as  the  Tenant 
Right  organisation  was  called.  The  two  parties  were  watchful 
and  distrustful  of  each  other,  and  between  the  two  there 
arose  a  fight  for  life.  The  position  of  Sadleir  and  Keogh  at 
this  period  was  desperate.  The  fight  in  which  they  were 
engaged  meant  dazzling  success  or  shameful  and  abysmal 
ruin.  Sadleir,  as  will  be  seen,  was  reaching  the  point  where 
exposure  could  no  longer  be  avoided,  and  he  had  to  make  his 
desperate  choice  between  the  life  of  the  convict  and  the  death 
of  the  suicide.  The  position  of  Keogh  was  equally  desperate. 
He  was  deeper  than  ever  in  debt  ;  as  has  been  seen,  the 
waiters  at  some  of  the  entertainments  in  his  house  in  Dublin 
were  bailiffs  in  disguise  ;  arrest  dogged  his  fleeing  footsteps 
wherever  he  went,  and  arrest  meant  social,  professional, 
political  death.  The  hungry  army  of  his  creditors  watched 
the  rise  and  fall  of  his  chequered  fortunes  with  the  wolfish 
glare  of  peasant  depositors  in  a  shaky  bank  ;  the  least  slip 
or  mishap,  and  they  were  down  upon  him,  and  then  chaos 
was  come  again.  It  was  possible  that  fate  had  a  darker  future 
for  him  than  even  enforced  exile.  How  far  he  was  acquainted 
with  the  financial  enterprises  of  John  Sadleir  is  not  known, 


THE    GREAT   BETRAYAL  143 

nor  how  deeply  he  was  involved  in  the  embezzlements  of  Mr. 
Edmund  O'Flaherty.  But  he  was  an  intimate  and  a  debtor 
of  the  two  men,  and  might  well  be  implicated  in  some  of  their 
misdeeds.  In  his  darker  hours  he  may  have  shuddered  at 
the  thought  that  he  had  brought  himself  within  the  reach  of 
the  criminal  law.  The  judicial  bench  or  the  convict's  dock— 
these  were  the  dread  stakes  that  awaited  the  result  of  the 
game. 

And  the  game  was  one  of  the  wildest  chance.  The 
whole  national  press  of  the  country  was  against  him.  Sadleir 
had  established  a  paper  called  the  *  Catholic  Telegraph.'  It  was 
a  journal  of  ultra-religious  fervour,  went  into  fits  of  lunacy 
over  the  Titles  Bill,  and  while  upholding  Sadleir  and  Keogh 
as  the  spotless  champions  of  the  Act,  shook  its  head  sadly 
over  the  orthodoxy  of  Gavan  Duffy  and  the  other  advocates 
of  Tenant  Right.  But  the  '  Catholic  Telegraph '  had  not  the 
power  of  the  national  journals,  and  day  after  day  the  *  Freeman's 
Journal,'  week  after  week  the  '  Nation/  dogged  the  utterances, 
watched  the  shifts,  exposed  the  devices  of  Sadleir  and  Keogh. 
The  overwhelming  majority  of  the  country,  too,  believed  in  the 
Tenant  Righters  and  disbelieved  in  the  Catholic  champions. 
Against  this  mighty  combination  in  front,  Keogh  had  in  his 
flank  the  few  desperate  shopkeepers  of  Athlone,  whom  his 
money  had  bought  and  the  money  of  another  man  could  buy 
again.  Thus  attacked  in  front  and  behind,  and  from  all  sides, 
he  had  no  weapons  of  defence  but  his  tongue,  his  brazen 
audacity,  his  desperate  courage,  and  the  adhesion  or  neutrality 
of  a  certain  number  of  Catholic  bishops. 

These  facts  will  explain  to  the  reader  the  strange  ma- 
noeuvres Keogh  had  to  employ.  The  thing  above  all  things  he 
wanted  was  office  ;  the  thing  he  was  called  above  all  things 
to  forswear  was  office.  At  all  the  meetings,  then,  whether 
of  the  Catholic  Defence  Association  or  the  Tenant  League, 
he  was  bound  above  all  others  in  the  pledge  against  taking 
office,  unless  under  conditions  then  impossible. 

'As  I  said,  Whigs  or  Tories,  Peelites  or  Protectionists,'  he  said 
to  his  constituents  at  Athlone  in  the  speech  already  alluded  to,  in 
which  he  paid  Archbishop  MacHale  such  fulsome  compliments, 
'  are  all  the  same  to  me.  ...  I  know  that  in  the  career  in  which  we 


i44  *THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

are  engaged  we  will  have  to  meet  open  hostility.  That  we  can  do. 
We  had,  and  I  know  we  will  have  again,  treacherous  friends.  These 
also  we  can  dispose  of.  I  will  fight  for  my  religion  and  my  country, 
scorning  and  defying  calumny,  meeting  boldly  honourable  foes, 
seeking  out  treacherous  friends  ;  and  as  long  as  I  have  the  confi- 
dence of  the  people,  I  declare  in  the  most  solemn  manner,  before 
this  august  assembly,  I  shall  not  regard  any  party.  I  know  that  the 
road  I  take  does  not  lead  to  preferment.  I  do  not  belong  to  the 
Whigs;  I  never  will  belong  to  the  Whigs.  I  do  not  belong  to  the 
Tories  ;  I  never  will  have  any  tiling  to  do  with  them.'' 

Thus  he  had  separated  himself  from  the  two  great  parties 
in  the  English  Parliament.  There  was,  however,  a  third  party 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  which  was  one  of  its  most  notice- 
able and  important  elements.  This  was  the  party  of  the 
Pcclites — the  party  under  whose  banner  Keogh  had  fought 
when  first  he  stood  for  Athlone.  From  that  party  also  the 
incorruptible  patriot  cut  himself  off. 

'  I  have  read  in  the  newspapers  this  morning,'  he  said,  '  that  Mr. 
Frederick  Peel  has  joined  the  Whig  Government,  and  that  it  is 
likely  men  of  whose  acquaintance  I  am  proud  will  become  com- 
ponent parts  of  the  Administration.  Here,  in  the  presence  of  my 
constituents  and  my  country — and  I  hope  I  am  not  so  base  a  man 
as  to  make  an  avowal  which  could  be  contradicted  to-morrow,  if  I 
was  capable  of  doing  that  which  is  insinuated  against  me— I  solemnly 
declare,  if  there  was  a  Peelite  administration  in  office  to-morrow  it 
would  be  nothing  to  me.  .  .  .  If  all  the  Peelites  in  the  House  joined 
the  Whig  administration,  I  would  be  their  unmitigated,  their  untiring, 
their  indefatigable  opponent,  until  we  obtain  full  justice."*  l 

And  then,  to  be  completely  explicit,  he  went  on  to  define 
what  he  meant  by  the  '  full  justice/  the  attainment  of  which 
should  precede  any  acceptance  of  office. 

'  And  what  is  that  justice?  I  can  state  the  terms  of  it  well.  I 
will  not  support  any  party  which  will  not  make  it  the  first  ingredient 
of  their  political  existence  to  repeal  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill. 
I  will  not  join  any  party  which  does  not  go  much  farther  that  that. 
I  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  any  party  which,  without  interfering 
with  the  religious  belief  of  the  Protestant  population,  will  not  consent  to 

1  A  Re.cord  of  Traitorism,  or  the  Political  Life  and  Adventures  of  Mr.  Justice 
Kco'^h,  by  T.  I).  Sullivan,  p.  5. 


THE    GREAT   BETRAYAL  145 

remove  from  off  the  Catholics  of  this  country  the  intolerable  burden 
of  sustaining  a  Church  Establishment  with  which  they  are  not  in 
communion.  .  .  .  And  .  .  .  I  will  not  support  any  political  party 
which  does  not  make  it  part  of  its  political  creed  to  do  all  justice  to  the 
tenant  in  Ireland.  I  will  not  support  any  party  which  will  not  place 
on  a  satisfactory  footing  the  relations  of  landlord  and  tenant."1 * 

Nothing  could  be  more  explicit  than  this  language,  nothing 
more  binding  than  those  pledges  ;  the  whole  gospel  of  the 
Tenant  League,  and  even  something  more,  was  subscribed  to 
by  Mr.  Keogh,  and  yet  the  Tenant  Leaguers  were  suspicious, 
and  the  '  Freeman's  Journal '  and  the  *  Nation '  still  openly 
expressed  their  want  of  faith  in  even  these  solemn  pledges  of 
the  champions  of  religion.  An  incident  confirmed  these 
doubts.  In  February,  1852,  Lord  John  Russell  was  defeated 
by  the  combination  of  Lord  Palmerston  with  the  Conser- 
vatives on  the  Militia  Bill,  and  the  first  Derby-Disraeli 
administration  came  into  office.  Dr.  Maurice  Power,  M.P. 
for  Cork,  was  offered  and  accepted  office  as  Governor  of  St. 
Lucia.  Dr.  Power  was  a  foremost  and  active  member  of  the 
'  Irish  Brigade '  ;  and  at  once  the  Tenant  Leaguers  foretold 
that  as  Power  had  gone,  so  also  would  go  Sadleir  and  Keogh. 
These  doubts  were  finally  expressed  to  Keogh's  face.  He 
and  Sadleir,  immediately  after  the  promotion  of  Power,  started 
Mr.  Vincent  Scully,  a  nephew  of  Sadleir,  as  their  candidate. 

On  Monday,  March  8,  1852,  Keogh  was  present  at  a 
meeting  in  the  city  of  Cork  in  support  of  the  candidature  of 
Mr.  Scully.  He  had  been  assailed  with  even  more  than  its 
usual  vigour  in  that  week's  issue  of  the  '  Nation.'  Mr.  McCarthy 
Downing,  who  long  years  afterwards  was  member  for  County 
Cork,  belonged  to  the  Tenant  Righters,  and  at  this  meeting 
openly  expressed  his  doubts  of  the  honesty  of  Keogh  and 
Sadleir  and  the  *  Irish  Brigade.' 

'I  will  tell  the  meeting  fairly  and  honestly,' said  Mr.  Downing, 

'  that  I  believe  the  Irish  Brigade  are  not  sincere  advocates  of  the 

Tenant  Right  question.     I  state  that,  and  I  believe  it  is  in  the  presence 

of  two  of  them.     I  attended  two  great  meetings  in  the  Music  Hall 

in  Dublin,  at  the  inauguration  of  the  Tenant  League,  at  my  own 

,  expense,  when  a  deputation  waited  upon  the  Brigade  to  attend  the 

1  T.  D.  Sullivan's  Record,  pp.  5-6. 

L 


I46  'THE    PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

meeting,  and  I  protest  I  never  saw  a  beast  drawn  to  the  slaughter- 
hduse  by  the  butcher  to  receive  the  knife  with  more  difficulty  than 
there  was  in  bringing  to  that  meeting  the  members  of  the  Irish 
Brigade.' l 

'Then  up  rose  Mr.  Keogh,'  writes  A.  M.  Sullivan,2  'and 
never,  perhaps,  were  his  marvellous  gifts  more  requisite  than 
at  this  critical  moment.  The  future  fate  and  fortunes  of  his 
leaders  and  party  hung  on  the  turn  affairs  might  take  at  this 
meeting,  an  open  challenge  and  public  charge  having  been 
thus  flung  down  against  them.  There  were  a  few  hostile 
cries  when  he  stood  up,  but  silence  was  after  a  while  ob- 
tained. With  flushed  countenance  and  heaving  breast  he 
burst  forth  in  these  words  :— 

'  Great  God  ! '  he  exclaimed,  '  in  this  assemblage  of  Irishmen,  have 
you  found  that  those  who  are  most  ready  to  take  every  pledge  have 
been  the  most  sincere  in  perseverance  to  the  end,  or  have  you  not 
rather  seen  that  they  who,  like  myself,  went  into  Parliament  perfectly 
unpledged,  not  supported  by  the  popular  voice,  but  in  the  face  of 
popular  acclaim,  when  the  time  for  trial  comes  are  not  found  want- 
ing? I  declared  myself  in  the  presence  of  the  bishops  of  Ireland, 
and  of  my  colleagues  in  Parliament,  that  let  the  Minister  of  the  day 
be  whom  he  may — let  him  be  the  Earl  of  Derby,  let  him  be  Sir  John 
Graham,  or  Lord  John  Russell— it  was  all  the  same  to  us  ;  and,  so 
help  me  God,  no  matter  who  the  Minister  may  be,  no  matter  who 
the  party  in  power  may  be,  I  will  neither  support  that  Minister  nor 
that  party  unless  he  comes  into  power  prepared  to  carry  the 
measures  which  universal  popular  Ireland  demands.  I  have  aban- 
doned my  own  profession  to  join  in  cementing  and  forming  an  Irish 
Parliamentary  party.  That  has  been  my  ambition.  It  may  be  a 
ba.se  one.  I  think  it  an  honourable  one.  I  have  seconded  the  pro- 
position of  Mr.  Sharman  Crawford  in  the  House  of  Commons.  I 
have  met  the  Minister  upon  it  to  the  utmost  extent  of  my  limited 
abilities,  at  a  moment  when  disunion  was  not  expected.  So  help  me 
God  !  upon  that  and  every  other  question  to  which  I  have  given  my 
adhesion  I  will  be — and  I  know  I  may  say  that  every  one  of  my 
friends  is  as  determined  as  myself— an  unflinching,  undeviating, 
unalterable  supporter  of  it.' 

'  No  wonder,'  writes  A.  M.  Sullivan,  continuing  his  de- 
scription of  the  scene,  *  the  assemblage  who  had  listened  as 

1  T.  D.  Sullivan's  Record,    p.  7.  "  New  Ireland,  p.  161. 


THE    GREAT   BETRAYAL  147 

if  spellbound  while  he  spoke,  sprang  to  their  feet,  and  with 
vociferous  cheering  atoned  for  their  previous  doubts  of  the 
man  whose  oath  had  now  sealed  his  public  principles.' l 

In  the  midst  of  this  struggle  between  the  different  sections 
of  the  Irish  members  the  Derby-Disraeli  ministry  went  to  the 
country.  At  the  general  election  in  Ireland  the  combatants 
had  their  representatives  among  the  candidates  for  the 
different  constituencies.  Roughly,  the  candidates  might  be 
divided  into  Tories  and  Whigs,  pledged  to  either  of  the  two 
great  English  parties,  the  Tenant  Leaguers,  and  what  were 
known  as  the  Catholic  Defenders.  The  latter  were  the  men 
who  were  pushing  the  sectarian  questions  to  the  front  in  order 
to  drive  the  land  question  to  the  rear,  and  they  were  under 
the  direction,  secretly  or  openly,  of  the  Keogh-Sadleir  brigade. 
In  some  constituencies  the  two  sections  came  into  collision, 
but  the  final  result  was  a  drawn  battle,  in  which  both  sides 
gained  and  lost  something. 

Some  of  the  most  important  leaders  of  the  Tenant 
Leaguers  had  been  returned.  Gavan  Duffy  was  elected  for 
New  Ross,  John  Francis  Maguire  for  Dungarvan,  George 
Henry  Moore  for  the  county  of  Mayo,  and  Frederic  Lucas 
for  the  county  of  Meath.  Moore  was  a  great  addition  to  the 
strength  of  the  Tenant  Leaguers.  A  landlord,  he  sympa- 
thised vehemently  with  the  demand  of  the  tenants  for  security 
in  their  holdings.  He  had  also  oratorical  gifts  of  a  high  order, 
and  his  political  honesty  was  inflexible.  Frederic  Lucas,  an 
Englishman  and  a  Protestant  by  birth,  had  changed  both  his 
religious  and  national  faith  ;  he  had  become  a  Catholic  and 
an  Irish  nationalist.  Connected  by  marriage  with  Mr.  John 
Bright,  a  man  of  independent  fortune  and  of  a  pure  and  lofty 
character,  he  held  high  rank  in  his  party,  and  his  name  still 
has  its  place  in  the  affections  of  the  Irish  people.  He  was 
proprietor  of  the  '  Tablet,'  a  journal  which  still  exists.  The 
1  Tablet '  at  this  period  was  a  strongly  national  journal,  and  was 
one  of  the  constant  assailants  of  Keogh  and  Sadleir.  There 
was  one  important  defeat.  Dr.  (afterwards  Sir  John)  Gray, 
proprietor  of  the  '  Freeman's  Journal,'  was  defeated  for  Mona- 
ghan.  The  Irish  Brigade  was  entirely  successful.  Sadleir 

1  New  Ireland,  p.  162. 

L  2 


148  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

and  his  three  relatives,  Francis  and  Vincent  Scully  and 
Robert  Keatinge,  were  re-elected  ;  James,  his  brother — of 
whom  more  anon— was  elected  for  Tipperary ;  Anthony 
O'Flaherty  was  re-elected  for  Galway ;  Mr.  Monsell  for  Lime- 
rick ;  and  Keogh  for  Athlone. 

In  the  general  election  Keogh  took  a  prominent  and  active 
part.  His  tongue  was  at  the  service  of  everybody  who  fought 
under  the  flag  of  the  Catholic  Defence  Association — that  is, 
of  John  Sadleir  and  himself.  His  speeches  were  remarkable, 
even  in  that  vituperative  period,  for  the  violence  of  their 
language,  the  brutality  and  criminality  of  his  appeals  to  the 
mob.  One  of  his  speeches  in  particular  became  the  object  of 
notice.  In  Westmeath  the  struggle  was  between  Captain 
Magan,  a  friend  and  associate  of  Keogh,  and  Sir  R.  Levinge, 
a  local  landlord.  In  the  town  of  Moate  Keogh  made  a  speech 
in  favour  of  Captain  Magan,  and  in  the  course  of  that  speech 
he  used  these  words  :  '  Boys,  we  are  in  the  midst  of  a  delight- 
ful summer,  when  the  days  are  long  and  the  nights  are  short ; 
next  comes  autumn,  when  the  days  and  nights  are  of  equal 
length  ;  but  next  comes  dreary  winter,  when  the  days  are 
short  and  the  nights  long  ;  and  woe  be  to  those,  during  those 
long  nights,  who  vote  for  Sir  Richard  Levinge  at  the  present 
election.' 1 

These  terrible  words  derived  additional  significance  from 
the  surroundings  under  which  they  were  delivered.  Westmeath 
is  one  of  the  counties  where  eviction  has  raged  most  fiercely, 
with  most  widespread  desolation,  with  circumstances  of 
tragic  suffering.  To-day,  one  driving  for  miles  through  a 
land  bare  of  houses  or  human  beings,  and  studded  all  around 
with  the  skeleton  walls  of  ruined  homes,  finds  it  telling  too 
plainly  of  the  dread  times  through  which  the  county  has 
passed.  The  people  of  the  county  are  a  fierce  and  stalwart 
breed,  and  resisted  doggedly,  though  impotently,  their  tyrants. 
In  Westmeath,  accordingly,  the  Ribbon  and  other  societies, 
bound  by  oath  to  meet  eviction  with  assassination,  used  to  be 
particularly  strong  ;  and  the  county  has  been  the  scene  of 
some  of  the  most  terrible  murders,  and  occasionally  of  the 
most  violent  epidemics  of  crime.  It  was  more  than  probable 

*  New  Ireland,  p.  167. 


THE    GREAT   BETRAYAL  149 

that,  among  the  audience  to  which  these  words  were  addressed, 
there  were  many  men  goaded  to  blind  fury  by  eviction, 
suffered  or  impending,  and  organised  with  the  object  of 
avenging  their  wrongs  in  blood. 

The  election  of  1852  was  at  last  over,  and  the  Tenant 
Leaguers  were  the  chief  victors.  They  had  not  been  able 
to  exclude  the  Catholic  Defenders,  but  they  had  compelled 
them  to  swallow  the  Tenant  League  pledge.  The  country 
instinctively  felt  the  soundness  of  the  doctrine,  that  to  beg 
for  office  from  the  Minister  and  to  demand  justice  for  the 
tenant  were  irreconcilable  positions  ;  and  accordingly  the 
pledge  against  taking  office,  except  from  a  Government  that 
made  the  settlement  of  the  relations  between  landlord  and 
tenant  a  Cabinet  question,  was  enforced  from  every  candidate 
for  a  popular  constituency.  When,  accordingly,  the  Leaguers 
held  a  Tenant  Right  Conference  on  September  8,  1852,  all 
the  Irish  members  returned  on  popular  principles — whether 
as  Tenant  Righters  or  as  Catholic  Defenders — were  com- 
pelled to  attend.  There  were  forty  Irish  members  present 
in  all.  A  resolution  was  proposed  which  put  into  definite 
form  the  pledge  already  taken  at  the  hustings.  It  was  in 
these  words : — 

Resolved  :  that  in  the  opinion  of  this  conference  it  is  essential 
to  the  proper  management  of  this  cause  that  the  Members  of  Parlia- 
ment who  have  been  returned  on  Tenant  Right  principles  should 
hold  themselves  perfectly  independent  of,  and  in  opposition  to,  all 
Governments  which  do  not  make  it  part  of  their  policy,  and  a 
Cabinet  question,  to  give  to  the  tenantry  of  Ireland  a  measure  em- 
bodying the  principles  of  Mr.  Sharman  Crawford's  Bill 

This  resolution  was  proposed  by  Mr.  Keogh ;  it  was 
carried  with  but  one  dissentient — Mr.  Burke  Roche,  M.P., 
afterwards  Lord  Fermoy — '  amid  great  cheering.' 1 

The  position  of  parties  in  the  House  of  Commons  at  the 
moment  rendered  it  perfectly  possible  to  carry  out  this  policy 
to  a  successful  issue.  There  were  then  three  parties  :  the 
Whigs,  under  Lord  John  Russell ;  the  Protectionist  Conserva- 
tives, under  Mr.  Disraeli ;  and  the  Peelites.  No  one  of  these 

1  T.  D.  Sullivan's  Record,  p.  7. 


150  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

three  parties  had  come  back  from  the  election  sufficiently 
powerful  to  govern  by  itself,  and  a  Coalition  Ministry  was 
plainly  the  only  one  possible.  The  Irish  party,  numbering 
between  forty  and  fifty  members,  had  it  in  their  power,  if 
they  preserved  their  unity,  to  make  or  mar  any  Ministry  that 
could  be  formed  by  either  of  these  contending  sections  ;  they 
were  absolute  masters  of  the  situation.  The  Peelites  had,  as 
has  been  seen,  opposed  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill,  and 
that  gave  them  a  place  in  the  confidence  of  the  Irish  people. 
It  was  the  universal  expectation  in  Ireland  that  the  Tenant 
Leaguers  would  form  a  coalition  with  the  Peelites,  based  on 
the  repeal  of  the  Titles  Act,  and  the  grant  of  security  of 
tenure  to  the  tenants. 

Parliament  met  on  November  4,  1852  ;  on  Friday, 
December  17  following,  the  Budget  of  Mr.  Disraeli  was 
rejected  by  a  combination  of  different  parties,  and  the 
Ministry  resigned.  The  words  of  A.  M.  Sullivan,  who  was 
an  active  politician  at  the  period,  best  describe  what 
followed  : — 

1  A  shout  went  up  from  Ireland,  A  thrill  of  the  wildest 
excitement  shook  the  island  from  the  centre  to  the  sea. 
Now  joy  and  triumph — now  torturing  doubt — now  the  very 
agony  of  suspense,  prevailed.  What  would  the  Irish  party 
do  ?  Here  was  the  crisis  which  was  to  shame  their  oaths  or 
prove  them  true.  No  Liberal  or  composite  administration 
was  possible  without  them,  and  their  demand  was  one  no 
Minister  had  ever  deemed  to  be  just.  What  would  the  Irish 
members  do  ?  The  fate  of  the  new  Ministry,  the  fate  of 
Ireland,  was  in  their  hands. 

*  As  terrible  deeds  are  said  to  be  sometimes  preceded  by  a 
mysterious  apprehension,  so  in  the  last  week  of  that  old  year 
a  vague  gloom  chilled  every  heart.  The  news  from  London 
was  panted  for,  hour  by  hour.  At  length  the  blow  fell. 
Tidings  of  treason  and  disaster  came,  The  Brigade  was  sold 
to  Lord  Aberdeen  !  John  Sadleir  was  Lord  of  the  Treasury  ! 
William  Keogh  was  Irish  Solicitor-General  !  Edmund 
O'Flaherty  was  Commissioner  of  Income-Tax  !  And  so  on. 
The  English  people,  fortunately  accustomed  for  centuries  to 
exercise  the  functions  of  political  life,  may  well  be  unable  to 


THE   GREAT    BETRAYAL  151 

comprehend  the  paralysis  which  followed  this  blow  in  Ireland. 
The  merchant  of  many  ships  may  bear  with  composuie  the 
wreck  of  one.  But  here  was  an  argosy,  freighted  with  the  last 
and  most  precious  hopes  of  a  people  already  on  the  verge  of 
ruin  and  despair,  scuttled  before  their  eyes  by  the  men  who 
had  called  on  the  Most  High  God  to  witness  their  fidelity ! 
The  Irish  tenantry  had  played  their  last  stake  and  lost.  A 
despairing  stupor  like  to  that  of  the  famine  time  shrouded 
the  land.  Notices  to  quit  fell  "  like  snowflakes  "  all  over  the 
counties  where  the  hapless  farmers  had  "  refused  the  land- 
lord "  and  voted  for  a  Brigadier.  But  the  banker-politician 
had  won.  His  accustomed  success  had  attended  him.  He 
was  not  as  yet  a  peer,  but  he  was  a  Treasury  Lord.  From 
their  seats  on  the  Treasury  bench  he  and  his  comrade,  "  the 
Solicitor  General,"  could  smile  calmly  at  the  accusing  coun- 
tenances of  Duffy  and  Moore  and  Lucas.  The  New  Year's 
chimes  rang  in  the  triumph  of  John  Sadleir's  daring  ambi- 
tion. Did  no  dismal  minor  tone,  like  mournful  funeral  knell, 
presage  the  sequel  that  was  now  so  near  at  hand  ? ' l 

But  all  was  not  yet  lost.  The  new  officials  had  to  go 
before  their  constituencies  for  re-election  ;  and,  poor  as  was 
the  opinion  of  Irish  patriots  of  the  political  morality  of  the 
constituencies  of  that  period,  it  was  hoped  that  the  people 
would  not  be  ready  to  condone  treason  so  flagrant  and  so 
disastrous.  It  was  resolved  by  the  Tenant  League  to  oppose 
the  return  of  both  Keogh  for  Athlone  and  Sadleir  for  Carlow, 
and  deputations  were  appointed  to  go  to  both  places.  But 
when  the  deputations  arrived  at  the  constituencies  they  were 
astounded  and  shocked  to  find  that,  while  all  the  rest  of  the 
country  wras  loud  in  its  curses  or  desperate  in  its  wail  over 
the  destruction  of  national  hopes,  the  constituencies  thought 
either  that  nothing  particular  had  happened,  or  that  the 
traitors  were  to  be  congratulated  on  having  got  at  the 
money  and  the  patronage  of  the  Government,  and  their  con- 
stituents to  be  equally  congratulated  on  their  prospect  of 
obtaining  a  share  of  the  spoil.  The  state  of  feeling  in  I 
Athlone  and  Carlow  at  this  crisis  of  Irish  history  is  one  of 

1  New  Ireland,  pp.  167,  168. 


152  .  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

the  saddest  proofs  of  the  degradation  which  poverty  and 
alien  rule  can  bring  about,  even  in  a  country  so  undying -as 
Ireland  in  the  ardour  of  its  struggle  against  oppression.  In 
Athlone  in  particular  had  bribery,  poverty,  and  despair  done 
their  work  effectively.  The  desperately  needy  voters  saw,  in 
a  Government  official,  a  man  the  better  able  to  bribe  them- 
selves and  to  obtain  situations  for  their  sons.  These  were 
the  days  before  open  competition,  and  nomination  to  a  Civil 
Service  situation  was  the  appanage  of  the  Parliamentary 
representative,  and  one  of  his  chief  means  of  advancing  his 
interests  with  his  constituents.  This  was  especially  the  case 
in  Ireland.  Who  but  an  Irishman  can  know  the  full  hopeless- 
ness of  the  youth  of  one  born  in  the  lower  middle-class  of  an 
Irish  country  town  ?  At  home  he  sees  squalor,  the  saddened 
foreheads  of  his  parents,  consumed  by  mean  cares,  by  the 
bitter  struggle  to  keep  up  appearances,  by  climbing  up  the  ever- 
climbing  wave  of  pecuniary  embarrassment,  in  towns  where 
the  years  bring  dwindling  population,  decreasing  trade,  more 
hopeless  effort.  To  the  youth  himself  the  future  is  utter  dark- 
ness and  dread  emptiness.  The  shops,  advancing  in  many 
cases  to  bankruptcy,  offer  but  small  wages  to  only  a  few  ;  of 
manufactories,  his  only  knowledge  is  through  the  crumbling 
ruins  of  the  wool-mill  or  the  distillery  ;  he  can  become  a 
doctor  only  if  he  have  the  luck  to  live  in  a  town  with  a 
Queen's  college  ;  the  legal  profession,  with  its  dinners  in 
London  and  fees,  used  to  be  as  inaccessible  as  a  throne  ;  and 
so  it  is  that  in  Ireland,  perhaps  alone  of  all  countries,  the  limbs 
even  of  youth  are  shackled  and  its  ardent  spirit  caged.  The 
one  pursuit  the  British  Government  has  left  to  the  youth  of 
Ireland  is  the  Civil  Service.  Thus  it  has  come  to  pass  that 
in  Somerset  House,  at  St.  Martin's-le-Grand,  and  at  all  the 
other  great  Civil  Service  establishments  of  London,  so  great 
a  proportion  of  the  clerks  are  Irishmen.  Entrance  to  a 
clerkship  in  the  Civil  Service  had  thus  come  to  be  regarded 
by  the  Athlone  boy  as  the  first  step  on  the  golden  ladder  of 
fortune.  Keogh  used  his  power  of  nomination  in  the  most 
lavish  manner  ;  it  was  a  saying  in  Athlone  in  his  day  that 
every  young  fellow  who  could  or  could  not  write  his  name 
had  obtained  a  place  in  the  Customs,  or  some  other  of  the 


THE    GREAT   BETRAYAL  153 

public  departments.  It  will  be  seen  that  the  use  which  he 
made  of  this  '  appointing  power '  was  one  of  the  charges 
which  were  brought  against  him  afterwards. 

This  was  the  state  of  feeling  by  which  the  ardent  spirits 
of  the  Tenant  League  found  themselves  confronted  when  they 
reached  Athlone,  and  a  similar  state  of  things  awaited  those 
who  went  to  Carlow.  But  the  corruption  of  the  people  proved 
less  shocking  than  the  attitude  of  the  clergy ;  they  also  not 
only  condoned  but  applauded  the  action  of  the  traitors.  An 
appeal  was  made  by  the  Tenant  Leaguers  to  the  Bishops. 
From  Dr.  Mac  Hale,  Archbishop  of  Tuam,  from  the  Bishop  of 
Meath,  and  from  the  Bishop  of  Killala,  there  came  prompt 
and  emphatic  condemnation  of  the  acts  of  Keogh  and 
Sadleir.  This  was  good  ;  but  there  were  other  prelates  whose 
disapproval  was  more  urgently  required,  and  would  have  been 
decisive. 

Dr.  Cullen  had  been  elevated  from  the  see  of  Armagh  to 
the  Archbishopric  of  Dublin,  and  had  at  the  same  time  been 
appointed  Papal  Legate.  The  whole  country  waited  for  a 
word  from  the  new  prelate,  but  Dr.  Cullen  obstinately  held 
his  peace,  and  silence,  at  the  period,  meant  approval.  In 
Athlone  the  Bishop  took  even  stronger  action  in  favour  of 
Keogh.  His  name  was  Dr.  Browne,  and  he  had  a  reputation 
beyond  that  of  any  other  bishop  of  the  period  for  gentleness 
and  piety.  O'Connell  had  called  him  the  '  Dove  of  Elphin,' 
and  by  this  name  he  was  familiar  and  dear  to  the  people  of 
his  diocese.  I  can  remember  him  as  he  used  to  sit  in  the 
parish  chapel  in  Athlone  ;  a  man  of  venerable  appearance, 
with  a  singular  resemblance  to  the  pictures  of  some  of 
the  saints  whose  looks  the  great  painters  have  made  im- 
mortal. The  people  of  his  diocese  had  for  him  a  respect 
that  amounted  almost  to  worship,  and  in  Athlone  he  was 
especially  beloved.  The  people  of  the  town  had  got  it  into 
their  heads  that  Athlone  really  held  the  first  place  in  his 
heart  ;  and  there  was  an  understanding  that,  when  he  died, 
Athlone  would  be  privileged  to  receive  his  sainted  remains. 
The  man  who  gained  the  support  of  the  Bishop  was  certain 
of  election,  and  the  Bishop  gave  his  support  to  Keogh.  The 
result  of  this  difference  of  attitude  produced  even  among  the 


I54  *  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

priests  and  bishops  themselves  a  bitterness  of  feeling  that 
prevailed  for  many  years,  and  between  two  of  the  bishops, 
Dr.  MacHale  and  Cardinal  Cullen,  it  led  to  an  estrangement 
that  closed  only  with  the  grave.  In  every  class,  in  fact,  the 
fight  was  fought  out  with  the  frenzy  which  leads  an  armed 
population  from  words  to  civil  war. 

Meantime,  while  the  whole  country  was  looking  with  such 
desperate  tension  to  the  result  of  the  contest  in  Athlone, 
Keogh  was  faced  by  a  difficulty  that  threatened  to  wreck  all. 
The  reader  knows  of  the  property  qualification  of  this  period  ; 
it  was  charged  against  Keogh  that  he  had  not  this  qualifi- 
cation, and  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Commons  had  been 
appointed  to  investigate  the  charge.  In  Ireland,  the  investi- 
gation was  watched  with  a  feeling  of  suspense  not  unmixed 
with  amusement.  The  financial  difficulties  of  Keogh  were 
notorious  ;  it  was  known  that,  instead  of  having  3<DO/.  a  year 
over  and  above  all  incumbrances,  he  was  in  a  shoreless  sea  of 
debt,  and  was  not  the  possessor  of  three  hundred  pence  that 
he  could  call  his  own.  But  he  swore  bravely  through  before 
the  committee.  The  committee  went  through  complicated 
rolls  of  bank  bills,  by  which  the  briefless  barrister  had  been 
able  to  keep  himself  afloat  and  live  the  life  of  the  Member  of 
Parliament ;  and  in  the  end,  after  the  easy  fashion  of  those 
good  old  days,  held  that  he  had  proved  his  qualification,  and 
so  he  was  free  to  stand  for  Athlone.  The  influence  of  the 
Bishop,1  the  sums  of  money  he  had  at  his  disposal,  with  the 
prosperous  turn  in  his  fortunes  and  a  system  of  organised 
mob  violence,  were  greatly  in  his  favour.  Mr.  Thomas  Norton, 

1  In  his  speech  on  the  hustings,  Keogh  made  the  following  allusion  to  the 
attitude  of  the  Bishop  :  '  Since  I  came  into  town,  no  matter  where  I  went,  no 
matter  by  whom  I  was  accompanied,  whether  in  the  town  or  around  the  town, 
upon  the  hill-side  or  the  ditch-side,  on  the  public  road  or  the  narrow  by-way, 
or  in  any  other  imaginable  place,  I  have  been  received  as  the  man  of  the  people. 
How  many  hundred  women  have  said  this  morning,  "May  God  bless  you  !" 
How  many  hundred  pretty  girls  have  wished  me  success!  (A  female  voice— 
"  You  have  the  bishop's  blessing,  which  is  better  than  all.")  Mr.  Keogh— Yes  ; 
and  I  am  authorised  to  announce  to  you,  and  he  does  not  shrink  from  the  an- 
nouncement—you all  know  it  ;  you  all  saw  it— that  I  have  the  support,  the  con- 
fidence, the  kind  wishes,  and  the  anxious  throbbing  expectations  for  my  success 
of  my  revered  friend  the  Roman  Catholic  bishop  of  this  diocese.'— Quoted  in 
T.  D.  Sullivan's  Record,  p.  20. 


THE    GREAT   BETRAYAL  155 

his  opponent,  was  an  able  man — he  was  known  many  years 
afterwards,  as  a  man  of  some  social  and  political  prominence 
in  London  society,  as  Master  of  the  Queen's  Bench  and  Chair- 
man of  the  Political  Committee  of  the  Reform  Club  ;  but, 
owing  to  the  desertion  of  his  own  committee,  some  of  whom 
were  the  very  first  to  vote  for  Keogh,  Norton  resigned  during 
the  polling-day,  and  Keogh  was  returned,  the  figures  standing 
thus  :  Keogh,  79  ;  Norton,  4O.1 

In  the  meanwhile  the  same  good  fortune  had  not  attended 
the  other  members  of  the  '  Brass  Band.'     John   Sadleir  had 

1  It  is  hard  to  bring  home  to  the  mind  of  any  but  an  Irish  reader  the  gigantic 
consequences  on  the  future  of  Ireland  which  the  action  of  Keogh  produced, 
and  it  is  necessarily  as  hard  to  understand  the  fierce  hatred  which  was  then  and 
ever  afterwards  felt  for  him  by  the  Irish  people.  The  following  quotation  from 
the  Nation  of  the  period  will  perhaps  do  something  to  bring  home  to  the  reader 
of  to-day  the  ideas,  and  still  more  the  temper,  of  the  time.  It  appeared  on 
April  23,  1853,  and  was  in  reply  to  Keogh's  speech  on  the  hustings  at  Athlone  : 
*  Mr.  William  Keogh  has  given  tongue  at  last.  For  five  months  he  has  kept  the 
silence  of  conscious  infamy,  while  the  whole  island  has  been  ringing  with  his 
shame.  For  five  months  the  highest  and  the  holiest  voices  in  the  land  have  been 
raised  to  accuse  and  to  curse  him,  and  he  has  held  his  peace.  Words  that  would 
have  made  an  honest  man's  blood  choke  him  have  met  his  eyes  in  every  paper 
he  read,  and  he  has  swallowed  them  without  retort.  He  knew  at  the  time  that 
he  dare  not  appear  in  an  assembly  of  honest  Irishmen,  or  he  would  be  hooted 
from  their  sight.  And  he  felt  still  nearer  the  touch  of  his  own  ignominy.  In 
the  Hall  of  the  Four  Courts,  at  his  swearing  in,  a  little  gang  of  political  blacklegs 
replaced  the  crowded  array  of  the  bar  which  used  to  attend  the  inauguration  of  a 
law  official  of  the  Crown.  As  he  has  driven  through  the  streets  of  Dublin  his 
furtive  eye  seemed  to  dread  the  fall  of  a  dead  cat  or  a  shower  of  rotten  eggs. 
For  five  months  of  place  and  power  and  emolument  he  has  seen  hatred  and 
contempt  of  him  wherever  he  turned.  To  remain  silent  in  such  a  storm  of 
execrations  must  have  been  hard  for  one  of  his  passionate  and  voluble  temper. 
But  at  last  he  has  uttered  himself.  At  last  all  the  bitterness  and  anger  which 
had  been  fermenting  for  five  months  in  his  heart  have  broken  loose.  And  it  has 
been  like  lifting  a  sluice-gate  from  a  sewer.  For  hours  he  spoke,  and  the  words 
rolled  in  one  long  gush  of  impure  filth  from  his  lips.  For  hours  he  spoke,  and 
spared  neither  truth  nor  decency  in  his  course.  Bullying  abuse  that  would  demean 
a  fishwonian,  false  scandal,  and  braggadocio,  and  dastardly  innuendo  he  used,  and 
used  without  stay  or  scruple.  .  .  .  There  is  a  disease  which  is  the  last  to  feed 
upon  a  debauchee's  bad-tempered  frame — when  the  constitution,  rotten  to  its  very 
springs,  is  only  strong  enough  to  secrete  vermin,  and  the  unhappy  victim  lives 
crawling,  sick,  and  ashamed  of  his  own  foul  existence.  By  this  disease  Mr.  Keogh 
has  chosen  to  illustrate  the  way  in  which  he  has  been  recently  afflicted.  He  has 
felt  the  morbus  pedicularis  of  his  own  ignominy  itching  him  to  the  bone,  and  he 
says  that  we  infected  him  with  it.  In  an  episodical  attack  upon  the  Nation, 
meant,  we  suppose,  to  be  the  coarsest  and  the  foulest  passage  of  his  harangue,  he 


I56  •  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

stood  again  for  Carlow.  Like  Keogh,  he  was  supported  by 
large  sums  of  money  and  by  violent  mobs.  He  got  a  letter 
from  the  Bishop  of  Kildare  and  Leighlin  '  expressing  the  most 
earnest  anxiety '  for  his  success  ; l  he  was  backed  by  the 
priests.  One  of  his  mobsmen  was  requested  by  the  Rev. 
Father  Maher  to  keep  quiet  and  not  disgrace  'a  good  cause.'2 
In  spite  of  all  these  influences  he  was  beaten  by  Mr.  Alex- 
ander, the  Conservative  candidate,  by  a  majority  of  6. 

Keogh,  though  he  had  won  the  election  at  Athlone,  was 
not  yet  safe.  The  violence  of  his  temper,  the  unscrupulous 
audacity  of  some  of  his  acts,  his  terrible  speeches,  his  desperate 
expedients,  had  all  been  made  notorious  by  the  utterances  of 
the  press,  and  his  conduct  was  brought  in  various  ways  be- 
fore Parliament.  Gavan  Duffy  obtained  the  appointment  of  a 
committee,  known  as  the  '  Corruption  Committee,'  to  investi- 
gate the  charges  against  Keogh  and  others  of  having  used 
their  position  to  make  corrupt  promises  to  obtain  situations 
through  their  influence  as  members  of  Parliament.  Keogh, 

says  that,  "  unable  to  slay,  and  afraid  to  stab,"  we  have  "  tried  to  inflict  upon  him 
the  mcrbus  pcdicidaris. "  We  thank  him  for  the  word.  The  metaphor  is  a  nasty 
one.  It  is  one  we  have  been  loth  to  apply.  But  he  has  invented  it,  and  let  it 
stick  to  him.  It  completely  illustrates  a  sense  of  degradation,  patent  and  foul, 
and  set  in  a  natural  quarantine  from  all  honest  men.  "  Unable  to  slay  "  !  What 
does  the  gentleman  mean?  His  character  is  dead,  decomposed — it  stinks.  We 
do  not  estimate  how  far  we  have  helped  to  scotch  it.  Let  it  rest.  But  "  afraid  "  ! 
Afraid  of  what  ?  Afraid  of  whom  ?  W7e  have  never  hesitated  to  express  the 
greatest  contempt  for  Mr.  William  Keogh's  character  when  there  was  occasion. 
We  have  never  put  a  tooth  in  anything  we  had  to  say  about  him.  WTe  have 
stigmatised  his  conduct  in  the  very  broadest  and  plainest  terms  we  could  find. 
To  be  "afraid  "  of  him  is  something  too  absurd  for  us  to  conceive.  Afraid  of  a 
charlatan,  afraid  of  a  cheat,  afraid  of  a  public  profligate  and  liar  upon  his  oath, 
afraid  of  the  greatest  political  scamp  of  his  country,  and  the  type  par  excellence 
of  Irish  demagogue  rascality  !  Why,  there  are  some  men  whom  it  requires 
courage  to  differ  from  and  daring  to  assail.  And  we  believe  wre  have  not  wanted 
either  upon  occasion.  But  this  paltry  adventurer,  who  would  be  nothing  were  it 
not  for  his  readiness,  his  flippancy,  his  contempt  of  scruples,  and  his  flow  of 
animal  spirits— whose  invective  is  only  a  deluge  of  dirt — whose  most  pretentious 
oratory  is  a  jumble  of  bog  Latin  and  flatulent  English — whose  character  has  been 
the  by-word  of  everybody  in  this  city  for  years  as  a  sort  of  political  Barnum — and 
whose  legal  standing  is  on  a  level  with  his  ancestral  patrimony— the  Lord  deliver 
us  from  fear  of  such  a  creature  as  that !  ' — Quoted  by  T.  D.  Sullivan,  Record, 

pp.   21,   22. 

1  Dublin  Evening  Post.     Quoted  by  T.  D.  Sullivan,  Record,  p.  14. 
-  T.  D.  Sullivan,  Record,  p.  15. 


THE    GREAT   BETRAYAL  157 

appointed  originally  a  member  of  this  committee,  was  obliged 
to  resign  ;  the  evidence  against  him  became  so  strong  that 
he  had  to  pass  from  the  position  of  judge  to  that  of  accused. 
The  facts  were  notorious  in  Athlone.  As  has  been  seen,  his 
wholesale  promises  of  situations  were  one  of  many  reasons 
why  he  had  been  able  to  overcome  all  opposition  against  him 
in  the  town.  Again  he  escaped  by  the  sheer  force  of  auda- 
cious lying.  One  of  the  charges  against  him  was  that  he  had 
induced  a  Colonel  Smith,  of  Athlone,  to  lend  him  5oo/.  on 
the  promise  that  he  would  obtain  for  that  gentleman  a 
stipendiary  magistracy,  and  that  this  promise  he  had  failed 
to  keep.  He  denied  every  one  of  these  charges,  declared 
that  the  money  raised  by  Smith  had  been  raised  in  the  Con- 
servative interest,  and  not  in  that  of  himself  personally,  and 
represented  himself  as  having  remained  on  terms  of  intimacy 
with  Smith  to  the  day  of  his  death.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
Smith  was  driven  to  bankruptcy  by  the  failure  of  Mr.  Keogh 
to  keep  his  engagements,  bitterly  complained  of  the  foul 
treatment  he  had  received,  and  in  the  end  he  had  to  fly  from 
his  liabilities  to  America.1 

But  this  was  not  the  most  serious  attack  made  upon  him. 
The  reader  will  remember  the  terrible  speech  in  recommenda- 
tion of  assassination  which  he  had  delivered  to  the  Ribbon- 
men  of  Westmeath.  The  Conservative  press  of  Ireland  had 
denounced  the  appointment  to  a  law  office  of  a  man  capable 
of  such  a  speech  just  as  vehemently  as  the '  Freeman's  Journal ' 
and  the  '  Nation.'  '  No  Prime  Minister,'  wrote  the  '  Evening 
Mail,'  '  ever  offered  a  more  audacious  insult  to  his  sovereign 
than  Lord  Aberdeen  has  done  in  naming  him  to  be  one  of 
her  Majesty's  law  officers.' 2  Conservatives  took  up  the  same 
position  in  the  House  of  Lords.  On  June  10,  Lord  West- 
meath first  drew  attention  to  the  assassination  speech.  He 
quoted  the  terrible  words  already  mentioned,  in  which  a 
contrast  was  drawn  between  the  short  nights  of  summer,  the 
longer  nights  of  autumn,  and  the  still  longer  nights  of  winter, 
with  the  significant  wind-up,  *  and  then  let  everyone  re- 
member who  voted  for  Sir  R.  Levinge.'  (There  are  several 

1  T.  D.  Sullivan's  Record^  pp.  39,  40.  2  Jb.  p.  24. 


158  '  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

versions  of  the  speech,  but  they  singularly  agree  in  essen- 
tial points.)  The  Ministerial  speakers  had  nothing  to  repb 
to  this  charge  ;  Lord  Aberdeen  had  heard  nothing  of  them  ; 
and  the  Marquis  of  Clanricarde  did  not  think  this  was 
language  which  the  House  of  Lords  should  be  called  upon 
to  pay  any  attention  to  ! ] 

But  the  Conservative  opposition  was  not  willing  to  allow 
the  Ministry  to  escape  so  easily.  Lord  Derby  thought  the 
matter  did  not  deserve  to  be  treated  so  '  lightly.'  It  was 
a  serious  matter  if  such  language  had  been  used  by  a  man 
who  had  been  appointed  to  '  an  office  of  all  others  in  the 
world  which  was  connected  with  the  maintenance  of  the  law 
and  the  suppression  of  turbulence  and  violence  in  Ireland';2 
and  Lord  Eglinton,  who  had  just  ceased  to  be  Lord-Lieu- 
tenant of  Ireland,  described  Keogh,  if  he  used  this  language, 
as  having  'openly  recommended  assassination.'  The  lan- 
guage (  could  bear  no  other  construction  than  that  he  was 
distinctly  recommending  the  people  whom  he  was  addressing, 
when  the  long  nights  would  admit  of  it,  to  commit,  if  not 
murder,  the  most  violent  outrages.'3 

The  matter  again  came  up  on  June  17.  The  use  of  the 
words  by  Keogh  was  so  notorious  that  even  an  attempt  at 
denial  filled  everybody  with  surprise.  Two  magistrates,  the 
rector  of  Moate,  where  the  speech  was  made,  and  three  others 
wrote  to  emphatically  declare  that  they  had  heard  the  words 
recommending  assassination.  A  policeman  had  been  sent 
to  report  the  speeches  at  the  meeting.  '  I  have  no  more 
doubt,'  added  the  Marquis  of  Westmeath,  'that  the  report 
of  that  constable  may  be  found  on  the  table  of  the  Lord- 
Lieutenant,  if  he  likes  to  look  for  it,  than  that  I  have  now  the 
use  of  rny  right  hand.' 4  But  the  Duke  of  Newcastle  did  not 
produce  the  report  of  the  constable  ;  his  only  defence  was  a 
letter  from  Mr.  Keogh,  in  which  he  did  not  deny  the  use  of 
the  words.  He  confined  himself  to  the  bald  statement  that 
he  had  no  recollection  of  having  used  them  ;  his  recollection 
was  confused  by  a  speech  that  '  did  not  occupy  five  minutes/ 
and  he  trusted  to  the  evidence  of  friends.  Then  a  letter  was 

1    T.  D.  Sullivan's  Record,  pp.  24,  25.  2  //;.  p.  26. 

3  /*.  *  Ib.  pp.27,  28. 


THE    GREAT   BETRAYAL  159 

enclosed  from  a  *  friend '  declaring  that  Keogh  had  used  no 
such  language.1  The  '  friend  '  was  a  solicitor  named  R.  C. 
Macnevin,  whose  timely  testimony  was  afterwards  rewarded 
by  the  Registrarship  in  the  court  of  Judge  Keogh.  This  was 
assuredly  a  very  weak  reply  to  so  grave  a  charge.  As  the 
Conservative  '  Evening  Mail '  put  it,  '  Mr.  Keogh  and  his 
friends  virtually  entered  a  plea  of  guilty.' 2  Lord  Eglinton 
pressed  home  the  charge  to  absolute  conviction  by  further 
declarations.  A  letter  from  a  magistrate  declared  that 
'  twenty  gentlemen  of  independence  and  station/  who  were 
present  on  the  occasion,  were  ready  to  testify  to  the  use  of 
the  words  *  on  oath '  ;  and  then  Lord  Eglinton  summarised 
the  case  in  these  vigorous  terms  : — 

Mr.  Keogh's  speech  was  only  one  amongst  many  others  which 
were  brought  under  my  notice.  I  certainly  little  expected  these 
words  had  fallen  from  a  man  who  was  to  become  Solicitor- General 
for  Ireland  ;  but,  as  I  have  said,  they  came  before  me  along  with 
hundreds  of  other  such  reports  and  speeches,  urging  incitements,  not 
only  to  riot,  but  even  to  disloyalty.  BUT  I  CONFESS  THAT  DURING 

THE  WHOLE  TIME  I  WAS  IN  IRELAND,  NO  WORDS  WERE  BROUGHT  TO 
ME  WHICH,  IN  MY  OPINION,  SO  DISTINCTLY  RECOMMENDED  ASSASSI- 
NATION. 3 

Several  other  charges  were  brought  against  the  new  law 
officer.  In  the  assassination  speech  he  was  accused  of  also 
asking  the  Westmeath  '  boys '  to  come  to  Athlone  with  their 
shillelaghs  and  to  use  them,  and  with  having  headed  himself 
a  charge  upon  the  hotel  of  his  opponent.  The  '  boys  ' 
obeyed  the  command,  and  the  intimidation  which  the  shil- 
lelaghs created  was  one  of  the  forces  which  won  the  election. 
This  charge  also  was  boldly  denied  by  Keogh,  but  it  was 
proved  beyond  any  possibility  of  doubt.4  Finally,  a  con- 
troversy arose  between  him  and  Lord  Naas  (afterwards  Earl 
of  Mayo)  ;  Keogh  affirming,  and  Lord  Naas  positively 
denying,  that  office  had  been  offered  to  him  by  the  Conser- 
vative leaders.  When  challenged  for  proof,  he  appealed  again 
to  the  testimony  of  a  friend  of  his,  whom  he  described  as  '  a 
gentleman  of  honour,  veracity  and  high  character.' 5  The 

1  T.  D.  Sullivan's  Record,  pp.  28,  29.  2  Ib.  pp.  29,  30. 

3  Ib.  p.  30.  <  Ib.  pp.  32,  33.  5  Ib.  p.  45- 


160  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

gentleman    so   described   was    Mr.    Edmund   O'Flaherty,   oi 
whom  we  shall  hear  a  little  more  presently. 

Thus  Keogh  had  surmounted  all  the  difficulties  that  at 
every  moment  seemed  certain  of  overwhelming  him.  Success 
for  the  moment  seemed  to  attend  the  other  members  of  the 
gang  also.  Sadleir,  defeated  for  Carlow,  cast  about  for  some 
other  constituency.  The  Sligo  of  those  days  was  not  unlike 
the  Athlone  ;  it  had  the  reputation  of  being  among  the  most 
corrupt  boroughs  of  the  country,  and  it  has  since  been  dis- 
franchised. It  had  been  won  by  an  Englishman  named 
Townly,  but  the  means  of  corruption  he  had  employed  were 
so  open  that  he  had  been  unseated  for  bribery,  and  thus  the 
vacancy  had  been  created.  Sadleir  employed  exactly  the 
same  means  as  previous  aspirants  for  the  representation  of  the 
place.  It  was  proved  afterwards  that  several  of  the  voters 
received  sums  running  up  to  25/.  for  their  votes.  Sadleir, 
besides,  though  he  was  bitterly  opposed  by  some  of  the  clergy, 
had  the  support  of  several  of  the  priests,  and  was  actually 
proposed  by  a  parish  priest  ;  and  he  had  also  the  advantage 
of  the  intimidation  of  those  hired  mobs  which  he  and  Keogh 
had  introduced  into  the  factors  of  Irish  electioneering.  He 
was  returned  by  a  majority  of  four  votes.  There  was  a 
petition  ;  the  bribery  was  clearly  proved  ;  but,  according  to 
the  loose  and  shameless  customs  of  the  times,  the  tools  were 
convicted  while  Sadleir  was  declared  innocent.  He  actually 
retained  his  seat,  and  was  perhaps  in  the  House  at  the  very 
moment  when  the  Attorney-General  moved  for  leave  to 
prosecute  some  of  the  men  whose  bought  votes  had  obtained 
him  admission  into  the  House.  In  1855,  Lord  Aberdeen  was 
replaced  by  Lord  Palmerston,  and  Keogh  was  raised  to  the 
Attorney-Generalship  in  place  of  Mr.  Brewster,  who,  being  a 
Pcclite,  did  not  think  it  consistent  to  accept  the  change  to  a 
completely  Whig  administration.  Keogh  also  had  begun  life 
as  a  Peelite  ;  but,  of  course,  he  was  not  troubled  by  the  subtle 
distinction  between  one  Ministry  and  another,  and  gladly 
accepted  promotion.  He  had  to  seek  election  once  more  ; 
but  so  broken  was  the  spirit  of  the  country  that  no  attempt 
was  made  to  defeat  him  ;  and  to  add  to  the  tragic  complete-  i 
ness  of  the  situation,  Dr.  Browne,  the  '  Dove  of  Elphin,'  came 


THE    GREAT   BETRAYAL  161 

to  the  hustings   and    proposed   Keogh  as   '  a  fit  and   proper 
person  '  to  represent  the  constituency. 

And  thus  the  triumph  of  the  Irish  Brigade  was  complete. 
All  the  men  who  had  opposed  them  were  crushed  ;  some  of 
the  priests  who  had  taken  the  true  view  of  the  situation  were 
harried  by  their  ecclesiastical  superiors,  or  compelled  to 
abstain  from  all  action  or  speech  on  political  matters. 
Frederic  Lucas,  who  brought  to  the  Irish  cause  a  rare  spirit 
of  self-abnegation,  resolved  to  go  to  Rome  to  lay  the  case  at 
the  feet  of  the  Pope,  and  to  call  for  redress  and  freedom  for 
the  priests  that  had  endeavoured  to  avert  from  Ireland  one  of 
the  greatest  disasters  and  blackest  shames  of  her  history. 
But  the  Pope  had  received  other  information,  and  the  mission 
was  a  failure.  Lucas  returned  to  Ireland  in  breaking  health 
and  with  a  broken  heart.  He  never  saw  again  the  land  of 
his  adoption,  which  he  loved  so  dearly  ;  he  was  taken  sick  on 
his  return  journey,  and  died  at  Staines  on  October  22,  1855. 
His  death  was  taken  by  the  Irish  people  as  a  calamity  in 
addition  to  all  those  already  suffered.  Shortly  afterwards 
another  of  the  band  of  Tenant  Leaguers,  who  had  fought  so 
bravely  against  the  traitors,  gave  up  the  fight.  Gavan  Duffy 
despaired  of  the  time.  In  such  a  season  '  there  was/  he  said, 
*  no  more  hope  for  Ireland  than  for  a  corpse  on  the  dissecting- 
table.'  On  November  6,  1855,  he  sailed  for  Australia. 

It  was  at  the  moment  of  their  complete  triumph  that 
Kemesis  began  to  fall  on  the  men  who  had  destroyed  and 
sold  the  hopes  and  fortunes  of  their  country.  Sadleir  was  the 
first  to  meet  disaster.  At  Carlow,  one  of  the  agencies  he  had 
employed  most  extensively  and  relentlessly  to  secure  his 
return,  were  the  accounts  of  the  bankrupt  shopkeepers  with 
the  Tipperary  banks.  It  was  a  favourite  plan  of  his,  as  of 
other  Parliamentary  aspirants  afterwards,  to  lend  money  to 
the  voters  in  the  intervals  between  the  elections  on  renewable 
bills,  and  with  this  unpaid  bill  he  always  held  his  power  over 
the  hapless  elector,  and  could  count  on  his  vote  when  election 
time  came.  A  man  named  Bowling,  an  elector  of  Carlow, 
was  suspected  of  intending  to  vote  against  Sadleir,  and  he 
was  arrested  for  debt  on  the  morning  of  the  election.  Dow- 
ling  took  an  action  for  false  imprisonment  ;  there  were  many 

M 


i62  "THE  PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

damaging  revelations  against  Sadleir  in  the  trial,  and  he  had 
to  go  into  the  witness-box.  He  swore  boldly  and  unflinch- 
ingly, and  the  jury  had  either  to  brand  him  or  Bowling  a 
perjurer  ;  the  jury  gave  the  verdict  for  Bowling.  The  result 
was  that  Sadleir  had,  in  January  1854,  to  resign  his  office  as  a 
Lord  of  the  Treasury. 

This  was  the  first  turn  of  the  tide.  In  March  of  the  same 
year  there  began  to  be  rumours  that,  instead  of  being  a 
millionaire,  he  was  in  financial  difficulties,  but  the  rumours 
were  laughed  out  of  existence.  Public  confidence  had  been 
but  restored  in  the  financier  of  the  '  Brass  Band  '  when  another 
scandal  shook  its  credit.  People  began  to  ask  where  was 
Mr.  Edmund  OTlahcrty,  the  Commissioner  of  Income  Tax. 
This  was  the  '  gentleman  of  honour,  veracity,  and  high 
character'  whom  Keogh  had  called  in  proof  of  his  statement 
that  Lord  Naas,  and  not  he,  had  lied  in  reference  to  the  offer 
of  office  from  the  Conservatives  ;  this  also  was  the  gentleman 
who  had  sent  round  the  hat  for  Keogh  at  the  time  when, 
desperate  and  driven,  he  was  about  to  stand  for  Athlone  after 
he  had  accepted  the  office  of  Solicitor-General.  Before 
many  days  the  whole  world  knew  that  the  Commissioner  of 
Income  Tax  had  fled  no  one  knew  whither,  and  that  he  had 
left  behind  bills  amounting  to  I5,ooo/.  in  circulation,  some  of 
them  bearing  names — Keogh's  among  the  rest — which  were 
stated  to  be  forged. 

This  flight  spread  a  painful  degree  of  uncertainty  in  the 
public  mind,  and  people  began  to  ask  who  would  be  the  next 
to  go.  The  situation  was  rendered  more  complicated  and 
painful  by  the  fact,  which  the  Opposition  papers  took  care  to 
largely  advertise,  that  the  absconding  O'Flaherty  had  been 
on  terms  of  the  closest  intimacy  with  the  Peelite  leaders,  and 
had  been,  beyond  doubt,  the  go-between  in  the  infamous 
bargain  by  which  the  Peelites  gave  office  and  the  '  Irish 
Brigade'  sold  a  country.  It  was  proved  that  O'Flaherty  was 
on  visiting  terms  with  the  Buke  of  Newcastle  ;  a  letter  of  his 
was  published  addressed  to  Mr.  Richard  Swift,  M.P.,  in  which 
the  subscription  was  suggested  that  paid  the  expenses  of 
Keo^h  for  his  contest  in  Athlone  ;  and  in  the  list  of  persons 
who  had  already  subscribed,  the  honoured  name  of  Sidney] 


THE    GREAT    BETRAYAL  163 

Herbert  with  a  subscription  of  ioo/.  appears  side  by  side  with 
that  of  John  Sadleir  for  the  same  amount.  And  finally,  the 
fact  was  notorious  that,  when  Mr.  Gladstone  extended  the 
Income  Tax  to  Ireland,  Mr.  O'Flaherty  received  a  reward  for  his 
services  from  the  Peelites  by  his  appointment  as  Commissioner. 

The  thing  blew  over  for  a  while,  and  Sadleir  once  more 
was  sailing  before  the  wind.  The  death  of  Lucas  and  the 
departure  of  Gavan  Duffy  seemed  to  complete  his  triumph, 
and  he  was  everywhere — especially,  of  course,  in  England  — 
congratulated  on  the  dispersal  of  his  enemies. 

Meantime  he  was  approaching  the  abyss.  The  rumours 
were  true  that  he  was  in  financial  difficulties.  The  vast 
schemes  in  which  he  had  embarked  proved  in  many  cases 
disastrous  ;  then  he  took  to  all  kinds  of  expedients  for  raising 
money ;  and  finally  he  resorted  to  the  forgery  of  title-deeds, 
conveyances,  and  bills.  In  February  of  1856  the  crash  came. 
Glyns  dishonoured  some  of  the  bills  of  the  Tipperary  Bank. 
The  news  spread  ;  a  run  took  place  on  some  of  the  branches  ; 
but  next  day  it  was  announced  that  a  mistake  had  been 
committed,  and  the  drafts  were  honoured.  The  crisis  might 
be  averted  if  only  a  little  ready  money  could  be  obtained. 
'All  right,'  telegraphed  James  Sadleir  to  'John  Sadleir, 
Esq.,  M. P.,  Reform  Club,  LondDn,'  *  at  all  the  branches  :  only 
a  few  small  things  refused  there.  If  from  twenty  to  thirty 
thousand  over  here  on  Monday  morning  all  is  safe.'  This 
was  received  on  a  Saturday.  Sadleir  went  into  the  City  to 
see  a  Mr.  Wilkinson,  with  whom  he  had  had  large  trans- 
actions ;  proposed  various  plans  for  raising  money ;  all  were 
rejected.  *  He  then  became  very  excited/  says  Mr.  Wilkin- 
son, describing  the  scene  afterwards,  'put  his  hand  to  his 
head,  and  said,  "  Good  God  !  if  the  Tipperary  Bank  should 
fail  the  fault  will  be  entirely  mine,  and  I  shall  have  been  the 
ruin  of  hundreds  and  thousands."  He  walked  about  the 
office  in  a  very  excited  state,  and  urged  me  to  try  and  help 
nim,  because,  he  said,  he  could  not  live  to  see  the  pain  and 
ruin  inflicted  on  others  by  the  cessation  of  the  bank.  The 
interview  ended  in  this,  that  I  was  unable  to  assist  him  in  his 
plans  to  raise  money.'  l 

1  New  Ireland,  p.  179. 

M  2 


1 64  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

As  the  day  went  on,  Sadleir  heard  news  more  disastrous. 
Mr.  Wilkinson  had  previously  lent  him  large  sums  of  money. 
The  money  had  been  lent  on  one  of  the  many  securities 
Sadleir  had  forged  during  the  previous  year,  and  the  sus- 
picions of  Mr.  Wilkinson  having  been  aroused,  he  had  sent 
over  his  partner,  Mr.  Stevens,  to  Dublin  to  inquire  into  the 
matter.  This  was  probably  a  portion  of  the  news  which  was 
brought  to  Sadleir  at  ten  o'clock  on  the  night  of  this  eventful 
Saturday  by  Mr.  Norris,  solicitor,  of  Bedford  Row,  one  of  his 
intimate  friends.  The  two  talked  over  the  situation.  It  was 
agreed  that  there  was  no  help  for  it,  and  that  on  Monday  the 
Tipperary  Bank  must  stop  payment.  At  half-past  ten  Mr. 
Norris  left.  Then  Sadleir  spent  some  time  in  writing  letters. 
He  then  got  up.  As  he  passed  through  the  hall,  and  was 
taking  his  hat  from  the  stand,  he  met  his  butler,  told  him  not 
to  stay  up  for  him,  and  then  shut  the  door  with  a  firm  hand. 
As  he  left  it  was  just  striking  twelve  ;  it  was  Sunday  morning. 
The  next  morning,  on  a  mound  in  Hampstead  Heath,  the 
passers-by  observed  a  gentleman  lying  as  if  asleep.  A  silver 
tankard  smelling  strongly  of  prussic  acid  was  at  his  side.  It 
was  the  dead  body  of  John  Sadleir — dead  by  his  own  hand. 

'On  Monday,'  writes  A.  M.  Sullivan,1  'the  news  flashed  through 
the  kingdom.  There  was  alarm  in  London  ;  there  was  wild  panic  in 
Ireland.  The  Tipperary  Bank  closed  its  doors  ;  the  country  people 
flocked  into  the  towns.  They  surrounded  and  attacked  the  branches  ; 
the  poor  victims  imagined  their  money  must  be  within,  and  they  got 
crowbars,  picks,  and  spades  to  force  the  walls  and  'kdig  it  out."  The 
scenes  of  mad  despair  which  the  streets  of  Thurles  and  Tipperary 
saw  that  day  would  melt  a  heart  of  adamant.  Old  men  went  about 
like  maniacs,  confused  and  hysterical  ;  widows  knelt  in  the  street 
and,  aloud,  asked  God  was  it  true  they  were  beggared  for  ever. 
Even  the  poor-law  unions,  which  had  kept  their  accounts  in  the 
bonk,  lost  all,  and  had  not  a  shilling  to  buy  the  pauper's  dinner  the 
day  the  branch  doors  closed.  .  .  .  Banks,  railways,  assurance  asso- 
ciations, land  companies,  every  undertaking  with  which  he  had  been 
connected,  were  flung  into  dismay  ;  and  for  months  fresh  revelations 
of  fraud,  forgery,  and  robbery  came  daily  and  hourly  to  view.  By 
the  month  of  April  the  total  of  such  discoveries  had  reached 
1,2  ^o.ooo/.  1 ' 

1   AV«/  Ird  nJ,  pp.  180,  181. 


THE    GREAT    BETRAYAL  165 

'  Considerably  above  the  middle  height,'  Sadleir  is  de- 
scribed by  one  who  knew  him  ;  '  his  figure  was  youthful,  but 
his  face— that  was  indeed  remarkable.  Strongly  marked, 
sallow,  eyes  and  hair  intensely  black,  and  the  lines  of  the 
mouth  worn  into  deep  channels.' l 

O'Flaherty  fled  ;  Sadleir  dead  ;  how  was  it,  meantime, 
with  Keogh  ?  His  name  had  been  coupled  with  Sadleir  and 
with  Edmund  O'Flaherty  in  the  most  intimate  political  asso- 
ciation for  nearly  six  years  ;  was  he  going  to  be  exposed  also 
and  to  choose  flight  or  death  in  preference  to  shame  and  ex- 
posure ?  There  was  no  such  fate  in  store  for  him.  It  was 
reported  that  he  was  going  to  be  raised  to  the  bench  !  At 
once  the  national  press  of  Ireland  protested  against  this  last 
indignity  upon  the  country. 

*  Mr.  William  Keogh  a  judge  ! '  wrote  the  *  Nation  '  at  an  earlier 
period,  when  the  report  was  first  circulated,  *  with  life  and  death  on 
his  hands  ;  with  the  peace,  and  honour,  and  property  of  the  com- 
munity hanging  on  the  breath  of  his  lips  ;  with  the  liberties  and  the 
safeguards  of  society  under  his  direct  control.  Mr.  William  Keogh, 
with  the  antecedents  of  his  unprincipled  political  career,  his  mediocre 
professional  character,  his  false  pledges,  his  disreputable  associates  ; 
this  gentleman  a  judge  !  And  the  youngest  judge,  and  the  judge  of 
the  least  standing  at  the  bar,  who  has  mounted  the  Irish  bench  within 
the  memory  of  living  man.  We  hesitate  to  believe  it  can  be  possible.'2 

Then  it  spoke  of  the  other  judges  on  the  bench,  condemn- 
ing their  political  partisanship,  but  admitting  their  professional 
claims  and  their  personal  integrity. 

'There  is  not  a  man  among  them,'  it  went  on,  'who  has  solemnly 
called  God  to  witness  a  pledge  of  public  conduct — who  has  ratified 
that  pledge  after  months  of  mature  consideration  with  another 
equally  solemn — and  who  has  scandalously  broken  both.  There  is 
not  a  man  among  them  who,  within  seven  years  of  public  life,  has 
been  a  Tory,  a  Whig,  a  Catholic  Conservative,  an  anti-Repealer,  an 
Ultramontane  Radical,  and  a  Tenant  Leaguer — who  has  written 
pamphlets  and  spoken  speeches  on  every  side  of  every  question,  and 
tried  the  cushions  of  every  bench  in  the  House  of  Commons. 
There  is  none  of  them  who  need  fear,  when  he  takes  up  an  indict- 
ment for  forgery,  that  he  will  find  the  name  of  his  bosom  friend  at  its 

1  New  Ireland,  p.  180.  2  T.  D.  Sullivan,  Record,  pp.  46,  47. 


i&  'THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

heacl — the  name  of  the  man  upon  whose  word  of  honour  he  relied, 
and  sustained  himself  in  a  position  compromising  his  own  political 
character.  There  is  none  of  them  who,  when  the  officer  of  justice 
administers  the  oath  of  evidence  before  him,  need  blush,  as  the 
words  "  So  help  me  God  "  are  uttered,  to  think  how  that  most  solemn 
of  human  adjurations  could  not  bind  even  him,  a  judge  of  the  land, 
to  the  truth.'  1 

When  after  the  death  of  John  Sadleir  the  rumours  were 
again  resumed  : 

'  It  is  very  generally  supposed,'  wrote  the  '  Nation,'  '  that,  after  the 
scandalous  conduct  of  Mr.  Edmund  O'Flaherty,  the  hideous  suicide 
of  Mr.  John  Sadleir,  Government  may  feel  a  difficulty  in  elevating 
to  the  ermine  of  a  justice  a  gentleman  who  was  so  intimately  iden- 
tified with  both  in  their  political  profligacies,  and  who  had,  indeed, 
rather  a  worse  public  character  than  either.'  2 

'  Can  such  a  profanation  be  possible  ?'  asked  the  '  Wexford  People.' 
'  Can  public  decency  be  so  outraged  ?  .  ,  .  We  believe  the  Govern- 
ment of  Lord  Palmerston  is  capable  of  doing  a  large  amount  of 
iniquity  ;  but  there  is  a  limit  beyond  which  they  dare  not  pass,  or 
the  whole  world  would  cry  shame  on  them,  and  this  is  one.'3 

'  It  was  in  the  month  of  March,  1856,'  writes  T.  D.  Sulli- 
van,4 '  that  these  protests,  and  scores  of  others  such  as  these 
against  the  probable  elevation  of  Mr.  Keogh  to  the  bench  of 
justice,  were  being  published.  The  papers  at  the  time  were 
being  loaded  with  the  details  of  the  Sadleir  forgeries  and 
swindles  ;  the  law  courts  were  glutted  with  trials,  motions, 
and  all  sorts  of  proceedings  arising  out  of  them  ;  the  air  was 
ringing  with  the  cries  of  the  unfortunate  people  who  were 
reduced  from  a  state  of  solvency  and  comfort  to  one  of 
pauperism  by  the  Sadleirite  plunder.  It  was  little  wonder 
that  the  bare  idea  of  the  advancement  of  Mr.  Keogh  to  the 
bench  at  such  a  time  such  have  caused  in  the  minds  of  honest 
men  almost  a  frenzy  of  pain  and  horror. 

The  protests  were  in  vain.  The  death  of  Judge  Torrcns 
was  announced  in  the  Dublin  papers  of  the  morning  of 
Tuesday,  April  I.  On  Wednesday,  April  2 — the  day  after 
—Keogh  had  obtained  the  vacancy,  and  was  one  of  Her 
Majesty's  judges. 

1  T.  I).  Sullivan's  Record,  p.  47.  c  //>.  p.  5-;, 

3  Ib-  4  ll>.  p-  54- 


THE   GREAT    BETRAYAL  167 

'  The  administration  of  justice  in  Ireland,'  said  the  '  Nation,'  'has 
sustained  a  most  grievous  disgrace — a  disgrace  which  would  not  be 
tolerated  by  the  bench,  by  the  bar,  or  the  people  of  any  other 
country  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  .  .  .  Fancy  the  effect  of  Mr. 
William  Keogh  going  judge  of  assize  to  try  the  Westmeath  Ribbon- 
men  whom  he  incited  to  midnight  violence— trying  perjury  in 
Athlone  or  Cork,  before  whole  communities  who  heard  him  swear 
the  oath  of  whose  breach  his  presence  on  the  bench  before  them  is 
the  startling  evidence  !  It  is  an  example  sufficient  to  disgust  or  to 
demoralise  the  whole  profession,  and  shake  faith  in  justice.  .  .  . 
What  a  startling  and  a  scandalous  spectacle  it  is  to  see  this  man,  yet 
young— every  year  of  whose  life  has  been  marked  by  infamous 
political  tergiversation,  whose  career  has  never  had  in  it  a  day  of 
that  patient,  arduous,  and  laborious  effort  which  is  the  peculiar 
dignity  of  the  forensic  robe,  but  has  been  like  the  advance  of  the 
chamois-hunter,  springing  from  peak  to  peak,  and  always  on  the 
point  of  toppling  over — now,  after  having  been  everything  by  turns 
and  nothing  long,  broken  faith  with  every  party  and  laughed  at  every 
principle,  set  in  ermine  over  this  city,  a  judge  among  the  twelve 
judges  of  the  land  ! ' 

'  Well  may  it  be  asked,'  continues  the  national  journal  in  the 
same  article, '  Has  God's  providence  ceased  to  rule  in  Ireland  ? ' l 

There  is  one  scene  more  in  this  episode  of  Irish  history. 
One  prominent  member  of  the  'Irish  Brigade'  had  not  been 
made  a  judge  or  committed  suicide.  It  was  James  Sadleir, 
brother  of  John.  On  February  16,  1857,  Mr.  J.  D.  Fitzgerald, 
then  Attorney-General  for  Ireland,  moved  the  expulsion  of 
James  Sadleir  for  having  fled  before  charges  of  fraud  ;  and 
the  motion  was  carried,  nemine  contradicente. 

An  Englishman  was  lamenting,  a  short  time  ago,  to  a 
brilliant  Irishman  who  had  formerly  sat  in  Parliament,  the 
disagreeable  contrast  between  the  Irish  members  of  former 
days  and  the  unpleasant  specimens  of  the  present  hour. 
The  Irishman  surprised  his  interlocutor  by  admitting  the 
contrast,  but  not  after  the  same  fashion.  Then  he  put  thus 
tersely  the  story  which  has  just  been  told  :  *  There  were  j 
four  members  of  Parliament,  personal  intimates  and  political 
associates.  One  was  a  forger  and  committed  suicide ;  the 
other  was  a  forger,  and  was  expelled  from  Parliament ;  the  third  / 
was  a  swindler  and  fled  ;  and  the  fourth  was  made  a  judge.'  / 

1  T.  D.  Sullivan's  Record,  pp.  56,  57. 


1 68  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


CHAPTER   VI. 

RUIN   AND    RABAGAS. 

THE  years  which  followed  the  treason  of  Judge  Keogh  are 
among  the  darkest  in  Irish  history.  The  British  Government 
and  the  landlords  saw  their  power  once  more  unquestioned 
by  popular  leaders  and  unopposed  by  popular  organisation  or 
popular  hopes.  The  landlords  took  advantage  of  the  situa- 
tion after  their  usual  fashion. 

And  here  again  I  must  pause  in  the  narrative  to  add 
another  chapter  to  the  long  and  monotonous  history  of  the 
land  question.  The  oppression  which  the  landlords  practised 
on  their  tenants  at  this  period  knew  no  limit  of  age  or  sex  or 
circumstance  ;  it  penetrated  into  the  smallest  as  well  as  the 
largest  affairs  of  the  tenant's  life.  The  rent  \vas  raised  year 
by  year,  the  landlord  knowing  no  other  limit  to  his  exactions 
than  those  of  his  own  appetites  or  caprice  or  wants.  The 
building  of  a  new  mansion  in  London,  a  bad  night  at  the 
card-table,  the  demands  of  generous  and  exacting  beauty,  or 
the  loss  of  a  great  race,  remote  as  they  were  from  the  con- 
cerns of  the  Irish  farmer  in  his  cabin  and  on  his  patch  of 
land,  influenced  and  darkened  his  destiny  ;  and  year  after  year 
his  rent  steadily  kept  rising.  When  at  last  successive  genera- 
tions of  folly  and  vice  swept  the  old  landlord  into  the  mael- 
strom of  debt,  the  change  of  landlord  meant  in  nearly  every 
case  a  rise  of  rent  and  a  master — penurious,  perhaps,  where 
the  old  proprietor  had  been  spendthrift,  but  as  grinding 
and  as  greedy. 

There  was  in  connection  with  most  of  the  properties  a 
code  for  the  regulation  of  the  tenantry  which  went  under  the 
name  of  '  office  rules.'  These  rules  dogged  every  action  of 
the  tenant's  life. 

A  minute   system   of  fines  existed.     Take   these   for  in- 


RUIN    AND    RABAGAS  169 

stances  :  William  Bevvley,  a  tenant  on  one  of  the  estates  of 
Lord  Leitrim,  was  fined  n/.  because  he  sold  hay  contrary  to 
the  rules  of  the  estate  ;  Lord  Leitrim  himself  visited  this 
man's  house  in  order  to  find  fault  with  him,  and  the  sight  of 
this  dreaded  landlord  and  his  brutal  language  drove  Bewley's 
daughter  insane.  The  widowed  mother  of  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Lavelle,  a  well-known  Catholic  priest,  was  evicted  because, 
contrary  to  the  rules  of  the  estate,  she  took  in  her  son-in-law 
and  daughter  for  companionship.  A  tenant  on  Lord  Lucan's 
estate  was  find  los.  for  being  three  days  late  in  the  pay- 
ment of  his  rent,  and  another  tenant  was  fined  14^.  8d.  for 
receiving  a  tenant's  daughter  into  his  house  while  her  hus- 
band was  in  England.  On  the  Ormsby  estate  in  County 
Mayo  this  system  of  petty  fining  reached  its  highest  develop- 
ment. Thus  a  woman  named  Ann  Cassidy  could  recall  the 
infliction  of  the  following  fines  upon  her  husband  :  5^.  for 
being  absent  from  duty  work  one  day;  los.  for  a  similar 
offence  ;  2s.  6d.  for  being  absent  from  duty  work  on  the  day 
of  his  child's  burial  ;  2s.  6d.  because  a  pig  rooted  part  of  his 
land ;  2s.  6d.  for  allowing  an  ass  to  stray  on  the  road  ; 
icxr.  6d.  because  the  top  stone  of  a  gable  was  not  rightly 
whitewashed.  James  Sheerin,  formerly  a  tenant,  on  the 
Ormsby  estate,  was  fined  los.  for  cutting  a  branch  from  an 
ash-tree  which  he  himself  had  planted  ;  5^.  because  a  pig 
strayed  back  into  a  house  from  which  he  had  been  evicted, 
and  is.  6d.  because  a  horse  was  allowed  out  on  the  road. 
Margaret  Conlon  describes  how,  on  the  same  estate,  her 
husband  was  fined  *js.  6d.  for  not  making  a  drain  at  a  time 
when  he  was  engaged  in  mowing  for  the  landlord  ;  I2s.  6d.  for 
changing  a  window  from  one  side  of  the  house  to  the  other 
in  order  to  get  more  light,  and  2s.  6d.  for  being  too  late  at  his 
work.  Charles  Durkin,  a  tenant  on  the  estate  of  Sir  Robert 
Blosse,  was  fined  for  taking  carts  of  bog  mud  from  one  part  of 
his  land  to  manure  another,  and  2/.  ifs.  6d.  for  cutting  loads 
of  turf  from  a  bog  for  which  he  was  paying  I/.  Ss.  per  acre.1 

1  These  cases  were  supplied  to  the  solicitors  for  the  traversers  in  the  case  of 
the  Queen  v.  Parnell  and  others  by  persons  who  were  prepared  to  swear  to  their 
occurrence.  The  briefs  containing  this  evidence  were  placed  at  my  disposal  by 
the  widow  of  A.  M.  Sullivan.  It  will  be  referred  to  as  '  Evidence  for  Queen  z/. 
Parnell.' 


1 7o  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

Thus  beggared  and  driven,  the  tenant  naturally  took 
refuge  or  found  some  consolation  in  the  contemplation  of  his 
religion,  which  promised  a  future  life  in  which  the  poverty 
and  tyranny  of  this  world  would  exist  no  more,  and  where 
hearts  would  find  peace  and  sorrow  could  dry  its  tears.  But 
even  the  poor  luxury  of  his  intercourse  with  the  Unseen  the 
landlord  would  not  permit  the  tenant  to  enjoy  in  peace. 
Lord  Plunket,  for  instance,  evicted  a  large  number  of  his 
tenants  because  they  refused  to  send  their  children  to  the 
proselytising  schools.  This  system  of  proselytising  was  one 
of  the  worst  portents  of  the  time.  A  society  was  formed,  and 
is  still  in  existence,  the  nominal  purpose  of  which  is  to  wean 
the  Catholic  population  from  the  errors  of  their  religion  by 
lectures.  Under  this  organisation,  known  as  the  Irish  Church 
Mission,  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  have  the  privilege  of  seeing 
in  the  streets  on  public  placards  the  most  flagrant  reflections 
on  the  most  sacred  mysteries  of  their  creed.  In  the  poorer 
parts  of  the  country,  food  was  the  bribe  by  which  the  starving 
parents  were  seduced  into  selling  the  creed  of  their  children. 
During  periods  of  very  deep  distress  these  missions  enrolled 
some  of  the  population,  but  the  return  of  such  prosperity  as 
the  Irish  farmer  was  allowed  to  enjoy,  brought  back  the 
people  to  the  observance  of  the  faith  in  which  they  believed. 
In  some  parts  of  the  country  the  small  churches  which  at  one 
time  had  congregations  of  Catholics  converted  by  such  means, 
are  now  empty  and  in  ruins.  The  parents  who  thus  deserted 
their  religion  naturally  became  the  objects  of  their  neigh- 
bours' contempt.  They  and  their  tempters  were  called  by 
a  nickname  which  sufficiently  indicated  the  reason  of  their 
change  of  faith.  '  Soupcr  '  is  one  of  the  vilest  epithets  that 
one  person  in  Ireland  can  hurl  at  another,  even  up  to  the 
present  hour.  In  another  way  also  the  landlords  substituted 
a  penal  code  of  their  own  for  that  abolished  by  statute.  On 
several  estates  every  effort  was  directed  towards  expelling 
the  Catholic  population  so  as  to  replace  them  by  Protestant 
tenants. 

It  might  have  been  expected  that  the  tenant  thus  reduced 
to  an  ill-paid  labourer,  as  absolutely  dependent  as  a  serf, 
would  not  be  an  object  of  any  further  misgiving  or  annoy- 


RUIN   AND    RABAGAS  171 

ance  to  his  landlord.  But  the  frenzy  for  the  destruction  of 
the  people  that  set  in  towards  the  beginning  of  the  century 
seemed  still  to  rage  like  an  unholy  and  accursed  mania  in 
the  souls  of  the  landlords  ;  and  the  period  is  marked  by 
wholesale  clearances  on  a  scale  that  is  appalling,  and  amid 
circumstances  of  horror  and  cruelty  that  are  scarcely  credible. 

The  instances  are  so  numerous  of  such  wholesale  clear- 
ances that  one  has  to  pick  and  choose.  It  will  suffice  to 
take  out  a  few  of  the  typical  cases  ;  they  will  indicate  what 
landlordism  meant  in  those  days. 

Five  names  stand  out  in  bold  relief  among  the  wholesale 
evictors  of  this  and  other  periods  and  that  immediately 
preceding  it.  These  are  the  Marquis  of  Sligo,  the  Earl  of 
Lucan,  Mr.  Allan  Pollock,  Lord  Leitrim,  and  Mr.  John 
George  Adair.  The  Marquis  of  Sligo  cleared  out  at  various 
periods  no  fewer  than  two  thousand  families,  with  the  result 
that  a  single  tenant  of  his,  with  a  few  herds,  occupied  an  area 
of  no  less  than  two  hundred  square  miles.  The  Earl  of  Lucan 
absolutely  swept  from  the  earth  the  town  of  Aughadrina. 
Mr.  Pollock  evicted  one  hundred  families  from  one  estate,  fifty 
from  another.  He  was  a  Scotchman,  and  one  of  the  objects 
of  these  wholesale  evictions  was  to  replace  the  Irish  popula- 
tion by  men  of  another  race,  and  the  tenantry  by  sheep  and 
bullocks.  '  Before  the  face  of  this  "  stranger  "  no  less  than 
five  thousand  souls  had  to  fly  the  bounds  of  their  country 
and  their  sweet  fields.'  l  In  1856  Mrs.  James  Blake  evicted  | 
fifty  families,  not  one  of  whom  owed  her  a  penny  of  rent,  and  I 
the  land  was  changed  into  grass  land.  '  Some  of  the  tenants  j 
then  evicted  are  beggars  in  Loughrea,'  says  Dr.  Duggan.'2 
In  County  Cavan  seven  hundred  tenants  were  turned  out  by 
Messrs.  O'Connor  and  Malone  in  the  course  of  two  days.  In  ( 
County  Meath  Mr.  Nicholson  cleared  out  from  eighty  to  one 
hundred  people  in  1862,  and  about  three  hundred  persons 
in  1869-70,  and  the  land  was  entirely  turned  into  pasture. 
In  1857  Mr.  Rochford  Boyd,  a  Westmeath  landlord,  evicted 
a  large  number  of  tenants,  not  one  of  them  owing  any  rent. 

Wholesale  eviction  of  this  kind  could  not  be  carried  on, 

1  Lavelle's  Irish  Landlord  since  the  Revolution,  p.  271. 

2  Ev.dence  for  Queen  v.  Famell. 


172  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

of  course,  without  terrible  hardship.  Sometimes  people  were 
turned  out  on  Christmas  Eve.  Here  is  a  case  described  by 
Father  Lavelle.  'A  certain  landlord  in  County  Galway  got 
a  cheap  decree  at  quarter  sessions  against  a  tenant  on  his 
property.  This  was  early  in  October  ;  October  and  Novem- 
ber passed  over,  and  a  gleam  of  hope  began  to  enter  the 
poor  man's  soul  that,  at  least,  he  would  be  permitted  to  pass 
the  Christmas  holidays  in  his  old  home.  December  was  fast 
running  out ;  the  sun  of  Christmas  Eve  had  actually  risen, 
and  with  it  the  poor  man  and  his  wife  and  family,  when, 
horror  of  horrors  !  whom  does  he  see  approaching  his  cabin 
door,  followed  by  a  posse  comitatus  of  the  Crow-bar  Brigade, 
but  the  sheriff  surrounded  by  a  detachment  of  the  con- 
stabulary force  !  The  family  were  flung  out  like  vermin,  and 
the  work  of  demolition  occupied  but  a  few  minutes.  The 
evicted  family  passed  that  and  the  subsequent  Christmas 
night  with  no  other  covering  but  that  of  the  wide  canopy  of 
heaven,  as  strict  prohibitions  had  been  issued  to  all  the  other 
tenants  to  harbour  him  on  pain  of  similar  treatment' 1 

Father  White,  of  Milltown-Malbay,  tells  how,  in  the  winter 
of  1864  or  1865,  he  was  present  at  the  eviction  of  five  or  six 
families  on  Mr.  Westby's  estate  in  the  parish  of  Carrigaholt. 
It  was  late  in  the  evening  of  a  cold  winter's  day  ;  the  bailiffs 
'  were  in  the  act  of  carrying  out  an  old  woman  about  eighty 
years  of  age,  and  apparently  in  a  dying  state.  She  had  been 
it  seemed  taken  from  her  bed,  being  wrapped  in  a  sheet. 
They  laid  her  on  the  dunghill.  <  I  was  so  shocked  that  I 
threatened  to  prosecute  the  sub-sheriff  for  murder  if  she  died,' 
says  Father  White.'2  The  eviction  of  each  of  these  tenants 
was  carried  out  in  the  most  heartless  manner.  The  houses  were 
nearly  all  afterwards  unroofed.  These  tenants,  until  the  bad 
years  of  1 862-3-4,  were  all  comfortable  and  well-to-do.  They 
held  from  five  to  forty  acres. 

'  Whilst  in  Newmarket  parish,'  says  the  same  clergyman, 
'about  1872  Lord  Inchiquin  raised  the  tenants'  rents  con- 
siderably— I  believe  added  about  5,ooo/.  to  his  rental.  He 


1  Lavelle,  pp.  271,  272. 

*  Evidence  for  Queen  r.  Parnell. 


RUIN    AND    RABAGAS  173 

evicted  a  number  of  tenants,  not  owing  a  penny  rent,  for  the 
purpose  of  adding  to  his  demesne.' 

At  an  eviction  in  1854  on  a  property  under  the  manage- 
ment of  a  Marcus  Keane,  James  O'Gorman,  one  of  the  tenants 
evicted,  died  on  the  roadside.  His  wife  and  ten  children  were 
sent  to  the  workhouse,  where  they  died  shortly  afterwards. 
John  Corbet,  a  tenant  on  another  townland,  was  evicted  by 
the  same  agent.  He  died  on  the  roadside  ;  his  wife  had  died 
previously  to  the  eviction  ;  his  ten  children  were  sent  into 
the  workhouse  and  there  died.  Michael  McMahon,  evicted 
at  the  same  time,  was  dragged  out  of  bed  to  the  wall-side, 
where  he  died  of  want  next  day.  His  wife  died  of  want 
previously  to  the  eviction,  and  his  children,  eight  in  number, 
died  in  a  few  weeks  in  the  workhouse.1 

1  Though  it  does  not  belong  to  this  period,  it  may  be  well  to  quote  here 
a  description  of  an  eviction  which  has  become  historical.  The  eye-witness  to  it 
was  the  Most  Rev.  Dr.  Nulty,  Lord  Bishop  of  Meath,  and  the  event  occurred  in 
September  1847  near  Mount  Nugent,  Co.  Cavan.  The  names  of  the  owners  of 
the  property  were  O'Connor  and  Malone  ;  that  of  the  agent  was  Mr.  Guiness, 
then  M.P.  for  Kin^ale,  but  shortly  afterwards  unseated  for  bribery.  Dr.  Nulty 
says  : — 

'  In  the  very  first  year  of  our  ministry,  as  a  Missionary  Priest  in  this  diocese, 
we  were  an  eye-witness  of  a  cruel  and  inhuman  eviction,  which  even  still  makes 
our  heart  bleed  as  ofren  as  we  allow  ourselves  to  think  of  it. 

'  Seven  hundred  human  beings  were  driven  from  their  homes  in  one  day  and 
set  adrift  on  the  world,  to  gratify  the  caprice  of  one  who,  before  God  and  man, 
probably  deserved  less  consideration  than  the  last  and  least  of  them,  And  we 
remember  well  that  there  was  not  a  single  shilling  of  rent  due  on  the  estate  at 
the  time,  except  by  one  man  ;  and  the  character  and  acts  of  that  man  made  it 
perfectly  clear  that  the  agent  and  himself  quite  understood  each  other. 

'The  Crow-bar  Brigade,  employed  on  the  occasion  to  extinguish  the  hearths 
and  demolish  the  hom<-s  of  honest,  industrious  men,  worked  away  with  a  will  at 
tHeir  awful  calling  until  evening.  At  length  an  incident  occurred  that  varied  the 
monotony  of  the  grim,  ghastly  ruin  which  they  were  spreading  all  around.  They 
stopped  suddenly,  and  reco-led  panic-stricken  with  terror  from  two  dwellings 
which  they  were  directed  to  destroy  with  the  rest.  They  had  just  learned  that 
a  frightful  typhus  fever  held  those  houses  in  its  grasp,  and  had  already  brought 
pestilence  and  death  to  their  inmates.  They  therefore  supplicated  the  agent  to 
spare  these  houses  a  little  longer  ;  but  the  agent  was  inexorable,  and  insisted 
that  the  houses  should  come  down.  The  ingenuity  with  which  he  extricated 
himself  from  the  difficulties  of  the  situation  was  characteristic  alike  of  the  heart- 
lessness  of  the  man  and  of  the  cruel  necessities  of  the  work  in  which  he  was 
engaged.  He  ordered  a  large  winnowing-sheet  to  be  secured  over  the  beds  in 
which  the  fever  victims  lay— fortunately  they  happened  to  be  perfectly  delirious 
at  the  time  -  and  then  directed  the  houses  to  be  unroofed  cautiously  and  slowly, 


174  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

In  one  estate  at  least  an  'office  rule'  regulated  even  the 
marriage  relations  of  the  tenantry.  One  of  the  estates  on 
which  this  practice  was  most  rigidly  carried  out  was  that  of 
the  Marquis  of  Lansdowne.  The  late  Sir  John  Gray,  in  a 
speech  in  the  Free  Trade  Hall  in  Manchester  (October  18, 
1869),  describes  this  episode  of  landlord  life  in  these  graphic 
terms  :  l 

In  the  book  he  had  already  quoted  from — 'Realities  of  Irish 
Life  ' — there  was  told  a  very  pathetic  story  of  '  Mary  Shea,'  the  pretty 
black-eyed  girl  of  seventeen,  who  lived  with  her  parents  on  a  moun- 
tain farm.  Mr.  Trench  tells  with  touching  pathos  how,  when  the 
'hunger' — the  name  given  by  the  people  to  the  famine— came, 
Mary's  mother  died,  and  was  buried  in  the  garden,  because  Mary 
and  her  father  had  not  strength  to  carry  her  to  the  churchyard.  He 
tells  how  Mary  smothered  the  bees  she  had  reared  herself,  though 
they  all  knew  her  well,  and  sold  their  store  of  honey  for  15.9.,  and 

"because,"  he  said,  "he  very  much  disliked  the  bother  and  discomfort  of  a 
coroner's  inquest."  I  administered  the  last  sacrament  cf  the  Church  to  four  of 
these  fever  victims  next  day  ;  and,  save  the  above-mentioned  winnowing-sheet, 
there  was  not  then  a  roof  nearer  to  me  than  the  canopy  of  heaven. 

'  The  horrid  scenes  I  then  witnessed  I  must  remember  all  my  life  long.  The 
wailing  of  women  — the  screams,  the  terror,  the  consternation  of  children — the 
speechless  agony  of  honest,  industrious  men— wrung  tears  of  grief  from  all  who 
saw  them.  I  saw  the  officers  and  men  of  a  large  police  force,  who  wrere  obliged 
to  attend  on  the  occasion,  cry  like  children  at  beholding  the  cruel  sufferings  of 
the  very  people  whom  they  would  be  obliged  to  butcher  had  they  offered  the 
least  resistance.  The  heavy  rains  that  usually  attend  the  autumnal  equinoxes 
descended  in  cold,  copious  torrents  throughout  the  night,  and  at  once  revealed 
to  those  houseless  sufferers  the  awful  realities  of  their  condition.  I  visited  them 
next  morning,  rind  rode  from  place  to  place  administering  to  them  all  the  comfort 
and  consolation  I  could.  The  appearance  of  men,  women,  and  children,  as  they 
emerged  from  the  ruins  of  their  former  homes— saturated  with  rain,  blackened 
and  besmeared  with  soot,  shivering  in  every  member  from  cold  and  misery — 
presented  positively  the  most  appalling  spectacle  I  ever  looked  at.  The  landed 
proprietors  in  a  circle  all  around  -  and  for  many  miles  in  every  direction  -warned 
their  tenantry,  with  threats  of  their  direst  vengeance,  against  the  humanity  of 
extending  to  any  of  them  the  hospitality  of  a  single  night's  shelter.  Many  of 
these  poor  people  were  un;  ble  to  emigrate  with  their  families  ;  while,  at  home, 
the  hand  of  every  man  was  thus  raised  against  them.  They  were  driven  from 
the  land  on  which  Providence  had  placed  them  ;  and,  in  the  state  of  society 
surrounding  them,  every  oth-r  walk  of  life  was  rigidly  closed  against  them. 
What  was  the  result  ?  After  battling  in  vain  with  privati  >n  and  pestilence,  they 
at  last  graduated  from  the  workhouse  to  the  tomb  ;  and  in  little  more  than  three 
years,  nearly  a  fourth  of  them  lay  quietly  in  their  graves.' 

1  Authorised  report,  pp.  28-30. 


RUIN    AND    RABAGAS  175 

bought  meal,  and  kept  her  father  alive  for  a  month,  but  how,  when 
it  was  exhausted,  her  father  died  too,  and  how  he,  too,  was  buried  in 
the  garden  by  herself  and  '  Eugene,'  and  how,  thus  left  an  orphan 
and  alone,  the  kind-hearted  Eugene  took  home  '  Mary  Shea '  to  his 
mother's  house  and  shared  the  scanty  meal  with  her.  Mr.  Trench 
with  great  power  described,  in  the  book  he  held  in  his  hand,  this  sad 
1  reality,'  and  told  how,  when  walking  one  day  through  his  pleasure- 
grounds,  he  saw  two  bright  spots  shining  from  behind  a  holly-tree, 
and  coming  nearer  he  saw  that  behind  the  tree  something  moved, 
and  forth  came  Mary  Shea,  the  graceful  Irish  maiden  of  seventeen 
,with  Spanish  face,  and  almost  kneeling,  she  said  with  blushing  confi- 
dence :  *  Please,  your  honour,  will  you  put  Eugene's  name  on  the 
book  instead  of  mine.'  Then  a  beautiful  tale  was  told  of  Mary's 
woes,  of  her  modesty,  of  her  beauty,  and  of  her  marriage,  on  perusing 
which  no  English  matron  or  noble  maiden  with  tender  or  womanly 
heart  could  restrain  their  tears,  so  sweetly  was  told  the  affecting 
story  of  .Mary  Shea.  But  alas  !  Mr.  Trench  did  not  tell  the  dismal 
truth  of  landlord  tyranny  that  was  concealed  behind  the  rose-tinted 
romance  of  this  '  reality  of  Irish  life  ; '  he  did  not  tell  why  it  was 
that  this  blushing  maiden  of  seventeen,  the  black-eyed  Mary  Shea, 
came  to  him,  a  man  she  had  never  before  seen,  to  tell  of  her  innocent 
love,  and  to  introduce  Eugene  ;  he  did  not  tell  that  by  'the  rule  of 
the  estate,'  had  Mary  Shea  or  any  other  tenant  dared  to  get  married 
without  the  leave  of  'his  honour'  the  agent,  she  would  be  hurled 
from  her  farm  and  the  roof  torn  down  about  her  bridal-bed  (cries  of 
'  Shame  on  him  ! '  and  loud  cheers).  He  (Sir  John  Gray)  would  now 
read  for  them  an  extract  from  a  petition  to  a  noble  marquis  whose 
name  was  given  in  the  title-page  of  Mr.  Trench's  book  as  one  of 
those  nobles  whose  agent  he  is,  which  would  tell  some  of  the  true 
realities  of  Irish  life  ;  for  these  were  realities  of  Irish  life  of  which  no 
glimpse  was  given  in  Mr.  Trench's  book.  In  the  title-page  of  that 
book  it  would  be  found  that  the  author,  Mr.  Trench,  was  agent  to  a 
noble  marquis  and  two  other  great  estated  persons  in  Ireland,  and  in 
M.  Perraud's  'Ireland  in  1862,'  he  found  a  copy  of  a  petition  pre- 
sented no  farther  back  than  1858,  by  the  whole  body  of  the  tenantry 
of  the  noble  marquis,  who  was,  he  believed,  the  landlord  of  black- 
eyed  Mary  Shea  (cries  of  '  Name,  name  ').  The  name  of  the  land- 
lord was  the  Marquis  of  Lansdowne,  the  estate  was  in  Kerry,  and 
this  was  the  petition  :  — 

'We  (the  tenants)  have  been  made  keenly  sensible  of  this  abject 
dependence  by  certain  rules  and  regulations  which  are  now  forced  on 
this  estate.  By  these  rules  no  tenant  can  marry,  or  procure  the 


i76  "THE  PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

marriage  of  his  son  or  daughter,  without  permission  from  your  lord- 
ship's agent,  even  when  no  change  of  tenancy  would  arise '  (Cheers, 
and  loud  cries  of  '  Shame  ').  That  was  the  petition  of  the  tenantry 
of  Lord  Lansdowne  in  April  1858. 

The  Lansdowne  property  brought  another  of  the  many 
'  rules'  on  estates  over  Ireland  to  its  logical  and  tragic  con- 
clusion. Again  the  words  of  Sir  John  Gray  will  be  quoted  : — 

He  would  now  ask  leave  to  read,  not  from  the  petition  of  the 
tenantry  but  from  the  judgment  of  the  Chief  Baron  of  the  Irish  Court 
of  Exchequer,  another  illustration  of  the  'rule  of  the  estate,'  which 
forbade  a  tenant  to  give  shelter  even  to  a  relative  in  his  most  dire 
distress  upon  that  very  same  property.  Passing  sentence  upon  some 
persons  in  the  dock  who  were  accused  of  the  manslaughter  of  a  boy 
of  twelve  years  of  age,  Chief  Baron  Pigott  said  :  '  The  poor  boy 
whose  death  you  caused  was  between  twelve  and  fourteen  years  of 
age.'  Now  mark  the  history  of  that  boy,  as  told  by  the  Chief  Baron  : 
*  His  mother  at  one  time  held  a  little  dwelling  from  which  she  was 
expelled.  His  father  was  dead.  His  mother  had  left  him,  and  he 
was  alone  and  unprotected.  He  found  refuge  with  his  grandmother, 
who  held  a  little  farm, /rim  which  she  was  removed  in  consequence  of 
her  harbouring  this  poor  boy,  as  the  agent  of  the  property  had  given 
public  notice  to  the  tenantry  that  expulsion  from  their  farms  would 
be  the  penalty  inflicted  upon  them  if  they  harboured  any  persons 
having  no  residence  on  the  estate.'  These  two  cases,  not  of  eviction, 
but  cases  where  eviction  did  not  occur,  showed  that  the  tenantry 
were,  because  of  the  extraordinary  powers  conferred  by  law  on  land- 
lords, in  such  a  state  of  serfdom,  that  the  mother  could  not  receive 
her  daughter — that  the  grandmother  could  not  receive  her  own 
grandchild  unless  that  child  was  a  tenant  on  the  estate  ('  Shame, 
<  Inhuman') -and  the  result  in  the  case  he  was  referring  to.  ... 
was  this,  that  the  poor  boy,  without  a  house  to  shelter  him,  was 
sought  to  be  forced  into  the  house  of  a  relative  in  a  terrible  night  of 
storm  and  rain.  He  was  immediately  pushed  out  again,  he  staggered 
on  a  little,  fell  to  the  ground,  and  the  next  morning  was  found  cold, 
stiff  and  dead  (sensation).  The  persons  who  drove  the  poor  boy 
out  were  tried  for  the  offence  of  being  accessories  to  his  death,  and 
their  defence  was,  that  what  they  did  was  done  under  the  terror  of 
'the  rule  of  the  estate,' and  that  they  meant  no  harm  to  the  boy. 
('Shame/)1 

1  Authorised  report,  pp.  30,  31. 


RUIN   AND    RABAGAS  177 

Finally,  on  this  point  there  were  cases  in  which  the  land- 
lord made  even  harder  claims.  The  droit  de  seigneur  reigned 
as  completely  in  Ireland  as  in  France,  but  while  in  the  one 
case  it  ended  with  the  French  Revolution,  it  endured  in 
Ireland— thanks  to  British  rule — until  our  own  times.  Lord 
Leitrim  in  this  way,  as  in  many  others,  raged  like  a  plague 
over  the  people  whom  a  hideous  destiny  and  evil  laws  left 
entirely  at  his  mercy.  On  his  estates  a  comely  girl  was 
ordered  to  come  nominally  as  a  domestic  servant  inside  his 
house.  The  house  became  a  prison,  and  the  service  was  the 
service  of  shame.  In  due  time  the  lord  of  the  seraglio  sent 
the  distasteful  mistress  to  America,  and  to  some  other  hapless  I 
girl  on  his  estate  the  dread  choice  was  offered  between  ' 
entering  the  harem  or  exposing  her  parents  and  her  family  to 
eviction,  i.e.  starvation. 

Such  are  a  few  instances,  selected  out  from  hundreds,  of 
what  landlordism  meant  for  Ireland  during  the  years  between 
the  treason  of  Keogh  and  the  year  1865.  To  complete  the 
picture  it  is  necessary  to  describe  in  some  detail  one  other 
eviction  scene,  which,  from  its  peculiar  cruelty,  attracted 
universal  attention.  The  story  of  Glenveigh  has  been  told 
often  since,  not  merely  in  history,  but  in  romance.  Derry- 
veigh  is  situate  in  the  highlands  of  Donegal,  and  has  some  of 
the  most  beautiful  scenery  in  Ireland.  The  beauty  of  its 
scenery  attracted  the  attention  of  Mr.  John  George  Ac1  air,  a 
Queen's  County  landlord,  while  on  a  sporting  visit  to  the 
locality,  and  he  resolved  to  buy  the  property.  Up  to  this 
period  the  population  enjoyed  a  universal  reputation  for  the 
virtues  associated  usually  with  remote  mountaineers.  They 
were  quiet,  industrious,  and  on  excellent  terms  with  their 
landlords.  The  advent  of  Mr.  Adair  changed  all  this.  The 
struggle  between  him  and  his  tenants  began  in  a  small 
dispute  about  his  right  to  shoot  over  some  land  formerly  in 
the  possession  of  one  of  their  landlords.  The  farmers  at- 
tempted to  prevent  Mr.  Adair  shooting  ;  there  was  a  scuffle  ; 
litigation  ensued  with  varying  success,  and  with  increasing' 
bitterness  between  Mr.  Adair  and  one  of  the  tenants.  A 
further  cause  of  dispute  arose  soon  after.  Mr.  Adair  had, 
like  some  other  of  the  landlords,  imported  a  number  of 

N 


178 


"THE  PARNELL  MOVEMENT 


Scotch  black-faced  sheep,  which  were  supposed  to  be  a  very 
profitable  investment.  These  sheep  disappeared  in  consider- 
able numbers  ;  Mr.  Adair  charged  his  tenants  with  having 
maliciously  destroyed  them,  and  succeeded  for  a  while  in 
obtaining  large  sums  in  compensation  from  the  grand  jury. 
These  taxes  fell  very  heavily  upon  the  tenantry,  and  tended 
to  exasperate  feeling  still  further.  It  was  represented,  too, 
that  as  the  sheep  only  cost  js.  6d.  to  los.  a  head,  the  amount 
claimed  at  the  presentments  was  from  ijs.  6d.  to  25^.  a  head. 
The  Judge  of  Assize— the  late  Chief  Justice  Monahan  — 
indignantly  refused  to  fiat  these  monstrous  claims,  and  an 
impression  began  to  prevail  that  the  disappearance  of  many 
of  the  sheep  at  least  was  due,  not  to  malice,  but  to  the  stress 
of  weather. 

This,  however,  was  not  the  view  taken  by  Mr.  Adair.  He 
had  been  exasperated  so  much  by  the  quarrel  over  the  rights 
of  sporting  and  the  disappearance  of  the  sheep,  that  he  came 
to  regard  himself  as  engaged  in  a  fierce  and  merciless  struggle 
with  the  tenantry.  He  had  prepared  for  such  a  struggle  by 
getting  possession  of  the  entire  district  by  purchase  at  dif- 
ferent but  closely  following  dates,  and  he  was  in  the  end  the 
absolute  master  of  ninety  square  miles  of  country.  Several 
small  acts  led  up  to  a  final  cause  of  quarrel.  Two  of  his 
dogs  were  poisoned,  as  he  thought  maliciously,  although  the 
grand  jury  refused  him  compensation,  and  an  outhouse  was 
set  on  fire.  Finally,  one  of  his  herds  was  murdered.  This 
lixcd  Mr.  Adair's  determination  :  the  banishment  of  the 
whole  population — nothing  less  would  feed  fat  his  big 
revenge. 

1  he  tenantry  heard  of  this  fell  intention,  but,  removed 
from  much  contact  with  the  outside  world,  and  unable  to  face 
even  in  imagination  such  a  terrible  possibility,  they  went  on 
without  taking  any  particular  notice.  But  they  were  the  only 
persons  who  were  undisturbed.  The  other  landlords,  alarmed 
at  the  transformation  of  the  country  from  its  normal  tran- 
quillity into  all  this  tumult  of  conflict,  passed  a  strong  resolu- 
tion in  favour  of  the  tenantry  ;  the  clergymen  of  all  denomin- 
ations were  as  vehemently  on  their  side  ;  the  local  authorities 
were  loud  in  their  anger.  '  Is  it  my  duty,'  wrote  Mr.  Dillon, 


RUIN   AND    RABAGAS  179 

the  resident  magistrate,  to  Sir  Thomas  Larcom,  then  Under 
Secretary  at  Dublin  Castle,  '  to  stand  by  and  give  protection 
while  the  houses  are  being  levelled  ?'  In  Dublin  Castle  itself 
they  were  in  a  fever  of  apprehension,  and  they  made  prepara- 
tions for  assisting  the  landlord  in  this  act  of  brutal  and 
wholesale  cruelty  as  extensive  as  if  they  were  preparing  for  a 
small  campaign.  Mr.  Adair's  bailiffs  were  supplied  with  the 
services  of  a  large  number  of  soldiers  and  police.  On  the 
night  of  Sunday  this  body  took  possession  quietly  and 
without  any  warning  of  all  the  approaches  to  the  valley  in 
which  the  doomed  people  slept  ;  on  the  following  morning- 
Monday,  April  8 — the  work  of  eviction  began.  The  '  Derry 
Standard,'  a  Presbyterian  journal  of  the  district,  described 
through  its  special  correspondent  what  followed  : — 

'  The  first  eviction  was  one  peculiarly  distressing,  and  the  terrible 
reality  of  the  law  suddenly  burst  with  surprise  on  the  spectators. 
Having  arrived  at  Lough  Barra,  the  police  were  halted,  and  the  sheriff, 
with  a  small  escort,  proceeded  to  the  house  of  a  widow  named 
M* Award,  aged  sixty  years,  living  with  whom  were  six  daughters  and 
a  son.  Long  before  the  house  was  reached  loud  cries  were  heard 
piercing  the  air,  and  soon  the  figures  of  the  poor  widow  and  her 
daughters  were  observed  outside  the  house,  where  they  gave  vent  to 
their  grief  in  strains  of  touching  agony.  Forced  to  discharge  an 
unpleasant  duty,  the  sheriff  entered  the  house  and  delivered  up 
possession  to  Mr.  Adair's  steward,  whereupon  six  men,  who  had  been 
brought  from  a  distance,  immediately  fell  to  to  level  the  house  to 
the  ground.  The  scene  then  became  indescribable.  The  bereaved 
widow  and  her  daughters  were  frantic  with  despair.  Throwing  them- 
selves on  the  ground  they  became  almost  insensible,  and,  bursting 
out  in  the  old  Irish  wail — then  heard  by  many  for  the  first  time — 
their  terrifying  cries  resounded  along  the  mountainside  for  many 
miles.  They  had  been  deprived  of  the  little  spot  made  dear  to  them 
by  associations  of  the  past — and  with  bleak  poverty  before  them,  an.  I 
only  the  blue  sky  to  shelter  them,  they  naturally  lost  all  hope,  and 
those  who  witnessed  their  agony  will  never  forget  the  sight.  No  one 
could  stand  by  unmoved.  Every  heart  was  touched,  and  tears  of 
sympathy  flowed  from  many.  In  a  short  time  we  withdrew  from  the 
scene,  leaving  the  widow  and  her  orphans  surrounded  by  a  small 
group  of  neighbours  who  could  only  express  their  sympathy  for  the 
homeless,  without  possessing  the  power  to  relieve  them.  During 
that  and  the  next  two  days  the  entire  holdings  in  the  land  mentioned 

N  2 


180  *THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

above  were  visited,  and  it  was  not  until  an  advanced  hour  on 
Wednesday  the  evictions  were  finished.  In  all  the  evictions  the 
distress  of  the  poor  people  was  equal  to  that  depicted  in  the  first  case. 
Dearly  did  they  cling  to  their  homes  till  the  last  moment,  and  while 
the  male  population  bestirred  themselves  in  clearing  the  houses  of 
what  scanty  furniture  they  contained,  the  women  and  children  re- 
mained within  till  the  sheriff's  bailiff  warned  them  out,  and  even 
then  it  was  with  difficulty  they  could  tear  themselves  away  from  the 
scenes  of  happier  days.  In  many  cases  they  bade  an  affectionate 
adieu  to  their  former  peaceable  but  now  desolate  homes.  One  old 
man,  near  the  fourscore  years  and  ten,  on  leaving  his  house  for  the  last 
time  reverently  kissed  the  doorposts,  with  all  the  impassioned  tenderness 
of  an  emigrant  leaving  his  native  land.  His  wife  and  children  fol- 
lowed his  example,  and  in  agonised  silence  the  afflicted  family  stood 
by  and  watched  the  destruction  of  their  dwelling.  In  another  case 
an  old  man,  aged  ninety,  who  was  lying  ill  in  bed,  was  brought  out 
of  the  house  in  order  that  formal  possession  might  be  taken,  but 
readmitted  for  a  week  to  permit  of  his  removal.  In  nearly  every 
house  there  was  some  one  far  advanced  in  age — many  of  them 
tottering  to  the  grave— while  the  sobs  of  helpless  children  took  hold 
of  every  heart.  When  dispossessed,  the  families  grouped  themselves 
on  the  ground,  beside  the  ruins  of  their  late  homes,  having  no  place 
of  refuge  near.  The  dumb  animals  refused  to  leave  the  wallsteads, 
and  in  some  cases  were  with  difficulty  rescued  from  the  falling 
timbers.  As  night  set  in  the  scene  became  fearfully  sad.  Passing 
along  the  base  of  the  mountain  the  spectator  might  have  observed 
near  to  each  house  its  former  inmates  crouching  round  a  turf  fire, 
close  by  a  hedge  ;  and  as  a  drizzling  rain  poured  upon  them  they 
found  no  cover,  and  were  entirely  exposed  to  it,  but  only  sought  to 
warm  their  famished  bodies.  Many  of  them  were  but  miserably 
clad,  and  on  all  sides  the  greatest  desolation  was  apparent.  I 
learned  afterwards  that  the  great  majority  of  them  lay  out  all  night, 
either  behind  the  hedges  or  in  a  little  wood  which  skirts  the  lake  ; 
they  had  no  other  alternative.  I  believe  many  of  them  intend 
resorting  to  the  poorhouse.  There  these  poor  starving  people  remain 
on  the  cold  bleak  mountains,  no  one  caring  for  them  whether  they 
live  or  die.  'Tis  horrible  to  think  of,  but  more  horrible  to  behold.' * 

This  tragedy  excited  the  attention  of  many  people.  An 
appeal  was  made  for  assistance,  and  the  appeal  was  signed  in 
a  province  unfortunately  remarkable  for  religious  dissension 

1  Quoted  in  New  Ireland,  pp.  227,  228. 


RUIN   AND   RABAGAS  181 

by  the  Catholic  bishop,  the  Protestant  rector,  the  Presby- 
terian minister,  and  the  Catholic  parish  priest  of  the  district, 
who  united  in  warm  deicnce  of  the  people  against  their  land- 
lord. In  Australia,  meantime,  one  of  their  countrymen,  who 
was  a  member  of  the  Legislature — the  late  Hon.  Michael 
O'Grady — had  formed  a  relief  committee,  and  offered  to 
assist  them  to  homes  in  a  better  and  freer  land  than  their 
own.  The  late  Mr.  A.  M.  Sullivan — from  whose  book  I  have 
quoted  the  details  of  the  story — actively  interested  himself  in 
their  welfare.  '  The  poor  people,'  he  writes,  '  were  sought  out 
and  collected.  Some  by  this  time  had  sunk  under  their 
sufferings.  One  man,  named  Bradley,  had  lost  his  reason 
under  the  shock  ;  other  cases  were  nearly  as  heartrending. 
There  were  old  men  who  would  keep  wandering  over  the  hills 
in  view  of  their  ruined  homes,  full  of  the  idea  that  some  day 
Mr.  Adair  might  let  them  return,  but  who  at  last  had  to  be 
borne  to  the  distant  workhouse  hospital  to  die.' 

'  With  a  strange  mixture  of  joy  and  sadness,'  continues 
Mr.  Sullivan,  '  the  survivors  heard  that  their  friends  in  Aus- 
tralia had  paid  their  passage-money.  On  the  day  they  were 
to  set  out  for  the  railway  station  en  route  for  Liverpool  a 
strange  scene  was  witnessed.  The  cavalcade  was  accom- 
panied by  a  concourse  of  neighbours  and  sympathisers.  They 
had  to  pass  within  a  short  distance  of  the  ancient  burial- 
ground  where  the  '  rude  forefathers  '  of  the  valley  slept.  They 
halted,  turned  aside,  and  proceeded  to  the  grass-grown  ceme- 
tery. Here  in  a  body  they  knelt,  flung  themselves  on  the 
graves  of  their  relatives,  which  they  reverently  kissed  again 
and  again,  and  raised  for  the  last  time  the  Irish  caoine,  or 
funeral  wail.  Then — some  of  them  pulling  tufts  of  the  grass 
which  they  placed  in  their  bosoms — they  resumed  their  way 
on  the  road  to  exile.' l 

It  was  not  alone  to  the  tenants  themselves  and  the  country 
population  generally  that  these  wholesale  clearances  were 
disastrous.  Agriculture  is  practically  the  one  industry  of 
Ireland,  and  with  the  disappearance  of  the  farmers  around, 
disappeared  the  customers  and  the  trade  of  the  towns.  Nor 
was  this  the  only  way  in  which  the  towns  suffered  from  the 

1  New  Ireland,  pp.  229,  230. 


,82  "THE  PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

general  exodus.  The  evicted  farmers,  in  many  cases,  had 
not  sufficient  capital  to  pay  their  passage  to  America,  and 
drifted  into  the  towns.  There  but  a  comparatively  small 
number  of  them  could  obtain  employment,  and  they  were 
transformed  by  due  gradation  into  the  vast  army  of  beggars 
that  infest  the  Irish  towns,  or  into  the  paupers  that  rot  in  idle- 
ness within  the  workhouses.  The  towns  thus  suffered  doubly 
in  the  decrease  of  the  customers  and  the  increase  in  the 
pauper  population  ;  and  hence  it  is  that  to-day  there  is  in 
the  villages  and  the  smaller  towns  of  Ireland  poverty  more 
hopeless,  chronic,  and  appalling  than  we  can  find  even  in  the 
country.  The  agricultural  labourers,  the  misery  of  whose 
condition  has  passed  into  a  by-word  even  among  Irish  Chief 
Secretaries,  and  into  the  facts  sadly  acknowledged  by  even 
the  most  hostile  and  opposite  sections  of  Irish  opinion,  are 
fur  the  most  part  farmers  whom  eviction  divorced  from  the 
soil. 

On  the  decadence  which  the  clearances  brought  to  the 
Irish  in  towns,  the  evidence  is  overwhelming;  indeed,  any 
Irishman  that  has  revisited  after  some  years  of  absence  his 
native  place  can  give  testimony  on  this  point  by  recounting 
the  painful  impressions  the  terrible  change  he  everywhere 
sees  has  left  upon  his  mind.  He  finds  a  painfully  large  pro- 
portion of  the  people  he  has  known  gone  in  despair  from 
the  place — to  America,  or  Australia,  or  England.  Of  those 
who  remain  behind,  the  majority  are  in  the  unrelaxing  grip  of 
unconquerable  poverty.  Take,  out  of  numberless  instances, 
the  case  of  two  towns.  Mr.  John  Hynes  tells  1  how  on  Mr. 
Lahiff's  estate,  close  to  the  town  of  Gort,  there  used  in  his 
young  clays  to  be  two  hundred  families  and  a  mile  in  tillage. 
Now — he  was  speaking  of  1880— all  was  grazing  land  and 
the  town  of  Gort  had  been  changed  for  a  lane,  and  prosperous 
town  to  a  struggling  village.  Francis  Nicholls  tells  2  the  effect 
ot  the  clearances  by  Mr.  Nicholson  on  the  neighbouring 
town  of  Kells  ;  the  pauper  population  had  been  largely  in- 
creased, and  it  was  impossible  to  tell  how  many  of  them 
lived  through  the  winter  months.  These  people  were  in 
almost  every  case  evicted  families. 

1  Evidence  for  Oueen  i\  Parnell.  "  2b. 


RUIN   AND    RABAGAS  183 

Ireland  to-day  bears  the  still  fresh  scars  of  the  terrible 
sufferings  of  the  years  I  am  describing  and  the  years  which 
immediately  preceded  them.  The  most  prominent,  the  most 
frequent,  the  ever-recurring  feature  of  the  Irish  landscape  is 
the  unroofed  cottage.  There  are  many  parts  of  the  country 
where  these  skeleton  walls  stare  at  one  with  a  persistency  and 
a  ghastly  iteration  that  convey  the  idea  of  passing  through  a 
land  which  had  been  swept  by  rapidly  successive  and  frequent 
waves  of  foreign  invasion — by  war,  and  slaughter,  and  the 
universal  break-up  of  national  life.  Or  shall  I  rather  say  that 
Ireland  conveys  the  idea,  not  of  a  nation  still  young  in  hope 
and  daily  increasing  in  wealth  and  in  possibilities,  but  rather 
the  image  of  one  of  those  oriental  nations  whose  history  and 
empire,  wealth  and  hopes,  belong  to  the  irrevocable  past. 
There  are  several  counties  where  one  can  pass  for  miles  with- 
out ever  catching  sight  of  a  house  or  of  any  human  face  but 
that  of  the  shepherd,  almost  as  isolated  as  his  hapless  brother 
in  the  stretching  plains  of  California. 

Meantime,  while  throughout  Ireland  this  ghastly  destruc- 
tion of  a  nation  was  going  on,  the  season  was  the  most  plea- 
sant and  profitable  that  the  political  adventurer  has  ever 
known  in  Ireland.  The  country  had  fallen  from  rage  to 
despair,  and  from  despair  to  cynicism.  The  electoral  con- 
tests of  the  time  were  conducted  on  a  principle  well  under- 
stood though  not  publicly  avowed.  The  political  aspirant 
was  to  make  profession  of  strong  patriotic  purpose,  which  the 
elector  professed  on  his  side  to  believe,  and  as  the  candidate 
used  Parliament  solely  for  the  purpose  of  personal  advance- 
ment, the  elector  pocketed  the  bribe  while  professing  to  be- 
lieve the  candidate.  A  good  deal  of  this  corruption  was  the 
result  of  two  other  causes  beside  the  daily  increasing  poverty 
of  the  country.  First,  there  was  no  great  or  commanding 
personality  ;  secondly,  there  was  nothing  like  the  unity  of  a 
national  purpose.  This  latter  fact  is  a  most  important  factor 
in  this  as  in  several  other  periods  of  Irish  history.  Election 
contests  turned  on  purely  personal  or  local  issues.  This  man 
was  preferred  in  one  place  because  he  was  a  better  speaker  or 
a  more  genial  fellow  ;  and  one  constituency  wanted  a  harbour 
and  another  a  bridge.  Thus,  for  instance,  in  Galway  the  chief 


,84  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

desire  of  the  people  was  that  there  should  be  some  means  of 
utilising  the  splendid  bay  of  the  town  and  its  geographical 
destiny  as  the  entrepot  between  the  old  and  the  new  world. 
This  aspiration  of  Galway  was  so  notorious  that  it  was  utilised 
by  all  kinds  of  people.  One  of  my  boyish  recollections  is  of 
a  travelling  show  which  added  to  the  attractions  of  the  then 
newly  discovered  ghost  of  Professor  Pepper  an  American 
panorama— a  country  which  at  that  time,  in  spite  of  the  vast 
number  of  Irish  emigrants,  was  a  terra  incognita.  The  lecturer 
who  accompanied  the  show  had  taken  the  precaution  to  con- 
sult some  of  the  knowing  men  of  the  town  as  to  the  local 
weaknesses,  and  turned  the  information  thus  received  to  ex- 
cellent account.  He  was  describing  one  night  some  bay  in 
America,  and  after  a  eulogy  of  its  beauties  in  language  of 
Transatlantic  fervour,  he  wound  up  with  the  statement  that 
it  was  the  most  beautiful  bay  in  the  world  with  two  exceptions 
— the  bay  of  Naples  and  the  bay  of  Galway.  The  election 
in  Galway  was  fought  throughout  these  years  on  the  question 
of  the  bay  and  a  Transatlantic  mail  service  ;  and  an  English 
gentleman  was  returned  more  than  once  because  he  had 
succeeded  in  getting  a  subsidy  from  Lord  Derby  for  a  mail 
service  between  Galway  and  New  York. 

A  third  reason  of  the  political  corruption  of  the  constitu- 
encies was  that  the  people  had  a  distrust  so  profound  in  the 
men  who  sought  their  representation.  One  and  all,  they  re- 
garded them  as  adventurers  who,  assuming  different  names — 
Tory,  Whig,  Peelite,  Patriot — had  all  the  same  common  end 
—personal  aggrandisement.  When  men  in  Athlone,  for  in- 
stance, were  reproached  for  taking  bribes,  the  retort  was  that 
whether  it  was  one  self-seeker  or  another  got  in  made  no 
difference,  and  that  a  poor  man  might  then  be  well  excused 
if  he  made  one  or  other  of  the  rogues  pay  for  his  promo- 
tion. 

The  candidates  of  these  days  belonged,  as  a  rule,  to  either 
of  three  classes.  First,  there  were  a  certain  number  of  English- 
men or  of  Irishmen  settled  in  England  who  were  anxious  for 
scats  in  Parliament,  because  of  the  advantage  it  gave  them  in 
floating  companies  and  other  financial  operations  in  the  city 
of  London.  Then  there  were  the  children  of  the  bourgeoisie, 


RUIN   AND    RABAGAS  185 

who  desired  to  gild  the  wealth  gained  by  their  parents 
in  the  sale  of  tea  or  of  whisky.  These  men  had  become, 
as  a  rule,  landed  proprietors.  The  establishment  of  the 
Incumbered  Estates  Court,  had  enabled  a  large  number 
of  the  bankrupt  gentry  of  Ireland  to  dispose  of  their  estates, 
and  a  new  generation  of  landlords  grew  up  in  the  shape  of 
successful  tradesmen  who  had  the  Celtic  passion  for  the  ac- 
quisition of  land  and  the  general  desire  to  enter  the  county 
families  which  belongs  to  the  successful  men  of  trade  in  all 
parts  of  the  three  kingdoms.  To  make  the  transformation 
in  such  a  case  complete,  a  title  was  necessary  ;  and  many  of 
the  children  of  the  bourgeoisie  spent  tens  of  thousands  of 
pounds,  and  followed  the  Ministerial  whip  with  the  abject 
devotion  of  ten  years,  in  the  hope  of  receiving  a  baronetcy  at 
the  end  of  it  all  ! 

But  the  most  common  type  of  Irish  politician  in  these 
days  was  the  man  who  entered  Parliamentary  life  solely  for 
the  purpose  of  selling  himself  for  place  and  salary.  This  was 
the  golden  season  when  every  Irishman  who  could  scrape  as 
much  money  together  as  would  pay  his  election  expenses 
was  able,  after  a  while,  to  obtain  a  governorship  or  some 
other  of  the  many  substantial  rewards  which  English  party 
leaders  were  able  to  give  to  their  followers.  The  chief  per- 
sons to  benefit  by  this  time  of  universal  corruption  were  the. 
Irish  barristers.  They  had  advantages  over  every  other  com- 
petitors. They  were  accustomed  to  speaking,  their  names 
were  familiar  to  the  public  ;  in  short,  they  were  marked  out 
for  political  life  above  all  other  classes  in  Ireland,  as  in  every 
other  country  where  there  are  Parliamentary  institutions  and 
a  legal  profession.  Parliament  was  made  during  this  whole 
period  the  sole  avenue  through  which  professional  promotion 
could  be  obtained.  It  was  one  of  the  many  things  which 
helped  to  embitter  Irish  opinion  against  English  rule,  in  those 
robust  natures  where  national  feeling  still  lived,  that  English 
Ministers  at  this  period  seemed  to  delight  in  increasing  the 
chances  of  political  adventurers,  and  sought  to  maintain  the 
hated  Act  of  Union  by  means  as  shameless  as  those  by  which 
it  had  been  passed.  For  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  there 
were  only  two  cases  in  which  men  were  raised  to  the  Bench 


,86  'THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

who  had  not  in  the  first  instance  been  members  of  Parliament 
These  two  cases  were,  I  may  add,  those  of  two  Conservatives- 
Mr.  Christian  and  Mr.  Fitzgerald,  who,  according  to  universal 
acknowledgment,  were  two  of  the  greatest  Judges  that  ever 
sat  upon  the  Irish  bench.  In  every  other  instance  the 
Judge  passed  first  through  a  Parliamentary  career.  The  man 
who' was  sure  of  a  constituency  was  certain  of  a  Judgeship, 
even  though  he  was  ignorant  of  the  very  elements  of  law, 
and  had  rarely  even  received  a  brief. 

The  career  of  most  of  these  politicians  had  a  certain  re- 
semblance to  that  of  Judge  Keogh,  though,  of  course,  there 
were  wanting  the  circumstances  that  gave  such  fatal  results 
to  his  treachery,  and  were  conceived  in  a  minor  key  of  lies 
and    pledges.     The    barrister  started  as  a  patriot  of  rather 
a  pronounced   type,  lamented    the    emigration,  called  for    a 
Land    Bill,   and    spoke   disrespectfully   of  the    Government. 
A    typical    case    was    that    of    the    gentleman    who    is    now 
known  as  Lord  Fitzgerald.     He  was  present,  when  a  young 
barrister,    at    a    banquet    in    Cork    to    the    Lord-Lieutenant, 
and    being    called    upon    to    make  a    speech,    he    astounded 
everybody  and  shocked  the  greater  part  of  a  servile  audience 
by  bursting  into    a  violently  national  speech,   and    uttering 
things    about    the    miseries    and  wrongs    of    Ireland    which, 
though    true,    were     not    deemed     such    as    Viceregal    ears 
should  hear  or  a  rising  and  ambitious  barrister  should  utter. 
But,    in    the    midst    of   the    interruptions  of  the    loyal,    Mr. 
Fitzgerald    went    on    his  way,  and  in    the    end    became,  or 
affected  to  become,  so  frenzied  by  the  grief  at  his  country's 
wrongs  that    he   jumped  on   the  table,  and  there  continued 
his    harangue.     A    young  reporter  who  was  present  at  this 
strange     scene    remarked    to    Serjeant    Murphy — a    cynical 
Irishman  who  had  been  a  member  of  Parliament  for  many 
years,  and  had  nothing  in  the  shape  of  political  corruption  to 
learn — what  a  pity  it  was  that  a  promising  young  barrister 
like  Fitzgerald  had  ruined  himself.     '  Ruined,'  said  Murphy 
with  a  laugh  ;  'why  he  has  made  himself!'     And  the  pro- 
phecy was  correct,  for  shortly  afterwards  Mr.   Fitzgerald  was 
a   law   officer  of  the  Crown,  then  in  due  time  was  created 
a  Judge,  and  atoned  for  any  patriotic  passion,  real  or  simu- 


RUIN  AND   RABAGAS  187 

lated,  of  his  electioneering  days  by  the  fervour  with  which  he 
has  persecuted  all  national  movements  ever  since.  The 
reporter  who  had  the  conversation  with  Murphy  just  recorded 
reappears  in  these  pages  ;  it  was  Justin  McCarthy. 

The   struggle  for  national   principles  was  not,   however, 
entirely  abandoned.     The  old  principle  of  the  Tenant  League, 
that  the  candidate  should  remain  independent  of  both  parties 
and  fight  for  the  cause  of  Ireland  alone,  was  still  preached.  This 
principle  was  known  as  the  policy  of  Independent  Opposition. 
At  every  election,  Independent  Opposition  candidates  were 
started,  and  occasionally  they  managed  to  get  returned.     But 
they  were  always  few  in   number,  and  the  number  became 
smaller  as  the  time  went  on.     As  every  army  contains  within 
its  ranks  a  certain  number  who,  being  miserably  base,  become 
deserters,  every  Irish  party  has  its  quota  of  corrupt  or  mean 
natures,  that  are  in  time  transformed  from  Irish  patriots  into 
Liberal  or  Tory  camp-followers.     In  this  way  many  candi-  I 
dates,  elected  as  members  of  an  Independent  Irish  Opposition,  ( 
became   place-holders,  under   some    English   administration,  f 
The  times  were  out   of  joint,  and    Independent   Opposition/ 
never  realised  the  proportions  of  a  large  or  effective  party. 

There  was  one  other  influence  which  deserves  to  be 
mentioned.  Throughout  all  these  years  of  apparently  hope- 
less struggle  the  '  Nation  '  newspaper  remained  true  to  the 
principles  of  its  founders.  It  preached  in  season  and  out  of 
season  the  right  of  Ireland  to  national  existence,  of  the  tenant 
to  protection,  and  Independent  Opposition  as  the  only 
means  by  which  these  great  ends  could  be  attained.  In  face 
of  the  British  Government,  unchecked  by  perfidious  Parlia- 
mentarians, by  omnipotent  landlordism,  by  the  narrow  elec- 
torate sunk  in  open  corruption,  and  of  the  masses  buried  in 
despair,  A.  M.  Sullivan  and  his  brother,  T.  D.  Sullivan, 
worked  on,  hoped  on.  To  these  two  brothers  Ireland  owes 
it  that  the  lamp  of  national  faith  and  hope  was  held  aloft 
through  this  long  and  apparently  endless  night  of  eviction, 
hunger,  emigration,  triumphant  tyranny,  and  political  perfidy. 

Meantime  the  moment  has  come  again  for  surveying  the 
position  of  Ireland  from  the  standpoint  of  the  Unionist  and 
of  the  English  Liberal.  Ireland  was  now  in  the  position 


l88  "THE  PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

which  ought  to  appear  the  very  ideal  position  to  the  Unionist 
and  the  Liberal.  As  after  the  overthrow  of  O'Connell,  so 
after  the  treason  of  Keogh,  there  was  no  party  either  of  open 
violence  or  of  a  constitutional  character  seeking  any  change 
in  the  legislative  relations  between  England  and  Ireland. 
On  the  contrary,  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the  repre- 
sentatives from  Ireland  were  pledged  and  firm  upholders  of 
the  Act  of  Union.  Liberalism  was  in  a  position  in  Ireland 
equally  ideal  and  equally  prosperous.  The  Liberals  had 
during  all  these  years  an  almost  undisputed  monopoly  of 
power.  Lord  Palmerston,  in  the  period  between  1855  and 
1865,  occupied  a  position  of  something  like  dictatorship  in 
English  politics  ;  and  Ireland  supplied  to  his  ranks  a  large 
majority  of  representatives  whom  no  neglect  of  their  country 
could  madden  into  a  patriotic  outburst  and  no  insult  could 
rouse  to  a  moment  of  stalwart  manhood.  The  National 
Party  was  extinct— murdered  by  Irish  treason  and  Liberal 
corruption  :  in  its  stead  reigned  the  Liberal  party,  and  to  the 
Imperial  Parliament  the  Irish  people  could  alone  look.  It 
ought  to  follow,  according  to  the  conclusions  which  Liberal 
reasoning  regards  as  inevitable,  that  this  would  be  a  period 
of  halcyon  and  dazzling  prosperity  for  the  country.  Proof 
has  been  given  of  how  much  prosperity  there  was,  and  now 
it  is  well  to  turn  from  the  country  advancing  daily  more 
rapidly  to  depopulation,  with  tyranny  more  and  more 
aggressive,  and  see  what  the  Imperial  Assembly  with  its 
Liberal  majority  was  doing  for  the  Irish  people. 

The  tale  of  the  Imperial  Parliament  may  be  summed  up 
in  a  sentence.  Every  proposal  for  the  reform  of  the  land 
tenure  or  of  any  other  Irish  abuse  met  with  steady  and 
usually  with  contemptuous  rejection. 

In  1852  Mr.  Sharman  Crawford  brought  in  a  Tenant 
Right  Bill  once  again  ;  it  was  defeated  on  the  second  reading 
by  167  votes  to  57.  In  November  of  the  same  year  the 
Conservative  Government  were  in  power,  and  the  first  gleam 
of  light  broke  the  long  eclipse  of  the  question.  It  was  an  Irish 
Conservative  that  deserves  the  credit  of  making  the  attempt 
to  settle  the  question.  Mr.  (afterwards  Sir)  Joseph  Napier 
brought  in  a  series  of  Bills  ;  three  were  in  the  interests  of  the 


RUIN   AND    RABAGAS  189 

landlords,  one  —  the  Tenant  Compensation  Bill  — was  in 
favour  of  the  tenants.  These  Bills  and  a  Bill  of  Mr.  Sharman 
Crawford  were  referred  to  a  committee.  In  February  1853 
the  Committee  met,  and,  principally  through  the  influence  of 
Lord  Palmerston,  Sharman  Crawford's  Bill  was  rejected,  and 
the  Tenant  Compensation  Bill  of  the  Conservative  law  officer 
was  amended  for  the  worse.  This  Bill  passed  the  three 
stages  in  the  House  of  Commons  ;  it  was  sent  up  to  the 
House  of  Lords  in  August ;  there  was  an  immediate  concourse 
of  their  lordships,  and  the  Bill  was  hung  up.  In  the  following 
year  (1854)  their  lordships  resumed  the  consideration  of  the 
Bills.  The  three  favourably  changing  the  law  for  the  land- 
lords were  accepted,  the  Tenants'  Compensation  Bill  was 
rejected,  and  thus  came  to  a  final  end  the  well-meant  and 
bold  effort  of  a  Conservative  statesman  to  give  the  tenant 
some  compensation  for  the  expenditure  of  his  capital. 

The  Irish  Tenant  Righters  still  hoped  on,  and  in  1855 
the  work  of  introducing  Bills  was  again  renewed,  and  again 
Irish  demands  met  in  each  succeeding  session  the  same  re- 
ception. Serjeant  Shee,  who  brought  in  a  Bill,  proposed  that 
compensation  should  be  given  for  improvements  both  retro- 
spective and  future.  Lord  Palmerston  could  not  tolerate 
such  an  interference  with  the  rights  of  property,  and  carried  / 
an  amendment  limiting  the  period  to  which  compensation  for 
improvement  should  be  confined  to  twenty  years.  This ; 
destroyed  the  good  that  was  in  the  Bill,  and  it  was  dropped. 
In  1856  again,  Mr.  George  Henry  Moore  brought  in  a  Bill  ; 
its  object  was  to  extend  the  Ulster  custom  to  all  Ireland. 
It  was  read  a  second  time  on  June  8.  The  next  day  Mr. 
Horsman,  the  Liberal  Chief  Secretary,  announced  that  the 
Government  intended  to  oppose  it,  and  it  was  dropped.  In 

1857  Mr.  Moore  again  brought   forward  a  Bill,  but  he  could 
not  secure  a  day  for  its  discussion,  and  it  was  dropped.     In 

1858  Mr.  John  Francis  Maguire  brought  in  a  Bill  ;   it  was 
defeated  on  the  second  reading,  mainly  through  the  influence 
of  Lord  Palmerston. 

In  1860  the  question  was  taken  up  by  the  Ministry,  and 
they  passed  two  Acts  ;  both  were  completely  inoperative, 
one  most  fortunately  so.  Mr.  Cardwell  passed  an  Act  giving 


I9o  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

limited  owners  a  right  to  grant  leases,  but  the  terms  were  so 
severe  and  so  unsuitable  that  nobody  took  advantage  of  it, 
and  year  after  year  returns  showed  the  same  result— in 
no  single  instance  had  anybody  taken  any  advantage  of 
the  Act1 

The  other  Act  passed  in  the  same  year,  and  known  as 
Deasy's  Act,  was  intended  to  make  tenancies  in  Ireland 
entirely  a  matter  of  contract  and  to  deprive  the  tenants  of  all 
those  rights  which  they  had  claimed  from  time  immemorial, 
and  which,  though  robbed  of  them  by  the  landlord,  they 
really  were  entitled  to  by  the  common  law  of  England.  It 
was  doubtful  whether,  under  that  common  law,  the  tenant  was 
not  entitled  to  compensation  for  his  improvements.2  Deasy's 
Act  set  all  this  at  rest,  for  it  declared  that  the  tenant  could 
lay  no  claim  to  any  improvements,  save  such  as  had  been 
made  by  express  contract  with  the  landlord.  The  meaning 
of  this  Act,  if  it  had  been  carried  out,  would  be  that  practically 
all  the  improvements  made  by  the  tenants  throughout  Ireland 
were  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen  confiscated  to  the  landlord.  In 
successive  sessions  after  this  till  1868  the  land  question  met 
with  the  same  fortunes.  All  reform  was  steadily  refused. 

One  thing  more  added  bitterness  to  this  steady  failure  to 
obtain  justice  from  the  Imperial  Parliament.  This  was  the 
bitter  insolence  with  which  the  rejection  of  all  claims  was 
accompanied.  Let  me  quote  a  description  of  this  side  of  the 
Irish  question  from  a  writer  of  impartiality  in  the  contest 
between  English  Liberals  and  Irish  Nationalists. 

The  conduct  of  the  Liberal  party  (writes  Mr.  Cashel  Hoey  3)  for 
the  last  twenty-five  years  must  also  be  considered.  Nothing  has 
transpired  concerning  the  case  of  the  Established  Church  that  was 
not  known  when  the  Appropriation  Clause  was  debated — nothing 
regarding  the  condition  of  the  Irish  tenant  that  was  not  known  when 
the  Devon  Commission  reported.  But  that  great  party  which  had 
received  the  unbroken  support  of  the  Irish  Catholics  at  every  general 

1  Is  Ireland  Irreconcilable  ?    By  J.  Cashel  Hoey.      P.   10. 

2  See  Barry  O'Uricn,    The  Parliamentary  History  of  the  Irish  Land  Question, 
p.  113. 

3  fs    Ireland  Irreconcilable  ?     Reprinted  from  the  £>«/?//«  Review.      By  John 
Cashel   Hoey.       I'p.    8-13.     This  article  appeared  during   the    first    Gladstone 
Administration. 


RUIN   AND   RABAGAS  191 

election  since  their  emancipation  was  gradually  passing,  so  lately  as 
five  years  ago,  from  a  state  of  ignoble  apathy  to  a  state  of  pronounced 
hostility  to  their  claims.  .  .  . 

It  is  indeed  almost  impossible  to  realise  now  the  depth  of  im- 
becility and  insolence  which  characterised  the  language  of  the 
Liberal  statesmen  of  this  period  whenever  they  spoke  of  the  affairs 
of  Ireland.  Lord  Palmerston  reigned  and  governed.  He  said  of 
the  Ulster  tenant-right  :  '  Tenant-right  is  landlord  wrong.'  He  said 
of  the  principle  of  retrospective  compensation  :  '  A  retrospective 
enactment,  which  transfers  from  the  landlord  to  the  tenant  that  which 
by  law  has  hitherto  been  the  property  of  the  former,  which  both 
parties  know  and  have  always  known  to  be  his  property,  an  Act 
which  does  this  is,  I  conceive,  •  most  unjust,  and  ought  not  to  be 
allowed.'  When  a  much  more  moderate  Bill  than  the  Bill  of  the 
present  Government  was  introduced  in  1858,  he  said  :  'The  main 
and  fundamental  principle  of  this  Bill  appears  to  me  to  be  at  variance 
with  justice.  ...  It  would  be  trifling  with  the  House,  and  an  abuse 
of  its  forms,  to  read  it  a  second  time.'  The  Irish  Secretaries  of  this 
period  were  Mr.  Horsman,  Mr.  Cardwell,  and  Sir  Robert  Peel.  .  .  . 
When  he  was  at  the  Castle,  a  mot  was  made  by,  or  more  probably 
invented  for  him,  to  express  his  sense  of  his  duties  :  '  Carlisle  does 
the  State.  Larcom  does  the  work.  I  hunt.'  His  first  parliamentary 
appearance  in  the  capacity  of  Irish  Secretary  was  when  he  divided 
the  House  of  Commons  successfully  against  Serjeant  Shee  on  the 
question  of  Retrospective  Compensation.  The  only  other  sign  of 
public  vigour  that  he  exhibited  while  he  was  in  Ireland  was  a  rather 
scurrilous  attack  upon  the  Council  of  the  Tenant  League.  Not 
without  regret  we  cite  Mr.  Cardwell  in  the  same  category.  .  .  .  On 
the  question  of  the  Protestant  Establishment,  in  reply  to  Mr.  Bernal 
Osborne,  Mr.  Cardwell  said  so  lately  as  1863  :  'What  the  honourable 
gentleman  really  means  is  an  abstract  resolution  of  this  House  con- 
demning the  Irish  Church.  ...  I  believe  this  House  will  not 
surrender  the  principle  of  an  Established  Church.  I  believe  it  will 
not  alienate  the  property  of  the  Church  from  the  ecclesiastical  uses 
to  which  it  has  been  devoted.'  But,  on  the  Land  Question,  Mr. 
Cardwell  legislated  with  an  ostentatious  profession  that  he  was  finally 
closing  the  subject,  so  far  as  law  could  close  anything.  His  Land- 
lord and  Tenant  Act  was  the  only  measure  regarding  the  social 
condition  of  the  Irish  people,  as  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Act  was  the 
only  one  regarding  their  religious  liberties,  that  had  been  passed 
through  Parliament  by  Liberal  Governments  since  the  death  of 
O'Connell ;  and  the  two  Acts,  however  different  in  their  intent,  were 


192  *  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

alike  in  this,  that  each  was  a  dead  letter  from  the  moment  it  received 
the  Queen's  signature.  .  .  . 

Mr  Maguire,  in  1865,  obtained  a  Select  Committee  to  inquire 
into  the  operation  of  the  Cardwell  Act.  Touching  its  nomination, 
there  was  a  scene  in  Parliament  which  no  Irishman  who  witnessed  it 
will  easily  forget.  Mr.  Roebuck,  evidently  speaking  the  sense  of 
both  sides  of  the  House,  for  he  was  cheered  all  round,  especially 
when  he  used  the  word  'eviscerating,'  appealed  to  Lord  Palmerston 

in  these  terms  : 

'  I  would  ask  the  noble  lord,  if  he  should  consent  to  any  Com- 
mittee on  this  subject,  to  appoint  a  Committee  composed  of  men  of 
cross-examining  powers,  or,  as  I  once  heard  a  learned  friend  of  mine 
call  it,  eviscerating  powers,  because,  with  such  a  Committee,  a  man 
with  notions  about  tenant-right  and  belief  that  he  possesses  some 
talismanic  means  of  settling  all  these  questions,  no  sooner  appears 
before  it  than  his  courage  begins  to  ooze  out  of  him,  and  you  have 
him  not  only  telling  the  whole  truth,  but  utterly  confounding  himself 
when  he  is  in  error.' 

Lord  Palmerston,  in  his  reply,   also  caught  the  cheers  of  both 
sides  of  the  House  by  the  cheap  truism,  that  he,  for  his  part,  could 
not  see  '  the  justice  or  advantage  of  giving  to  one  man  the  right  of 
determining  what  should  be  done  with  another  man's  property ' ;  and 
then,  nodding  to  Mr.  Roebuck,  he  said  that  '  if  the  Committee  con- 
tained good  cross-examiners,  so  much  the  better.'    Anyone  who  may 
read  the  evidence  of  that  important  Committee,  whose  proceedings 
are  one    of  the    most   curious   landmarks    in  recent  Parliamentary 
history,  will  discover  at  least  these  three  things  : — First,  that  if  the 
disgusting  epithet  employed  by  Mr.  Roebuck,  and  apparently  adopted 
by  the  House,  can  be  said  to  characterise  the  conduct  of  any  of  the 
members  of  that  Committee,  they  are  Mr.  Cardwell,  Mr.  Lowe,  and 
the  Chief  Secretary,  Sir  Robert  Peel  ;  secondly,  that  the  Conservative 
members  of  the  Committee  showed  much  more  consideration  for  the 
case  of  the  tenantry  than  did  the  Liberals,  who  were  identified  with 
the  Government  ;  and  thirdly,  that  the  Report  was  in  direct  con- 
tradiction of  all  the  evidence  received,  the  witnesses  being,  perhaps, 
the  best  qualified,  in  point  of  authority  and  experience,  that  could  be 
found    in   the  country.     The  Committee  very  tersely  reported  that 
'  the  principle  that  compensation  should  only  be  secured  upon  im- 
provements made  with  the  consent  of  the  landlord   should  be  main- 
tained.'    And  on  June   23,    1865,   Mr.   Cardwell,  in  pompous   and 
pitiless  words,  pronounced  this  final  judgment  on  the  Tenant  Right 
cause  to  the  House  of  Commons  and  the  Irish  people  : — 


RUIN    AND    RABAGAS  193 

'  I  am  exceedingly  glad  that  we  are  not  about  to  separate  under 
the  imputation  of  having  given  an  uncertain  sound  upon  this  subject. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  reasons  for  this  discussion,  I  think  that 
at  any  rate  we  should  be  open  to  grave  reprehension  if  we  permitted 
the  impression  to  go  forth  in  Ireland  that  we  are  at  all  uncertain 
about  the  rights  of  property  in  that  country.  I  wish  to  express  my 
individual  opinion  that,  by  whatever  name  it  may  be  called,  com- 
pulsory compensation  for  improvements  effected  against  the  will  of 
the  landlord  is  not  a  principle  which  is  consistent  with  the  rights  of 
property.  ...  I  am  glad  that  the  Committee  has  not  separated 
without  giving  its  opinions  distinctly  on  the  questions  which  have 
been  raised,  and  I  do  hope  that  every  effort  will  be  made  in  all 
future  time,  when  measures  for  encouraging  the  improvement  of  land 
in  Ireland  are  brought  forward,  to  give  every  legitimate  facility  for 
such  improvements.  I  wish  it  may  be  distinctly  understood  that 
only  such  facilities  as  are  legitimate,  and  do  not  interfere  with  the 
rights  of  property,  will  be  sanctioned  by  Parliament.  I  am  convinced 
that  it  is  more  in  accordance  with  the  feeling  of  a  high-spirited 
people  that  they  should  be  spoken  to  in  plain  terms  ;  and  I  have 
that  opinion  of  the  Irish  people  that  I  do  not  think  they  would 
approve  an  insincere  and  uncertain  course  on  an  important  subject 
like  this,  or  that  they  would  at  all  thank  the  Committee  for  giving  an 
ambiguous  opinion  upon  it.' 

The  language  of  the  Ministers  charged  with  the  administration 
of  Ireland  at  that  time,  in  regard  to  the  grievances  which  Mr.  Glad- 
stone has  made  Cabinet  questions,  appeared  to  be  in  some  degree 
demented.  The  transition  from  the  administration  of  Mr.  Cardwell 
to  that  of  Sir  Robert  Peel  was  not  inaptly  described  as  the  reign  of 
Hugger- Mugger  followed  by  the  reign  of  Harum-Scarum.  But  the 
difference  was  only  one  of  manner,  not  of  method.  When  Sir 
Robert  Peel  was  asked  by  Mr.  Maguire,  early  in  1864,  whether  the 
Government  intended  to  introduce  any  measure  affecting  the  relation 
of  landlord  and  tenant,  he  replied,  in  his  most  supercilious  style,  that 
1  it  was  not  the  intention  of  Government  to  introduce  any  measure  of 
the  nature  alluded  to?  Using  Lord  Palmerston's  name  in  sanction  of 
his  statement— and  the  noble  lord  never  protested— he  had  declared 
a  year  before  that  the  Government  was  determined  to  maintain  the 
Protestant  Church  Establishment  in  Ireland  at  all  hazards  : 

'  If,'  he  said,  *  this  question  is  to  be  agitated  again,  either  in  the 
present  session  or  in  the  next,  it  is  time  for  us,  no  matter  on  what 
side  we  sit,  frankly  to  declare  our  opinion,  and  to  choose  our  party 
for  the  struggle.  I,  for  one,  unhesitatingly  affirm,  that  if  that  moment 

O 


,94  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

has  come,  I  shall  be  found— ay,  and  acting  under  the  advice  and 
guidance  of  the  noble  lord  at  the  head  of  the  Government— I  shall 
be  found  contending  on  behalf  of  those  principles  which  for  two 
centuries  have  ever  been,  and  God  grant  they  may  long  continue  to 
be— the  centre  of  loyalty  to  the  throne  and  the  bulwark  of  civil  and 
religious  liberty.' 

It  may  be  not  unfairly  said  that  such  an  administration  as  that  of 
Sir  Robert  Peel  was  never  imposed  upon  any  country  by  England 
before— on  Bengalees,  or  Maoris,  or  Black  men,  or  Red  men,  or  even 
on  Ireland.  If  Lord  Palmerston  had  designed  it,  he  could  not  have 
contrived  a  counter-irritant  more  calculated  to  stimulate  to  a  dan- 
gerous heat  the  stagnant  blood  of  the  country.  There  was  not  a 
considerable  class  of  persons  in  Ireland,  from  the  Catholic  bishops 
to  the  tenant  farmers,  whom  the  Secretary  did  not  outrage,  or  at 
least  alienate,  the  Orangemen  of  Ulster  excepted. 

To  the  list  of  outbursts  of  insolent  ignorance  which  Mr. 
Cashel  Hoey  has  thus  arrayed  many  others  could  be  added— 
some  by  the  gentlemen  whom  he  has  quoted.  Mr.  Lowe, 
speaking  in  the  debate  on  a  small  Tenant-Right  Bill  in 
1865,  denounced  any  attempt  to  interfere  between  landlord 
and  tenant  in  unmeasured  terms. 

If  the  tenant  (he  said)  chooses  to  improve  the  land,  unless  he  takes 
the  precaution  to  obtain  the  consent  of  the  landlord — whether  he  in- 
creases the  value  of  the  property  or  not — he  has  no  business  to  meddle 
with  it.  It  is  in  the  nature  of  a  deposit  on  his  hands,  and  he  ought 
to  return  it  as  he  received  it.  He  receives  it  for  a  particular  purpose, 
and  for  that  purpose  only  ought  he  to  use  it.  If  he  uses  it  for 
another  purpose — to  build  a  house  on  it  for  instance — it  may  be  a 
great  improvement,  but  he  has  no  right  to  do  it ;  it  is  beyond  the 
contract  he  entered  into.1 

No  attempt  (he  again  said)  has  been  made  to  show  that  there  is 
any  case  of  practical  grievance.  ...  I  do  not  believe  that  there  is 
any  really  serious  demand  on  the  part  of  the  tenantry  of  Ireland 
for  this  measure.  (Oh  !  oh  !)  I  do  not  pretend  to  have  any  exten- 
sive knowledge  of  Ireland  or  its  people.  ...  I  did  not  find,  after 
hearing  the  evidence  of  a  great  number  of  gentlemen,  that  there  was 
any  such  demand.  .  .  .  The  landlords,  I  humbly  submit,  are  better 
judges  in  the  matter  of  granting  leases  than  the  House  can  pos- 
sibly be.2 

1   Hansard,  vol.  clxxxiii.  p.  1079.  2  -^.  pp.  1082-1084. 


RUIN   AND    RABAGAS  195 

But  it  was  in  Ireland  itself  that  the  Irish  people  were 
preached  at  in  the  most  maddening  form.  While  all  around 
their  country  was  being  reduced  to  a  desert  and  the  people 
were  flying  with  curses  from  their  shores,  the  English  autho- 
rities kept  proving  that  the  country  was  never  in  a  more  pros- 
perous position.  Of  this  gospel  there  were  three  preachers 
prominent  above  all  others.  Archbishop  Whately  and  Mr. 
Nassau  Senior  professed  the  narrowest  and,  as  all  men  now 
think,  the  most  reactionary  creed  of  the  laissez-faire  school 
of  Political  Economy  ;  and,  both  endowed  with  more  than  an 
ordinary  amount  of  personal  and  professional  self-conceit,  they 
taught  their  ignorant  and  destructive  gospel  with  calm  and 
arrogant  assumption.  Both  Englishmen,  they  give  one  the 
impression  in  all  their  utterances  that,  in  dealing  with  Irish 
affairs,  they  were  addressing  a  nation  half  of  children,  half 
of  barbarians,  to  be  pitied,  scorned,  and,  when  troublesome, 
to  be  hanged  or  shot  down. 

Let  us  take  one  or  two  specimens  of  their  doctrines, 
always  remembering  that  they  were  intended  for  application 
to  Ireland. 

'  If  a  piece  of  land  is  your  property/  writes  Archbishop 
Whately,  '  you  ought  to  be  at  liberty  to  dispose  of  it  like  any 
other  property  ;  either  to  sell  it,  or  to  cultivate  it  yourself,  or 
to  employ  a  bailiff  and  labourers  to  cultivate  it  for  you,  or  to 
let  it  to  a  farmer.' 

There  the  absolute  claim  of  the  landlord  at  this  period  to 
do  what  he  liked  with  his  own — to  starve  through  rack-rent, 
to  impoverish  or  even  kill  through  eviction — was  represented 
not  as  the  greedy  and  heartless  gospel  of  a  dominant  class, 
but  as  a  great  scientific  truth. 

'  If  you  were  to  make  a  law  for  lowering  rents,'  writes  Arch- 
bishop Whately,  *  so  that  the  land  should  still  remain  the 
property  of  those  to  whom  it  now  belongs,  but  that  they 
should  not  be  allowed  to  receive  more  than  so  much  an  acre 
for  it,  the  only  effect  would  be  that  the  landlord  would  no 
longer  let  his  land  to  a  fanner,  but  would  take  it  into  his  own 
hands  and  employ  a  bailiff  to  look  after  it  for  him' 

These  words  were  written  at  a  time  when  the  Irish 
farmers  were  engaged  in  an  effort  to  bring  about  the  passing 

o  2 


I96  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

of  a  law  that  would  lead  to  the '  lowering  of  rents,'  and  under 
which  the  landlords  '  should  not  be  allowed  to  receive  more 
than  so  much  an  acre  for  it ' ;  in  other  words,  for  the  fair 
rent  fixed  by  a  Law  Court  which  has  been  conferred  by  the 
Land  Act  of  1 88 1 .  The  children  of  these  farmers  were  taught 
—and  in  the  name  of  the  Science  of  Political  Economy — that 
the  only  effect  of  getting  what  they  were  demanding  would 
be  the  utter  ruin  of  their  class.  For  it  is  a  significant  fact 
that  the  extracts  I  have  quoted  appear  in  one  of  the  reading- 
books  supplied  by  the  Commissioners  of  National  Education 
in  the  so-called  National  Schools  of  Ireland.1 

The  opinions  of  Mr.  Senior  are  scattered  over  several 
volumes.  His  'Journals,  Conversations,  and  Essays  relating 
to  Ireland  '2  give  the  best  insight  into  his  own  ideas  and  the 
ideas  then  dominant  among  English  thinkers  and  statesmen. 
Mr.  Senior  spent  the  greater  part  of  his  time  in  Ireland  among 
those  landlords  and  agents,  who  were  remarkable  above  others 
for  their  ruthless  persecution  of  the  tenantry,  and  he  quotes 
with  much  approval  their  nostrums  for  the  cure  of  the  Irish 
malady. 

'  Mr.  Trench  spoke  highly  of  his  cousin,  Mr.  Francis  Trench,' 
writes  Mr.  Senior.  'His  intelligence,'  he  said, '  may  be  estimated 
by  what  he  has  done.  Soon  after  the  famine,  the  Duke  of 
Lcinster's  tenants  in  Kildare  threw  up  their  holdings  (amount- 
ing to  about  2,000  acres  in  all),  frightened  by  the  potato 
failure  and  the  poor-rates.  Francis  Trench  had  undertaken 
the  agency  a  few  years  before.  He  cleared  the  land  by  an  ex- 
tensive  e migration,  and  advertised  widely  in  the  Scotch  papers 
for  tenants.  In  time,  the  esta  Je  was  relet.  The  rental,  which 
had  been  35,ooo/.  a  year,  was  by  improved  management,  and  by 
the  falling  in  of  very  old  leases,  raised  to  45,ooo/. ;  and  the 
tenants  (especially  the  Scotch)  are  doing  well'* 

Fifth  Reading  Book,  pp.  257,  262,  Sixth  Edition.  These  extracts  were 
also,  I  believe,  in  the  earlier  editions. 

"  Journals,  vol.  ii.  pp.  85,  86. 

3  The  italics  are  mine.  This  Mr.  Trench,  who  found  the  conduct  of  his 
cousin  so  admirable,  had  acted  on  the  same  principle  on  more  than  one  estate 
himself.  This  was  the  district  of  Farnev.  in  Cnnntv  M^nao-V.an  Thlc 


the  district  of  Farney,  in  County  Monaghan.  This  ar'-a,  70,000 
lahon  and  given  to  the  Earl  of  Essex. 
year.  The  land  became  more  valuable 


acres  in  extent,  was  seized  from  the  M'Mahon  and  given  to  the  Earl  of  Essex. 
He  relet  it  to  Kvor  M'Mahon  for  2507.   a  year.     The  land  bei 


RUIN    AND    RABAGAS  197 

Again,  Mr.  Senior  records  a  conversation  with  a  gentle- 
man disguised  as  '  Dr.  G.'  They  are  talking  about  the  land 
question. 

'  Well,'  said  Dr.  G.,  '  we  have  got  our  Poor  Law,  and  it  is 
a  great  instrument  for  giving  the  victory  to  the  landlords. 
Another  and  a  still  more  powerful  instrument  is  emigration, 
and  it  is  one  never  used  on  such  a  scale  before.  No  friend 
of  Ireland  can  wish  the  war  to  be  prolonged — still  less,  that  it 
should  end  by  the  victory  of  the  tenants  ;  for  that  would  plunge 
Ireland  into  barbarism  worse  than  that  of  the  last  century. 
The  sooner  Ireland  becomes  a  grazing  country,  with  the  com- 
paratively thin  population  which  a  grazing  country  requires,  the 
better  for  all  classes! 

as  time  went  on:  in  1729  the  estimated  value  was  2,ooo/.  a  year  :  in  1769,  the 
barony  having  been  divided  between  two  sisters,  co-heiresses,  the  two  estates 
were  valued  at  8,000  a  year  ;  and  '  in  the  year  1843,  and  seventy-four  years  after 
the  estimated  value  of  the  year  1769,  I  found,  on  my  arrival  at  Carrickmacross,  that 
the  rent-roll  of  the  two  estates  together  amounted  to  upwards  of4O,ooo/.  per 
annum,  whilst  the  inhabitants  had  increased  in  such  an  extraordinary  manner  that 
by  the  census  of  1841  the  population  amounted  to  something  upwards  of  44,107 
souls.'  ('  Realities  of  Irish  Life,'  quoted  in  Sir  John  Gray's  speech  at  Manchester, 
p.  25.)  In  1867,  the  rent  had  increased  still  further  to  54,8337.  '  No  doubt,' 
said  Mr.  Trench  in  a  Committee  of  the  House  of  Commons,  1867  (quoted  by 
Gray,  p.  26),  '  the  rise  in  the  price  of  produce  and  the  value  of  land  has  done 
much  in  causing  this  increase.  But  the  main  cause,  beyond  all  question,  is  that 
the  barony  had  increased  enormously  and  rapidly  in  population,  and  as  a  consequent 
necessity  in  cultivation.  In  1633  there  were  only  38  tenants  acknowledged  in 
the  barony,  and  though  I  believe  there  were  a  considerable  number  of  under- 
tenants, yet  the  population  must  have  been  vtry  small.  In  1841  there  were  up- 
wards of  8,000  tenants,  and  the  population  amounted  to  44,000  persons  ;  in  fact, 
a  human  being  for  every  Irish  acre  of  land.  This  vast  population,  driven  to  ex- 
tremities to  support  themselves,  gradually  converted,  by  their  own  labour,  the  lands 
of  the  barony  from  being  a  waste  unenclosed  alder  plain,  into  one  of  the  most 
cultivated  districts  in  Ireland,  well  enclosed  arable  land,  whilst  scarcely  an  acre 
of  reclaimable  land  now  lies  unreclaimed.'  'Mr.  Trench,'  comments  Sir  John 
Gray  (pp.  26,  27),  admitted  that  '  the  main  cause,  beyond  all  question,'  of  the 
conversion  of  the  wild  and  waste  alder  plain  into  a  tract  of  the  richest  and  best 
cultivated  land  in  Ireland,  and  the  consequent  increase  of  its  value,  was  due  to 
the  energetic  and  unrelaxing  toil  of  the  tenant  farmers  who  lived  upon  it,  but  who, 
when  they  had  made  the  barren  plain  fruitful,  and  when  there  remained  no  more 
land  to  be  reclaimed  for  the  landlord's  benefit,  were  felt  to  be  an  intolerable 
burden  upon  the  landlord's  hands,  with  whom  they  '  had  to  deal '  (hear,  hear, 
and  cheers).  How  these  toiling  industrious  people  were  'dealt  with,'  what  be- 
came of  these  Celts  who  were  permitted — '  allowed  '  was,  he  believed,  the  phrase 
— to  increase  and  multiply  in  Farney,  who  by  their  labour  had  changed  the  value 


I98  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

Mr.  Senior,  is  naturally  delighted  with  such  sound  opinions. 
'  Earnestly  wishing,  as  you  do,'  he  says  to  Dr.  G.,  '  to  see 
Ireland  a  grazing  country,  and  therefore  thinly  populated 
as  respects  its  agricultural  population/  etc.  * 

Archbishop  Whately  and  Mr.  Nassau  Senior  were  the 
philosophers  of  the  gospel  that  emigration  was  the  real  cure 
for  Ireland,  but  this  cause  had  a  more  potent  advocate  in  the 
Lord-Lieutenant  of  the  period.  From  1855  to  1858  Lord 
Carlisle  was  Viceroy,  and  again  from  1859  till  1864.  The 
character  of  Lord  Carlisle  is  well  known.  He  was  an  unctuous, 
smooth-spoken  man,  and  while  Ireland  was  bleeding  in  every 
pcre,  softly,  poetically  murmured  that  the  country  was  every 
day  advancing  more  rapidly  in  prosperity.  Each  of  his 
speeches  was  a  paean  over  the  progress  of  the  country,  pro- 
gress consisting  in  the  increase  of  cattle  and  the  disappear- 
ance of  men  and  women.  Two  extracts  will  suffice  to  show 
the  crass  gospel  of  this  enlightened  ruler. 

'  Nor  can  I  be  debarred,'  said  Lord  Carlisle,  speaking  at 
the  Annual  Cattle  Show  of  the  Royal  Agricultural  Society  in 
Athlone,  on  August  7,  1855,  '  even  by  the  golden  promise  of 
those  harvests  which  now  gladden  our  eyes,  from  urging  you 
to  bear  in  mind,  what  Nature  in  her  wise  economy  seems 
specially  to  have  fitted  this  island  for  is  to  be  the  mother  of 

of  the  estate  from  2507.  a  year  to  4O,ooo/. ,  increased,  according  to  Mr.  Trench's 
sworn  evidence,  to  54,8337.  in  1867,  he  (Sir  John  Gray)  could  not  tell,  nor  did  he 
think  it  would  be  of  much  use  now  to  inquire  (hear,  hear)  ;  but  this  he  could  tell, 
that  the  population  of  Farney,  which  was  44,107  in  1841,  and  Mr.  Trench  says 
it  \\as  'something  upwards  '  in  1843,  when  he  came  to  rule  over  it,  has  in  eight 
years  of  his  rule  been  reduced  to  31,519,  and  that  in  the  same  period  2,009  houses 
were  levelled  (cheers).  More  than  12.588  of  the  'surplus  population'  of  that 
barony  were  moved  out  of  it  in  eight  years — some  to  America — some  to  Australia 
some  to  the  pauper's  grave  (hear,  hear).  All  were  gone.  As  the  sheep  who 
had  eaten  down  all  the  rape  and  trampled  the  refuse  into  the  land  could  fertilise 
it  no  more  and  were  sent  to  the  shambles,  so  the  Celts,  at  one  time  'allowed  to 
multiply'  in  Farney,  could  reclaim  no  more,  and  they,  too,  were  sent  off  as  useless 
incumberers  of  the  ground  (cheers). 

1  Journal,  vol.  ii.  pp.  282,  283.  Injustice  to  Mr.  Senior,  it  should  be  said 
that  he  was  perfectly  impartial  as  to  all  nationalities  in  his  doctrine,  that  the  fewer 
people  were  on  the  land  the  better.  In  the  same  conversation  he  speaks  of  the 
'  absorption  of  the  surplus  population  of  the  Highlands  of  Scotland,  when  black 
cattle  and  sheep  took  the  place  of  men,'  as  'one  of  the  largest  and  most  bene- 
ficent clearings  on  record  '  (ib.  p.  282). 


RUIN  AND   RABAGAS  199 

flocks  and  herds  ;  to  be,  if  I  may  say  so,  the  larder  and  dairy 
of  the  world  ;  to  send  rations  of  beef  and  bales  of  bacon  to 
our  armies  wherever  they  are  ;  and  to  send  firkins  of  butter 
to  every  sea  and  harbour  of  the  habitable  globe.' l 

In  a  speech  at  the  annual  cattle  show  at  Cork  (July  5, 
1860),  and  indeed  in  nearly  every  one  of  his  speeches,  the 
same  gospel  was  laid  down,  that  the  more  people  .left  Ireland 
the  more  prosperous  the  country  was,  and  that  the  great 
ideal  of  legislation  was  to  change  as  much  of  the  land  as 
possible  into  pasture. 

'  Cattle,'  he  said,  '  above  all  things,  seem  to  be  rendered, 
by  the  conditions  of  soil  and  climate,  the  most  appropriate 
stock  for  Ireland.  .  .  .  Hence,  the  great  hives  of  industry  in 
England  and  Scotland  across  the  Channel  can  draw  their 

o 

frequent  shiploads  of  corn  from  more  southern  and  drier 
climates,  but  they  must  have  a  constant  dependence  in 
Ireland  for  a  supply  of  meat.  .  .  .  With  reference  to  the 
general  concerns  of  Ireland,  I  feel  I  am  justified  in  speaking 
to  you,  upon  the  whole,  in  the  terms  of  congratulation  and 
hopefulness.  .  .  .  Then  ....  the  mud-cabins  of  Ireland 
amounted  in  1841,  not  twenty  years  ago,  to  491,000  ;  they 
have  now  diminished  to  I25,ooo.2  The  number  of  emigrants, 
which  had  been  gradually  decreasing  for  some  years,  has 
somewhat  increased  in  the  last  and  present  years.  .  .  .  They 
now  comprise  many  young  people  of  both  sexes  who  have  been 
comparatively  well  educated,  and  who  hope  to  find  in  a  less 
crowded  community  a  better  market  for  their  industry  and 
a  more  adequate  demand  for  their  natural  and  acquired 
intelligence  ;  but  I  conceive  this  is  not  a  symptom,  with  what- 
ever immediate  and  local  inconvenience  it  may  no  doubt  be 
attended,  at  which,  viewed  at  large,  we  ought  to  repine. >3 

A  few  statistics  will  bring  clearly  before  the  mind  of  the 
reader  how  the  policy  of  expatriation  was  working  :  — 

EMIGRATION  FROM  IRELAND. 
1849-1860  .  .  .  1,551,000 

1861-1870  .  .  .  867,ooo4 

1  The  Speeches,  Lectures,  and  Poems,  6-v.  of  the  Earl  of  Carlisle,  pp.  158,  159. 
By  J.  J.  Gaskin. 

2  He  does  not  say  what  had  become  of  the  occupants. 

3  The  Speeches,  Lectures,  and  Poems,  &c.  of  the  Earl  of  Carlisle,  pp.  178-181. 

4  Mulhall's  Dictl.nary  of  Statistics,  p.  168. 


200 


"THE  PARNELL  MOVEMENT 


And  another  table  will  be  still  more  instructive  :  it  is  the 
ratio  of  the  ages  of  the  emigrants  '  :— 

Under  15  years  .  .  T5  per  cent. 

15  to  35       » 

Over  35       „  •  •  I0 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  only  half  the  case  is  stated  when 
it  is  said  that  emigration — with  great  assistance  from  hunger, 
plague  and  eviction— within  the  years  1845  and  1885  has 
reduced  the  population  by  nearly  one-half:  the  half  that  emi- 
grated was  the  better,  the  half  that  remained  was  the  worse, 
half  of  the  population.  Seventy-five  per  cent,  of  the  emigrants 
were  between  fifteen  and  thirty-five— the  best  years  in  the  life 
of  men  or  women.  '  During  the  seven  months  of  the  year ' 
(1863),  wrote  the  'Times,'2  '80,000,  chiefly  young  men  and 
women,  have  left  Ireland,  most  of  them  for  ever.  They  have 
gone  off  with  money  in  their  pockets,  and  with  strong  limbs 
and  stout  hearts.  TJtey  have  left  behind  the  ailing,  the  weak, 
and  the  aged' 

There  is  no  passion  like  the  suppressed  passion  of  statis- 
tics ;  and  I  leave  these  figures  to  tell  their  own  moral.  Mean- 
time, there  was  one  force  further  which  must  be  reckoned 
among  the  factors  that  produced  the  temper  of  Ireland  at 
this  epoch. 

The  sight  of  a  race  rushing  from  its  native  land  in 
millions  might,  it  would  be  thought,  have  touched  even 
enemies  as  marking  the  very  height  of  tragic  suffering.  But 
such  was  not  the  effect  upon  the  journalism  of  England.  As 
the  Irish  peasants  left  their  country  in  curses  and  tears, 
the  English  newspapers  seized  every  opportunity  of  mock- 
ing at  their  sufferings  and  their  demands  for  the  reform  of 
the  laws  by  which  their  misery  and  their  enforced  exile  were 
produced.  Through  the  persistent  raising  of  the  rent,  and 
the  incessant  eviction,  chronic  poverty  periodically  deepened 
into  famine  and  appeals  had  to  be  made  in  these  crises  to  the 
aid  of  the  charitable.  All  such  appeals  the  '  Times  '  and  other 
English  journals  denounced  as  obtaining  money  under  false 
pretences. 

1  Mulhall's  Dictionary  of  Statistics,  p.  168. 

2  Quoted  in  Nation,  Oct.  24,  1863. 


RUIN    AND    RABAGAS  201 

Should  her  people  (wrote  the  'Times'  of  Ireland  in  1863),  instead 
of  complaining  to  Parliament  that  they  have  been  ruined  by  a  succes- 
sion of  bad  seasons,  set  themselves  to  develop  the  mines  of  the  country; 
should  the  manufacturing  industry,  which  has  been  destroyed  by  a 
succession  of  strikes,  show  symptoms  of  revival,  well  might  the 
magnates  of  Ireland  meet  together  to  celebrate  an  event  so  auspicious. 1 
But  all  this  is  savoured  too  much  with  self-reliance  and  independence. 
It  would  be  too  Saxon,  too  little  suited  to  the  aspiring  genius  of  a  Celtic 
nationality,  to  do  that  themselves  which  it  is  possible  to  have  done  for 
them  by  others? 

And  the  same  journal  over  and  over  again  pointed  with 
exultation  to  the  probability  that  the  Irish  race  would  be 
annihilated  in  Ireland,  and  that  the  country  would  then  be 
entirely  seized  by  the  population  of  the  stronger  country. 

If  this  goes  on  long  (it  wrote  of  the  emigration  in  1860),  as  it  is 
continuing  to  go  on,  Ireland  will  become  very  English,  and  the  United 
States  very  Irish.  When  an  English  agriculturist  takes  a  farm  in 
Galway  or  Kerry  he  will  take  English  labourers  with  him.3 

The  Irish  will  go  (it  wrote  in  1863).  English  and  Scotch  settlers 
must  be  speedily  got  in  their  places,  for  Great  Britain  will  suffer,  the 
British  markets  will  go.4 

The  Celt  (it  wrote  again  in  1865)  goes  to  yield  to  the  Saxon. 
This  island  of  160  harbours,  with  its  fertile  soil,  with  noble  rivers 
and  beautiful  lakes,  with  fertile  mines  and  riches  of  every  kind,  is 
being  cleared  quietly  for  the  interests  and  luxury  of  humanity.5 

This  extract,  finally,  from  the  leading  English  journal : — 

Curran  used  to  say  that  his  countrymen  made  very  bad  subjects, 
but  much  worse  rebels.  The  mot  was  a  good  one  in  its  own  day,  but 
it  has  not  lost  its  point.  .  .  .  Comparative  anatomists  of  political 
societies  might,  by  a  close  study  of  it,  perhaps  make  a  complete 
sketch  of  the  social  monstrosity  which  such  a  phrase  would  fit— a 
discontented,  hungry,  empty-bellied  community,  begging  for  alms  ; 
too  idle  to  work,  too  shrewd  to  fight,  too  profoundly  convinced  of  the 
dishonesty  of  its  own  members  to  do  aught  but  shout  and  roar  and 
threaten  and  beg.6 

1  A  meeting  had  been  held  to  celebrate  the  grant  of  a  small  subsidy  to  Galway. 

2  Quoted  in  Nation,  Nov.  14,  1863. 

8  Quoted  in  Irishman,  May  12,  1860. 

4  Quoted  in  Nation,  Nov.  14,  1863. 

5  Ib.  Aug.  26,  1865.  6  Ib.   Nov.  6,  1858. 


202 


'  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


Acts  of  signal  folly  (wrote  the  '  Manchester  Review'),  the  Irish  are 
not  slow  to  commit ;  words  of  eminent  absurdity  the  Irish  are  not 
slow  to  utter.  We  must  not  marvel,  then,  that  faithful  to  their  charac- 
teristic folly  and  absurdity  they  should  mingle  with  other  Irish  howls 
that  of  Ireland  for  the  Irish.  Ireland  owes  to  England  the  whole  of 
its  civilisation  ;  it  has  long  adopted  the  language  of  its  conquerors. 
Must  that  civilisation  be  thrown  aside  ?  Must  not  that  be  renounced 
if  Ireland  is  to  be  for  the  Irish?  and  must  Ireland  forthwith  proceed 
to  invent  a  civilisation  of  its  own,  and  to  revive  the  speech  which 
still  lingers  in  the  mouth  of  the  ugliest,  most  barbarous,  most  ignorant 
and  turbulent  of  its  population  ?  1 

An  Irish  priest,  lamenting  the  wrongs  of  Ireland,  was  de- 
scribed in  the  '  Daily  Telegraph  '  as  *  a  surpliced  ruffian '  ;  a 
Catholic  archbishop,  mourning  over  the  emigration,  was  de- 
scribed by  the  '  Saturday  Review '  as  regretting  the  departure 
'  of  the  demons  of  assassination  and  murder.' 

The  Lion  of  St.  Jarlath's  (said  the  article  of  the  'Saturday  Review,' 
November  28,  1863)  has  growled  in  grievous  dudgeon  that  bucolic 
tastes  are  prevailing  in  Ireland.  Archbishop  John  of  Tuam  surveys 
with  an  envious  eye  what,  in  a  Churchman,  it  seems  rather  profane 
to  style  the  Irish  Exodus ;  and  in  a  letter  addressed  to  Mr.  Gladstone 
...  he  sighs  over  the  departing  demons  of  assassination  and  murder. 
Like  his  friend  Mr.  Smith  O'Brien,  he  regrets  the  loss  of  the  raw 
materials  of  treason  and  sedition.  Ireland,  he  says,  is  relapsing  into 
a  desert,  tenanted  by  lowing  herds  instead  of  howling  assassins.  So 
complete  is  the  rush  of  departing  marauders,  wrhose  lives  were  pro- 
fitably employed  in  shooting  Protestants  from  behind  a  hedge,  that 
silence  reigns  over  the  vast  solitude  of  Ireland.  .  .  .  Ireland  has  long 
been  seething  in  the  flames  of  misrule  and  agitation  and  sedition. 
Ireland  is  boiling  over,  and  the  scum  flows  across  the  Atlantic  ;  and 
the  more  the  Archbishop  and  the  like  of  him  blow  at  the  fire,  the 
more  the  scum  will  boil  over.  It  can  be  spared,  and  the  many  ex- 
cellences of  the  Irish  people  will  only  become  the  more  excellent  by 
the  present  process  of  defecation. 

The  people  who  were  thus  described  were  as  like  the 
pictures  drawn  of  them  as  real  human  beings  usually  are  to 
the  portraits  of  political  opponents.  They  were  attached  to 
the  country  in  which  they  were  not  permitted  to  live  with  a 

1  Quoted  in  Nation^  March  31,  1860. 


RUIN   AND    RABAGAS  203 

patriotism  remarkable  for  its  fervour  even  among  the  many 
passionate  patriotisms  of  the  world  :  and  their  family  ties 
were  peculiarly  close  and  strong.  A  look  at  the  railway 
stations,  and  then  at  the  fields,  of  Ireland  would  have  brought 
to  any  sympathetic  eye  the  inner  meaning  of  the  terrible  and 
widespread  tragedy  that  was  there  being  enacted.  At  every 
railway  station  crowds  of  people  were  to  be  seen  locked  in 
each  other's  arms,  shouting  aloud  in  their  grief,  and  exchanging 
everlasting  farewells.  What  these  partings  meant  could  only 
be  understood  by  those  who  know  and  sympathise  with  the 
home  life  of  the  Irish  poor.  There  is  perhaps  no  country  in 
the  world  where  the  sense  of  the  duty  of  the  members  of  a 
family  to  each  other  is  held  more  sacred.  How  sacred  the 
feeling  is  receives  yearly  proof  in  the  vast  sums  which  are 
sent  over  out  of  hardly-earned  wages  by  the  Irish  in  America 
to  the  Irish  at  home.  Then,  too,  the  authority  of  the  head 
of  the  house  is  carried  in  Ireland  still  to  extremes  that  in 
most  countries  are  as  dead  and  ancient  as  the  other  ways 
and  ideas  of  the  patriarchal  period.  As  a  result,  the  child 
has  less  self-confidence  at  years  comparatively  mature  than 
is  acquired  in  other  countries  at  a  much  earlier  age  ;  and  the 
parent  looks  at  a  grown  young  man  or  woman  as  having  all 
.the  innocence  and  helplessness  of  childhood.  The  sense  of 
separation  was,  accordingly,  terribly  embittered  by  the  awful 
apprehension  for  the  future  of  those  children  cast  on  the 
unknown  and  terrible  temptations  of  the  great  world.  The 
latent  sense  that  was  in  the  mind  of  the  father  or  mother 
who  followed  panting  and  sobbing  the  train  was  that  the 
engine  with  its  accursed  haste  was  carrying  off  the  loved 
ones  to  want  or  vice,  to  early  and  painful,  or  perchance 
shameful  death  amid  strange  faces.  It  was  this  factor  in  the 
separation  that  gave  to  it  much  of  its  poignant  grief  and 
tragic  import.  To  many  a  cabin  in  Ireland  emigration  meant 
that  the  light  of  a  life  had  gone  out,  and  that  aged  parents 
never  more  knew  a  bright  or  happy  hour. 

Over  the  country  is  to  be  seen  to  this  day  the  marks  of 
this  dreadful  and  terrible  time.  There  are  many  parts  of 
Ireland  to-day  that  still  look  as  if  they  had  just  been  passed 
over  by  an  invading  army  led  by  a  commander  with  the 


204  '  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

spirit  of  Attila.  The  traveller  can  pass  for  miles  through 
some  of  the  best  land  in  the  County  Meath,  and  see  a 
country  on  which  not  a  single  human  being  remains  ;  the 
frequent  ruin  speaks  of  a  vanished  population  as  effectually 
scattered  as  the  populations  of  those  entombed  cities  in 
Italy,  the  ruins  of  which  to-day  with  such  compelling 
silence  tell  the  tale  of  tumultuous  life  reduced  to  stillness 
and  death. 

Such,  then,  was  the  condition  of  Ireland  in  the  interval 
between  1855  and  1865.  It  is  one  of  the  saddest  and  most 
dreadful  stories  in  all  history.  It  is  the  spectacle,  under  the 
semblance  of  law,  and  without  any  particular  noise,  and 
certainly  without  attracting  any  particular  attention,  of  an 
ancient  and  brave  nation  being  slowly  but  surely  wiped  out 
of  existence.  Not  a  section,  or  a  class,  or  a  percentage,  but 
the  whole  people  were  being  swept  away,  their  land  was 
yearly  becoming  more  desolate,  and  all  the  probabilities 
pointed  to  the  near  advent  of  the  period  when  the  country 
would  be  one  great  sheep  and  cattle  farm  with  the  vast 
desert  broken  only  at  long  intervals  by  the  herd. 

Meantime  the  Imperial  Parliament  looked  on  and  did 
nothing  :  the  rulers  declared  that  the  hellish  work  was  good  : 
the  press  of  the  dominant  country  hissed  out  triumphant 
hate  ;  and  popular  representation  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of 
self-seekers,  heartless,  lying,  and  base.  It  is  in  such  periods 
that  a  desperate  spirit  is  evoked  and  is  necessary.  The 
masses  of  the  people  were  still  sound,  and  there  were  among 
the  population  chosen  spirits  who  were  resolved  to  show  that 
the  struggle,  which  had  been  maintained  through  so  many 
centuries,  was  not  even  yet  at  an  end  ;  that,  if  the  Irish  nation 
were  to  be  murdered,  at  least  her  people  would  try  to  make 
one  final  and  desperate  stand  ;  and  that  her  political  life 
would  find  other  types  than  the  pestilent  race  of  Rabagas. 


205 


CHAPTER   VII. 

REVOLUTION. 

I  HAVE  written  very  clumsily  if  the  reader,  whatever  be  his 
nationality,  does  not  now  understand  the  forces  which  pro- 
duced Fenianism.  This  movement,  like  many  other  move- 
ments before  and  since,  took  its  rise  in  America,  where  the 
men  evicted  under  such  circumstances  as  I  have  described, 
daily  brooded  over  the  means  whereby  they  might  avenge 
their  personal  and  political  wrongs.  Meagher  and  Mitchel, 
after  escaping  from  the  penal  settlements  to  which  they  had 
been  condemned  after  the  failure  of  1848,  supplied  the  Irish 
of  America  with  names  and  ability  to  keep  alive  and  to 
inspire  the  movement  for  the  rescue  of  Ireland.  To  America, 
too,  had  gone  James  Stephens,  who  as  a  young  man  had 
stood  by  Smith  O'Brien  at  Ballingarry.  Stephens  was  in 
Ireland  in  1858,  and  he  visited,  among  other  places,  the  town 
of  Skibbereen,  in  which  had  been  recently  established  a  society 
half  literary,  half  political,  and  the  chief  spirit  of  which  was  a 
man  whose  name  was  destined  to  be  long  afterwards  a  name 
of  horror  and  of  fear.  This  was  Jeremiah  O'Donovan,  as  he 
was  originally  called,  and  Jeremiah  O'Donovan  (Rossa)  as  he 
is  now  better  known.  Between  O'Donovan  and  Stephens  an 
interview  took  place,  at  which  Stephens  informed  O'Donovan 
that  the  Irish  in  America  were  willing  and  anxious  to  supply 
arms  for  insurrection  to  so  many  Irishmen  as  would  be  en- 
rolled in  a  revolutionary  conspiracy  in  Ireland.  The  bargain 
was  sealed,  and  the  movement  made  some  way,  but  was 
confined  in  its  operations  to  the  south-west  districts  of  the 
country.  Finally  the  Government  were  informed  of  the 
position  of  matters,  and  the  conspirators  were  put  on  their 
trial.  Many  of  them  were  convicted,  among  others  O'Donovan 


206  *  THE  PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

(Rossa),  but  the  Crown,  despising  the  movement  as  futile,  did 
not  insist  on  heavy  punishments  being  inflicted  on  any  of  the 
conspirators. 

The  Irish-American  revolutionaries  now  set  to  work  again, 
and  the  business  of  propagandism  continued  to  go  on  actively. 
No  particular  progress  was  made,  however,  and  probably  the 
movement  would  not  have  assumed  formidable  proportions 
but  for  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War  in  America.  This 
portentous  event  brought  into  actual  warfare  many  thousands 
of  the  exiled  Irish,  made  them  familiar  with  the  use  of  arms, 
and  thereby  gave  a  stimulus  to  the  idea  of  liberating  Ireland 
through  insurrection.  An  accidental  occurrence  gave  the 
propagandists  of  the  revolution  an  immense  start  Terence 
Bellew  McManus,  one  of  the  '48  leaders,  having,  like  the 
others,  escaped  from  Australia,  settled  and  died  in  San 
Francisco  in  1861.  It  was  resolved  that  his  remains  should 
be  buried  in  his  native  country.  The  body  was  conveyed 
across  America  with  every  circumstance  of  pomp  and  solem- 
nity. To  Ireland  at  last  came  the  funeral  procession  that  had 
thus  stalked  solemnly  across  the  vast  continent  and  the  wide 
expanse  of  ocean.  Such  a  spectacle  was  well  calculated  to 
inspire  the  imagination  and  to  stimulate  the  patriotic  passions 
of  the  people.  The  movement  was  still  further  strengthened 
by  the  opposition  which  the  funeral  demonstration  received 
from  the  ecclesiastical  authorities.  Archbishop  Cullen  con- 
tinued to  the  dead  conspirator  the  same  hostility  which  he 
displayed  to  the  living  members  of  secret  societies.  To  him 
it  soon  became  known  that  the  funeral  was  serving  as  a 
trumpet-call  to  gather  in  recruits  for  the  revolution  through 
the  country.  He  refused  to  allow  the  body  to  lie  in  state  in 
any  of  the  churches  of  his  diocese.  This  added  feelings  of 
bitter  exasperation  to  all  the  other  forces  tending  to  make 
the  funeral  a  new  departure  in  Irish  politics.  The  coffin  was 
landed  at  Queenstown  on  October  30,  1861,  and  the  funeral 
took  place  in  Dublin  on  Sunday,  November  10.  In  this 
interval  the  country  was  excited  by  a  fierce  controversy 
between  the  Fenians  and  Archbishop  Cullen,  and  the  con- 
troversy brought  recruits  in  daily  larger  numbers  to  the 
revolutionary  organisation.  At  last  the  funeral  wound  up  in 


REVOLUTION  207 

a  demonstration,  which  was  a  fitting  close  to  the  preceding 
events.  Fifty  thousand  people  followed  the  remains ;  at 
least  as  many  lined  the  streets  ;  and  the  procession  solemnly 
paused,  with  uncovered  heads,  at  every  spot  sacred  to  the 
memory  of  those  who  had  fought  and  died  in  the  good 
fight  against  English  tyranny :  in  Thomas  Street,  at  the  house 
where  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald  met  his  death,  and  the  church 
where  lie  his  remains ;  at  the  house  in  High  Street  where  the 
remains  of  Wolfe  Tone  had  been  laid  before  removal  for 
final  interment  ;  especially  opposite  the  spot  where  Robert 
Emmet  was  executed.  *  In  passing  the  Castle,'  says  a  chro- 
nicler of  the  period,  '  the  procession  slackened  its  pace  to  the 
utmost,  and  lingered  on  its  way  in  silent  but  stern  defiance.' 
Finally,  as  night  closed  in,  the  body  was  deposited  in 
Glasnevin  Cemetery. 

From  this  time  forward  the  advance  of  Fenianism  was 
extraordinarily  rapid.  Organisers  went  all  over  the  island, 
swearing  in  men  by  the  dozen,  sometimes  by  the  score,  every 
night.  In  one  quarter  the  conspiracy  met  with  unexpected 
and  almost  inexplicable  success.  This  was  in  the  army.  At 
that  time  there  were  in  Ireland  a  large  number  of  Irish 
regiments.  Several  of  the  ablest  of  the  Fenians  became 
soldiers  for  the  purpose  of  gaining  recruits  to  their  ranks.  In 
Dublin,  anybody  who  entered  unexpectedly  one  of  the  many 
taverns  along  the  quays,  where  soldiers  most  do  congregate, 
might  have  detected  the  Fenian  organiser  at  work,  swearing 
in  batches  of  soldiers.  The  most  extraordinary  stories,  few 
of  which  ever  found  their  way  into  the  papers,  are  still  told 
of  the  exhibitions  which  the  army  at  the  time  made  of  its 
political  sympathies  and  organisation.  It  often  happened 
that  an  Irish  regiment,  passing  through  a  country  town, 
cheered  loudly,  and  in  the  open  day,  for  the  Irish  Republic. 
It  is  said  that  agents  of  the  organisation  were  introduced  by 
members  of  the  conspiracy  into  every  barrack,  and  were 
familiar  with  the  position  of  every  piece  of  ordnance  through- 
out the  country ;  and  on  more  than  one  critical  occasion, 
the  men  in  charge  of  some  of  the  most  important  military 
stations  came  to  the  Fenian  leaders  and  offered  them  the 
keys  of  the  citadels.  The  calculations  of  the  Fenians  them- 


208  '  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

selves,  even  in  these  days  of  cool  reflection,  is  that  by  1865 
they  had  enrolled  in  their  ranks,  among  the  British  arrrr 
alone,  15,000  men  ! 

So  far  the  movement  was  strong,  but  it  had  an  incurable 
weakness— the  want  of  arms.  At  no  period  throughout  the 
whole  conspiracy  was  there  one  rifle  for  every  500  men 
enrolled.  The  leader  of  the  movement,  Mr.  Stephens,  not 
willing  perhaps  to  betray  the  weakness  of  the  body  over 
which  he  presided,  was  gradually  forced  into  promises  that 
he  found  himself  unable  to  fulfil.  The  moment  at  last  came 
when  neither  the  Government  nor  the  revolutionary  leaders 
could  any  longer  escape  collision.  With  the  close  of  the 
American  war  hundreds  of  Irish- American  officers  were 
released  from  their  duties.  They  poured  into  Ireland,  and 
the  air  became  thick  with  rumours  of  the  impending  rising. 
Meantime  the  Government  were  kept  well  informed  of  every- 
thing that  was  going  forward  by  their  spies  in  the  enemy's 
camp.  The  'Irish  People,'  the  organ  of  the  revolutionaries, 
was  seized  on  September  15,  1865.  Mr.  Luby,  Mr.  John 
O'Leary,  and  O'Donovan  (Rossa)  were  arrested,  and  in  the 
following  November  Mr.  Stephens.  Before  the  latter  was 
brought  to  trial  he  succeeded,  by  the  aid  of  two  prison 
officials,  in  escaping  from  Richmond  Gaol.  Parliament 
promptly  suspended  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act,  and  through- 
out the  country  the  leaders  of  the  movement  were  seized  and 
imprisoned. 

The  treatment  of  these  untried  prisoners  is  one  of  the 
many  discreditable  events  of  this  period.  At  this  period  the 
medical  superintendent  of  Mountjoy  Prison  in  Dublin  was  Dr. 
Robert  MacDonnell,  one  of  the  most  prominent  physicians 
in  Dublin  ;  and  he  was  in  charge  of  many  of  the  men  who, 
when  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  was  suspended,  were  placed 
in  this  prison.  Over  and  over  again  he  drew  the  atten- 
tion of  the  Government  to  the  manner  in  which  these  men 
were  treated.  He  described  how  these  prisoners,  untried 
and  unconvicted,  were  submitted  to  a  cellular  discipline  more 
severe  in  some  respects  than  a  convict  undergoes  while  going 
through  the  eight  months  of  his  probationary  treatment.1 

1  Extract  from  Report  forwarded  to   the   Prisons  Office,  Dublin  Castle,   Tan. 
1867,  by  Dr.  R.  MacDonnell. 


REVOLUTION  209 

The  prisoners  were  confined  in  cells  little  more  than  six  feet 
square,  their  meals  were  handed  to  them  through  a  hole  in  the  door; 
they  were  kept  rigidly  alone,  except  when  at  religious  services  and  at 
exercise  ;  they  were  not  admitted  to  the  companionship  of  a  friend 
or  a  pipe.1 

The  results  of  such  treatment  soon  showed  themselves  in 
many  cases. 

Thomas  Burke  (reported  Dr.  MacDonnell  to  the  Governor  of 
Mountjoy  Prison  on  February  28,  1867)  is  showing  undoubted 
symptoms  of  insanity  ;  Finnegan  has  lately  given  way  to  one  of  those 
paroxysms  brought  on  by  long  confinement ;  Sweeny  is  very  unsettled 
in  his  mind  ;  Whyte  (lately  discharged)  was  considered  unfit  for  cellular 
discipline  ;  Barry  (also  lately  discharged)  was  considered  unfit,  from 
his  mental  state,  to  go  away  from  the  prison  without  some  one  in 
charge  of  him.  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  the  prolonged 
confinement  and  severe  discipline  are  the  cause  of  all  this.  Apart  from 
considerations  of  humanity,  it  would  be  a  very  grave  matter  if  any  of 
these  untried  prisoners  (particularly  anyone  like  Bourke  or  Sweeny, 
the  former  of  whom  has  been  twelve,  the  latter  seventeen  months  in 
confinement)  should  commit  suicide.  I  beg  leave,  therefore,  to  im- 
press on  you,  as  well  as  the  inspector  and  director,  the  necessity  for 
advocating  a  relaxed  system  of  treatment  for  the  untried  prisoners. 

Attention  was  called  to  the  matter  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, and  there  was  some  relaxation  made  in  the  treatment 
of  the  prisoners.  The  relaxation  consisted  in  this— 

That  untried  prisoners,  instead  of  during  exercise  walking  round 
and  round  in  the  exercising  rings  after  each  other,  at  regular  distances 
and  in  profound  silence,  were  permitted  to  walk  each  with  a  com- 
panion, to  converse,  and  to  smoke.  All  the  rest  of  the  twenty-four 
hours,  save  during  exercise,  they  were  in  strict  cellular  confinement. 
They  were,  it  is  true,  permitted  under  certain  restrictions  to  receive 
visits  from  their  friends  ;  but  most  of  them,  coming  from  remote 
parts  of  Ireland,  had  no  friends  to  visit  them,  and  this  privilege  was 
practically  useless  to  most  of  them. 

In  time,  some  of  these  prisoners  were  brought  to  trial. 
Then  occurred  the  spectacle  of  such  ghastly  familiarity  to 
the  student  of  Irish  history.  The  criminal  courts  at  Green 
Street  and  throughout  the  country  were  for  months  employed 

1  From  a  paper  read  by  Dr.  MacDonnell  before  the  National  Society  of 
Dublin,  July  4,  1871. 

P 


210  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

in  the  trial  of  prisoners,  and  man  after  man  was  convicted 
and  sentenced  to  penal  servitude. 

It  was  one  of  the  many  scandals  in  these  trials  that  the 
most  prominent  judge  in  trying  them  was  Judge  Keogh.  Of 
all  men  and  forces  that  created  Fenianism,  Judge  Keogh  was 
the  most  potent.  It  was  his  treason  that  broke  down  all  faith 
in  constitutional  agitation,  and  it  was  the  want  of  faith  in 
constitutional  agitation  that  drove  men  to  the  desperate  risks 
to  life  and  liberty  of  a  physical-force  movement.  It  was  the 
treason  of  Judge  Keogh  that,  destroying  the  Tenant  Right 
movement  of  1852,  brought  the  dread  epoch  of  rack-renting, 
eviction,  and  widespread  emigration,  and  it  was  the  horrors 
of  these  things  that  produced  the  frenzied  temper  of  which 
revolutionary  movements  are  born.  The  columns  of  the  '  Irish 
People,'  the  organ  of  Fenianism,  supply  abundant  testimony  of 
this.  Whenever  a  voice  was  raised  in  favour  of  constitutional 
agitation  and  constitutional  agitators,  the  ' Irish  People  '  men- 
tioned the  names  of  Keogh  and  Sadleir,  and  there  was  no  reply. 
And  Judge  Keogh  was  selected  by  the  Government  to  try 
the  editor  and  contributors  of  the  '  Irish  People  ! '  This  is 
the  place  to  add  that,  since  his  accession  to  the  bench,  Judge 
Keogh  had  exhausted  every  resource  to  exacerbate  the 
feelings  of  anger  and  scorn  his  political  career  had  created. 
It  is  another  of  the  many  distinctions  between  the  Irish  and 
the  English  judiciary  that  the  English  judge  ceases,  while 
the  Irish  judge  continues  to  be  an  active  politician  after  his 
elevation  to  the  bench.  In  times  of  political  excitement 
the  Irish  judge  is  in  the  regular  habit  of  making  political 
pronouncements.  They  take  the  form  of  laments  over  the 
perils  to  law  and  order  ;  in  reality  they  are  intended  to  de- 
feat the  movement  towards  the  advance  of  popular  rights. 
Cases  are  twisted  in  a  curious  fashion  into  pegs  on  which  to 
hang  pronouncements  on  both  political  and  religious  questions, 
and  the  pronouncements  are  usually  violently  partisan  in 
temper,  vehement  in  tone.  In  any  trial  in  which  the  autho- 
rities stand  on  one  side  and  the  people  on  the  other,  impar- 
tiality is  never  found.  The  judge  is  as  eager,  as  unscrupu- 
lous in  the  pursuit  of  a  conviction  as  the  Crown  prosecutor 
himself.  It  is  a  peculiarity  of  the  British  system  in  Ireland 
that  abuses  exist  in  that  country  to-day  which  belong  to  a 


REVOLUTION  211 

political  condition  that  perished  two  centuries  ago  in  England. 
And  it  is  another  and  characteristic  peculiarity  that  abuses 
which  in  England  are  spoken  of  with  ever-fresh  horror  and 
disgust  as  the  worst  features  of  a  bad  and  irrevocable  past, 
find  unmixed  eulogiums  when  the  Ireland  of  Queen  Victoria, 
and  not  the  England  of  James  II.,  is  the  scene  of  their  occur- 
rence. The  nation  that  still  shudders  over  Judge  Jeffries 
was  always  sympathetic  to  Judge  Keogh. 

Of  the  race  of  political  judges  Keogh  was  the  worst 
offender.  It  seemed  to  be  the  peculiar  pleasure  of  his  ill- 
regulated  nature  to  single  out  for  attack  the  most  devoted 
servants  of  the  people  he  had  ruined.  And  there  was  nothing 
to  which  he  was  more  aggressive  than  the  religious  faith  on 
which  he  had  so  ostentatiously  traded,  or  the  hierarchy  which 
had  been  his  ladder  to  power.  Sometimes  it  was  in  a  charge 
from  the  bench,  sometimes  in  a  popular  speech,  or  a  literary 
lecture — any  opportunity  he  seized  hold  of  to  have  a  sneer  at 
the  Catholic  Church  ;  and  to  a  Catholic  bishop  or  priest  he  was 
merciless  in  his  hatred  and  scorn.  These  attacks  were  rendered 
the  harder  to  bear  because  they  were  generally  couched  in 
language  at  once  studiously  insulting  and  characteristically 
vulgar,  for  he  remained  to  the  end  the  low  demagogue,  at 
once  pretentious  and  illiterate,  execrable  in  taste,  vile  in  style. 

The  original  scandal  of  appointing  such  a  man  to  preside 
over  the  Fenian  trials  was  aggravated  by  his  conduct  of  the 
cases.  He  bullied  the  prisoners  so  flagrantly  that  at  last 
some  even  of  the  English  press  cried  shame.  And  occa- 
sionally he  poured  upon  some  unhappy  creature  he  was  about 
to  send  to  penal  servitude  for  several  years  the  plenteous 
vials  of  his  abundant  Billingsgate.  Meantime,  the  Irish  people 
looked  on  shocked,  enraged,  impotent ;  naturally  loathing 
with  greater  cordiality  the  system  which  placed  infamy  on  the 
bench  and  honesty  in  the  dock,  that  permitted  the  perjured 
assassin  of  their  hopes  to  draft  to  the  horrors  of  penal  servitude 
the  spirits  he  himself  had  summoned  from  the  vasty  deep 
of  a  nation's  despair.  The  English  newspapers  naturally  had 
no  eyes  for  such  a  phenomenon :  they  were  too  busy  with 
dissertating  on  the  despatch  of  French  Republicans  to 
Cayenne  or  Polish  patriots  to  Siberia. 

p  2 


212 


THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


But  the  conspiracy  was  not  yet  dead.  The  men  in 
America  still  cherished  the  idea  that  an  armed  rising  was 
necessary  and  possible,  and  sent  encouraging  messages  home. 
Stephens  publicly  pledged  himself  that  there  would  be  a 
rising  in  1866.  1866  went  by,  and  no  insurrection  came.  At 
last  the  conductors  of  the  movement  at  home  became  des- 
perate, and  it  was  resolved  that,  whether  assistance  came 
from  America  or  not,  the  insurrection  should  be  attempted. 
Sporadic  efforts  occurred  all  over  the  country  ;  men  assembled 
to  the  word  of  command,  and  met  at  the  trysting-ptace,  but 
they  found  no  arms  there,  and  were  easily  dispersed. 

Another  series  of  State  trials  followed,  at  which  the  chief 
spirits  of  the  movement  were  again  sentenced  in  batches  to 
penal  servitude.  The  movement  was  now  apparently  extinct, 
but  before  its  conclus:on  it  was  marked  by  two  incidents  that 
have  exercised  a  deep  influence  on  succeeding  events.  Much 
of  the  strength  of  Fcnianism  lay  among  the  Irish  population 
of  England,  and  emissares  were  constantly  passing  between 
the  two  countries.  It  thus  came  to  pass  that  some  of  the 
loaders  were  arrested  and  lodged  in  English  gaols.  One  of 
these,  General  Burke,  was  incarcerated  in  Clerkenwell  prison. 
It  \vas  resolved  that  he  should  be  rescued.  The  task  was 
entrusted  to  ignorant  hands.  A  barrel  of  gunpowder  was 
placed  in  a  narrow  street  by  the  side  of  the  wall  in  that  part 
of  the  prison  where  General  Burke  was  supposed  to  be 
exercising.  The  wall  was  blown  down.  The  prisoner,  fortu- 
nately for  himself,  was  not  in  that  portion  of  the  prison  at 
a1!  ;  if  he  had  been,  his  death  would  have  been  certain.  A  num- 
ber of  unfortunate  people  of  the  poorer  classes,  living  in  tene- 
ment houses  opposite  the  prison,  were  the  victims.  Twelve 
v.  ere  killed  and  a  hundred  and  twenty  maimed.  This  occurred 
on  December  13,  1867.  A  man  named  Barrett  was  tried 
and  convicted,  and  was  hanged  in  front  of  Newgate  prison. 

The  second  event  brought  out  with  equal  emphasis  the 
hold  which  the  insurrectionary  movement  had  taken  upon 
the  Irish  in  England,  and  the  reality  and  proportions  of  the 
danger  to  the  empire.  The  conduct  of  the  movement  had 
passed,  after  the  arrest  of  Stephens,  and  during  his  absence 
in  America,  into  the  hands  of  Colonel  Kelly.  In  the  autumn 


REVOLUTION  213 

of  1867  Colonel  Kelly  was  in  Manchester,  at  a  Fenian 
meeting.  As  he  was  returning  home  with  a  companion, 
Captain  Deasy,  the  two  were  arrested  on  suspicion  of 
loitering  for  a  burglarious  purpose.  They  gave  false  names, 
but  were  soon  discovered  to  be  the  formidable  leader  of  the 
conspiracy  and  one  of  his  chief  lieutenants.  The  Fenian  or- 
ganisation was  at  the  time  extremely  strong  in  Manchester, 
and  a  rescue  was  resolved  upon.  On  Wednesday,  Sep- 
tember 1 8,  the  prison  van,  while  being  driven  to  the  county 
gaol  at  Salford,  was  attacked  at  the  railway  arch  which  spans 
Hyde  Road  at  Bellevue.  A  party  of  thirty  rushed  forward 
with  revolvers,  shot  one  of  the  horses,  and  the  police  being 
unarmed,  fled.  An  attempt  was  made  to  open  the  door  of 
the  van  with  hatchets,  hammers,  and  crowbars,  but  this 
failed  ;  and  meantime  the  police  came  back,  accompanied  by 
a  large  crowd.  Sergeant  Brett,  the  policeman  inside,  had 
the  keys,  which  some  of  the  party,  opening  the  ventilator, 
asked  him  to  give  up.  He  refused  ;  a  pistol  was  placed  to 
the  keyhole  for  the  purpose  of  blowing  open  the  lock  ;  the 
bullet  passed  through  Brett's  body,  and  he  fell,  mortally 
wounded.  The  keys  were  taken  out  of  his  pocket  and 
handed  out  by  one  of  the  female  prisoners,  Kelly  and  Deasy 
were  released,  and  hurried  off  into  concealment,  and  were 
never  recaptured.  Meantime  a  crowd  had  gathered,  several 
of  the  rescuing  party  were  seized  and  almost  lynched  ;  one  of 
them,  William  Philip  Allen,  was  almost  stoned  to  death. 
Soon  after  William  Philip  Allen,  Michael  Larkin,  Thomas 
Maguire,  Michael  O'Brien  (alias  Gould),  and  Edward  O'Meara 
Condon  (alias  Shore)  were  tried  for  the  wilful  murder  of 
Sergeant  Brett.  They  were  convicted,  and  all  sentenced  to 
be  hanged.  The  trial  took'place  amid  a  hurricane  of  public 
passion  and  panic.  The  evidence  was  tainted,  and  was  soon 
unexpectedly  proved  to  be  utterly  untrustworthy.  Thomas 
Maguire,  tried  on  the  same  evidence,  identified  by  the  same 
witnesses,  convicted  and  sentenced  by  the  same  judges,  was 
proved  so  conclusively  innocent  that  he  was  released  a  few 
days  after  his  trial.  Allen  and  the  others  declared  solemnly 
that  they  had  not  intended  to  hurt  Sergeant  Brett.  Condon, 
in  speaking,  used  a  phrase  that  has  become  historic :  '  I  have 


2I4  TllE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

nothing,'  he  said,  in  concluding  his  speech,  '  to  regret  or  to 
take  back.  I  can  only  say,  "  God  save  Ireland.'' '  His  com- 
panions advanced  to  the  front  of  the  dock,  and,  raising  their 
hands,  repeated  the  cry,  '  God  save  Ireland.'  Maguire  was 
released  and  Condon  was  reprieved.  For  some  time  there 
was  a  hope  that  the  breakdown  of  the  trial  in  the  case  of 
Maguire  would  result  in  a  reprieve  in  the  cases  of  the  other 
three.  But  the  authorities  ultimately  decided  that  the  three 
men  should  be  hanged,  and  on  the  morning  of  November  23, 
1867,  Allen,  Larkin,  and  O'Brien  were  executed  in  front 
of  Salford  gaol.  A  short  time  afterwards  their  bodies  were 
buried  in  quicklime,  in  unconsecrated  ground,  within  the 
precincts  of  the  prison. 

It  is  impossible,  even  after  the  considerable  interval  that 
has  elapsed,  to  forget  the  impression  which  this  event  pro- 
duced upon  the  Irish  people.  In  most  of  the  towns  in  Ireland 
vast  multitudes  walked  in  funeral  processions  through  the 
streets  to  testify  the  terrible  depths  of  their  grief,  and  for 
taking  part  in  one  of  these  processions,  and  for  his  comments 
in  his  newspapers  upon  the  execution,  the  late  Mr.  A.  M. 
Sullivan,  with  the  late  John  Martin,  was  tried.  The  charge  for 
taking  part  in  an  illegal  procession  was  not  successful  ;  but 
of  the  offence  of  seditious  writing  Mr.  Sullivan  was  convicted, 
and  he  was  sentenced  to  six  months'  imprisonment.  The 
execution  of  Allen,  Larkin,  and  O'Brien  added  one  more  to 
the  countless  wrongs  of  Ireland.  Men  speak  to-day  of  it 
with  almost  the  same  frenzied  bitterness  as  at  the  moment 
when  it  took  place.  A  few  days  after  the  execution,  Mr.  T.  D. 
Sullivan  wrote  the  poem  with  the  refrain  uttered  from  the 
dock,  '  God  save  Ireland  !'  and  wherever  in  any  part  of  the 
globe  there  is  now  an  assembly  of  Irishmen,  social  or  poli- 
tical— a  concert  in  Dublin,  a  convention  at  Chicago,  or  a 
Parliamentary  dinner  in  London,  the  proceedings  regularly 
close  with  the  singing  of '  God  save  Ireland.' 

To  one  Irishman,  then  a  youth,  living  in  the  country- 
house  of  his  fathers,  and  deeply  immersed  in  the  small  con- 
cerns of  a  squire's  daily  life,  the  execution  of  the  Manchester 
martyrs  was  a  new  birth  of  political  convictions.  To  him, 
brooding  from  his  early  days  over  the  history  of  his  country, 


REVOLUTION 


215 


this  catastrophe  came  to  crystallise  impressions  into  con- 
viction and  to  pave  the  way  from  dreams  to  action.  It 
was  the  execution  of  Allen,  Larkin,  and  O'Brien  that  gave 
Mr.  Parnell  to  the  service  of  Ireland. 

An  indirect  effect  of  all  these  startling  occurrences  was  to 
force  the  attention  of  the  English  people  and  their  Parliament 
upon  the  Irish  question.  In  other  words,  the  evils  that  had 
been  allowed  to  eat  out  the  vitals  of  Ireland  for  so  long  a 
period  amid  apathy  tempered  by  scoffs,  began  to  attract 
attention  when  Irishmen  abandoned  the  paths  of  constitu- 
tional and  tranquil  agitation,  and  sought  remedy  in  conspiracy 
and  force.  By  several  circumstances  the  Irish  Church  was 
pushed  to  the  front,  and  the  Irish  Members  began  to  activelv 
discuss  it  in  Parliament.  They  spoke  to  an  audience  that  was 
for  the  most  part  deaf  or  inattentive.  But  the  signs  of  gra- 
dually approaching  light  began  to  grow  more  frequent,  and 
the  progress  of  an  intelligent  comprehension  of  the  Irish 
question  was  by  a  sinister  coincidence  in  exact  measure  with 
the  progress  of  the  signs  of  insurrection.  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
the  finger-post  of  English  feeling  throughout  that  period. 
The  movement  against  the  Irish  Church  was  in  the  hands  of 
a  man  of  commanding  ability,  of  lengthened  political  experi- 
ence, and  of  marvellous  industry.  This  was  Sir  John  Gray. 
Sir  John  Gray  had  been  one  of  the  lieutenants  of  O'Connell  in 
the  great  Repeal  agitation  ;  had  been  tried  with  him  as  one  of 
the  traversers  in  1843  ;  and  had  from  that  period  onwards 
been  one  of  the  most  conspicuous  and  active  politicians  in 
Ireland.  He  was  among  the  chief  founders  of  the  Tenant 
League  ;  and  when  the  treason  of  Keogh  broke  that  organisa- 
tion up,  and  rendered  all  constitutional  movements  impossible 
in  Ireland  for  a  considerable  interval,  Gray  devoted  himself  to 
the  '  Freeman's  Journal,'  of  which  he  was  proprietor,  and  to 
the  municipal  affairs  of  Dublin.  He  gave  to  the  Irish  metro- 
polis the  best  water  supply  of  almost  any  city  in  the  world,  and 
was  knighted  for  his  services  by  Lord  Carlisle.  In  1865  there 
seemed  at  last  some  sign  of  resurrection  in  the  constitutional 
agitation,  and  Gray  was  returned  for  the  city  of  Kilkenny. 
The  Irish  Church  question  was  one  with  which  he  had 
always  been  familiar,  and  with  which  he  was  probably  better 


216  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

acquainted  than  any  man  in  Ireland  or  England.  His  first  step 
was  to  appoint  a  commission  in  connection  with  his  news- 
paper, and  the  report  of  the  '  Freeman's  Journal '  became  the 
text-book  of  the  assailants  of  the  Irish  Church.  On  April  10, 
1866,  Sir  John  Gray  attacked  the  Church.  In  the  previous 
year  a  similar  motion  had  been  made  by  Mr.  Dillwyn.  The 
Ministry  had  opposed  the  motion,  but  Mr.  Gladstone  had 
spoken  ambiguous  words  that  did  not  signify  obstinate  hos- 
tility to  the  proposal.  Mr.  Chichester  Fortescue  (Lord  Car- 
lington),  then  Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland,  was  still  more 
encouraging  ;  and  he  went  so  far  as  to  wish  the  movement 
against  the  Irish  Church  '  God  speed.'  Soon  after  came  an 
event  which  was  destined  more  than  almost  any  other  to 
accelerate  the  advance  of  the  movement  at  lightning  speed. 
This  was  the  fall  of  the  Russell-Gladstone  Ministry  in  the 
June  of  1866. 

But  still  something  else  was  required  to  drive  the  Liberal 
leader  from  his  last  hesitations.  In  April,  1867,  Sir  John  Gray 
again  brought  forward  his  motion,  and  again  the  tone  of 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  one  of  hesitancy.  He  was  on  the  brink  of 
the  Rubicon,  but  he  had  not  yet  the  courage  to  cross  the 
stream.  He  himself  has  told  us  in  memorable  words  the  event 
that  finally  gave  strength  to  his  warring  soul,  and  made  him 
plunge  into  steps  that  were  irrevocable. 

What  happened  in  the  case  of  the  Irish  Church  ?  (he  said).  That 
down  to  the  year  1865,  the  whole  question  of  the  Irish  Church  was 
dead  ;  nobody  cared  for  it,  nobody  paid  attention  to  it  in  England. 
Circumstances  occurred  which  drew  the  attention  of  people  to  the 
Irish  Church.  I  said  myself  it  was  out  of  the  range  of  practical 
politics — that  is,  politics  of  the  coming  election.  When  it  came  to 
this,  that  a  great  gaol  in  the  heart  of  the  metropolis  was  broken  open 
under  circumstances  which  drew  the  attention  of  English  people  to 
the  state  of  Ireland,  and  when  a  Manchester  policeman  was  murdered 
in  the  exercise  of  his  duty,  at  once  the  whole  country  became  alive 
to  Irish  questions,  and  the  question  of  the  Irish  Church  revived.1 

A  subsequent  explanation  is  scarcely  more  happy  nor  less  truthful.  '  I  did 
say,'  said  Mr.  Gladstone,  '  it  was  out  of  the  range  of  practical  politics,  by  which 
I  meant  it  was  on  the  occasion  of  an  election  ;  and  when  at  an  election  you  say 
that  a  question  is  out  of  the  range  of  practical  politics,  you  mean  it  is  not  a  ques- 
tion likely  to  be  dealt  with  in  the  Parliament  you  are  now  choosing.  That  is  the 


REVOLUTION  217 

Everybody  knows  the  bitter  controversy  which  has  ever 
since  raged  over  these  words.  Into  that  controversy  it  were 
bootless  here  to  enter.  The  words  have  often  been  a  stum- 
bling-block in  the  way  of  the  constitutional  Irish  agitator.  For 
what  argument  that  he  could  bring  forward  in  favour  of  the 
superiority  of  his  method  could  hold  against  the  recommenda- 
tion in  favour  of  the  weapons  of  revolution  and  violence  given 
by  an  English  Prime  Minister  ?  The  lamentable  fact  about  the 
controversy,  however,  is  that  it  misses  so  frequently  its  real 
point.  It  is  not  really  important  whether  Mr.  Gladstone 
should  have  made  this  confession  ;  the  point  of  real  import- 
ance is,  whether  his  statement  was  true  or  not.  Who  can 
doubt  its  truth  ?  And  if  the  statement  be  unquestionably 
true,  what  strange  reflections  it  ought  to  cause  to  those  who 
maintain  the  state  of  relations  between  England  and  Ireland, 
that  refuses  all  concession  to  reason  and  constitutional 
methods,  and  then  sweeps  reform  into  the  Irish  lap  with  the 
generosity  of  Cornucopia  when  the  demand  is  made  in  the 
name  of  armed  men  and  open  violence. 

The  Disestablishment  of  the  Irish  Church  produced  far 
other  consequences  than  perhaps  its  authors  intended.  For 
the  first  time  in  many  years  the  Irish  constituencies  beheld 
the  spectacle  of  an  English  Parliament  occupied  in  the  work 
of  redressing  Irish  grievances,  and  the  wrongs  of  Ireland  were 
depicted,  and  not  mocked  at,  by  Ministers  of  the  English 
Crown.  This  turned  attention  once  more  to  parliamentary 
methods  ;  the  spirit  of  apathy,  which  had  given  the  fruits  of 

meaning  of  it.  It  was  said,  and  truly  said,  that  in  the  year  1867  there  happened 
certain  crimes  in  England — that  is  to  say,  a  policeman  was  murdered  in  circum- 
stances of  riot  and  great  excitement  at  Manchester;  the  wall  of  Clerkenv\ell 
Prison  was  blown  clown  in  a  very  alarming  manner — in  consequence  of  which,  it 
was  said,  I  changed  my  mind  about  the  Irish  Church.  Now,  what  I  have  said, 
and  what  I  repeat,  is  that  the  matters  referred  to  had  the  effect  of  drawing  the 
attention  of  the  people  of  this  island  to  the  Irish  Question.  ...  I  will  give  you 
an  illustration.  Suppose  it  is  Sunday  morning,  and  I  have  got  up  and  have  had 
my  breakfast,  and  perhaps  I  am  reading  a  book  in  which  I  am  interested — let  us 
hope  it  is  a  proper  and  becoming  book  for  the  day— and  I  am  not  thinking  of 
going  to  church  for  the  moment,  because  I  am  so  interested  in  the  book  that  I  am 
not  conscious  of  the  exact  time,  when  suddenly  I  hear  the  church  bell.  Well,  the 
church  bell  reminds  me,  and  I  put  my  book  down,  put  on  my  hat,  and  go  to 
church.  Would  you  say  the  church  bell  is  the  cause  why  I  go  to  church  ?  Not 
in  the  least.  I  go  to  church  because  I  believe  it  to  be  my  duty  to  go  to  church. ' 


2i8  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

these  contests  without  care  or  regret  to  the  first  adventurer, 
was  broken,  and  people  began  to  think  again  that  it  was  of 
some  importance  whether  an  honest  man  or  a  rogue  should  be 
sent  to  Westminster  to  represent  Ireland.  The  awakening  of 
Ireland  from  the  long  slumber  since  1845  had  begun,  and 
the  awakening  of  Ireland  means  the  revival  of  an  agitation 
for  self-government. 

A  movement  springing  from  Fenianism  lent  strength 
to  the  growing  spirit  of  the  country.  The  confession  of 
Mr.  Gladstone,  the  admission  by  Parliament  itself  that  Ire- 
land had  been  suffering  from  intolerable  grievances,  naturally 
led  to  the  idea  that  men  who  had  risked  and  lost  their  liberty 
to  remedy  these  grievances  should  not  be  any  longer  kept  in 
punishment.  From  this  idea  started  the  Amnesty  movement. 
In  the  eyes  of  the  Irish  people  the  men — many  of  them  of 
good  social  position,  of  stainless  moral  character,  of  lofty 
courage  and  temper — were  just  as  much  heroes  as  to  the 
English  people  were  the  men  who  had  displayed  the  same 
virtues  in  the  search  for  Italian  or  Polish  or  Hungarian  liberty. 
The  Amnesty  movement  accordingly  assumed  vast  propor- 
tions in  a  very  short  time  ;  imposing  demonstrations  were 
held  all  over  Ireland  ;  and  the  spirit  of  the  country  once  more 
became  active  and  hopeful.  But  the  Ministers  still  hesitated 
to  release  the  pioneers  who  had  led  the  way  to  reform,  and 
the  demands  for  amnesty  met  with  a  blank  refusal.  This 
increased  the  feeling  in  favour  of  the  imprisoned  men,  and  at 
last  the  country  found  an  opportunity  of  giving  utterance 
to  its  feelings.  A  vacancy  occurred  in  County  Tipperary. 
Mr.  Denis  Caulfield  Heron  sought  election  as  a  Liberal. 
But  Mr.  Heron  was  a  barrister — one  of  the  class  of  Catholic 
place-hunters  who  properly  occupy  the  lowest  place  in  the 
Inferno  of  the  Irish  Nationalist.  It  was  resolved  that  he 
should  be  opposed  by  O'Donovan  Rossa,  whose  stubborn 
resistance  to  the  terrors  of  penal  servitude  had  trickled  out  to 
the  general  public  ;  and  O'Donovan  Rossa  was  returned  by  a 
large  majority.  He  was,  of  course,  immediately  declared  to 
bo  disqualified  as  a  felon. 

The  next  move  that  gave  indication  of  the  new  birth  in 
the  country  was  the  Longford  election.  Colonel  Greville- 


REVOLUTION  219 

Nugent,  in  December,  1869,  was  elevated  to  the  peerage  by  Mr. 
Gladstone,  and  the  representation  of  Longford  county  became 
vacant.  At  once  one  of  his  younger  sons,  Captain  Reginald 
Greville-Nugent,  was  put  forward  as  a  candidate  for  the 
vacancy.  The  new  peer  was  personally  and  deservedly  very 
popular.  He  was  a  good  landlord,  and  he  had  fought  for  years 
in  favour  of  tenant  right  and  for  reforms.  His  son  was  the 
candidate  of  the  then  universally  popular  Prime  Minister  who 
had  already  passed  one  Act  of  reform  for  Ireland  and  was  busy 
in  the  preparation  of  another.  But  the  Nationalists  were  deter- 
mined that  the  time  had  passed  for  any  longer  paltering  with 
the  question  of  self-government,  and  resolved  to  accept  no 
candidate  save  one  who  would  demand  the  restoration  of  the 
Irish  Parliament.  At  first  there  was  an  idea  of  imitating  the 
example  of  County  Tipperary,  and  putting  forward  one  of  the 
Fenian  prisoners — Mr.  Thomas  Clarke  Luby.  But  by  this 
time  the  fierce  resentment  at  the  refusal  to  release  the  political 
prisoners  had  resolved  itself  into  the  cool  purpose  of  utilising 
the  parliamentary  platform  for  advancing  the  national  cause. 
Eyes  were  naturally  turned  towards  Mr.  John  Martin,  the 
pure  patriot  of  transparent  honesty,  who  through  all  the 
years  of  changing  fortune,  and  of  almost  unbroken  disaster 
from  his  early  days  of  abortive  revolution,  had  clung  without 
one  moment's  interruption  to  the  cause  of  self-government. 
This  led  to  one  of  the  fiercest  and  most  memorable  electoral 
contests  in  Irish  history.  The  Catholic  clergy  took  up  the 
cause  of  Captain  Greville-Nugent  with  zeal,  and  on  his  behalf 
large  sums  of  money  were  lavishly  spent.  There  were  violent 
collisions  throughout  the  county,  and  after  a  contest  of  almost 
unexampled  bitterness,  Captain  Greville-Nugent  was  returned 
by  an  overwhelming  majority,  to  be  shortly  afterwards 
unseated  on  the  ground  of  clerical  intimidation. 

Meantime,  another  movement  had  been  going  forward, 
which  was  destined  to  add  a  new  and  even  more  potent  force 
to  the  growing  cause  of  self-government.  Though  the  Church 
question  had  been  pushed  to  the  front,  the  Land  question  still 
retained  its  place  as  the  supreme  issue  to  the  majority  of 
the  population.  The  attention  of  England,  directed  to  Ire- 
land, had  been  turned  to  the  land  as  well  as  to  the  other 


220  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

grievances  from  which  the  country  was  suffering,  and  public 
opinion  in  England  had  reached  in  1868  to  that  stage  to 
which  the  public  opinion  of  Ireland  had  reached  at  least  half 
a  century  before.  By  a  fortunate  coincidence  a  great  catas- 
trophe happened  to  occur  at  this  psychological  moment 
which  demonstrated  the  meaning  of  the  Irish  land  system  in 
a  manner  so  flagrant  that  the  blindest  must  see.  The  estate 
of  Ballycohey  had  fallen  some  years  before  into  the  hands  of 
Mr.  William  Scully.  Mr.  Scully  was  a  member  of  the  family 
which  had  as  its  chief  representative  Mr.  John  Sadleir,  who 
was  brother  of  one  and  cousin  of  another  of  the  Scullys  . 
whom  Sadleir's  influence  had  returned  as  members  of  Parlia- 
ment in  1852.  The  tenants  paid  high  rents,  mostly  paid 
punctually,  and  were  described  on  all  sides  as  industrious, 
thrifty,  and  well-behaved.  But  Mr.  Scully  was  not  a  man 
to  be  satisfied  with  the  mere  punctual  payment  of  rent.  A 
tenant  who  was  not  also  a  serf  did  not  reach  his  idea  of  the 
true  relations  between  the  owner  and  the  occupier  of  the  soil. 
His  ideas  on  this  point  and  his  characteristic  feeling  had  been 
sufficiently  brought  into  relief  by  his  previous  career.  No 
less  than  twice  he  had  been  tried  on  charges  of  brutal 
violence  against  his  tenants,  and  the  violence  had  been 
employed  in  the  work  of  carrying  out  evictions.  In  1 849 — that 
dread  year  when  the  universal  misery  of  the  Irish  nation 
might  be  considered  a  sufficient  protection  against  any  further 
misery — in  the  year  1849,  Mr.  Scully  was  tried  at  the 
Clonmel  assizes  on  the  charge  of  shooting  two  young  men, 
whose  father  he  was  evicting.  He  was  acquitted  ;  but  less 
fortunate  on  the  second  occasion,  he  was  convicted  and 
sentenced  to  twelvemonths'  imprisonment  with  hard  labour, 
at  the  summer  assizes  of  Kilkenny  in  1865.  He  had  beaten 
and  wounded  the  wife  of  one  of  his  tenants  while  breaking 
into  his  house  in  the  middle  of  the  night  for  the  purpose  of 
serving  a  notice  or  making  a  seizure.  The  Ballycohey  tenants 
were  not  long  in  finding  the  worst  fears  realised  which  their 
change  of  master  had  excited.  Mr.  Scully  proposed  for  their 
acceptance  a  form  of  lease  which  contained  terms  of  almost 
incredible  harshness.  '  The  tenants  were  always  to  have  a 
half-year's  rent  paid  in  advance  ;  to  pay  the  rent  quarterly  ; 


REVOLUTION  221 

to  surrender  in  twenty-one  days'  notice  at  the  end  of  any 
quarter  ;  to  forego  all  claims  in  their  own  crops  that  might  be 
in  the  soil  ;  and  they  were  to  pay  all  rates  and  taxes  what- 
soever.' Everybody  who  did  not  accept  this  lease  was  to  be 
evicted. 

Early  in  June,  1868,  Mr.  Scully  ordered  his  tenants  to  come 
into  Dobbyn's  hotel,  in  the  town  of  Tipperary  with  their  May 
rent.  In  the  hotel  he  awaited  their  arrival,  a  loaded  re- 
volver on  each  side  of  him  and  an  armed  policeman  close 
by.  He  had  also  close  to  him  a  supply  of  the  leases  and  of 
notices  to  quit,  and  the  tenant,  as  he  paid  his  rent,  was  to  have 
his  choice  between  the  signature  of  the  one  or  the  receipt  of 
the  other.  The  tenants,  suspecting  the  existence  of  such  a 
plan,  sent  in  their  rent — except  in  four  cases — by  deputy, 
by  their  wives  or  sons.  Mr.  Scully  now  declared  open  war, 
and  took  out  ejectment  processes.  These  processes  had  to 
be  served  personally.  Mr.  Scully  was  warned  by  everybody 
that  such  work  could  not  be  carried  out  without  the  risk  of 
bloodshed,  but  he  resolved  to  go  forward.  His  first  attempt 
—made  on  Tuesday,  August  u,  1868 — failed.  The  tenants, 
for  the  most  part,  abandoned  their  houses,  and  an  angry 
crowd  attacked  the  police  and  pursued  them  back  into  the 
town  of  Tipperary.  On  the  following  Friday  Mr.  Scully 
again  renewed  the  attempt ;  again  he  failed  before  the  deter- 
mination of  the  populace,  and  was  returning  home  in  discom- 
fiture, when  his  attention  was  attracted  by  the  house  of  John 
Dwyer — one  of  his  tenants — whose  situation  seemed  to  invite 
attack.  It  turned  out  that  the  house  had  been  carefully  pre- 
pared for  attack.  Mr.  Scully  and  his  companions  were  received 
with  a  volley  from  inside.  Mr.  Scully  and  some  of  his  com- 
panions were  severely  wounded  ;  Gorman,  a  land-bailiff,  and 
Morrow,  a  sub-constable  of  police,  were  killed. 

This  tragic  incident  aroused  a  storm  of  indignation  against 
Mr.  Scully  and  the  land  system  which  permitted  such  horrors, 
and  as  Mr.  A.  M.  Sullivan  writes,  it  '  passed  the  Irish  Land 
Act  of  1870.'  The  reader,  however,  will  not  fail  to  notice  that, 
brutal  as  are  the  circumstances,  the  Ballycohey  evictions  do 
not  approach  in  elements  of  horror  and  cruelty  many  evic- 
tion scenes  which  have  been  described  in  preceding  pages, 


222  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

and  which  excited  either  no  attention  among  the  English 
people,  or  the  attention  only  of  contempt,  and  which  were 
allowed  by  the  English  Legislature  to  go  on  from  year  to  year, 
and  sometimes  by  tens  of  thousands  in  a  single  year,  as  one 
of  the  misunderstood  blessings  of  English  rule  to  the  Irish 
people. 

In  Ireland,  meantime,  all  things  tended  to  rouse  the 
people  to  one  of  those  periodical  movements  of  tempestuous 
passion  and  united  strength  for  the  liberation  of  the  people 
from  intolerable  tyranny.  Throughout  the  country  mass 
meetings  were  held,  and  the  demand  of  the  farmers  was  put 
forward  with  thundrous  emphasis.  Sir  John  Gray  had  made 
himself  the  parliamentary  leader  of  this,  as  of  the  movement 
against  the  Irish  Church,  and  his  activity  at  this  time  was 
phenomenal.  There  was  scarcely  a  part  of  Ireland  in  which 
he  did  not  address  the  now  thoroughly  aroused  farmers.  The 
demand  put  forward  was  for  the  '  Three  F's  ' — fixity  of  tenure, 
free  sale,  and  fair  rent  ;  and  the  farmers  had  heard  this  demand 
advocated  so  often,  had  shouted  themselves  hoarse  by  so  many 
hillsides  in  uttering  it,  had  been  so  stimulated  and  encouraged 
by  the  sight  of  their  battalions  in  regular  array,  Sunday  after 
Sunday,  and  in  county  after  county,  that  by  the  time  Parlia- 
ment met  they  regarded  the  '  Three  F's  '  as  having  already 
passed  from  the  region  of  popular  platforms  to  that  of  parlia- 
mentary debates  and  of  statute  law. 

The  introduction  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  Bill  was  the  mournful 
awakening  that  came  to  all  these  splendid  dreams.  The 
measure  of  the  Prime  Minister  stopped  far  short  indeed  of  the 
1  Three  F's '  ;  not  satisfied,  too,  with  refusing  to  grant  these 
boons  demanded  by  a  unanimous  Ireland,  the  Prime  Minister 
exhausted  all  the  resources  of  his  limitless  rhetoric  and  infinite 
subtlety  in  proving  that  these  demands  meant  robbery  of  the 
landlords  and  ruin  to  the  tenants. 

Sir  John  Gray  and  other  Irish  representatives  in  vain 
protested  against  the  measure  as  being  either  just,  or  practical, 
or  final.  They  were  drowned  in  the  whirlwind  of  the  Prime 
Minister's  orations  or  in  the  smaller  gusts  from  the  mouths  of 
his  obedient  supporters.  One  and  all  agreed,  above  all  other 
things,  that  the  measure  was  final. 


REVOLUTION  223 

When  the  division  came  on  the  second  reading  of  the  Bill, 
the  party  of  the  extremists — as  they  were  called — dwindled 
to  the  most  miserable  proportions,  and  the  Land  Bill  passed 
its  second  reading  by  442  to  n.  Thirteen,  including  tellers, 
had  voted  against  the  Land  Bill  of  1870  as  a  final  settle- 
ment of  the  Irish  Land  question. 

If  any  further  proof  were  required,  in  the  then  temper  of 
Ireland,  of  the  incurable  folly  and  incapacity  of  the  British 
Parliament,  it  was  supplied  by  its  action  on  the  Land  question 
in  1 870.  The  sentimental  forces  which  had  been  gathering  in 
such  might  in  favour  of  self-government  were  now  materi- 
ally increased  by  the  accession  of  the  mighty  battalions  of 
the  disillusioned  and  disappointed  farmers  of  the  country. 
The  movement  had  its  leader  ready. 

Throughout  the  Land  agitation,  Mr.  Isaac  Butt  had  been 
careful  to  impress  steadily  upon  the  farmers  that,  if  their  hopes 
were  entirely  centred  on  Mr.  Gladstone  or  on  the  English 
Parliament,  their  hopes  were  doomed  to  disappointment  To 
these  words  of  his  additional  significance  was  given  by  the  com- 
manding position  to  which  he  was  gradually  attaining  in  the 
country.  He  had  taken  a  prominent  part  in  the  defence  of  the 
Fenian  prisoners  throughout  the  long  and  hopeless  struggles 
against  conviction  at  the  State  trials.  This  had  brought 
him  back  to  the  recollection  of  the  generation  to  whom  his 
achievements  in  the  days  of  O'Connell  were  but  forgotten 
tales.  Into  the  Amnesty  movement,  which  immediately 
followed,  he  had  thrown  himself  with  all  his  force.  It  was  a 
movement  from  which  the  greater  number  of  the  Irish  repre- 
sentatives kept  cautiously  aloof,  and  Butt  was  thus  practically 
its  only  prominent  and  noteworthy  figure.  The  Bill  of  Mr. 
Gladstone  had  fulfilled  the  prophecies  of  Mr.  Butt,  and  the 
farmers  of  Ireland  were  now,  with  the  rest  of  the  country,  a 
solid  mass,  asking  him  to  lead  them  in  a  movement  that 
would  make  the  destinies  of  Ireland  independent  of  the  folly 
of  English  Ministers  and  the  ignorance  of  English  parlia- 
ments. 

But  the  foundation  of  the  Home  Rule  movement,  curiously 
enough,  was  laid,  not  in  obedience  to  the  impulse  of  the 
masses  of  the  people,  but  in  the  rancour  of  a  small  and  a 


224  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

defeated  minority  of  the  population.  The  Disestablishment  of 
the  Church  had  brought  back  a  certain  proportion  of  the  Protes- 
tant population  to  that  spirit  of  nationality  which  had  found 
its  most  eloquent  advocates  in  the  exclusively  Protestant 
Parliament  of  the  ante-Union  days.  A  certain  number  of  very 
moderate  gentlemen  of  the  Catholic  faith  saw  in  a  movement 
which  Protestant  Conservatives  were  able  to  support  elements 
which  need  not  alarm  the  most  milk-and-water  adherents  of 
the  doctrine  of  Nationality.  There  were  more  stable  elements 
in  constitutional  agitators,  who  had  fought  doggedly  on  for  a 
Native  Parliament  through  the  long  eclipse  of  national  faith 
between  1855  and  that  hour,  like  Mr.  A.  M.  Sullivan  ;  and  in 
some  men— such  as  Mr.  O'Kelly,  M.P.  for  Roscommon— who, 
appearing  under  disguised  names,  sought,  after  the  break- 
down of  their  efforts  to  free  Ireland  by  force,  whether  there 
was  any  chance  of  success  through  parliamentary  action.  The 
latter  element  took  up  this  attitude  at  that  period  with  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  trepidation  and  at  some  personal  risk  ;  for  the 
distrust  of  constitutional  agitation  and  the  hatred  of  consti- 
tutional agitators  still  survived  among  the  relics  of  Fenianism, 
and  the  new  movement  was  looked  upon  by  them  with  the 
same  latent  and  perilous  distrust  as  all  its  predecessors.  The 
meeting  was  held  on  May  19,  1870,  in  the  Bilton  Hotel, 
Sackville  Street,  Dublin.  The  very  place  of  meeting  was 
suggestive  of  the  change  that  had  come  over  the  spirit  of  the 
times,  for  the  Bilton  Hotel  was  known  for  many  years  as  the 
sacred  home  of  the  landlords,  of  their  bishops,  their  clergy,  and 
their  other  supporters.  The  condition  of  the  same  place  to- 
day indicates  the  far  greater  change  that  has  come  over 
Ireland  since  1870,  for  the  Bilton  now  lies  empty  and  idle, 
with  mud-bespattered  windows,  its  patrons  swept  away  in  the 
avalanche  of  1880. 

At  this  meeting  were  present  Conservatives  as  well  known 
as  Mr.  Purdon,  then  Conservative  Lord  Mayor  of  Dublin  ; 
Mr.  Kinahan,  who  had  been  High  Sheriff;  and  Major  Knox, 
proprietor  of  the  '  Irish  Times,'  a  Conservative  organ  ;  nor 
should  the  name  be  omitted  of  a  gentleman  who  was  for  a 
considerable  time  to  play  a  prominent  part  in  the  new  move- 
ment—Colonel, then  Captain  Edward  R.  King-Harman.  Mr. 


REVOLUTION  225 

Butt   was   the  chief  speaker,  and    on    his   proposition,  and 
without  a  dissentient  voice,  the  resolution  was  passed,  '  That 
it  is  the  opinion  of  this  meeting  that  the  true  remedy  for  the 
evils  of  Ireland  is  the  establishment  of  an  Irish  parliament 
with  full  control  over  our  domestic  affairs.'     A  new  organisa- 
tion was  founded  under  the  name  of  '  The  Home  Government 
Association  of  Ireland.'     The  Association  put  forward  a  com- 
plete  scheme.      The   arrangements  for  the  future  relations 
between  England  and  Ireland  were  to  be  on  the  federal  plan — 
Ireland   to  be  exclusively  mistress   of  Irish  affairs,  and  the 
Imperial  Parliament  to  have  sole  control  over  purely  imperial 
affairs.     Before  long,  the  movement  spread  with  the  rapidity 
which  always  comes  to  movements  founded  on  indestructible 
aspirations.     Now,  just  as  in  1843,  the  people  had  only  to  see 
a  movement  in  favour  of  self  government  to  flock  enthusiasti- 
cally to  its  ranks.     The  long  torpor  that  had  followed   the 
famine    and    Judge  Keogh  had  at  last  passed    away.      The 
new  life  inspired  by  Fenianism  had  been  made  more  vital  by 
the  destruction  of  the  Irish  Church,  the  first  assault  on  the 
uncontrolled  despotism  of  the  landlords,  and  the  many  kindly 
sentiments — not    yet   explained    away — in    the    Lancashire 
speeches  of  Mr.  Gladstone.     Then  the  Prime  Minister  had 
passed  another  measure  which  transcended  in  importance  any 
other  of  the  great  Acts  which  made  his  first  Premiership  so 
momentous  an  epoch  in  the  resurrection  of  Ireland.     This 
was  the  Ballot  Act.     For  the  first  time  in  his  history  the  Irish 
tenant  could  vote  without  the  fear  of  eviction,  with  the  atten- 
dant risks  of  hunger,  exile,  or  death.     The  Ballot  Act  was  an  j 
act  of  emancipation  to  the   Irish  tenant  in  a  sense  far  more/ 
real  than  the  Emancipation  Act  of  1829.     From  the  passage 
of  that  Ballot  Act  is  to  be  dated  the  era  when,  for  the  first 
time  in  her  history,  the  real  voice  of  Ireland  had  some  oppor- 
tunity of  making   itself  heard.       The   new  force   advanced 
against  all  opponents,  and  every  constituency  that  had  its 
choice  declared    with   unfaltering    fidelity   in    favour  of  the 
National  candidate.     Four  bye-elections  gave  the  new  organ- 
isation an  opportunity  of  testing   its  strength.     John  Martin, 
defeated  in  Longford,  stood  for  the  county  of  Meath.     There 

Q 


226  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

again  he  was  opposed  by  the  Catholic  clergy,  who  before  the 
announcement  of  his  candidature  had  seemed  to  find  in  the 
Hon.  Mr.  Plunket,  brother  of  Lord  Fingal,  a  popular  aristo- 
crat, the  most  suitable  of  candidates.  But  Mr.  Martin  was 
triumphantly  returned.  It  was  regarded  in  those  days— how 
far  off  they  seem  now  !— as  another  signal  victory  when 
Mr.  Mitchell  Henry  was  returned  as  the  Home  Rule  member 
for  the  county  of  Galway,  and  that  Mr.  P.  J.  Smyth  was 
elected  for  the  county  of  Westmeath.  Mr.  Butt  himself  was, 
in  1871,  returned  without  any  opposition  for  the  city  of 
Limerick. 

But  the  party  of  Whiggery  was  not  yet  willing  to  acknow- 
ledge the  completeness  of  its  defeat.     The  final  struggle  took 
place  in  the  county  of  Kerry.     That  county  had  for  genera- 
tions been  represented  by  the  eldest  son  of  the  Earl  of  Ken- 
mare,  the  Viscount  Castlerosse.    The  death  of  Lord  Kenmare, 
in  December   1871,  left  a  vacancy.     At  that  period  the  idea 
of  opposing  in  the  county  of  Kerry  the  nominee  of  its  most 
distinguished  and  most  powerful  family  seemed  little  short  of 
madness  ;    but  the  Home  Rulers,  confident  in  their  growing 
strength,  determined  to  put  the  people  to  the  test,  and  they 
were  supposed  to  have  been  peculiarly  fortunate  in  finding 
their  standard-bearer  in   the   person   of  a  young  Protestant 
Irish   landlord,  Mr.   Rowland  P.  Blennerhassett.     The   other 
side  was  represented  by  a  man  marked  out  with  equal  suita- 
bility as  the  best  mouthpiece  of  his  political  creed.     Mr.  James 
Arthur  Dcase,  the  Whig  candidate,  was  an  Irish  landlord  of 
ancient  family,  of  considerable  talents  and  of  stainless  cha- 
racter, and  was  a  Catholic  in  religion.     Thus  the  Whig  candi- 
date-had cvcr\'  advantage  that  could  recommend  him  to  an  Irish 
constituency  outside  his  politics,  while  his  opponent  differed 
from  them  in  everything  but  his  political  faith.     But  it  is  one 
of  the  differences  between  England  and  Ireland  that  the  Irish 
people  have  advanced  infinitely  farther  on    the  road  of  re- 
ligious toleration  ;  a  difference  in  creed  in  a  man  of  congenial 
politics  is  not  so  much  forgiven  as  not  even  thought  of;  and 
Mr.  Blenncrhassett's  creed  was,  if  anything,  an  advantage,  as 
showing  a  readiness  to  step  out  from  the  ranks  of  hereditary 
enemies  and  class  prejudices,  while  the  blackness  of  Mr.  Dease's 


REVOLUTION  227 

political  guilt  was  intensified  by  its  apostasy  from  his  natural 
alliances  and  natural  training.  The  contest  was  rendered  more 
unequal  by  the  fact  that  behind  the  Catholic  Whig  were 
arrayed  all  the  mighty  forces  of  the  ecclesiastical  authorities. 
The  Bishop  of  Kerry  at  that  period  was  Dr.  Moriarty,  a  man 
of  great  abilities,  high  culture,  and  an  unflinching  and  fearless 
advocate  of  Whiggery.  He  was  the  prelate  who,  during  the 
Fenian  movement,  declared  that  hell  was  not  hot  enough  nor 
eternity  long  enough  to  punish  such  miscreants.  But  the 
popular  forces  bore  all  before  them,  fought  and  conquered  the 
influence  of  the  landlords,  and  of  the  bishop  and  clergy,  and 
Mr.  Blennerhassett  was  returned.  In  County  Gal  way  had 
been  proceeding  a  contest  almost  equally  noteworthy.  Captain 
(now  Colonel)  Nolan  had  been  opposed  by  Major  Trench,  a 
member  of  the  Clancarty  family.  In  this  case  the  popular 
candidate  was  supported  by  the  priests,  and  the  Protestant 
Conservative,  on  the  other  hand,  was  backed  by  all  the  influ- 
ence of  the  landlords  without  distinction  of  creed.  The 
contest  was  fought  out  with  great  bitterness,  and  resulted  in  a 
victory  for  Captain  Nolan.1  The  struggle  between  Whiggery 

J  Captain  Nolan's  return  was  petitioned  against  :  Judge  Keogh  was  the  judge 
who  tried  the  petition,  and  his  judgment  was  one  of  his  latest  and  most  character- 
istic utterances.  He  unseated  Captain  Nolan  on  the  ground  of  clerical  intimida- 
tion, and  this  decision  was  announced  in  a  judgment  that  occupied  several  hours 
in  delivery,  and  was  full  of  the  most  extraordimry  Billingsgate.  The  judgment 
produced  the  greatest  satisfaction  in  England,  and  the  Judge,  during  a  brief  visit 
to  London,  was  a  social  lion,  Sir  Henry  James  being  one  of  his  chief  patrons. 
In  Ireland — such  is  the  community  of  sentiment  between  the  two  countries — the 
judgment  produced  an  outburst  of  the  fiercest  wrath.  Its  outrageous  insults 
against  bishops  and  priests,  offensive  in  any  man,  were  felt  the  more  bitterly  as 
coming  from  the  traitor  who  had  been  helped  by  bishops  and  priests  to  be  suc- 
ces^ful  in  his  treason.  He  was  burnt  in  effigy  throughout  the  country,  his  life  was 
daily  threatened,  and  the  national  passion  gave  even  more  substantial  proof  of  its 
intensity,  for  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks  the  sum  of  about  I4,ooo/.  was  raised  to 
pay  the  election  expenses  of  Captain  Nolan.  This  will  be  the  place  to  tell  the 
end  of  Judge  Keogh.  In  the  year  1878  the  sensational  rumour  reached  Dnblin 
that  he  had  developed  symptoms  of  insanity  in  Belgium,  whither  he  had  been 
removed  for  the  benefit  of  his  health,  and  that  he  had  attempted  to  murder  his 
attendant  himself.  The  rumour  proved  correct.  From  this  period  forth  he  seems 
never  to  have  recovered  full  possession  of  his  senses,  and  gradually  sank.  He 
was  removed  to  Bingen,  and  there  died  on  September  30,  1878.  An  English- 
man, with  characteristic  appreciation  of  Irish  character,  is  said  to  have  placed  a 

Q  2 


228  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

and  Home  Rule  was  now  over.  Ireland  had  definitely 
declared  for  the  new  leader  and  the  new  movement. 

stone  over  his  remains  with  the  inscription,  '  Jttstum  et  tenacem  propositi  vimm? 
The  country  which  he  had  betrayed  and  ruined,  on  the  other  hand,  congratulated 
itself  in  not  having  received  his  remains.  Indeed,  some  desperate  spirits  had 
resolved  that  the  body  should  never  rest  in  hallowed  ground  ;  a  plot  was  complete 
for  seizing  the  body  during  the  funeral  and  throwing  it  into  the  Liffey. 


229 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

ISAAC   BUTT. 

ISAAC  BUTT  was  the  son  of  a  Protestant  clergyman  of  the 
North  of  Ireland.  He  claimed  descent  from  Berkeley,  and 
this  partly  accounted  for  the  devotion  to  metaphysical 
studies  which  characterised  him  throughout  his  busy  life. 
His  mother  was  a  remarkable  woman  :  a  great  story-teller 
among  other  things.  The  place  of  his  birth  was  near  the 
Gap  of  Barnesmore,  a  line  of  hills  which  is  rarely,  if  ever, 
without  shadow — not  unlike  Butt's  own  life.  It  was  one  of 
his  theories  that  people  born  amid  mountain  scenery  are 
more  imaginative  than  the  children  of  the  plains.  His  own 
nature  was  certainly  imaginative  in  the  highest  degree,  with 
the  breadth  and  height  of  imaginative  men,  and  also  with 
the  doubtings,  despondency,  and  the  dread  of  the  Unseen. 

For  many  years  he  stood  firmly  by  the  principles  of 
Orange  Toryism,  and  he  had  the  career  which  then  belonged 
to  every  young  Irish  Protestant  of  ability.  He  went  to 
Trinity  College,  which  at  the  time  presented  large  prizes,  and 
presented  them  to  those  only  who  had  the  good  luck  to 
belong  to  the  favoured  faith.  Butt's  advancement  was  rapid. 
He  was  not  many  years  a  student  when  he  was  raised  to  a 
Professorship  of  Political  Economy.  When  he  went  to  the 
Bar  his  success  came  with  the  same  ease  and  rapidity.  He 
was  but  thirty-one  years  of  age.  and  had  been  only  six  years 
at  the  Bar,  when  he  was  made  a  Queen's  Counsel.  In  politics, 
however,  he  had  made  his  chief  distinction.  It  will  be  re- 
membered that  when  O'Connell  sought  to  obtain  a  declaration 
in  favour  of  Repeal  of  the  Union  from  the  newly  emancipated 
Corporation  of  Dublin,  Butt  was  selected  by  his  co-religionists, 
young  as  he  was,  to  meet  the  Great  Liberator,  and  his  speech 
was  as  good  a  one  as  could  be  made  on  the  side  of  the  main- 
tenance of  the  Union  ;  and  many  a  year  after,  when  he  had 


23o  THE   PARNELL   MOVENENT 

become  the  leader  of  a  Home  Rule  party,  was  quoted  against 
him  by  Sir  Michael  Hicks-Beach,  the  Irish  Chief  Secretary 
of  the  period. 

In  the  State  trials  of  1848  Butt  was  one  of  the  chief 
figures,  and  in  every  important  trial,  for  several  years,  he  was 
engaged.  Of  great  though  irregular  industry,  deeply  devoted 
to  study,  with  a  mind  of  large  grasp  and  a  singularly  retentive 
memory,  he  was  intimately  acquainted  with  all  the  secrets  of 
his  profession  ;  and  throughout  his  life  was  acknowledged  to 
be  a  fine  lawyer.  He  represented  in  Parliament  both  Youghal 
in  his  native  county,  and  Harwich  in  England.  As  an 
English  member  he  belonged  to  the  Protectionist  party,  and 
was  among  the  ablest  spokesmen  of  the  creed  in  its  last  and 
forlorn  struggles.  His  entrance  into  Parliament  aggravated 
many  of  his  weaknesses.  It  separated  him  from  his  pro- 
fession in  Dublin,  and  thereby  increased  his  already  great 
pecuniary  liabilities.  His  character  in  many  respects  was  sin- 
gularly feeble.  Some  of  his  weaknesses  leaned  to  virtue's  side, 
and  many  of  the  stories  told  of  him  suggest  a  resemblance 
to  the  character  of  Alexandre  Dumas  pere.  He  borrowed 
largely  and  lent  largely,  and  often  in  the  midst  of  his  sorest 
straits  lavished  on  others  the  money  which  he  required  him- 
self, and  which  often  did  not  belong  to  him.  Throughout 
his  life  he  was,  as  a  consequence,  pursued  by  the  bloodhound 
of  vast  and  insurmountable  debt.  At  least  once  he  was  for 
several  months  in  a  debtors'  prison,  and  there  used  to  be 
terrible  stories — even  in  the  days  when  he  was  an  English 
member  of  Parliament — of  unpaid  cabmen  and  appearances 
at  the  police  courts. 

Butt  was  a  man  of  supreme  political  genius :  one  of  those 
whose  right  to  intellectual  eminence  is  never  questioned,  but 
willingly  conceded  without  effort  on  his  side,  without  opposi- 
tion on  the  part  of  others.  But  the  irregularities  of  his  life 
shut  him  out  from  official  employment,  and  he  saw  a  long 
series  of  inferiors  reach  to  position  and  wealth  while  he 
remained  poor  and  neglected.  There  is  a  considerable  period 
of  his  life  which  is  almost  total  eclipse.  There  came  an 
Indian  summer  when  he  returned  to  the  practice  of  his  pro- 
fession in  Ireland,  and  once  more  joined  in  the  fortunate 
struggles  of  his  countrymen. 


ISAAC   BUTT  231 

The  reader  has  already  been  told  of  the  prominent  part 
he  had  played  in  the  defence  of  the  Fenian  prisoners,  in  the 
Amnesty  movement  afterwards  started  for  their  release,  in  the 
Land  agitation  that  preceded  the  Land  Act  of  1870,  and 
finally  in  the  inauguration  of  the  Home  Rule  movement.  In 
this  way  he  had  once  more  become  a  prominent  and  an  im- 
mensely popular  political  figure.  Then  he  had  been  sent  to  Par- 
liament, and  already  in  several  of  the  constituencies  the  new 
movement  had  supplied  the  candidate  and  the  cry.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone's dissolution  of  1 874  came  upon  Butt  with  the  same  bewil- 
dering surprise  as  upon  so  many  other  people.  That  election 
found  him  in  a  cruel  difficulty.  On  the  one  hand,  the  country 
was  beyond  all  question  with  him  ;  he  knew  that  he  could  count 
on  the  masses  to  vote  in  favour  of  self-government  as  securely 
as  every  other  popular  leader  who  has  ever  been  able  to  make 
the  appeal.  The  majority  of  the  constituencies  were  ready,  he 
knew,  to  return  Home  Rule  candidates  ;  and  thus  the  general 
election  afforded  him  the  opportunity  of  creating  a  greater 
Home  Rule  party.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  elections  cannot  be 
fought  without  money  ;  elections  were  dearer  then  even  than 
they  are  now,  and  Butt  wanted  to  fight,  not  a  seat  here  and 
there,  but  a  whole  national  campaign  ;  for  three-fourths  of 
the  constituencies  could  be  won  by  a  Home  Rule  candidate  if 
a  Home  Rule  candidate  could  be  brought  forward.  For  so 
immense  a  work  he  had  nothing  to  fall  back  on  but  a  few 
hundreds  of  pounds  in  the  funds  of  the  Home  Rule  Associa- 
tion, and  he  himself  was  at  one  of  his  recurrent  periods  of 
desperate  need.  I  have  heard  on  pretty  good  authority  that 
he  was  arrested  for  debt  on  the  very  morning  of  the  day 
when,  learning  of  the  dissolution,  he  was  making  his  plan  of 
campaign,  and  that,  though  the  matter  was  arranged  in  some 
way  or  other,  it  prevented  him  from  exercising  that  personal 
supervision  over  the  general  election  which  is  absolutely 
required  from  the  leader  of  a  movement. 

Butt  could  only  adopt,  under  the  circumstances,  a  policy  of 
compromise,  and  make  the  best  out  of  bad  but  inevitable 
material.  Where  there  was  a  real  and  genuine  Home  Rule 
candidate  ready  to  come  forward,  and  able  to  bear  the  ex- 
penses of  an  election  contest,  Butt  fought  the  seat.  In  this 
way  he  was  able  to  bring  into  public  life  many  earnest  men 


232  THE   PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

who  had  for  years  found  it  impossible  to  take  any  parlia- 
mentary part  in  rescuing  the  country.  His  party  contained 
A.  M.  Sullivan,  Mr.  Biggar,  Mr.  Richard  Power,  Mr.  Shell-, 
and  several  others,  who  were  really  devoted  to  the  National 
cause.  On  the  other  hand,  he  had  to  accept,  in  constituencies 
where  he  had  not  the  men  or  the  money  to  fight,  the  '  death- 
bed repentance,'  as  it  was  called,  of  men  who  had  grown  grey 
in  the  service  of  one  or  other  of  the  English  parties.  These 
time-worn  Whigs  or  Tories — such  as  Sir  Patrick  O'Brien  and 
Sir  George  Bowyer — of  course  swallowed  the  Home  Rule 
pledge.  Some  of  the  new  men  were  little  better.  The  race 
of  Rabagas  had  been  scotched  but  not  killed,  and  among 
Butt's  recruits  was  a  certain  proportion  of  lawyers,  who  were 
as  ready  as  any  of  their  predecessors  to  sell  themselves  and 
their  principles  to  the  highest  bidder.  Many  of  them  have 
since  received  office  ;  all  of  the  tribe  have  expected  and 
asked  it.  It  was,  then,  a  very  mixed  party  Butt  had  gathered 
around  him — a  party  of  patriots  and  of  place-hunters,  of 
men  young,  earnest,  and  fresh  for  struggle,  and  of  men 
physically  exhausted  and  morally  dead,  a  party  of  life-long 
Nationalists  and  of  veteran  lacqueys.  There  was  a  tragic 
contrast  between  such  a  party  and  the  renewed  and  sublime 
and  noble  hopes  of  the  nation.  This  fact  must  always  in 
fairness  be  recollected  when  the  policy  of  Butt  is  criticised. 
That  policy  was  in  every  respect  perfectly  wrong  and  f  til  of 
the  most  serious  dangers  to  Ireland,  but  it  was  a  policy  that 
was  largely  forced  upon  him  by  the  weakness  and  worthlesr.ness 
of  the  elements  around  him.  The  party,  however,  such  as  it 
was,  pronounced,  in  no  unmistakable  terms,  the  verdict  of 
the  Irish  people  on  the  legislative  tenure  between  England 
and  Ireland.  Of  the  103  Irish  members,  sixty  were  returned 
pledged  to  vote  for  the  entire  rearrangement  of  the  legislative 
relations  between  the  two  countries. 

Such  was  the  Parliament  ;  and  now  how  was  it  with  the 
leader  ?  His  weakness  with  regard  to  pecuniary  matters  has 
been  already  touched  upon  ;  he  had,  besides,  all  the  other 
foibles,  as  well  as  the  charms,  of  an  easy-going,  good-natured, 
pliant  temperament.  Though  his  faults  were  grossly  exagger- 
ated—for instance,  many  intimates  declare  that  they  never 
saw  him,  even  during  the  acquaintance  of  years,  once  under 


ISAAC   BUTT  233 

the  influence  of  drink — he  had,  unquestionably,  made  many 
sacrifices  on  the  altars  of  the  gods  of  indulgence.  It  may  be 
that  with  him,  as  with  so  many  others,  the  pursuit  of 
pleasure  was  but  the  misnomer  for  the  flight  from  despair. 
He  was  all  his  life  troubled  by  an  unusually  slow  circulation, 
and  it  may  be  that  the  central  note  of  his  character  was 
melancholy.  In  his  early  days  he  was  a  constant  contributor 
to  the  *  Dublin  University  Magazine,5  and  his  tales  have  a  vein 
of  the  morbid  melancholy  that  runs  through  the  youthful 
letters  of  Alfred  de  Musset.  Allusion  has  been  already  made  to 
his  imaginativeness  :  this  imaginativeness  did  much  to  weaken 
his  resolve.  Curious  stories  are  told  of  the  superstitions  that 
ran  through  his  nature.  Though  a  Protestant,  he  used  to  carry 
some  of  the  religious  symbols — medals,  for  instance — which 
Catholics  wear,  and  he  would  not  go  into  a  law  court  without 
his  medals.  There  are  still  more  ludicrous  stories  of  his 
standing  appalled  or  delighted  before  such  accidents  as  put- 
ting on  his  clothes  the  wrong  way,  and  other  trivialities. 
Then,  the  demon  of  debt,  which  had  haunted  him  all  his  life, 
now  stood  menacing  behind  him.  He  had  just  re-established 
himself  in  a  considerable  practice  when  he  again  entered 
Parliament,  and  membership  of  Parliament  is  entirely  in- 
compatible with  the  retention  of  his  entire  practice  by  an 
Irish  barrister.  He  was  throughout  his  leadership  divided 
between  a  dread  dilemma  :  either  he  had  to  neglect  Parlia- 
ment, and  then  his  party  was  endangered  ;  or  neglect  his 
practice,  and  then  -bring  ruin  on  himself  and  a  family  en- 
tirely unprovided  for,  deeply  loving  and  deeply  loved.  There 
is  no  Nemesis  so  relentless  as  that  which  dogs  pecuniary 
recklessness  ;  the  spendthrift  is  also  the  drudge  ;  and  in  his 
days  of  old  age,  weakness,  and  terrible  political  responsi- 
bilities, Butt  had  to  fly  between  London  and  Dublin,  to 
stop  up  o'  nights,  alternately  reading  briefs  and  drafting  Acts 
of  Parliament  :  to  make  his  worn  and  somewhat  unwieldy 
frame  do  the  double  work,  which  would  try  the  nerves  and 
strength  of  a  giant  with  the  limber  joints  and  freshness  of 
early  youth.  And  at  this  period  Butt's  frame  was  worn, 
though  to  outward  appearances  he  was  still  vigorous.  The 
hand  of  incurable  disease  already  held  him  tight,  and  the 
dark  death,  of  which  he  had  so  great  a  horror,  was  not  many 


234  *THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

years  off;  finally,  in  1874,  he  was  sixty-one  years  of  age. 
On  the  other  hand,  he  had  great  qualities  of  leadership.  He 
was  unquestionably  a  head  and  shoulders  above  all  his  fol- 
lowers, able  though  so  many  of  them  were,  and  was,  next  to 
Mr.  Gladstone,  the  greatest  Parliamentarian  of  his  day.  Then 
he  had  the  large  toleration  and  the  easy  temper  that  make 
leadership  a  light  burden  to  followers  ;  and  the  burden  of 
leadership  must  be  light  when — as  in  an  Irish  Party — the 
leader  has  no  offices  or  salaries  to  bestow.  And,  above  all, 
he  had  the  modesty  and  the  simplicity  of  real  greatness. 
Every  man  had  his  ear,  every  man  his  kindly  word  and  smile, 
and  some  his  strong  affection.  Thus  it  was  that  Butt  was  to 
many  the  most  lovable  of  men  ;  and  more  than  one  political 
opponent,  impelled  by  principle  to  regard  him  as  the  most 
serious  danger  to  the  Irish  cause,  struck  him  hard,  but  v/ept 
as  he  dealt  the  blow. 

This  sketch  of  the  character  of  Butt  will  show  the  points 
in  which  he  was  unsuitable  for  the  work  before  him.  He 
was  the  leader  of  a  small  party  in  an  assembly  to  which  it 
was  hateful  in  opinion,  and  feeling,  and  temperament.  A 
party  in  such  circumstances  can  only  make  its  way  by  au- 
dacious aggressiveness,  dogged  resistance,  relentless  purpose  ; 
and  for  such  parliamentary  forlorn  hopes  the  least  suited  of 
leaders  was  a  man  whom  a  single  groan  of  impatience  could 
hurt  and  one  word  of  compliment  delight. 

The  plan  adopted  by  Butt  with  his  new  party  was  to 
formulate  the  proposals  of  the  party  in  a  number  of  Bills  to 
be  brought  before  the  House  ;  and  it  ought  to  be  said,  in  jus- 
tice to  his  memory,  that  he  was  the  most  unsparing  of  him- 
self among  all  the  members  of  his  party  in  carrying  out  this 
policy.  With  his  own  hand  he  drafted  the  numerous  Bills  in 
which  these  proposals  were  embodied,  leaving  to  some  one  of  his 
followers  the  honour  of  proposing  them  to  the  House.  There 
was  one  question  above  all  others  in  which  he  took  an  in- 
terest, and  which  he  always  kept  in  his  own  hand.  This  was 
the  Land  question.  Butt's  record  on  the  Land  question  is, 
indeed,  one  of  the  most  honourable  chapters  in  his  whole 
career.  Harassed  as  he  was  by  debt  and  by  the  demands  of 
a  large  professional  practice,  he  found  time  to  write  a  whole 
scries  of  pamphlets  in  defence  of  the  claims  of  the  tenants ; 


ISAAC   BUTT 


235 


and  almost  immediately  after  the  passage  of  the  Land  Act 
of  1870  he  wrote  a  large  volume  on  the  Act  which  is  dis- 
tinguished by  legal  learning,  lucidity  of  style,  and  extra- 
ordinary subtlety  of  reasoning.  He  was,  too,  one  of  the  first 
to  discover  the  worthlessness  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  first  Land 
Act ;  and  he  never  ceased,  throughout  his  career  as  leader, 
to  agitate  for  its  amendment. 

The  history  of  Butt's  attempts  to  obtain  land  or  any  other 
reform  in  Ireland  from  the  Imperial  Parliament  was  the  same 
as  that  of  so  many  of  his  predecessors.  Year  after  year, 
session  after  session,  there  was  the  same  tale  of  Irish  demands 
mocked  at,  denounced  with  equal  vigour  by  the  leaders  of 
both  the  English  parties  alike,  and  then  rejected  in  the 
division  lobbies  by  overwhelming  English  majorities. 

The  following  is  a  list  of  the  Land  Bills  proposed  by 
Parliament  between  1871  and  i88o.1 


Date 

-Bill 

Introduced  by 

Fate 

1871 

Landed  Property,  Ireland,  Act,  1847, 

Amendment  Bill    .... 

Serjeant  Sherlock 

Withdrawn 

1872 

Ulster  Tenant  Right  Bill 

Mr.  Butt 

Dropped 

1873 

Ulster  Tenant  Right  Bill 

Mr.  Butt 

Dropped 

1873 

Landlord    and    Tenant    Act,    1870, 

Amendment  Bill    .... 

Mr.  Butt      . 

Dropped 

1873 

Landlord   and    Tenant    Act,    1870, 

Amendment  Bill,  No.  2 

Mr.  Heron   . 

Dropped 

1874 

Landlord    and    Tenant   Act,    1870, 

Amendment  Bill    .... 

Mr.  Butt      . 

Dropped 

1874 

Landlord    and    Tenant    Act,    1870, 

Amendment  Bill,  No.  2 

Sir  J.  Gray  . 

Dropped 

1874 

Ulster  Tenant  Right  Bill 

Mr.  Butt       . 

Dropped 

1874 

Irish  Land  Act  Extension  Bill 

The   O'Donoghue 

Dropped 

1875 

Landed  Proprietors',  Ireland,  Bill   . 

Mr.  Smyth   . 

Dropped 

1875 

Landlord  and  Tenant,  Ireland,  Act, 

1870,  Amendment  Bill   . 

Mr.  Crawford 

Rejected 

1876 

Landlord  and  Tenant,  Ireland,  Act, 

1870,  Amendment  Bill  . 

Mr.  Crawford 

Withdrawn 

1876 

Tenant    Right     on     Expiration    of 

Leases  Bill 

Mr.  Mulholland 

Dropped 

1876 

Land  Tenure,  Ireland,  Bill 

Mr.  Butt 

Rejected 

1877 

Land  Tenure,  Ireland,  Bill 

Mr.  Butt      . 

Rejected 

1877 

Landlord  and  Tenant,  Ireland,  Act, 

1870,  Amendment  Bill  . 

Mr.  Crawford 

Withdrawn 

1878 

Landlord  and  lenant,  Ireland,  Act, 

1870,  Amendment  Bill  . 

Mr.  Herbert 

Dropped 

1878 

Tenant  Right  Bill     .... 

Lord  A.  Hill 

Rejected  by  Lords 

1878 

Tenant  Right,  Ulster,  Bill 

Mr.  Macartney    . 

Withdrawn 

1878 
1878 

Tenants'  Improvements,  Ireland,  Bill 
Tenants'  Protection,  Ireland,  Bill   . 

Mr.  Martin  . 
Mr.  Moore  . 

Rejected 
Dropped 

1879 
1879 

Ulster  Tenant  Right  Bill 
Ulster  Tenant  Right  Bill,  No.  2      . 

Mr.  Macartney    . 
Lord  A.  Hill 

Rejected 
Withdrawn 

1879 

Landlord  and  Tenant,  Ireland,  Bill 

Mr.  Herbert 

Dropped 

1879 

Landlord  and  Tenant,  Ireland,  Act, 

1879 

1870,  Amendment  Bill  . 
Landlord  and  Tenant,  Ireland,  Act, 

Mr.  Taylor  . 

Dropped 

§ 

1870,  Amendment  Bill,  No.  2 

Mr.  Downing 

Rejected 

'a  (l88° 

Landlord  and  Tenant,  Ireland,  Act, 

V  \ 

1870,  Amendment  Bill  . 

Mr.  Taylor  . 

Dropped 

™  \  1880 

M 

Ulster  Tenant  Right  Bill 

Mr.  Macartney    . 

Dropped 

1  Healy,  p.  67. 


236  'THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

The  English  journals  at  the  same  time  gave  equally  abun- 
dant testimony  of  the  invincible  ignorance  of  English  opinion 
upon  Irish  questions.  While  in  every  part  of  Ireland  the 
tenants  were  being  crushed  under  a  yearly  increasing  load  of 
rack-rent  into  a  deeper  abyss  of  hopeless  poverty,  and  the 
whole  country  was  drifting  once  again  to  the  periodic 
famine,  an  influential  London  journal  was  gaily  declaring  that 
Mr.  Butt's  whole  case  rested  on  an  agreeable  romance.  Of  the 
squalid  lives  of  Irish  farmers  in  their  miserable  patches  of 
over-rented  land ;  of  the  crushing  of  hearts  and  the  break-up 
of  homes  through  eviction  and  emigration  ;  of  the  swift  and 
inevitable  advance  of  the  spectre  of  Famine — of  all  the  cruel 
and  intolerable  suffering  and  wrong  that  provoked  the  cyclone 
of  the  Land  League,  the  '  Daily  Telegraph '  could  write  this 
airily  and  pleasantly  : — 

A  large  allowance  must  be  made  for  the  vivid  fancy  of  Irishmen. 
But  for  that  reflection  the  sad  story  which  Mr.  Butt  told  the  House 
of  Commons  last  night  about  the  effects  of  the  Irish  Land  Act  (of 
1870)  would  be  disheartening  indeed.  .  .  .  Mr.  Butt  warns  us  that 
the  old  '  land  war '  is  breaking  out  again  •  not  through  any  fault  of 
the  farmers,  he  is  careful  to  explain,  but  through  the  infatuation  of 
those  landlords  who  have  used  their  wits  to  make  the  Act  a  dead 
letter.  Were  all  this  true,  we  should  not  wonder  at  Mr.  Butt's  de- 
mand for  a  Royal  Commission  to  see  how  the  Act  works.  But  then, 
we  repeat,  allowance  must  be  made  for  the  vivid  imagination  of  Irish- 
men. ...  It  might  have  been  contended  that  Mr.  Butt  had  made  a 
fair  case  for  a  small  inquiry,  if  he  had  not  betrayed  at  every  turn  of 
his  speech  his  real  aim,  which  is,  not  to  amend  the  Land  Act,  but  to 
secure  the  Irish  farmers  fixity  of  tenure  at  a  rent  arranged  on  some 
general  ground.  .  .  .  Mr.  Butt  could  scarcely  have  expected  the 
Government  to  treat  such  a  project  seriously,  and  he  must  have  been 
prepared  for  its  decisive  rejection  by  the  House.1 

It  cannot  be  a  surprise  to  anybody,  after  this  long  series 
of  gross  and  contemptuous  rejection  of  the  demands  for  which 
all  Ireland  pleaded  by  the  British  Parliament,  that  Irish 
hearts  were  carried  away  by  the  men  of  their  race  who  com- 
pelled that  deaf,  blind,  insolently  ignorant  assembly  to  hear 
and  see  and  understand  Irish  demands.  In  fact,  it  was  the 

1  Quoted  in  A'ew  Ireland,  pp.  398-9. 


ISAAC   BUTT  237 

action  of  the  Ministry  from  1874  to  1877,  and  of  previous 
Ministries,  that  begat  the  power  of  Mr.  Parnell  and  the  great 
movement  of  which  he  is  now  the  leader. 

Butt,  meantime,  was  very  much  pained  and  disappointed 
by  this  universal  rejection  of  all  his  proposals,  and  began  to 
have  gloomy  forebodings  as  to  the  success  of  his  policy.     He 
knew  that  he  and  his  party  held  power  in  Ireland  by  a  very 
insecure  tenure.     That  hatred  of  Parliamentarians  and  that! 
distrust    in  the  efficacy  of  parliamentary  action,    which,  as 
I  have  had  over  and  over  again  to  recall  as  one  of  the  most 
potent  forces  of  Irish  politics,  throughout  the  whole  period  of 
Irish  history,  from  the  treason  of  Keogh  up  to  the  present 
hour — that  hatred  of  Parliamentarians,  I  say,  and  that  distrust 
in  the  efficiency  of  parliamentary  action,  was  by  no  means 
killed,  even  by  the  success  of  Butt  in  sweeping  the  constitu- 
encies at  the  general  election.     It  might  be  that  he  had  se- 
duced the  majority  of  the  people  back  to  faith  in  constitutional 
effort,  but  the  minority  of  men  who  still  stood  by  physical 
force  as  the  only  efficient,  and  honourable,  and  practicable 
method  of  winning  Irish  rights,  were  determined,  violent,  and 
watchful.     It  seems  a  long  time  ago  now,  but  it  is  not  more 
than  eight  years,  since  a  large  number  of  Irishmen  thought 
sincerely  that  Isaac  Butt  was  one  of  the  greatest  enemies  the 
Irish  cause  had  ever  met  with,  because  of  the  prestige  which 
he  succeeded  in  giving  to  the  constitutionalism  which  Judge 
Keogh  and  the  successive  tide  of  Rabagas   were  supposed 
to  have  discredited  for  ever.     Butt  himself  was  unpleasantly 
reminded  of  the  survival  of  this  sentiment  on  more  than  one 
occasion.     At  a  moment  when,  throughout  nearly  every  part 
of  Ireland,  his  appearance  was  the  signal  for  a  demonstration 
of  popular  trust  that  O'Connell  might  have  envied,  a  meet- 
ing of  his  supporters,  in  the  very  city  of  Limerick,  which  he 
represented,  was    attacked    by   infuriated   men    armed    with 
bludgeons. 

Butt  could  not  help  seeing  that  the  disastrous  fiasco  of 
all  his  parliamentary  proposals  armed  these  watchful  and 
violent  enemies  with  a  terrible  argument  against  him  and  his 
methods.  He  knew,  too,  that  the  Irish  people  were  not  a 
people  to  whom  a  gospel  of  patience  could  be  preached  with 


238  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

any  hope  of  a  favourable  hearing.  The  condition  of  the  people, 
apart  altogether  from  their  temperament,  did  not  permit  them 
to  be  patient.  Intimately  acquainted  as  Butt  was  with  the 
working  of  the  Land  Act  of  1870,  he  probably  knew  very  well 
that  a  crisis  was  inevitable,  such  as  came  upon  Ireland  in  1879. 
And  possibly,  in  one  of  those  moments  of  gloom  and  depres- 
sion with  which  he  was  too  familiar,  he  may  have  anticipated 
an  hour  when  there  would  come  the  same  tragic  and  terrible 
close  to  his  agitation  which  had  wound  up  the  career  of 
O'Connell— a  country  not  freed  and  prosperous,  but  once  more 
tight  in  the  grip  of  hunger,  and  more  helpless  than  ever  against 
oppression.  To  preach  patience  to  a  people  under  such  con- 
ditions was  to  mock  a  starving  man  with  honeyed  words. 

There  was,  however,  another  and  a  graver  danger  to  the 
success  of  Butt's  movement.  It  has  already  been  remarked 
that  Butt  had  been  forced  to  admit  into  his  party  many  of  the 
relics  and  the  wrecks  of  an  evil  time — office-seekers,  lawyers, 
life-long  Whigs  and  Tories.  Butt  knew  very  well  that,  as 
time  went  on,  he  was  bound  to  lose  a  certain  proportion  of 
such  a  party.  When  there  is  on  the  one  side  a  certain 
nnmber  of  men  willing  to  sell  themselves  and  on  the  other  a 
Government  with  vast  resources  and  occasional  need  for 
the  services  of  corrupt  Irishmen,  the  moment  when  the  two 
will  come  to  a  bargain  is  a  matter  of  mutual  arrange- 
ment. The  Home  Rule  party  had  not  been  many  years  in 
existence  when  two  or  three  of  its  members  had  accepted  place, 
and  there  was  not  the  least  doubt  that  several  others  were 
willing.  It  was  fortunate  for  Butt  that  a  Conservative  ad- 
ministration was  in  power  ;  the  imagination  stands  almost 
appalled  before  the  prospect  of  the  number  of  his  independent 
followers  who  would  have  accepted  places  if  there  were  a 
Liberal  Ministry  to  offer  them.  Nor  is  the  imagination  left 
wholly  without  assistance  on  this  point.  Since  the  break-up 
of  the  Butt  party,  a  number  of  his  most  prominent  followers 
have  accepted  office,  and  the  few  that  still  retain  places  in 
the  House  of  Commons  have,  with  scarcely  an  exception, 
gone  over  to  the  Liberal  party,  and  are  notoriously  as  open 
to  employment  as  the  cabbies  in  Palace  Yard.  Then,  apart 
from  the  want  of  pence,  which  was  driving  several  of  Butt's 


ISAAC   BUTT  239 

followers  into  office-seeking,  the  party  was  suffering  from 
that  hope  deferred  which  depresses  and  then  disintegrates 
political  bodies.  Session  passed  after  session,  motion  after 
motion,  Bill  after  Bill,  and  still  no  advance  was  made. 
Everybody  has  only  to  look  at  the  condition  of  an  Opposition 
in  a  minority  in  the  House  of  Commons  to  see  how  disastrous 
are  the  effects  of  a  continued  period  of  fruitless  hostility.  All 
political  students  are  acquainted  with  the  passage  in  the 
works  of  Disraeli  in  which  a  picture  is  drawn  of  the  difficult, 
hopeless,  and  weary  position  of  the  leader  of  an  Opposition, 
and  the  attentive  observers  of  the  last  Parliament  will  know 
that  even  the  unparalleled  gifts  and  lofty  position  and  great 
services  of  Mr.  Gladstone  did  not  always  save  him  from  the 
buzz  of  conversation  which  marks  the  loss  of  hold  over  a 
deliberative  assembly.  But  an  English  opposition,  after  all,  is 
bound  to  be  transformed  in  time  into  a  Ministerial  party  ; 
ambitious  men  may  have  to  wait,  but  at  least  they  have  a 
future  ;  while,  in  an  Irish  opposition,  the  path  of  honour  and 
honesty  leads  to  social  disrepute,  often  to  professional  loss  ; 
and  has  visions,  not  of  portfolios,  wealth  and  position,  but  the 
poverty,  the  neglect,  and  the  gloom  in  which  the  careers  of 
so  many  great  Irishmen  have  closed.  It  is  therefore,  in  an 
Irish  party  more  than  in  any  other,  that  the  stimulus  of  success 
should  come  to  the  aid  of  honest  purpose  ;  and  here  was  the 
party  of  Butt  years  in  existence,  without  a  single  triumph  or 
one  solitary  benefit  to  show.  Then  the  party,  drawn  from  ele- 
ments so  heterogeneous  as  Colonel  King  Harman  and  Mr. 
Gray,  Sir  Patrick  O'Brien  and  Mr.  Richard  Power,  could  not  be 
held  in  any  strict  bonds  of  discipline.  Butt  was  exceedingly 
anxious  to  get  the  party  to  act  together  as  a  party  on  the 
great  questions  which  divided  the  two  English  parties.  The 
necessity  of  such  a  course  of  action  it  is  unnecessary  to  argue 
at  this  time  of  day.  It  is  the  influence  they  exercise  over 
the  fortunes  of  English  parties  that  gives  to  an  Irish  narty 
the  power  they  wield  over  the  action  of  English  ministries 
and  parliaments  ;  and  that  influence  can  be  exercised  mainly 
in  the  great  party  divisions  between  the  Whigs  and  Conserva- 
tives. An  Irish  party  acting  together  on  a  purely  Irish  de- 
mand, and  on  that  alone,  need  never  cross  the  counsels 


24o  ""THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

nor  disturb  the  peace  of  an  English  minister,  for  to  Irish 
demands  both  the  English  parties  give  united  opposition, 
until  they  can  no  longer  be  resisted.  In  the  Parliament  of  1 874, 
for  instance,  it  gave  Sir  Stafford  Northcote  very  little  concern 
if  Colonel  King  Harman  voted  in  favour  of  Home  Rule,  after 
the  annual  and  academic  discussion,  when  the  Irish  were  put 
down  by  a  combination  of  all  the  English  parties  in  the  House  ; 
for  in  all  English  party  divisions  he  was  secure  of  Colonel 
Harman's  vote,  as  though  he  had  not  corrupted  the  general 
purity  of  his  Conservatism  by  the  heresy  of  Home  Rule.  And, 
similarly,  even  Lord  Hartington  might  excuse  the  occasional 
error  of  an  expectant  Whig  like  Mr.  Meldon,  when  Mr. 
Meldon's  vote  against  the  Tories  was  as  certain  as  his  desire 
for  a  place. 

Butt  fully  grasped  this  truth  of  parliamentary  tact:cs,  but, 
of  course,  was  unable  to  get  men  to  act  as  an  Irish  party  who 
were  bound  by  corrupt  hopes  or  party  predilections  to  give  their 
first  allegiance  to  an  English  party  and  an  English  leader. 
Thus  his  whole  policy  was  founded  on  sand.  All  these  various 
causes,  working  together,  had  produced  in  the  Irish  party 
of  1874  disorganisation,  depression,  the  breakdown  of  the 
barriers  of  shame  among  the  corrupt,  the  sealing  up  of  the 
fountains  of  hope  among  the  pure.  The  period  of  dry  rot 
had  set  in. 

In  the  light  of  subsequent  events,  it  is  now  easy  to  see 
the  dread  abyss  to  which  the  Home  Rule  party  was  once 
more  bringing  Ireland.  The  accession  of  a  Liberal  ministry 
would  have  immediately  completed  the  disaster  which  the 
defeat  of  Butt's  proposals  had  begun.  At  least  half  the  party 
would  at  once  have  become  applicants  for  office,  and  probably 
a  considerable  number  would  hive  realised  their  wishes.  The 
remainder,  coalescing  with  the  Liberal  party,  would  gradually 
have  sunk  deeper  and  deeper  into  a  position  of  obedience  to 
the  Liberal  whips,  and  Irish  national  interests  would  once  more 
have  been  made  absolutely  subservient  to  the  interests  of  a 
single  English  party,  to  the  convenience  of  Ministers,  and  to 
the  opportunities  of  an  overworked,  listless,  and  generally 
hostile  House  of  Commons.  The  first  result  of  this  state  of 
things  would  have  been  to  break  down  once  more  all  faith  in 


ISAAC   BUTT  241 

parliamentary  agitation.  A  portion  of  the  people  would  have 
found  some  hope  for  the  redress  of  intolerable  grievances  in 
another  resort  to  revolutionary  methods.  The  majority, 
following  the  precedent  of  the  period  immediately  subsequent 
to  Keogh's  betrayal,  would,  in  the  cynicism  begotten  of  blighted 
hope,  once  more  have  chosen  bad  or  good  men,  honest  patriots 
or  self-seeking  knaves,  in  the  spirit  of  chance  and  of  caprice. 
This  downfall  of  constitutional  agitation  would  have  been 
made  the  more  disastrous  by  events  which  at  this  moment 
were  hurrying  upon  Ireland.  The  year  1879,  as  will  presently 
be  seen,  brought  one  of  those  crises  which  were  bound  to 
recur  in  Ireland  as  long  as  its  land  system  remained  unre- 
formed.  Famine  would  have  followed  the  distress  of  1879 
as  it  followed  the  blight  of  1846.  The  country,  without  an 
honest  and  energetic  parliamentary  representation,  would  have 
been  left  at  the  mercy  of  the  ignorance,  the  flippant  levity  of 
English  ministers,  and  Ireland,  once  more  on  the  threshold 
of  a  successful  movement,  would  have  been  dragged  back  for 
another  generation  into  the  slough  of  hunger,  eviction,  dis- 
honest representatives,  and  futile  insurrection.  It  is  probable 
that  the  country  would  have  arisen  from  this  catastrophe  as 
she  has  arisen  from  so  many  others  in  her  struggle  of  cen- 
turies, for  Irish  struggle  is  impelled  by  an  imperishable  and 
ultimately  resistless  force — the  force  of  a  great  and  a  just 
idea.  But  the  recovery  of  nations,  like  that  of  individuals, 
must  become  more  difficult  with  each  relapse.  Owing  to  the 
relentless  influence  of  unjust  laws  the  character  of  the  Irish 
population  was  daily  changing.  Emigration  had  torn  from 
the  country  a  vast  proportion  of  the  young  and  stalwart, 
and  the  population  that  remained  behind  was  not  merely 
diminished  by  half  of  its  actual  numbers,  but  by  the  loss  of 
more  than  half  of  its  manhood,  energy,  and  spirit.  It  is, 
therefore,  possible  that  the  breakdown  of  the  Home  Rule 
party  and  the  famine  of  1879  might  have  led  to  an  interval 
of  political  death  even  longer  than  the  dreary  interval  between 
Keogh's  treason  and  the  Fenian  insurrection.  Possibly  the 
two  things  might  have  achieved  a  conquest  of  all  the  national 
forces  of  Ireland  by  England  so  complete  as  to  have  ap- 
parently sounded  the  death-knell  of  Irish  efforts  for  justice 

R 


242  T«E   PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

and  for  liberation.  The  capacity  of  the  Irishman  must  be 
small  and  the  imagination  narrow  who  cannot  see  in  his 
mind's  eye  the  reality  of  the  gigantic  dangers  that  were  then 
gathering  over  the  fortunes  of  his  country  ;  and  still  poorer 
must  be  the  spirit  of  the  Irishman  who  does  not  daily  offer  a 
prayer  of  overflowing  gratitude  for  the  two  men  by  whom 
these  calamities  were  averted,  and  a  movement  that  was 
advancing  rapidly  to  national  destruction  was  transformed 
into  the  most  hopeful  and  beneficent  movement  of  modern 
Ireland. 

The  men  and  the  methods  that  warded  off  this  catas- 
trophe were  chosen  with  the  ironical  capriciousness  of  destiny. 
The  one  was  a  man  already  advanced  in  years,  without  the 
smallest  trace  of  oratorical  ability,  without  culture,  with  no 
political  experience  wider  than  that  to  be  acquired  on  a 
water  board  or  a  town  council.  The  other,  at  this  time  at 
least,  was  a  young  and  obscure  country  gentleman,  who  had 
given  no  pledges  to  the  political  future  save  those  of  a  very 
unsuccessful  election  contest,  and  two  or  three  stumbling  and 
very  ineffective  attempts  at  public  speech. 

On  the  night  of  April  22,  1875,  the  House  of  Commons 
was  engaged  in  the  not  unaccustomed  task  of  passing  a 
Coercion  Bill  for  Ireland.  Mr.  Butt,  for  some  reason  or 
other,  thought  it  desirable  that  the  progress  of  the  measure 
on  this  evening  should  be  slow,  and  he  asked  a  member  of 
his  party,  who  was  still  young  to  the  House,  to  speak  against 
time.  '  How  long/  asked  the  member  of  his  leader,  '  would 
you  wish  me  to  speak  ?  '  'A  pretty  good  while,'  was  Mr. 
Butt's  reply.  Mr.  Biggar,  who  was  the  member  appealed  to, 
gave  an  interpretation  to  this  mot  d'ordre  far  larger  than 
probably  Mr.  Butt  had  ever  imagined  or  intended.  It  was 
five  o'clock  when  Mr.  Biggar  rose,  it  was  five  minutes  to  nine 
when  he  sat  down.  He  had  managed  to  bridge  over  this 
interval  by  the  reading  of  Acts  of  Parliament  and  of  Blue 
Books,  and  in  a  House  that  for  most  of  the  time  was  as  deso- 
late and  gloomy  as  is  the  Agricultural  Hall  during  the 
nocturnal  portions  of  a  six  days'  walking  contest.  He  was 
interrupted  once  by  a  friendly  count,  on  another  occasion 
by  an  observation  of  the  Speaker.  His  voice,  owing  to  the 


ISAAC   BUTT  243 

long  strain,  and  in  spite  of  the  glass  of  water  with  which  he 
had  armed  himself,  had  begun  to  give  way  after  this  trial. 
Let  us  quote  Hansard  for  a  description  of  the  scene  ;  its  un- 
conscious humour  and  significance  will  be  interesting  : 

The  hon.  member  proceeded  to  read  extracts  from  the  evidence 
before  the  Westmeath  Committee — as  was  understood — but  in  a 
manner  which  rendered  him  totally  unintelligible.  At  length 

The  Speaker,  interrupting,  reminded  the  hon.  gentleman  that  the 
rules  required  that  an  hon.  member,  when  speaking,  should  address 
himself  to  the  chair.  This  rule  the  hon.  gentleman  was  at  present 
neglecting. 

Mr.  Biggar  said  that  his  non-observance  of  the  rule  was  partly 
because  he  found  it  difficult  to  make  his  voice  heard  after  speaking 
for  so  long  a  time,  and  partly  because  his  position  in  the  House  made 
it  very  inconvenient  for  him  to  read  his  extracts  directly  towards  the 
Chair ;  he  would,  however,  with  permission  take  a  mere  favourable 
position. 

The  hon.  member  accordingly,  who  had  been  speaking  from  below 
the  gangway,  removed  to  a  bench  nearer  to  the  Speaker's  chair,  taking 
with  him  a  large  mass  of  papers,  from  which  he  continued  to  read 
long  extracts,  with  comments. 

At  length  the  hon.  member  said  he  was  unwilling  to  detain  the 
House  at  further  length,  and  would  conclude  by  stating  his  conviction 
that  he  had  proved  to  every  impartial  mind  that  the  Government  had 
made  out  no  case  for  the  maintenance  of  this  monstrous  system  of 
coercion,  and  that  their  proposal  was  perfectly  unreasonable.  The 
hon.  gentleman,  who  had  been  speaking  nearly  four  hours,  then 
moved  his  amendment.1 

Neither  Mr.  Butt,  nor  the  House  of  Commons,  nor  Mr. 
Biggar  himself  could  possibly  have  foreseen  the  momentous 
place  which  this  night's  work  was  destined  to  hold  in  all 
the  subsequent  history  of  the  relations  between  England  and 
Ireland.  It  was  on  this  night  that  the  policy  was  born  which 
has  since  become  known  to  all  the  world — the  policy  known 
as  '  obstruction  '  by  its  enemies  and  as  the  '  active  policy  '  by 
its  friends.  It  will  be  appropriate  here  to  give  a  sketch  of 
the  man  to  whom  this  portentous  political  offspring  owes  its 
being. 

There  are  few  men  of  whom  the  estimate  of  friends  and 

1  Hansard,  vol.  ccxxiii.  p.  1458. 


244  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

enemies  is  so  diverse.  The  feeling  of  his  friends  and  inti- 
mates is  affectionate  almost  to  fanaticism.  When  there  are 
private  and  convivial  meetings  of  the  Irish  party,  the  effort  is 
always  made  to  limit  the  toasts  to  the  irreducible  minimum, 
for  talking  has  naturally  ceased  to  be  much  of  an  amusement 
to  men  who  have  to  do  so  much  of  it  in  the  performance  of 
public  duties.  There  is  one  toast,  however,  which  is  never 
set  down  and  is  always  proposed  :  this  toast  is  the  '  Health 
of  Mr.  Biggar.'  Then  there  occurs  a  scene  which  is  pleasant 
to  look  upon.  There  arises  from  all  the  party  one  long, 
spontaneous,  universal  cheer,  a  cheer  straight  from  every 
man's  heart  ;  the  usually  frigid  speech  of  Mr.  Parnell  grows 
warm  and  even  tender  ;  everything  shows  that,  whoever 
stands  highest  in  the  respect,  Mr.  Biggar  holds  first  place  in 
the  affections  of  his  comrades.  There  is  another  and  not  un- 
interesting phenomenon  of  these  occasions.  To  the  outside 
world  there  is  no  man  presents  a  sterner,  a  more  prosaic,  and 
harder  front  than  Mr.  Biggar.  On  such  occasions  the  other 
side  of  his  character  stands  revealed.  His  breast  heaves,  his 
face  flushes,  he  dashes  his  hand  with  nervous  haste  to  his 
eyes  ;  but  the  tears  have  already  risen  and  are  rushing  down 
his  face. 

To  his  intimates,  then,  Mr.  Biggar  is  known  as  a  man 
overflowing  with  kindness  ;  of  an  almost  absolute  unselfish- 
ness. A  man  once  bitterly  hated  Mr.  Biggar  until  he  had  a 
conversation  with  one  of  Mr.  Biggar's  sisters,  and  found  that 
she  was  unable  to  speak  of  all  her  brother's  kindness  with 
an  unbroken  voice.  It  is  amusing  to  watch  his  proceed- 
ings in  the  House  of  Commons.  With  all  his  fifty-seven 
years  he  is  at  the  beck  and  call  of  men  who  could  be 
rilmost  his  grandchildren.  Mr.  Healy  is  preparing  an  on- 
slaught on  the  Treasury  Bench  :  '  Joe,'  he  cries  to  Mr. 
Biggar,  'get  me  Return  so-and-so.'  Mr.  Biggar  is  off  to 
the  library.  He  has  scarcely  got  back  when  the  relentless 
member  for  Monaghan  requires  to  add  to  his  armoury  the 
division  list  in  which  the  perfidious  Minister  has  recorded 
his  infamy,  and  away  goes  Mr.  Biggar  to  the  library  again. 
Then  Mr.  Sexton,  busily  engaged  in  the  study  of  an  official 
report,  approaches  the  member  for  Cavan  with  a  card  and 


ISAAC   BUTT  245 

an  insinuating  smile,  and  Mr.  Biggar  sets  forth  on  an  ex- 
pedition to  see  some  of  the  importunate  visitants  by  whom 
Members  of  Parliament  are  dogged.  As  a  quarter  to  six  is 
approaching  on  a  Wednesday  evening,  and  Mr.  Parnell  thinks 
it  just  as  well  that  the  work  of  Government  should  not  go  on 
too  fast,  he  calls  on  Mr.  Biggar,  and  Mr.  Biggar  is  on  his 
legs,  filling  in  the  horrid  interval —  Heaven  knows  how  !  The 
desolate  stranger,  who  knows  no  Member  of  Parliament,  and 
yearns  to  see  the  House  of  Commons  at  work,  thinks  fondly 
of  Mr.  Biggar,  and  obtains  a  ticket  of  admission.  He  is  seen 
almost  every  night  surrounded  by  successive  bevies  of  ladies 
—young  and  old,  native  and  foreign — whom  he  is  escorting 
to  the  Ladies'  Gallery.  Nobody  asks  any  favour  of  Mr.  Biggar 
without  getting  it.  The  man  who  to  the  outside  public 
appears  the  most  odious  type  of  Irish  fractiousness  is  adored 
by  the  policemen,  worshipped  by  the  attendants  of  the 
House ;  and  there  is  good  ground  for  the  suspicion  that  there 
was  a  secret  treaty  of  inviolable  friendship  between  him  and 
the  late  Serjeant-at-Arms,  the  genial  and  universally  popular 
Captain  Gossett,  founded  on  their  common  desire  to  bring 
sittings  to  the  abrupt  and  inglorious  end  of  a  '  count  out.' 

But  this,  as  I  have  indicated,  is  but  one  side  of  his  cha- 
racter. His  hate  is  as  fierce  and  unquestioning  as  his  love, 
and  he  hates  all  his  political  opponents.  He  has  the  true 
Ulster  nature :  uncompromising,  downright,  self-controlled, 
narrow.  The  subtleties  by  which  men  of  wider  minds,  more 
complex  natures,  less  stable  purpose  and  conviction,  are  apt 
to  palliate  their  changes  are  entirely  incomprehensible  to 
Mr.  Biggar,  and  the  self-justifications  of  moral  weakness  arouse 
only  his  scorn.  This  side  of  his  character  will  be  best  illus- 
trated by  the  statement  that  he  has  a  strong  dislike  and 
distrust  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  that  he  loathes  Mr.  O'Connor 
Power.  His  purpose,  too,  when  once  resolved  upon,  is  in- 
flexible. Towards  the  close  of  the  session  of  1885  a  tram- 
way scheme  in  the  south  of  Ireland  came  before  the  House  of 
Commons  after  it  had  passed  triumphantly  through  the  House 
of  Lords.  In  his  political  economy  Mr.  Biggar  belongs  to 
the  strictest  sect  of  the  laissez-faire  school,  and  to  every 
tramway  scheme  under  Government  patronage  he  has  been 


246  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

accordingly  strongly  hostile,  believing  that  they  should  be  left 
to  development  by  private  enterprise.  A  deputation  of  strong 
Nationalists  came  over  from  the  district,  they  made  out  a 
capital  case,  convinced  all  the  other  members  of  the  party 
present  that  the  tramway  was  necessary,  and  a  resolution 
was  passed  in  their  favour.  But  Mr.  Biggar  remained  quite 
unmoved,  persisted  in  his  hostility,  got  over  another  and 
a  rival  deputation,  and  finally  killed  the  Bill.  It  is  this  in- 
flexibility of  purpose  that  has  made  him  so  great  a  political 
force.  Finally,  he  is  as  fearless  as  he  is  single-minded.  The 
worst  tempest  in  the  House  of  Commons,  the  sternest  decree 
that  English  law  could  enforce  against  an  Irish  patriot,  and 
equally  the  disapproval  of  his  own  people,  are  incapable  of 
causing  him  a  moment  of  trepidation.  He  has  said  many 
terrible  things  in  the  House  of  Commons  :  the  instance  has  got 
to  occur  of  his  having  retracted  one  syllable  of  anything 
he  has  ever  said.  There  is  a  scene  in  '  Pere  Goriot '  in  which 
the  pangs  of  the  dying  and  deserted  father  are  depicted 
with  terrible  force.  He  is  speaking  of  his  daughters  and 
of  their  husbands  :  of  the  one  he  speaks  with  the  tender 
ness  of  a  woman's  heart  ;  of  the  other,  with  the  ferocity  of 
an  enraged  tiger.  The  passage  suggests  the  two  so  contrary 
sides  of  Mr.  Biggar's  nature  :  in  the  depth  of  his  love,  in  the 
fierceness  of  his  hate,  he  is  the  '  Pere  Goriot '  of  Irish  politics. 
A  great  difficulty  meets  the  biographer  of  Mr.  Biggar  at 
the  outset.  He  is  not  uncommunicative  about  himself,  but 
he  does  not  understand  himself,  and  he  much  underrates 
himself.  Asked  by  a  friend  to  write  his  autobiography,  his 
answer  was  :  '  I  am  a  very  commonplace  character.'  In  his 
early  days,  when  he  used  to  be  asked  to  make  a  speech,  he 
cheerfully  started  out  on  the  attempt,  having  made  the  pre- 
liminary statement,  (  I  can't  speak  a  d d  bit.' 

To  think  (writes  Mr.  Healy,  one  of  Mr.  Biggar's  most  intimate 
friends  and  warmest  admirers)  that  the  muddy  vesture  of  Belfast  did 
grossly  close  him  in  for  nearly  fifty  years  without  one  gleam  of  the 
jewel  it  enshrined. 

By  what  strange  channels  did  his  stark  Presbyterian  soul  drink  in 
the  fertilising  dews  of  the  traditions  of  Irish  nationality?  In  what 
northern  furnace  was  it  inflamed  with  that  consuming  hatred  of  Clan- 
London,  which  might  glow  in  the  passionate  bosom  of  some  down- 


ISAAC   BUTT  247 

trodden  Catholic  Celt?  Was  it  as  chairman  of  the  Belfast  Water 
Company  he  first  attempted  to  lisp  the  bold  anthem  of  Erin-go-Bragh? 
The  Lord  only  knows  ! 

Other  men  write  their  memoirs  or  have  their  biographies  written 
for  them.  But,  alas  !  when  nature  planted  in  the  breast  of  Mr. 
Biggar  the  spirit  of  obstruction,  she  neglected  to  provide  him  with 
any  gift  of  introspection,  so  that  the  most  skillful  tapping  doth  but 
coldly  furnish  forth  his  inward  yearnings  and  tendings. 

Still  acting  on  information  I  have  received,  I  timidly  venture  to 
set  down  the  fact  that  one  hears  at  times,  in  tracing  his  early  develop- 
ment, of  a  certain  grandmother.  Thereat,  of  course,  a  smile  arises  ; 
but  I  desire  to  place  her  memory  on  reverent  record,  for  she  enter- 
tained the  boyhood  of  the  father  of  obstruction  with  stories  of  Antrim 
fight — where  her  brother,  subsequently  an  exiled  fugitive,  was 
wounded — and  of  many  another  '98  chronicle  of  the  Presbyterian 
rebels.  It  is  a  long  cry,  no  doubt,  from  pikes  to  blue-books,  but  the 
Irish  conflict  is  not  a  genteel  duel  with  a  courteous  enemy,  who 
proffers  a  choice  of  weapons  ;  so  in  place  of  the  insurgent  grand- 
uncle,  who  fled  the  country  after  the  Antrim  collapse,  the  Biggar 
family  came  in  sequence  to  be  represented  in  the  warfare  by  the 
blocking  boomerang  of  the  member  for  Cavan. l 

Joseph  Gillis  Biggar  was  born  in  Belfast  on  August  i, 
1828.  He  was  educated  at  the  Belfast  Academy,  where  he 
remained  from  1832  to  1844.  The  record  of  his  school  days 
is  far  from  satisfactory.  He  was  very  indolent — at  least  he 
says  so  himself — he  showed  no  great  love  of  reading — in  this 
regard  the  boy,  indeed,  was  father  to  the  man — he  was  poor 
at  composition,  and,  of  course,  abjectly  hopeless  at  elocution. 
The  one  talent  he  did  exhibit  was  a  talent  for  figures.  It  was, 
perhaps,  this  want  of  any  particular  success  in  learning,  as  well 
as  delicacy  of  health,  which  made  Mr.  Biggar's  parents  con- 
clude that  he  had  better  be  removed  from  school  and  placed 
at  business.  He  was  taken  into  his  father's  office,  who — as  is 
known— was  engaged  in  the  provision  trade,  and  he  continued 
as  assistant  until  1861,  when  he  became  head  of  the  firm. 
This  part  of  his  career  may  be  here  dismissed  with  the  remark 
that  he  retired  from  trade  in  1880,  and  is  now  entirely  out  of 
business. 

Mr.  Biggar  always  took  an  interest  in  politics,  and  it  will 
not  surprise  those  acquainted  with  his  subsequent  career  to 

1   United  Ireland,  August  29.  1885. 


248  tHE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

know  that  he  was  always  on  the  side  which  was  in  a  hopeless 
minority,  and  which  opposed  the  reigning  clique  and  the  es- 
tablished regime.  For  instance,  when  the  late  Mr.  McMechan 
sought  on  one  occasion  the  representation  of  Belfast,  he  found 
no  encouragement  from  perhaps  any  person  of  prominence  in 
the  town  except  Mr.  Biggar  ;  and  it  was  a  curious  forecast  of 
many  contests  in  which  the  member  for  Cavan  was  to  play  a 
part  subsequently  that  the  aspirant  had  only  fourteen  sup- 
porters in  all,  and  that  Mr.  Biggar  was  one  of  the  fourteen. 
In  1868  Mr.  Biggar  had  a  better  opportunity  of  working 
against  his  enemies.  For  nearly  half  a  century  the  represen- 
tation of  Belfast  was  in  the  gift  of  a  small  Conservative  caucus, 
who  ruled  the  general  body  of  the  electors  as  despotically  as 
ever  Boss  dominated  the  voting  battalions  of  an  American 
city.  There  had  begun,  however,  to  grow  up  a  feeling  that 
the  rigid  rule  of  irresponsible  oligarchy  had  been  allowed  to 
last  long  enough.  The  first  attack  came  upon  it  from  an 
unexpected  quarter.  So  far  as  an  outside  critic  can  judge  of 
the  intricacies  of  Belfast  politics,  the  Protestant  artisans  in 
that  city  seem  to  be  divided  between  two  sentiments.  On 
the  one  hand,  they  are  fiercely  Protestant,  and  therefore  may 
be  made  the  instruments  of  those  exhibitions  of  religious 
fanaticism  which  are  among  the  strangest  survivals  of  our 
time.  On  the  other  hand,  they  have  a  certain  democratic 
spirit  which  demands  a  due  share  of  respect  for  their  feelings 
and  their  demands.  Accordingly,  there  has  been  witnessed 
occasionally  in  Belfast  the  curious  spectacle  of  the  represen- 
tation being  sought  by  two  candidates,  each  as  rigidly  ortho- 
dox as  the  other,  in  the  Conservative,  or  even  in  the  Orange, 
creed  ;  and  the  party  has  divided  itself  into  bourgeois  Con- 
servatives on  the  one  side,  and  working-men  Conservatives 
on  the  other.  The  first  occasion  on  which  this  triangular 
struggle  took  place  was  in  1868.  In  the  preceding  year  Mr. 
William  Johnston,  of  Ballykilbeg,  had  been  prosecuted  by 
the  then  Conservative  Government— the  Orangemen  had  not 
the  advantage  at  that  period  of  having  a  '  gentle,  but  firm  ' 
ally  in  a  Liberal  Lord-Lieutenant — for  an  offence  against 
the  Party  Processions  Act,  and,  being  convicted,  had  been 
imprisoned.  This  had  made  him  very  popular  with  large 


ISAAC   BUTT  249 

sections  of  the  Orangemen,  especially  with  those  of  the  work- 
ing classes,  and  he  was  invited  by  them  to  contest  Belfast. 
The  Conservative  caucus,  however,  did  not  approve  of  the 
candidature  ;  the  hostility  of  the  caucus  was  a  recommen- 
dation of  Mr.  Johnston  in  other  quarters,  and  the  curious  result 
followed  that  the  '  No  Popery '  champion  was  warmly  sup- 
ported by  the  majority  of  the  Catholic  voters.  Mr.  (now  Sir 
Thomas)  M'Clure  was  run  at  the  same  time,  and  supported 
to  a  large  extent  by  the  same  combination.  Mr.  Biggar  was 
one  of  the  main  influences  in  producing  this  result,  though, 
of  course,  he  had  as  little  faith  in  the  Whiggery  of  Mr. 
M'Clure  as  he  had  sympathy  with  the  fanatical  bigotry  of 
Mr.  Johnston. 

The  victory  which  M'Clure  and  Johnston  gained  over  the 
Conservative  caucus  shook  for  a  time  their  power,  and,  under 
the  influence  of  this  antagonism  to  the  long-settled  oligarchy, 
Mr.  Biggar  made  his  first  attempt  to  get  into  the  Town 
Council.  He  stood  for  his  native  ward,  which  had  always 
been  regarded  as  a  Tory  stronghold,  and  he  was  well  beaten. 
This  was  in  18/0.  Mr.  Biggar  accepted  his  defeat  in  a  spirit 
that  was  quite  characteristic,  and  with  a  declaration,  the  full 
significance  of  which  was  probably  not  felt  by  the  people  to 
whom  it  was  then  made — for  the  real  nature  of  Mr.  Biggar 
had  yet  to  be  discovered  :  he  said  he  would  fight  the  ward 
on  every  occasion  until  he  became  its  member.  In  the  fol- 
lowing year  he  again  stood,  with  the  result  that  he  was 
returned  at  the  head  of  the  poll.  He  had  previously  to  this 
obtained  a  seat  on  the  Water  Board,  and  he  was  chairman  of 
that  body  from  August  1869  to  March  1872.  Some  stormy 
scenes  occurred  during  Mr.  Biggar's  tenure  of  office  ;  for  the 
future  member  for  Cavan  gave  his  colleagues  some  specimens 
of  that  absolutely  irreverent  freedom  of  speech  which  has 
since  alternately  shocked  and  amused  a  higher  assembly. 
There  was  a  meeting  in  county  Antrim  for  the  purpose  of 
expressing  sympathy  with  the  Queen  on  the  recovery  of  the 
Prince  of  Wales  ;  and,  whether  it  was  because  of  his  disbelief 
in  princes  generally,  or  because  he  was  disgusted  with  the 
fulsomeness  of  some  of  the  language  employed,  Mr.  Biggar 
wrote  to  the  newspapers  to  say  that  the  attendance  at  the 


250  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

meeting  did  not  exceed  fifty.  The  statement  of  Mr.  Biggar 
was  indisputably  accurate,  but  a  member  of  the  Water  Board 
insisted  that  such  a  letter  betrayed  disloyalty,  and  he  pro- 
posed an  address  to  the  Queen  from  the  Board  as  a  counter- 
manifestation  to  the  epistle  of  the  chairman.  Mr.  Biggar 
defended  himself  with  tenacity  (as  may  be  believed),  criticised 
the  address  to  her  Majesty  with  relentless  outspokenness,  and 
so  offended  and  scandalised  his  colleagues  that  when  his 
year  of  office  closed  he  was  superseded,  and  was  even  refused 
the  customary  vote  of  thanks. 

Mr.  Biggar's  first  attempt  to  enter  Parliament  was  made  at 
Londonderry  in  1 8/2.  He  had  not  the  least  idea  of  being  suc- 
cessful ;  but  he  had  at  this  time  mentally  formulated  the  policy 
which  he  has  since  carried  out  with  inflexible  purpose— he  pre- 
ferred the  triumph  of  an  open  enemy  to  that  of  a  half-hearted 
friend.  The  candidates  were  Mr.  Lewis,  the  present  Conser- 
vative member,  Mr.  (now  Chief  Baron)  Palles,  and  Mr.  Biggar. 
At  that  moment  Mr.  Palles,  as  Attorney-General,  was  prose- 
cuting Dr.  Duggan  and  other  Catholic  bishops  for  the  part 
they  had  taken  in  the  famous  Galway  election  of  Colonel 
Nolan — of  which  mention  has  been  made  in  the  sketch  of 
Judge  Keogh's  career— and  Mr.  Biggar  made  it  a  first  and 
indispensable  condition  of  his  withdrawing  from  the  contest 
that  these  prosecutions  should  be  dropped.  Mr.  Palles  re- 
fused ;  Mr.  Biggar  received  only  89  votes,  but  the  Whig 
was  defeated,  and  he  was  satisfied.  The  bold  fight  he  had 
made,  marked  out  Mr.  Biggar  as  the  man  to  lead  one  of  the 
assaults  which  at  this  time  the  rising  Home  Rule  party  was 
beginning  to  make  on  the  seats  of  Whig  and  Tory.  He 
himself  was  in  favour  of  trying  his  hand  on  some  place  where 
the  fighting  would  be  really  serious,  and  he  had  an  idea  of 
contesting  Monaghan.  When  the  general  election  of  1874, 
however,  came,  it  was  represented  to  Mr.  Biggar  that  he 
would  better  serve  the  cause  by  standing  for  Cavan.  He  was 
nominated,  and  returned,  and  member  for  Cavan  he  has  since 
remained.  Finally,  let  the  record  of  the  purely  personal  part 
of  Mr.  Biggar's  history  conclude  with  mention  of  the  fact  that, 
in  the  January  of  1 877,  he  was  received  into  the  Catholic  Church. 
The  change  of  creed  for  a  time  produced  a  slight  estrange- 


ISAAC   BUTT  251 

ment  between  himself  and  the  other  members  of  his  family, 
who  were  staunch  Ulster  Presbyterians,  and  there  were  not 
wanting  malicious  intruders  who  sought  to  widen  the  breach. 
But  this  unpleasantness  soon  passed  away,  and  Mr.  Biggar  is 
now  on  the  very  best  of  terms  with  his  relatives. 

It  was  not  long  after  the  night  of  Mr.  Biggar's  four 
hours'  speech  that  a  young  Irish  member  took  his  seat 
for  the  first  time.  This  was  Mr.  Parnell,  elected  for  the 
county  of  Meath  in  succession  to  John  Martin.  The  veteran 
and  incorruptible  patriot  had  died  a  few  days  before  the 
opening  of  this  new  chapter  in  Irish  struggle.  There  was  a 
strange  fitness  in  his  end.  John  Mitchel  had  been  returned 
for  the  county  of  Tipperary  in  1875.  After  twenty-six  years 
of  exile  he  had  paid  a  brief  visit  to  his  native  country  in  the 
previous  year.  He  had  triumphed  at  last  over  an  unjust 
sentence,  penal  servitude,  and  the  weary  waiting  of  all  these 
hapless  years,  and  had  been  selected  as  its  representative  by 
the  premier  constituency  of  Ireland.  But  the  victory  came 
too  late.  When  he  reached  Ireland  to  fight  the  election  he 
was  a  dying  man.  A  couple  of  weeks  after  his  return  to  his 
native  land  he  was  seized  with  his  last  illness,  and  after  a  few 
days  succumbed,  in  the  home  of  his  early  youth  and  sur- 
rounded by  some  of  his  earliest  friends.  John  Martin  had 
been  brought  by  Mitchel  into  the  national  faith  when  they 
were  both  young  men.  They  had  been  sentenced  to  trans- 
portation about  the  same  time  ;  they  had  married  two  sisters  ; 
they  had  both  remained  inflexibly  attached  to  the  same 
national  faith  throughout  the  long  years  of  disaster  that  fol- 
lowed the  breakdown  of  their  attempted  revolution.  Martin, 
though  very  ill,  and  in  spite  of  the  most  earnest  remon- 
strances of  friends  like  Joseph  Cowen  and  A.  M.  Sullivan, 
went  over  to  be  present  at  the  deathbed  of  his  life-long  leader 
and  friend.  At  the  funeral  he  caught  cold,  sickened,  and  in 
a  few  days  died.  He  was  buried  close  to  Mitchel's  grave. 
To  the  two  friends,  as  fitly  as  to  any  two  human  beings,  the 
beautiful  and  familiar  words  of  the  sacred  writer  can  be 
applied :  '  Lovely  and  pleasant  in  their  lives,  and  in  their 
death  they  were  not  divided.' 

It  was  to  the  glorious  heritage  of  Martin's  representation 


252  "THE  PARXELL  MOVEMENT 

of  Meath  that  the  young  Wicklovv  squire  had  succeeded. 
Nobody  at  the  time  attached  any  particular  importance  (to 
his  success,  except  perhaps  to  indulge  in  a  silent  comparison 
between  the  long  services  and  approved  faith  of  the  dead 
patriot  and  the  inexperience  and  want  of  ability  of  the  raw 
recruit  who  had  become  his  successor.  For  the  first  impres- 
sions of  Mr.  Parnell  were  decidedly  unfavourable. 

When  the  dissolution  of  February  1874  came,  Mr.  Parnell 
wished  to  stand  for  Wicklow  ;  but  he  was  then  high 
sheriff  of  the  county,  and  the  Government  would  not  allow 
him  to  qualify  himself  by  resigning.  Shortly  after,  Colonel 
Taylor's  acceptance  of  office  as  Chancellor  of  the  Duchy  in  the 
new  Disraeli  Administration,  made  a  vacancy  for  the  County 
Dublin,  and  it  was  deemed  advisable  to  fight  the  seat.  The 
contest  was  regarded  as  a  forlorn  hope,  and  was  known  at 
the  same  time  to  be  necessarily  an  expensive  one.  The  offer 
of  Mr.  Parnell  to  fight  the  seat  at  his  own  expense  came  at  a 
time  when  there  was  scarcely  a  penny  in  the  exchequer  of 
the  National  party,  and  the  mere  fact  alone  of  his  willingness 
to  bear  the  burden  in  such  a  contest  was  enough  to  secure 
him  a  hearing  ;  but  there  were  many  doubts  and  fears,  and 
the  first  impression  was  that,  if  a  young  landlord,  hitherto 
entirely  unknown  in  national  struggle — for  the  outer  and, 
still  more,  the  inner  history  of  this  shy,  reserved  young  man, 
buried  in  his  Wicklow  estate,  was  a  closed  book  to  everybody 
in  the  world — if  such  a  man  wished  to  represent  a  constituency, 
it  was  from  no  higher  motive  than  social  ambition  ;  and  men 
who  had  become  Members  of  Parliament  for  such  reasons,  have 
left  a  long  record  of  half-hearted  adherence,  ending  in  violent 
hostility  to  the  national  cause.  At  last  it  was  agreed  that  the 
young  aspirant  should  at  least  get  the  privilege  of  a  hearing, 
and  he  had  a  personal  interview  with  the  Council  of  the 
Home  Rule  League.  John  Martin  and  Mr.  A.  M.  Sullivan 
were  favourably  impressed  ;  the  latter  undertook  to  propose 
his  adoption  at  a  meeting  in  the  Rotunda,  and  here  is  his 
account  of  what  followed  and  Mr.  Parnell's  debut  in  public 
life  :  '  The  resolution  which  I  had  moved  in  his  favour  having 
been  adopted  with  acclamation,  he  came  forward  to  address 
the  assemblage.  To  our  dismay  he  broke  down  utterly. 


ISAAC   BUTT  253 

He  faltered,  he  paused,  went  on,  got  confused,  and,  pale  with 
intense  but  subdued  nervous  anxiety,  caused  every  one  to 
feel  deep  sympathy  for  him.  The  audience  saw  it  all,  and 
cheered  him  kindly  and  heartily  ;  but  many  on  the  platform 
shook  their  heads,  sagely  prophesying  that  if  ever  he  got  to 
Westminster,  no  matter  how  long  he  stayed  there,  he  would 
either  be  a  "  Silent  Member,"  or  be  known  as  "  Single-speech 
Parnell.'"1 

Nobody  was  surprised  when,  as  the  result  of  the  election, 
Colonel  Taylor  was  returned  by  an  overwhelming  majority. 
If  anything  were  needed  to  account  for  the  expected  result, 
and  to  encourage  hope  for  a  better  chance  next  time,  it  was 
found  in  the  universal  sentiment  that  the  Nationalists  had 
been  represented  by  an  extremely  poor  candidate.  Then,  as 
now,  Mr.  Parnell  had  none  of  the  qualities  which  had  hitherto 
been  associated  with  the  idea  of  a  successful  Irish  leader. 
He  has  now  become  one  of  the  most  potent  of  parliamentary 
debaters  in  the  House  of  Commons,  through  his  power  of 
saying  exactly  what  he  means  and  his  thorough  grasp  of  his 
own  ideas  and  wants.2  But  Mr.  Parnell  has  become  this  in 
spite  of  himself.  He  retains  to  this  day  an  almost  invincible 
repugnance  to  speaking  ;  if  he  can,  through  any  excuse,  be 
silent,  he  remains  silent,  and  the  want  of  all  training  before 
his  entrance  into  political  life  made  him  a  speaker  more  than 
usually  stumbling.  Then  his  manner  was  cold  and  reserved  ; 
he  seemed  entirely  devoid  of  enthusiasm,  and  he  spoke  with 
that  strong  English  accent  which  in  Ireland  has  come  to 
be  inevitably  associated  with  the  adherents  of  the  English 
garrison  and  the  enemies  of  the  national  cause. 

But,  if  the  truth  were  known,  Mr.  Parnell,  in  entering  upon 
political  life,  was  reaching  the  natural  sequel  of  his  own 
descent,  of  his  early  training,  of  the  strongest  tendencies  of 
his  own  nature.  It  is  not  easy  to  describe  the  mental  life  of 
a  man  who  is  neither  expansive  nor  introspective.  It  is  one 

1  New  Ireland,  p.  409. 

2  '  No  man,  as  far  as  I  can  judge,  is  more  successful  than  the  hon.  member 
in  doing  that  which  it  is  commonly  supposed  that  all  speakers  do,  but  which  in 
my  opinion  few  really  do — and  I  do  not  include  myself  among  those  few— namely, 
in  saying  what  he  means  to  say .' — Mr.  GLADSTONE,  Hansard,  vol.  cclxxvii.  p.  482. 


254  'THE  PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

of  the  strongest  and  most  curious  peculiarities  of  Mr.  Parnell, 
not  merely  that  he  rarely,  if  ever,  speaks  of  himself,  but  that 
he  rarely,  if  ever,  gives  any  indication  of  having  studied  him- 
self. His  mind,  if  one  may  use  the  jargon  of  the  Germans,  is 
purely  objective.  There  are  few  men  who,  after  a  certain 
length  of  acquaintance,  do  not  familiarise  you  with  the  state 
of  their  hearts  or  their  stomachs  or  their  finances  ;  with  their 
fears,  their  hopes,  their  aims.  But  no  man  has  ever  been  a 
confidant  of  Mr.  Parnell.  Any  allusion  to  himself  by  another, 
either  in  the  exuberance  of  friendship  or  the  design  of  flattery, 
is  passed  by  unheeded  ;  and  it  is  a  joke  among  his  intimates 
that  to  Mr.  Parnell  the  being  Parnell  does  not  exist.  But  from 
various  casual  and  unintentioned  hints  the  following  may  be 
taken  as  a  fair  summary  of  his  life  and  its  influences. 

The  history  of  his  own  family  was  well  calculated  to  make 
him  a  strong  Nationalist.  The  family  comes  from  Congleton, 
in  Cheshire,  and  it  is  from  this  town  that  one  branch,  raised 
to  the  peerage,  has  taken  its  title.  Thomas  Parnell,  the  poet, 
was  one  of  the  family.  The  parliamentary  distinction  dates, 
in  the  Parnell  family,  from  the  early  part  of  the  last  century. 
John  Parnell  was  member  for  Maryborough,  in  the  Irish 
House  of  Commons,  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago.  He 
was  son  of  a  judge  of  the  Queen's  Bench.  He  died  in  1/82, 
and  he  was  immediately  succeeded  by  his  son  John,  after- 
wards Sir  John.  In  1787  Sir  John  was  made  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer.  In  the  '  Red  List'  in  which  Sir  Jonah  Bar- 
rington  sums  up  his  impressions  of  the  Irish  politicians  of 
his  time,  he  writes  opposite  the  name  of  Sir  John  Parnell  the 
one  word  '  Incorruptible.'  He  proved  his  claim  to  the  title 
by  giving  up  the  office  he  had  held  for  seventeen  years,  and 
voting  steadily  against  the  Union. 

Henry  Parnell,  the  son  of  Sir  John,  was  a  member  of  the 
Irish  House  of  Commons  at  the  same  time,  and,  like  his 
father,  stood  steadily  by  Grattan  and  the  other  advocates  of 
Irish  nationality  to  the  last.  Sir  John  was  elected  to  the 
United  Parliament,  but  died  in  the  first  year  of  his  new  posi- 
tion, and  was  immediately  succeeded  by  Henry.  Sir  Henry 
Parnell  was  for  many  years  a  strong  advocate  of  the  rights  of 
his  fellow-countrymen,  and  was  in  favour  of  the  abolition  of 


ISAAC   BUTT  255 

the  Corn  Laws,  short  parliaments,  extension  of  the  franchise, 
vote  by  ballot,  and,  curiously  enough,  the  abolition  of  flogging 
in  the  army  and  navy,  at  a  period  when  such  doctrines  were 
associated  with  advanced  Radicalism.  He  was  Secretary  for 
War  in  Lord  Grey's  Ministry  for  1832,  and  Paymaster  of  the 
Forces  in  the  administration  of  Lord  Melbourne,  and  in  1841 
he  was  created  first  Baron  Congleton. 

John  Henry  Parnell,  of  Avondale,  was  grandson  of  Sir 
John  Parnell  and  nephew  of  the  first  Lord  Congleton. 
Making  a  tour  through  America  while  still  a  young  man, 
he  met,  at  Washington,  Miss  Stewart.  Miss  Stewart  was 
the  daughter  of  Commodore  Charles  Stewart,  who  played 
an  important  part  in  the  history  of  America.  It  was  he 
who,  in  his  ship  the  '  Constitution,'  in  the  war  between  Eng- 
land and  America  in  1815,  met,  fought,  beat  and  captured  the 
two  English  vessels — the  '  Cyane '  and  the '  Levant ' — with  the 
loss  of  seventy-seven  killed  and  wounded  among  the  British, 
and  only  three  killed  and  ten  wounded  in  his  own  vessel.  It 
is,  perhaps,  characteristic  of  the  love  for  legality  in  his  race 
that  he  did  not  enter  upon  this  engagement  until  the  British 
vessels  first  attacked,  for  he  had  received  from  a  British  vessel, 
three  days  before  the  engagement,  a  copy  of  the  London 
'  Times,'  containing  the  heads  of  the  Treaty  of  Ghent,  as  signed 
by  the  Ministers  of  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain,  and 
said  to  have  been  ratified  by  the  Prince  Regent l  After  a 
series  of  striking  adventures,  Stewart  reached  home  with  his 
vessel.  His  victory  excited  extreme  enthusiasm  among  the 
Americans,  and  every  form  of  public  honour  was  bestowed 
upon  him.  In  Boston  there  was  a  triumphal  procession  ;  in 
New  York  the  City  Council  presented  him  with  the  freedom 
of  the  city  and  a  gold  snuff-box,  and  he  and  his  officers  were 
entertained  at  a  dinner  ;  at  Pennsylvania  he  was  voted  the 
thanks  of  the  Commonwealth,  and  presented  with  a  gold- 
hilted  sword.  Congress  passed  a  vote  of  thanks  to  him  and 
his  officers,  and  struck  a  gold  medal  and  presented  it  to  him 
in  honour  of  the  event. 

Afterwards  Commodore  Stewart  was  sent  to  the  Mediter- 
ranean, where  there  was  something  approaching   a  mutiny 

1   The  Life  of  Charles  Stewart  Parnell,  by  Thomas  Sherlock,  p.  23. 


256  "THE  PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

amongst  the  officers  under  a  different  commodore.  He  soon 
came  to  a  definite  issue  with  his  subordinates.  He  ordered  a 
court-martial  on  a  marine  to  be  held  on  board  one  of  his 
vessels.  The  officers  preferred  to  discuss  the  case  at  their 
leisure  in  a  hotel  in  Naples,  and  there  tried  and  convicted  the 
marine.  The  Commodore  promptly  quashed  the  conviction, 
and,  when  the  court  passed  a  series  of  resolutions,  put  all  the 
commanding  officers  of  the  squadron  under  arrest.  The 
result  was  the  complete  restoration  of  order  and  the  approval 
of  Commodore  Stewart's  conduct  by  the  President  and  the 
Cabinet. 

Admiral  Stewart,  as  he  became,  lived  to  a  great  age,  and 
in  time  had  taken  a  place  in  the  affections  of  his  country- 
men somewhat  similar  to  that  of  old  Field-marshal  Wrangel 
among  the  Germans  of  our  day.  He  used  to  be  known  as 
(  old  Ironsides,'  and  the  residence  which  he  purchased  in  Bor- 
dentown  was,  in  spite  of  himself,  baptized  '  Ironsides  Park.' 
He  was  once  prominently  spoken  of  as  a  candidate  for  the 
Presidency,  and,  in  less  than  four  months,  sixty-seven  papers 
pronounced  in  his  favour. 

But  the  project  did  not  receive  his  sanction  ;  he  gave  it  no  coun- 
tenance ;  he  would  not  even  discuss  it  ;  he  was  '  unusually  nervous 
and  fidgety'  during  the  agitation  of  the  subject  ;  and  at  length  its 
promoters  were  impelled  to  give  it  up.  He  regained  his  usual  equa- 
nimity only  when  his  name  ceased  to  be  bandied  about  by  the  political 
press.1 

He  was  eighty-three  years  of  age  when  Fort  Sumter  was 
fired  upon.  At  once  he  wrote  asking  to  be  put  into  active 
service  :  '  I  am  as  young  as  ever,'  he  declared,  '  to  fight  for  my 
country.' 2  But  of  course  the  offer  had  to  be  refused.  He 
survived  nine  years,  and  suffered  very  severely  towards  the 
end  of  his  life. 

We  know  how  he  suffered,  and  how  gradually,  yet  snrely,  he  was 
failing.  And  yet  we  heard  how  near  the  invalid  came  to  blowing 
himself  up  in  some  strange  chemical  experiment,  and  what  fun  he 
made  of  the  danger.  To  the  last  he  was  cheerful  and  hopeful- 
busied  with  affairs,  dictating  letters,  cracking  jokes,  expecting  soon 
to  be  well  again.  Then  he  could  not  leave  his  bed — was  unable  to 

1  The  Life  of  Charles  Stewart  Parnell,  by  Thomas  Sherlock,  pp.  27-8. 

2  Jb.  p.  28. 


ISAAC   BUTT  257 

speak  without  agony — wrote  on  a  slate  '  I  want .'     They  could 

not  read  what  it  was  he  wanted,  his  hand  trembled  so.  Perhaps 
it  was  the  cup  of  cold  water  they  pressed  to  his  parched  lips. 
Thus  surrounded  by  those  who  loved  him  the  brave  spirit  passed 
peacefully  away.1 

Finally,  the  following  is  a  description  of  his  appearance 
and  character : — 

Commodore  Stewart  was  about  five  feet  nine  inches  high,  and  of 
a  dignified  and  engaging  presence.  His  complexion  was  fair,  his 
hair  chestnut,  eyes  blue,  large,  penetrating,  and  intelligent.  The 
cast  of  his  countenance  was  Roman,  bold,  strong,  and  commanding, 
and  his  head  finely  formed.  His  control  over  his  passions  was  truly 
surprising,  and  under  the  most  irritating  circumstance  his  oldest  sea- 
man never  saw  a  ray  of  anger  flash  from  his  eye.  His  kindness, 
benevolence,  and  humanity  were  proverbial,  but  his  sense  of  justice 
and  the  requisitions  of  duty  were  as  unbending  as  fate.  In  the 
moment  of  greatest  stress  and  danger  he  was  as  cool  and  quick  in 
judgment  as  he  was  utterly  ignorant  of  fear.  His  mind  was  acute 
and  powerful,  grasping  the  greatest  or  smallest  subjects  with  the 
intuitive  mastery  of  genius.2 

It  is  said  that,  in  many  respects,  Mr.  Parnell  bears  a  strong- 
resemblance  to  the  characteristics  of  his  grandfather  whose 
name  he  bears.  In  physique  he  is  much  less  English  or  Irish 
than  American.  The  delicacy  of  his  features,  the  pallor  of 
complexion,  the  strong  nervous  and  muscular  system,  con- 
cealed under  an  exterior  of  fragility,  are  characteristics  of  the 
American  type  of  man.  Mentally,  also,  his  evenness  of 
temper,  and  coolness  of  judgment,  suggest  an  American 
temperament. 

Mr.  Parnell  was  born  in  Avondale,  county  Wicklow,  in 
June  1846.  Curiously  enough,  nearly  the  whole  of  his  early 
life  was  passed  in  England,  and  in  entirely  English  surround- 
ings. When  he  was  six  years  of  age  he  was  placed  at  school 
in  Yeovil,  Somersetshire.  Next,  he  was  under  the  charge  of 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Barton  at  Kirk-Langley,  Derbyshire  ;  next, 
under  Rev.  Mr.  Wishaw,  in  Oxfordshire  ;  and,  finally,  he 
went  to  Cambridge  University — the  alma  mater  of  his  father. 
He  did  not  graduate,  and  probably  did  not  pay  any  very 

1  The  Life  of  Charles  Stewart  Parnell,  by  Thomas  Sherlock,  p.  28. 

2  Ib.  p.  29. 

S 


258  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

great  attention  to  the  study  of  the  curriculum  of  the  univer- 
sity. 

He  is  not  a  man  of  large  literary  reading,  but  he  is  a 
severe  and  constant  student  of  scientific  subjects,  and  is 
especially  devoted  to  mechanics.  It  is  said  to  be  one  of  his 
amusements  to  isolate  himself  from  the  enthusiastic  crowds 
that  meet  him  everywhere  in  Ireland,  and,  in  a  room  by  him- 
self, to  find  delight  in  mathematical  books.  He  is  a  constant 
reader  of '  Engineering  '  and  other  mechanical  papers,  and  he 
takes  the  keenest  interest  in  all  machinery. 

The  surroundings  of  the  house  in  which  he  was  born  and 
still  lives  were  well  calculated  to  arouse  in  young  Parnell  the 
hereditary  disposition  to  strong  national  opinions.  Wicklow, 
on  the  whole,  is  the  most  beautiful  and  the  most  historic 
county  in  Ireland,  and  Avondale  is  in  the  centre  of  its  greatest 
beauties  and  its  most  historic  spots. 

Many  of  the  lessons  which  these  historic  spots  were  cal- 
culated to  teach  were  reinforced  by  the  servants  around  the 
family  mansion.  I  have  made  the  remark  that  it  is  particu- 
larly difficult  to  follow  the  mental  history  of  a  man  that  is 
neither  introspective  nor  expansive  ;  and  it  is  not  from  the 
lips  of  Mr.  Parnell  himself  that  one  could  learn  much  of  his 
internal  history.  But  one  day,  sitting  in  his  house  at  Avon- 
dale,  he  happened  to  mention  the  name  of  Hugh  Goffney,  a 
kratc-keeper  in  Avondale,  and  retold  a  story  which  the  gate- 
keeper  used  to  tell  him  when  he  was  a  youth.  Goffney  was 
old  enough  to  have  seen  some  of  the  scenes  of  the  Rebellion  ; 
and  one  of  his  stones  was  of  a  man  who  was  taken  by  the 
English  troops  in  the  neighbourhood.  The  sentence  upon 
him  was  that  he  was  to  be  flogged  to  death  at  the  end  of  a 
cart.  The  interpretation  of  the  sentence  by  Colonel  Yeo — 
such  was  the  name  of  the  commander — was  that  the  flogging 
v/as  to  be  inflicted  on  the  man's  belly  instead  of  on  his  back. 
Goffney  saw  the  rebel  flogged  from  the  mill  to  the  old  sentry- 
box  in  Rathdrum — the  town  near  which  Avondale  is  situate — 
and  heard  the  man  call  out  in  his  agony, '  Colonel  Yeo !  Colonel 
Yeo  ! '  and  appeal  for  respite  from  this  torture  ;  and  also 
heard  Colonel  Yeo  reject  the  prayer  with  savage  words  ;  and 
f.nally  saw  the  man,  as  he  fell  at  last,  with  his  bowels  pro- 


ISAAC    BUTT 


259 


truding.  When  Mr.  Parnell  told  the  story,  in  his  usual  tran- 
quil manner,  the  thought  suggested  itself  to  my  mind  that,  at 
last,  I  had  reached  one  of  the  great  influences  that  made  Mr. 
Parnell  the  man  he  is,  and  that  in  this  poor  gate-keeper  was 
to  be  found  the  early  instructor  whose  lessons  on  British  rule 
and  its  meaning  imbued  the  young  and  impressionable  heir 
of  the  Parnell  name  and  traditions  with  that  love  and  admira- 
tion for  British  domination  in  Ireland  which  has  characterised 
his  public  career. 

Such  stories  appeal  to  what  is,  beyond  doubt,  the  strongest 
feeling,  the  most  positive  instinct  of  Mr.  Parnell's  nature— 
his  hatred  of  injustice.  He  has  the  loathing  of  masculine 
natures  for  cruelty  in  all  forms.  This  feeling,  though  never 
expressed  in  words,  finds  strong  manifestation  often  in  acts. 
One  of  his  acts  while  still  the  unknown  squire  was  to  pro- 
secute a  man  for  cruelty  to  a  donkey.  Recently,  while  a 
very  important  and  vital  resolution  was  under  discussion  at 
a  meeting  of  the  Irish  party  called  to  arrange  the  plan  of 
the  electoral  campaign,  the  meeting  was  amused,  and  a 
little  disconcerted,  to  see  Mr.  Parnell  rise  with  naff  uncon- 
sciousness, leave  the  chair,  and  disappear  from  the  room. 
He  was  followed  by  a  handsome  dog,  which  had  been  pre- 
sented to  him  by  his  friend  and  colleague,  Mr.  Corbet ; 
and  the  meeting  had  to  tranquilly  suspend  its  discussions 
until  the  leader  of  the  Irish  people  had  seen  after  the  dinner 
of  a  retriever.  It  was  characteristic  of  the  modesty  and,  at  the 
same  time,  scornfulness  of  his  nature,  that  all  through  the 
many  attacks  made  upon  him  by  Mr.  Forster,  and  other 
gentlemen  who  wear  their  hearts  upon  their  sleeves,  he  never 
once  made  allusion  to  his  own  strong  love  of  animals  ;  but  to 
his  friends  he  often  expressed  his  disgust  for  the  outrages  that, 
during  a  portion  of  the  agitation,  were  occasionally  committed 
upon  them.  He  did  not  express  these  sentiments  in  public, 
for  the  good  reason  that  he  regarded  the  outcry  raised  by 
some  of  the  Radicals  as  part  of  the  gospel  of  cant  for  which 
that  section  of  the  Liberal  party  is  especially  distinguished. 
To  hear  a  man  like  Mr.  Forster  refusing  a  word  of  sympathy, 
in  one  breath,  for  whole  housefuls  of  human  beings  turned 
out  by  a  felonious  landlord  to  die  by  the  roadside,  and,  in  the 


S  2 


260  T^E   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

next,  demanding  the  suppression  of  the  liberties  of  a  nation 
because  half-a-dozen  of  cattle  had  their  tails  cut  off;  to  hear 
the  same  men,  who  howled  in  delight  because  the  apostle  of 
a  great  humane  movement,  like  Mr.  Davitt,  had  been  sent  to 
the  horrors  of  penal  servitude,  shuddering  the  next  moment 
audibly  over  the  ill-usage  of  a  horse,  was  quite  enough  to 
make  even  the  most  humane  man  regard  the  love  of  animals 
—at  least,  by  Radicals— as  but  another  item  in  the  grand 
total  of  their  hypocrisy  Mr.  Parnell  regards  the  lives  of 
human  beings  as  more  sacred  than  even  those  of  auimals, 
and  he  is  consistent  in  his  hatred  of  oppression  and  cruelty 
wherever  they  may  be  found.  His  sympathies  are  with  the 
fights  of  freemen  everywhere,  and  he  often  spoke  in  the 
strongest  terms  of  his  disgust  for  the  butcheries  in  the 
Soudan,  which  the  Liberals,  who  wept  over  Irish  horses,  and 
foamed  over  the  tails  of  Irish  cows,  received  with  such 
Olympian  calm. 

In  1867,  the  ideas  that  had  been  sown  in  his  mind  in 
c'lildhood  first  began  to  mature.  His  mother  was  then,  as 
probably  throughout  her  life,  a  strong  Nationalist,  and  so 
was,  at  least,  one  of  his  sisters.  There  is  a  tradition  among 
the  .survivors  of  the  literary  staff  of  the  '  Irish  People '  news- 
paper of  a  young  lady,  heavily  veiled,  coming  with  a  contri- 
bution to  the  office  of  the  journal  during  its  troubled  career. 
This  was  Miss  Fanny  Parnell.  Many  of  the  Fenian  refugees 
found  shelter  and  protection  in  the  house  of  Mrs.  Parnell,  and 
were  in  this  way  enabled  to  escape  from  the  pursuing  blood- 
hounds of  the  law.  It  was  at  this  epoch  that  the  execution 
of  Allen,  Larkin,  and  O'Brien  took  place  in  Manchester  ;  and 
this,  as  has  already  been  mentioned,  was  the  turning-point  in 
i  he  mental  history  of  Mr.  Parnell,  and  set  him  irrevocably  in 
favour  of  Nationalist  principles. 

However,  it  was  a  considerable  time  before  he  even 
thought  of  entering  political  life.  Like  his  father  he  spent 
si  -me  time  in  travel  in  America.  While  there  he  met  with  a 
railway  accident  in  company  with  his  brother  John.  '  The 
lv\st  nurse  I  ever  had,'  said  Mr.  John  Parnell  to  me  in 
America, 'was  my  brother  Charlie.'  And  then  he  told  me 
how,  for  weeks,  his  brother  had  remained  night  and  day  by 
his  side. 


ISAAC    BUTT  261 

In  1871  Mr.  Parnell  returned  to  Avondale,  and  began  the 
life  of  a  country  squire.  His  American  blood  showed  itself 
in  a  keener  sense  of  the  possibilities  of  his  property  and  of 
his  own  duties  than  are  usually  associated  with  the  Irish 
landlord.  Then,  though  he  cannot  be  described  as  a  joyous 
man,  he  takes  a  keen  interest  in  life  and  everything  going  on 
around  him,  and  could  not,  under  any  circumstances,  keep 
from  being  actively  occupied  in  some  pursuit.  He  hunted 
and  he  shot  like  those  around  him  ;  but,  besides  this,  he  set 
up  saw-mill  and  brush  factory,  and  sunk  shafts  in  search  of 
the  mineral  ore  in  which  Wicklow  was  said  to  abound.  He 
was  a  kind  and  generous  landlord,  and  enjoyed  the  affection 
of  all  around  him. 

It  was  probably  the  Kerry  election  of  1872  that  first  gave 
him  the  idea  of  entering  upon  a  parliamentary  career,  for 
Mr.  Blennerhassett,  who  had  won  so  great  a  victory  for  the 
National  party,  was,  like  himself,  a  Protestant  and  a  landlord. 
Finally,  in  1873,  the  new  National  party  held  a  conference  in 
the  Round  Room  of  the  Rotunda,  where,  a  century  before, 
Parnells  had  met  in  defence  of  the  same  great  cause  ;  and 
their  heir  no  longer  hesitated.  His  subsequent  history  has 
been  told  ;  and  now  the  narrative  returns  to  an  account  of 
his  parliamentary  career. 

Mr.  Biggar  and  Mr.  Parnell  brooded  for  some  time  over 
the  strange  spectacle  of  the  impotence  that  had  fallen  upon 
the  Irish  party.  Both  were  men  eager  for  practical  results  ; 
and  debates,  however  ornate  and  eloquent,  which  resulted  in 
no  benefit,  appeared  to  them  the  sheerest  waste  of  time,  and 
a  mockery  of  their  country's  hopes  and  demands.  Probably 
they  drifted  into  the  policy  of  *  obstruction,'  so  called,  rather 
than  pursued  it  in  accordance  with  a  definite  plan  originally 
thought  out.  There  was  in  the  Irish  party  at  this  time  a 
man  who  had  formulated  the  idea  from  close  reflection  on 
the  methods  of  Parliament.  This  was  Mr.  Joseph  Ronayne. 
Ronayne  had  been  an  enthusiastic  Young  Irelander,  and 
though,  amid  the  disillusions  that  followed  the  breakdown 
of  1848,  he  had  probably  bidden  farewell  for  ever  to  armed 
insurrection  as  a  method  for  redressing  Irish  grievances,  he 
still  held  by  an  old  and  stern  gospel  of  Irish  nationality  and 


262  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

thought  that  political  ends  were  to  be  gained  not  by  soft  words, 
but  by  stern  and  relentless  acts.  He,  if  anybody,  deserves 
the  credit  of  having  pointed  out,  first  to  Mr.  Biggar  and  then 
to  Mr.  Parnell,  the  methods  of  action  which  have  since  proved 
so  effective  in  the  cause  of  Ireland. 

When  one  now  looks  back  upon  the  task  which  these  two 
men  set  themselves,  it  will  appear  one  of  the  boldest,  most 
difficult,  and  most  hopeless  that  two  individuals  ever  proposed 
to  themselves  to  work  out. 

They  set  out,  two  of  them,  to  do  battle  against  650  ;  they 
had  before  them  enemies  who,  in  the  ferocity  of  a  common 
hate  and  a  common  terror,  forgot  old  quarrels  and  obliterated 
old  party  lines  ;  while  among  their  own  party  there  were 
false  men  who  hated  their  honesty  and  many  true  men  who 
doubted  their  sagacity.  In  this  work  of  theirs  they  had  to 
meet  a  perfect  hurricane  of  hate  and  abuse  ;  they  had  to 
stand  face  to  face  with  the  practical  omnipotence  of  the 
mightiest  of  modern  empires  ;  they  were  accused  of  seeking 
to  trample  on  the  power  of  the  English  House  of  Commons, 
and  six  centuries  of  parliamentary  government  looked  down 
upon  them  in  menace  and  in  reproach.  In  carrying  their 
mighty  enterprise,  Mr.  Parnell  and  Mr.  Biggar  had  to  under- 
go labours  and  sacrifices  that  only  those  acquainted  with  the 
inside  life  of  Parliament  can  fully  appreciate.  Those  who 
undertook  to  conquer  the  House  of  Commons  had  first  to 
conquer  much  of  the  natural  man  in  themselves.  The  House 
of  Commons  is  the  arena  which  gives  the  choicest  food  to  the 
intellectual  vanity  of  the  British  subject,  and  the  House  of 
Commons  loves  and  respects  only  those  who  love  and  respect 
it.  But  the  first  principle  of  the  active  policy  was  that  there 
should  be  absolute  indifference  to  the  opinion  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  so  vanity  had  first  to  be  crushed  out. 
Then  the  active  policy  demanded  incessant  attendance  in  the 
House,  and  incessant  attendance  in  the  House  amounts 
almost  to  a  punishment.  And  the  active  policy  required,  in 
addition  to  incessant  attendance,  considerable  preparation  ; 
and  so  the  idleness,  which  is  the  most  potent  of  all  human 
passions,  had  to  be  gripped  and  strangled  with  a  merciless 
hand.  And  finally,  there  was  to  be  no  shrinking  from  speech 


ISAAC   BUTT  263 

or  act  because  it  disobliged  one  man  or  offended  another  ; 
and  therefore,  kindliness  of  feeling  was  to  be  watched  and 
guarded  by  remorseless  purpose.  The  three  years  of  fierce 
conflict,  of  labour  by  day  and  by  night,  and  of  iron  resistance 
to  menace,  or  entreaty,  or  blandishment,  must  have  left  many 
a  deep  mark  in  mind  and  in  body.  *  Parnell,'  remarked  one  of 
his  followers  in  the  House  of  Commons  one  day,  as  the  Irish 
leader  entered  with  pallid  and  worn  face,  *  Parnell  has  done 
mighty  things,  but  he  had  to  go  through  fire  and  water  to  do 
them.' 

Mr.  Biggar  was  heard  of  before  Mr.  Parnell  had  made 
himself  known  ;  and  to  estimate  the  character  of  the  member 
for  Cavan — and  it  is  a  character  worth  study — one  must  read 
carefully,  and  by  the  light  of  the  present  day,  the  events  of  the 
period  at  which  he  first  started  on  his  enterprise.  In  the  ses- 
sion of  1875  he  was  constantly  heard  of;  on  April  27. in  that 
session  he  '  espied  strangers  ' ;  and,  in  accordance  with  the 
then  existing  rules  of  the  House  of  Commons,  all  the  occu- 
pants of  the  different  galleries,  excepting  those  of  the  ladies' 
gallery,  had  to  retire.  The  Prince  of  Wales  was  among  the 
distinguished  visitors  to  the  assembly  on  this  particular  even- 
ing, a  fact  which  added  considerable  effect  to  the  proceeding 
of  the  member  for  Cavan.  At  once  a  storm  burst  upon  him, 
beneath  which  even  a  very  strong  man  might  have  bent.  Mr. 
Disraeli,  the  Prime  Minister,  got  up,  amid  cheers  from  all 
parts  of  the  House,  to  denounce  this  outrage  upon  its  dignity; 
and  to  mark  the  complete  union  of  the  two  parties  against 
the  daring  offender,  Lord  Hartington  rose  immediately 
afterwards.  Nor  were  these  the  only  quarters  from  which 
attack  came.  Members  of  his  own  party  joined  iri  the 
general  assault  upon  the  audacious  violator  of  the  tone  of  the 
House.  Mr.  Maurice  Brooks,  a  so-called  Nationalist  member 
for  Dublin,  who  has  since,  of  course,  joined  the  ranks  of  the 
nominal  Home  Rulers,  and  the  late  Sir  George  Bowyer, 
assisted  in  the  denunciation.  Mr.  Biggar  was,  above  all  other 
things,  held  to  be  wanting  in  the  instincts  of  a  gentleman. 
*  I  think,'  said  the  late  Mr.  George  Bryan,  another  member  of 
Mr.  Butt's  party,  'that  a  man  should  be  a  gentleman  first 
and  a  patriot  afterwards,'  a  statement  which  was,  of  course, 


264  T*HE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

received  with  wild  cheers.  Finally,  the  case  was  summed  up 
by  Mr.  Chaplin.  'The  lion,  member  for  Cavan,'  said  he, 
1  appears  to  forget  that  he  is  now  admitted  to  the  society  of 
gentlemen.' l  This  was  one  of  the  many  allusions,  fashion- 
able at  the  time— among  genteel  journalists  especially  — to 
Mr.  Biggar's  occupation.  It  was  his  heinous  offence  to  have 
made  his  money  in  the  wholesale  pork  trade.  Trade,  as  is 
known  to  every  well-instructed  Englishman,  has  its  couches 
societies  n  this  happy  country.  Its  caste  is  regulated,  not  only 
by  the  distinction  between  wholesale  and  retail,  but  by  the  par- 
ticular article  in  which  the  trader  is  interested.  It  was  not, 
therefore,  surprising  that  an  assembly  which  tolerated  the 
more  aristocratic  cotton  should  turn  up  its  indignant  nose  at 
the  dealer  in  the  humbler  pork.  But  much  as  the  House  of 
Commons  was  shocked  at  the  nature  of  Mr.  Biggar's  pursuits, 
the  horror  of  the  journalist  was  still  more  extreme  and  out- 
spoken. 

Heaven  knows  (said  a  writer  in  the  '  World  ')  that  I  do  not  scorn  a 
man  because  his  path  in  life  has  led  him  amongst  provisions.  But 
though  I  may  unaffectedly  honour  a  provision  dealer  who  is  a  Member 
of  Parliament,  it  is  with  quite  another  feeling  that  I  behold  a  Member 
of  Parliament  who  is  a  provision  dealer.  Mr.  Biggar  brings  the 
manner  of  his  store  into  this  illustrious  assembly,  and  his  manner, 
even  for  a  Belfast  store,  is  very  bad.  When  he  rises  to  address  the 
house,  which  he  did  at  least  ten  times  to-night,  a  whiff  of  salt  pork 
seems  to  float  upon  the  gale,  and  the  air  is  heavy  with  the  odour  of 
the  kippered  herring.  One  unacquainted  with  the  actual  condition 
of  affairs  might  be  forgiven  if  he  thought  there  had  been  a  large  failure 
in  the  bacon  trade,  and  that  the  House  of  Commons  was  a  meeting 

1  Mr,  Biggar's  action  on  this  occasion  had  a  secret  history,  which  may  here 
1  e  told.  It  was  the  desire  of  the  Liberals  to  bring  the  relations  of  the  press  with 
Parliament  into  a  more  satisfactory  position.  Especially  it  was  felt  to  be  a  griev- 
ance that  the  press  could  be  excluded  by  a  single  member.  Mr.  Disraeli  favoured 
kaving  things  as  they  were  :  and  it  was  thought  that  he  should  be  brought  to  his 
M.-nses  by  such  patent  proof  of  his  mistake  as  the  ordering  out  of  the  reporters  by 
the  words,  '  I  espy  strangers.'  Mr.  Biggar's  intrepidity  suggested  him  as  a  proper 
person  to  take  so  audacious  a  step.  A  few  nights  afterwards,  when  Lord  Hart- 
ington  was  demanding  a  reform,  and  Mr.  Disraeli  was  advocating  the  old  state  of 
things,  Mr.  A.  M.  Sullivan  cleared  the  House;  and  the  whole  Liberal  party 
cheered  him  to  the  echo.  Mr.  Biggar  was  deserted  and  denounced  by  the  Liberals, 
though  he  acted  un  their  suggestion,  because  he  happened  to  interfere  with  the 
convenience  of  Royalty. 


ISAAC   BUTT  265 

of  creditors  and  the  right  hon.  gentlemen  sitting  on  the  Treasury 
Bench  were  members  of  the  defaulting  firm,  who,  having  confessed 
their  inability  to  pay  ninepence  in  the  pound,  were  suitable  and  safe- 
subjects  for  the  abuse  of  an  ungenerous  creditor.1 

These  things  are  mentioned  by  way  of  illustrating  the 
marks  and  symptoms  of  the  time  through  which  Mr.  Biggar 
had  to  live,  rather  than  because  of  any  influence  they  had 
upon  him.  On  this  self-reliant,  firm,  and  masculine  nature 
a  world  of  enemies  could  make  no  impress.  He  did  not 
even  take  the  trouble  to  read  most  of  the  attacks  upon  him. 
Those  that  were  made  in  the  House  of  Commons  in  his  own 
hearing  neither  touched  him  nor  angered  him.  The  only  ran- 
cour he  ever  feels  against  individuals  is  for  the  evil  they  attempt 
to  do  to  the  cause  of  his  country.  This  little  man,  calmly 
and  placidly  accepting  every  humiliation  and  insult  that 
hundreds  of  foes  could  heap  upon  him,  in  the  relentless  and 
untiring  pursuit  of  a  great  purpose,  may  by-and-by  appear, 
even  to  Englishmen,  to  merit  all  the  affectionate  respect  with 
which  he  is  regarded  by  men  of  his  own  country  and  principles. 

The  Irish  people  have  long  since  decided  between  Mr. 
Biggar  and  the  members  of  his  own  party  with  whom  he  was 
at  war.  If  anyone  desire  to  see  how  far  that  party  is  re- 
moved from  the  party  of  to-day,  he  has  but  to  read  the  de- 
scriptions of  some  of  the  encounters  between  the  member  for 
Cavan  and  many  of  them  upon  the  Coercion  struggles  of 
those  days.  Thus,  on  one  occasion,  Mr.  McCarthy  Downing, 
a  so-called  Nationalist,  went  out  of  his  way  to  compliment 
Sir  Michael  Hicks-Beach  on  the  courtesy  with  which  he 
treated  the  Irish  members  when  carrying  through  the  House 
a  Bill  destructive  of  the  liberties  of  their  country.  This  was 
the  speech  which  drew  from  Mr.  Ronayne  the  grim  remark 
that  such  compliments  to  the  Minister  in  charge  of  a  Coercion 
Bill  reminded  him  of  the  shake-hands  of  the  murderer  with 
his  executioner.  On  another  occasion,  when  Dr.  O'Leary  pro- 
posed an  adjournment  of  a  stage  of  a  debate  on  a  Coercion 
Bill  to  another  day,  his  own  colleagues  rose  in  revolt  against 
the  unreasonable  proposal  ;  and  Dr.  O'Leary,  scared  and 
overwhelmed,  had  to  consult  the  convenience  of  the  Govern- 

1  March  5,  1875. 


266  'THE  PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

ment  and  accelerate  the  destruction  of  his  country's  liberties, 
and  withdrew  his  motion  for  adjournment.  More  interesting 
than  these  collisions  with  small  and  now  forgotten  men  was 
Mr.  Biggar's  conflict  with  the  leader  of  his  party.  The  con- 
test between  these  two  men  is  one  of  the  most  picturesque  in 
parliamentary  history.  Rarely  has  a  struggle  appeared  more 
unequal.  The  House  of  Commons  never  had  an  opportunity 
of  seeing  Butt  at  his  best,  but  with  an  audience  before  him 
sympathetic  with  his  views,  he  was  a  speaker  of  a  persua- 
siveness as  great  as  that  of  Mr.  Gladstone  himself.  There  was 
not  a  resource  of  the  orator,  a  trick  of  the  lawyer,  a  device  of 
the  parliamentary  tactician's  art  unknown  to  him.  He  was, 
indeed,  marked  out  as  a  leader  of  men  in  parliamentary 
struggles. 

o<3 

Mr.  Biggar,  on  the  other  hand,  had  not  one  of  the  gifts 
that  make  a  great  parliamentarian.  He  spoke  haltingly,  and 
with  difficulty  ;  his  sparse  education  was  not  improved  by 
reading ;  he  was  absolutely  new  to  parliamentary  and,  practi- 
cally, to  political  life.  But  the  moral  chasm  between  Biggar 
and  Butt  was  as  wide  as  the  intellectual  chasm  between 
Butt  and  Biggar.  The  relentless  self-control  of  Biggar,  the 
subordination  of  all  his  wants  to  his  means,1  his  inflexible 
courage,  and  his  unshakable  persistence,  made  him  a  dan- 
gerous competitor  for  a  man  of  the  loose  habits,  of  the  easy 
self-indulgent  nature,  of  the  weak  will  and  capricious  purpose 
of  Butt.  Biggar  was  ultimately  conqueror  in  this  struggle. 
Sheer  strength  of  character  broke  down  sheer  intellectual 
superiority.  I  put  these  two  men  in  contrast  and  hostility, 
rather  than  Mr.  Butt  and  Mr.  Parnell,  because  the  intellectual 
difference  between  the  former  and  the  present  Irish  leaders  of 
the  Irish  party  is  by  no  means  so  great.  Indeed,  in  many 
respects,  Mr.  Parnell  is  the  equal  of  Mr.  Butt  as  a  parliamen- 
tarian and  a  parliamentary  speaker.  Then  it  was  Mr.  Biggar, 
and  not  Mr.  Parnell,  who  began  the  struggle. 

The   new   policy,  which    had    been    inaugurated   by  Mr. 
Biggar  in  the  session   of  1875,  was    developed  rather  than 

1  Mr.  Biggar  lost  heavily  in  his  business  for  a  couple  of  years  while  he  was  a 
Member  of  Parliament.  He  so  rigidly  economised  that,  instead  of  dining  in  the 
House,  he  trotted  off  to  a  cheap  restaurant  outside. 


ISAAC    BUTT  267 

formulated.  It  began  simply  in  the  practice  of  blocking  a 
number  of  Bills  in  order  to  bring  them  under  the  half-past 
twelve  rule,  which  forbids  opposed  measures  to  be  taken  after 
that  hour.  It  also  became  the  custom  of  either  the  member 
for  Cavan  or  the  member  for  Meath  to  propose  motions  of 
adjournment  in  various  forms  when  half-past  twelve  was 
reached,  on  the  ground  that  proper  discussion  could  not  take 
place  at  so  late  an  hour.  Then,  interstices  of  time  which  the 
Government  would  gladly  employ  for  advancing  some  stage 
of  their  measures,  were  filled  in  by  the  Irish  members.  Thus, 
for  instance,  a  Bill  standing  for  second  reading  would  be 
approaching  that  stage  at  twenty  minutes  past  at  an  ordinary 
sitting,  or  half-past  five  on  a  Wednesday.  To  the  horror  and 
disgust  of  everybody  else,  Mr.  Biggar  or  Mr.  Parnell  would 
rise  and  occupy  the  time  between  that  hour  and  half-past 
twelve  or  a  quarter  to  six,  when  contentious  business  could 
be  no  longer  discussed,  and  further  consideration  of  the 
measure  had  to  be  postponed  to  another  day.  In  this  manner 
the  two  members  gradually  felt  their  way,  became  more 
practised  in  speaking,  and  obtained  an  intimate  acquaintance 
with  the  rules  of  the  House.  Throughout  all  this  time,  of 
course,  they  were  harassed  by  interruptions,  shouts  of  '  Divide,' 
groans,  and  calls  to  order ;  and  for  a  time,  at  least,  Mr. 
Parnell  used  occasionally  to  lay  himselt  open  to  effective  in- 
terruption by  his  yet  immature  acquaintance  with  the  laws  of 
the  assembly.  '  How,'  said  a  young  follower  of  his  to  the 
Irish  leader,  '  are  you  to  learn  the  rules  of  the  House  ?  '  'By 
breaking  them,'  was  Mr.  Parnell's  reply  ;  and  this  was  the 
method  by  which  he  himself  gained  his  information. 

It  was  not  till  the  session  of  1877  that  Mr.  Parnell  and 
Mr.  Biggar  became  engaged  in  the  passionate  and  exciting 
scenes  which  made  their  names  known  all  over  the  world,  and 
brought  the  House  of  Commons  definitely  face  to  face  with 
the  new  and  portentous  force  which  had  unmasked  itself  within 
the  parliamentary  citadel.  By  this  time  Parnell  and  Biggar 
had  resolved  to  take  an  active  part  in  the  discussion  of 
English  measures.  It  was  fortunate  for  them  that  in  this 
session  there  were  introduced  several  Bills  which  enabled  them 
to  carry  out  this  purpose.  The  Government  brought  forward 


268  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

the  Prisons  Bill  ;  then  there  was  the  Mutiny  Bill ;  and  finally, 
the  ill-starred  proposal  for  the  absorption  of  the  Transvaal  in 
the  South  African  Federation.  By  this  time  the  position  of 
Mr.  Parneli  had  undergone  a  distinct  change.  The  first  im- 
pression of  him  and  Mr.  Biggar  was  simply  that  two  unusually 
persistent  bores  had  been  added  to  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  that  their  constant  speeches  were  the  results,  not  of  any 
definite  policy,  but  of  a  feverish  egotism.  The  House  of 
Commons  has  been  familiar,  since  the  beginning  of  its  exist- 
ence, with  this  type  of  member  ;  and  the  unbroken  tradition 
up  to  this  period  was  that  in  time  the  bore  had  been  con- 
quered and  crushed  out  of  existence.  The  assembly,  by 
refusing  to  listen,  by  the  loud  buzz  of  conversation,  by  shouts 
of '  Divide,'  or  by  the  simpler  method  of  deserting  the  House 
and  leaving  it  a  ghastly  wilderness,  had  hitherto  been  able  to 
wear  out  the  most  confirmed  egotist  and  the  most  prolix 
talker.  Anyone  who  has  been  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Commons  will  know  how  tremendous  is  this  reserve  power. 
There  had  been  '  obstructives,'  of  course,  before  the  time  of 
Parneli  and  Biggar.  During  the  great  Ministry  of  Mr.  Glad- 
stone, between  1868  and  1874,  obstruction  had  been  developed 
to  a  fine  art  by  several  of  the  gentlemen  who  at  this  moment 
held  official  positions  under  Lord  Beaconsfield.  Everybody 
remembers  how  the  Church  Bill  and  the  Land  Bill,  the  Ballot 
Bill,  and  the  Bill  for  the  abolition  of  purchase  in  the  army, 
had  been  dogged  at  every  step  of  their  progress  by  endless 
and  silly  amendments,  by  speeches  against  time,  and  by 
countless  motions  for  adjournment.  But  the  obstruction  in« 
these  cases  had  been  directed  against  particular  Bills,  whereas 
the  obstruction  that  now  faced  Parliament  intervened  in  every 
single  detail  of  its  business,  and  not  merely  in  contentious 
business,  but  business  that  up  to  this  time  had  been  considered 
formal.  The  Irish  duumvirate,  in  fact,  found  nothing  too 
small  and  nothing  too  big  for  discussion,  was  as  active  in 
the  small  hours  of  the  morning  as  at  the  hour  when  the 
sitting  was  still  in  the  full  vigour  of  youth  ;  in  short,  it  threw 
the  entire  parliamentary  machinery  out  of  gear.  The  two 
leaders  of  this  policy  proved  perfectly  insensible  to  the 
methods  that  had  been  so  omnipotent  against  their  pre- 


ISAAC   BUTT  269 

dcccssors.  Praise  did  not  soothe  them  nor  violence  make 
them  falter  ;  if  the  House  groaned,  they  paused  until  the 
groans  were  over  ;  if  the  House  was  turbulent,  they  trudged 
doggedly  and  merrily  along  until  the  House  was  worsted  in 
the  struggle.  They  talked  in  the  emptiness  of  the  dinner- 
hour  at  as  great  length,  and  with  as  much  apparent  self- 
satisfaction,  as  in  the  glare  of  the  crowd  and  the  eager  atten- 
tiveness  of  the  question  time.  The  reality  of  this  hideous 
danger  had  been  doubted  as  long  as  possible,  but  the  session 
of  1877  brought  it  into  such  notice  that  it  could  no  longer 
be  lightly  regarded. 

It  was  part  of  the  skilful  tactics  of  Parnell  and  Biggar 
that  their  intervention  in  the  debates  of  the  House  had 
always  more  or  less  of  a  rational  appearance.  They  did 
not  indulge  in  any  wild  declamation,  nor  make  speeches  full 
of  empty  and  purposeless  talk.  Their  plan  was  to  propose 
amendments  to  the  different  measures  before  the  House  ;  and 
their  amendments  were  rarely,  if  ever,  open  to  the  charge  of 
irrelevancy  or  frivolity.  Another  result  of  this  mode  of  action 
was  that  the  proposals  of  the  two  '  obstructives  '  frequently 
found  a  certain  amount  of  support  from  one  or  other  section 
of  the  English  members.  On  the  Prisons  Bill,  for  instance, 
Biggar  and  Parnell  were  sincerely  anxious  to  make  that  dis- 
tinction between  the  treatment  of  political  and  ordinary 
prisoners  which  obtained  in  every  civilised  country  in  the 
world  but  England  ;  and  in  the  House  of  Commons  there 
was  a  strong  party,  not  confined  to  any  political  section,  in 
favour  of  more  humane  principles  in  the  treatment  of  pri- 
soners of  all  kinds.  On  March  26,  1877,  there  was  a  lengthy 
discussion  on  some  new  clauses  for  better  treatment  of  pri- 
soners, the  main  originator  of  which  was  Mr.  H.  B.  Sheridan. 
By  this  time  the  House  had  begun  to  resent  fiercely  the 
frequent  intervention  of  Mr.  Parnell  on  the  Bill ;  and  in  sup- 
porting these  clauses  he  was  frequently  called  to  order  by 
the  chairman  and  persistently  interrupted  by  the  English 
members.  At  last,  at  a  little  after  one  o'clock,  Mr.  Biggar 
proposed  to  report  progress.  The  Liberal  members,  who  had 
acted  with  the  *  obstructives '  up  to  this  time,  now  deserted  ; 
and,  when  the  division  was  called,  there  were  in  favour  of  the 


27o  *THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

adjournment  but  ten,  while  138  voted  against  it.  Motions 
for  adjournment  followed  each  other  in  rapid  succession,  and, 
at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  Government  gave  way. 
Mr.  Butt  had  watched  these  proceedings  with  no  friendly  eye. 
To  him  they  appeared  childish  and  indecorous,  and  he  was 
unable  or  unwilling  to  see  the  purpose  that  lay  underneath. 
His  superstitious  regard  for  the  dignity  of  the  House,  and  the 
dread  in  his  pliant  nature  of  giving  offence,  had  been  skilfully 
worked  upon  by  the  Government.  There  was  no  doubt 
about  his  genuineness  as  a  Home  Ruler,  but  he  had  been  a 
Conservative  for  many  years,  and  a  friend  and  associate  of 
the  party  in  power,  and  he  was  certainly  considerably  under 
the  influence  of  its  leaders.  Curiously  enough,  one  of  the 
men  who  was  supposed  to  have  the  most  influence  over  him 
was  the  then  Chief  Secretary,  Sir  Michael  Hicks-Beach, 
though  there  had  never  been  a  Chief  Secretary  who  met  all 
demands  for  Irish  reform  with  rejection  more  uncompromis- 
ing and  more  insolent.  It  is  characteristic  of  the  natures  of 
the  two  men  that  it  was  the  attitude  of  Hicks-Beach  towards 
Mr.  Butt  which  drove  Mr.  Biggar,  as  much  as  anything  else, 
forward  into  the  policy  he  had  now  adopted.  After  the  Irish 
leader  had  succeeded,  by  threats  and  entreaties  to  his  own 
followers,  in  helping  the  Chief  Secretary  to  get  forward  with 
some  of  his  business,  he  would,  at  a  more  advanced  hour  of 
the  same  evening,  be  refused  the  smallest  concession  by  that 
same  official  ;  and  the  robust  nature  of  Mr.  Biggar  felt  this 
insult  to  his  leader  more  keenly  than  did  the  leader  himself. 
Meantime,  the  Irish  leader  had  been  approached  insidiously, 
and  was  meanly  encouraged  to  steps  that  proved  his  political 
ruin.  Mr.  A.  M.  Sullivan  states  that  :  '  Early  in  April,  ere 
yet  things  had  gone  very  far,  it  occurred  to  some  members 
of  the  Government  to  convey  to  the  Irish  leader  a  complaint 
of  the  conduct  of  his  young  men.  This  was  coupled  with 
dexterous  praise  of  his  own  "  noble  regard  "  for  "  the  dignity 
of  Parliament."  The  old  man  was  immensely  flattered  at  the 
idea  of  being  invoked  as  a  power  by  the  House  of  Commons.'  ] 
It  showed  a  strange  want  of  any  appreciation  of  the  real 
facts  of  the  case  that  the  Irish  leader  should  have  thus  inter- 

p.  419. 


ISAAC    BUTT  271 

preted  the  request  addressed  to  him.  The  recognition  of  his 
power  came  only  when  it  was  employed  in  meeting  the  views 
of  the  Ministry  and  in  yielding  to  the  temper  of  Parliament ; 
it  had  received  no  recognition  so  long  as  it  was  used  in  press- 
ing forward  against  the  Ministry  and  against  the  House 
demands  for  the  redress  of  the  intolerable  wrongs  of  his 
country.  Where  was  his  memory  gone  of  the  contemptuous 
rejection  for  the  past  three  years  of  every  one  of  the  pro- 
posals that  he  made  with  the  assent  of  the  overwhelming 
majority  of  his  countrymen  ?  A  leader  who,  with  such  re- 
collections and  such  incontestable  proof  of  the  futility  of  soft 
methods,  of  appeals  to  the  sense  of  justice  in  English  Minis- 
tries and  to  the  reason  of  Parliament,  could  think  of  the 
4  dignity  of  Parliament,'  and  not  the  wrongs  of  Ireland,  '  lacked 
gall  to  make  oppression  bitter.'  Mr.  Butt,  however,  threw  in 
his  lot  with  the  enemies  of  his  country,  and  attacked  his  two 
subordinates  with  fierce  anger  and  reproach. 

This  was  a  new  and  greater  obstacle  in  the  path  of 
Parnell  and  Biggar.  The  party  of  Mr.  Butt  still  had  confidence 
in  him.  The  majority  of  its  weak  and  self-seeking  members, 
besides,  were  only  too  glad  to  find  him  condemning  practices 
which  placed  the  party  in  collision  with  the  temper  of  the 
House,  and  that  greatly  threatened  to  build  up  a  power  de- 
voted to  the  advance  of  Irish  interests  and  divorced  from  the 
possibilities  of  English  office.  Parnell  and  Biggar  thus  found 
themselves  confronted,  not  merely  by  the  howls  and  groans, 
the  vituperation  and  hostility  of  the  two  English  parties,  for 
once  united  against  the  common  Irish  enemy,  but  among 
their  own  countrymen  and  in  their  own  party  they  stood 
practically  alone — two  men  against  sixty.  Mr.  O'Connor 
Power  gave  them  some  support,  very  strong  in  private  but 
fitful  and  uncertain  in  public.  They  had  received  a  more 
important  recruit  in  Mr.  O'Donnell,  who  had  been  elected  for 
Dungarvan  in  June  1877,  and  who  brought  them  the  benefit 
of  an  acquaintance  with  a  considerable  number  of  subjects, 
great  readiness  in  mastering  information,  and  great  fluency  of 
speech.  They  also  found  support  from  the  better  elements 
of  Mr.  Butt's  party — from  Captain  Nolan,  Mr.  Richard  Power, 
Major  O'Gorman,  Mr.  E.  D.  Gray,  Mr.  Sheil,  Mr.  Kirke,  and 
the  late  Mr.  A.  M.  Sullivan. 


272  "THE  PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

Condemned  by  their  own  leader,  and  by  the  majority  of 
their  own  party,  Mr.  Parnell  and  Mr.  Biggar  were  naturally 
the  more  hated  by  the  House  of  Commons,  and  their  conduct 
the  more  bitterly  resented  ;  and  the  resolve  to  put  them  down 
grew  more  vehement  and  more  passionate.  On  the  Mutiny 
Bill  the  struggle  between  the  House  and  the  two  '  obstruc- 
tives '  occasionally  burst  into  open  conflict.  Up  to  this  time 
this  Bill  had  passed  through  the  House  with  scarcely  a  com- 
ment. Probably  nine  out  of  every  ten  members  of  the  House 
scarcely  knew  the  time  or  the  circumstances  under  which  the 
measure  was  passed  ;  and  probably  not  one  in  a  hundred, 
outside  the  War  Office  officials,  could  mention  one  of  its 
provisions.  The  '  obstructives '  contested  the  Bill  clause  by 
clause,  and,  in  some  cases,  line  by  line  ;  and  as  the  measure 
consisted  of  an  enormous  number  of  clauses,  its  progress  was 
exasperatingly  slow.  It  was  of  further  advantage  to  the 
1  obstructives  '  that  the  Bill  was  in  charge  of  Lord  Cranbrook 
(then  Mr.  Gathorne  Hardy) — a  man  at  once  of  vacuous  mind 
and  of  fiery  temper,  unready  in  argument  and  easily  roused 
to  displays  of  passion  ;  and  every  display  of  temper  was  an 
advantage  to  the  cool  and  self-possessed  leader  of  the  new 
policy.  It  was  a  curious  fight,  the  struggle  on  the  two  sides 
going  forward  night  after  night.  Mr.  Hardy  sat  on  the 
Treasury  bench,  reminding  the  spectator  of  the  tea-kettle 
that  stands  all  day  long  by  the  Irish  hearth,  ever  bubbling, 
and  occasionally  boiling  over.  Beside  him  were,  as  a  rule, 
one  or  two  of  his  colleagues  ;  nearly  every  other  part  of  the 
House  was  absolutely  empty  ;  the  only  break  in  the  solitude 
of  the  Opposition  benches  was  that  made  by  the  figures  of 
the  two  Irish  members,  with  the  addition,  usually,  of  Mr. 
O'Donnell,  and  occasionally  of  Mr.  O'Connor  Power.  For 
hours  the  Irishmen  went  on  speaking  several  times  on  every 
amendment,  using  one  set  of  arguments  and  then  another  ; 
answered  sometimes  patiently  by  the  hapless  War  Minister, 
then  left  unanswered  or  attacked  with  vehemence. 

It  was  on  the  South  African  Bill  that  the  long  pent-up 
storm  burst  forth  with  tempestuous  violence.  Here  again  the 
Irish  members  had  the  advantage  of  fighting  with  English 
allies.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said  generally  that  Mr.  Parnell  and 


ISAAC   BUTT  273 

Mr.  Biggar  would  never  have  been  able  to  carry  on  the  cam- 
paign of  '  obstruction '  so  called  if  it  had  not  been  for  the 
active  support  and,  oftener  still,  the  quiet  sympathy  of  mem- 
bers of  the  Liberal  party.  To  the  annexation  of  the  Trans- 
vaal, as  is  known,  Mr.  Courtney  offered  untiring  opposition  ; 
Mr.  Jenkins  joined  in  ;  and  when  they  or  any  other  of  the 
Radical  opponents  of  the  measure  grew  wearied,  or  seemed 
inclined  to  give  in,  there  was  Parnell  or  Biggar,  O'Donnell  or 
O'Connor  Power,  or  some  other  of  the  little  Irish  band,  ready 
to  revive  the  drooping  battle. 

On  July  25,  1 877,  a  violent  scene  occurred.  The  House 
was  in  committee  on  the  South  African  Bill.  Mr.  Jenkins 
had  rendered  himself  obnoxious  to  some  of  the  members 
of  his  own  party  by  his  opposition  to  the  measure,  and  Mr. 
Monk  accused  him  of  abusing  the  forms  of  the  House.  Mr. 
Jenkins  rose  to  order,  vehemently  denied  the  charge,  and 
then  moved  that  those  words  be  taken  down.  Mr.  Parnell  at 
once  rose.  '  I  second  that  motion,'  he  said  ;  '  I  think  the  limits 
of  forbearance  have  been  passed.  I  say  that  I  think  the  limits 
of  forbearance  have  been  passed  in  regard  to  the  language 
which  hon.  members  opposite  have  thought  proper  to  address 
to  me  and  to  those  who  act  with  me.'  At  once  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote,  who  was  then  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  and 
leader  of  the  House,  rose  and  moved  that  the  latter  words  of 
Mr.  Parnell  be  taken  down.  The  motion  of  Mr.  Jenkins  was 
irregularly  got  rid  of  by  the  intervention  of  the  chairman  of 
committees — Mr.  Raikes — who  declared  that  the  words  of 
Mr.  Monk  were  not  a  breach  of  order.  The  chairman,  how- 
ever, proceeded  to  raise  another  subject  of  dispute  by  calling 
upon  Mr.  Parnell  to  withdraw  his  statement,  '  accusing  hon. 
members  of  this  House  of  intimidation.'  '  The  hon.  member 
must  withdraw  that  expression,'  said  Mr.  Raikes,  amid  the 
cheers  and  intense  excitement  of  the  House.  Mr.  Parnell 
rose  to  explain  ;  he  was  constantly  interrupted  by  '  conversa- 
tion, coughs,  exclamations,  cries,  and  groans.'1  He  de- 
nounced the  Bill  as  mischievous  both  to  the  colonists  and  to 
the  native  races,  and  instituted  a  comparison  between  Ireland 
and  the  South  African  colonies  ;  '  therefore,'  he  went  on,  *  as 

1  New  Ireland,  p.  424. 

T 


274  TftE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

an  Irishman,  coming  from  a  country  which  had  experienced 
to  the  fullest  extent  the  results  of  English  interference  in  its 
affairs,  and  the  consequence  of  English  cruelty  and  tyranny, 
he  felt  a  special  satisfaction  in  preventing  and  thwarting  the 
intentions  of  the  Government  in  respect  to  this  Bill.' 

The  moment  these  words  had  been  uttered,  the  House 
thought   that   it    had    at    last    caught   the   cool,  wary,    and 
dexterous    Irish  member  in  a  moment  of  forgetfulness  and 
passion,  and  that  he  had  given  the  long-sought  opportunity 
for  bringing  him  to  account.     Amid  loud  shouts,  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote  rose  and  moved  that  the  words  of  Mr.  Parnell  be 
taken  down  ;  and  this  having  been  done,  he  proposed  that  all 
further   business  should   be    stopped,  and   that  the   Speaker 
should  be  sent  for.     The  Speaker  was  brought  in,  the  House 
filled    with    an    excited    crowd,  and    Sir   Stafford   Northcote 
moved  that  Mr.  Parnell  '  be  suspended  till  Friday  next.'     Mr. 
Parnell  was  called  upon  to  explain.     Either  from  anger  or  cal- 
culation, he  showed  no  anxiety  to  accept  the  chance  of  excul- 
pation.    It  was  not  till  the  Speaker  had  four  times  repeated 
the  offer  that  Mr.  Parnell  got  up.     The  speech  he  delivered 
is  very  characteristic  of  his  temper  and  his  methods.     While 
the  House  was  storming  around  him,  and  he  was  brought  face 
to  face  with  the  prospect  of  undergoing  parliamentary  cen- 
sure after  a  manner  unprecedented,  and  thus  viewed  with  horror 
by  all  the  men  around  him,  he  began  by  a  technical  objection. 
He  pointed  out  that  another  motion  had  been  proposed  to 
the  House  before  that  of  Sir  Stafford  Northcote's,  and  that, 
therefore,  the  motion  of  the  leader  of  the  House  was  out  of 
order.     But  the  Speaker  ruled  this  objection  as  untenable  ; 
and  Mr.  Parnell  had  to  proceed  with  his  own  defence.      He 
addressed  to  the  House,  which  was  now  in  a  state  of  almost 
frenzied    excitement,    a  speech  full  of    the  boldest  defiance 
and    of   stinging  suggestion.     The  House    was    now  beside 
itself  with  rage,  and  there  were  loud  shouts  that  Mr.  Parnell 
should  withdraw,  as  is  the  custom    when  the  conduct  of  a 
member  is  under  consideration.     Mr.  Parnell  left  his  seat  and 
calmly  proceeded  to  a  place  in  the  Speaker's  gallery,  and  from 
this  point  of  vantage  looked  down  on  the  proceedings  in  which 
he  himself  was  the  subject  of  debate. 


ISAAC   BUTT  275 

Sir  Stafford  Northcote'  now  moved  that  '  Mr.  Parnell  •, 
having  wilfully  and  persistently  obstructed  the  public  busi-  / 
ness,  is  guilty  of  contempt  of  the  House,  and  that  Mr.  1 
Parnell  for  his  said  offence  be  suspended  from  the  service  of 
the  House  till  Friday  next.'  In  those  days  the  House  was 
not  yet  ready  to  take  strong  steps  against  individual  members, 
and  there  was  a  recoil  from  the  proposal  of  Sir  Stafford 
Northcote.  Then  the  Liberals  remembered  the  bitter  suffer- 
ing they  had  had  to  undergo  from  Tory  obstructives  in  their 
days  of  power,  and  were  not  altogether  indisposed  to  make 
some  capital  out  of  the  distresses  of  the  Tories — obstructives 
raised  in  the  whirligig  of  time  to  such  positions  as  Under- 
secretary for  the  Colonies  and  Judge  Advocate-General  and 
Chairman  of  Committees.  Mr.  Knatchbull-Hugessen,  speak- 
ing from  the  front  Opposition  Bench,  reminded  Mr.  Hardy  of 
his  famous  avowal  'to  thwart  all  the  attempts  of  the  late 
Ministry  to  carry  out  their  army  reforms.'  Then  a  fatal  flaw 
had  been  pointed  out  in  the  proposal  of  Sir  Stafford  North- 
cote. The  words  of  Mr.  Parnell  had  been  examined  with 
cooler  temper  after  the  first  pounce  upon  him.  It  was  dis- 
covered that  the  charge  against  him  was,  after  all,  nothing  but 
a  mare's  nest.  He  had  certainly  declared  his  interest  in 
'thwarting  and  preventing  the  designs,'  not  of  the  House, 
which,  of  course,  would  be  obstruction,  but  '  of  the  Govern- 
ment,' which  is  the  object  and  the  legitimate  pursuit  of  every 
opponent  of  a  Ministerial  measure.  It  was  seen  that  Sir 
Stafford  Northcote  had  lost  his  head  in  his  eagerness  to  throw 
a  Christian  to  the  lions,  and  he  was  obliged  to  postpone 
further  debate  upon  the  question  until  the  following  Friday. 

This  was  a  triumph  for  Mr.  Parnell.  The  Speaker,  the 
occasion  for  which  he  had  been  called  having  passed  away, 
went  back  to  his  room  ;  Mr.  Raikes,  the  Chairman  of  Com- 
mittees, once  more  took  his  place  ;  Mr.  Parnell,  escorted  by 
Mr.  Biggar,  re-entered  the  House,  stood  up  again,  and  resumed 
his  speech  exactly  at  the  point  at  which  he  had  been  inter- 
rupted two  hours  before  by  the  impulsive  motion  of  Sir 
Stafford  Northcote. 

On  the  Friday  following  Sir  Stafford  Northcote  proposed 
two  new  rules.  The  first  was,  that  any  member  called  to 

T  2 


2?6  TrfE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

order  twice  by  the  Speaker  or  the  Chairman  of  Committees 
could  be  suspended  for  the  remainder  of  the  sitting  ;  and  the 
second,  that  no  member  be  allowed  to  propose  more  than 
once  in  the  same  sitting  a  motion  for  reporting  progress  or 
the  adjournment  of  the  debate.  The  resolutions  met  with 
some  criticism  from  the  Liberal  benches,  but  the  Irish 
members  offered  no  opposition,  and  the  two  rules  were 
adopted  for  the  session.  The  only  time  they  were  ever 
brought  into  requisition  was  against  poor  Mr.  Whalley,  who 
stumbled  into  a  mistake,  and  who  wras  suspended  somewhat 
hurriedly  and  perhaps  inconsiderately  by  the  Speaker.  On 
Wednesday,  July  31,  occurred  the  first  of  those  prolonged 
sittings  which  have  since  become  so  familiar.  The  Govern- 
ment, owing  to  the  dogged  and  persistent  opposition  of 
Mr.  Parnell  and  Mr.  Biggar,  and  to  some  extent  of  the 
Radicals  below  the  gangway,  were  very  far  behind  with  their 
legislative  proposals,  and  especially  with  the  South  African 
Bill.  At  last  it  was  resolved  that  the  measure  should  be 
pushed  through  on  the  night  of  Tuesday,  the  3ist  ;  and  on 
that  night,  for  the  first  time,  the  expedient  of  relays  that  has 
since  become  so  familiar  was  employed.  The  Irish  members, 
aware  of  the  arrangement  that  had  been  made  against  them, 
accepted  the  challenge,  and  determined  to  carry  on  the  fight 
as  long  as  their  strength  would  hold  out.  There  were  but  a 
few  of  them  to  carry  on  the  contest,  seven  in  all.  Mr.  Butt 
refused  to  have  anything  to  do  with  the  fight  ;  at  a  compara- 
tively early  period  of  the  struggle  he  had  got  up,  denounced 
his  followers  in  the  strongest  terms,  and  declared  that,  if  con- 
duct like  this  received  the  support  of  the  Irish  people,  he 
would  retire  from  politics  as  from  a  '  vulgar  brawl.' 

But  Mr.  Parnell  and  Mr.  Biggar  had  got  beyond  the 
stage  when  they  were  to  be  deterred  by  such  words  from 
carrying  out  the  policy  which  they  believed  to  be  necessary  in 
the  interests  of  their  country  ;  and  they  fought  on  unheeding. 
They  were  supported  for  some  time  by  Mr.  Courtney,  who 
vas  as  hostile  as  they  to  the  principle  of  the  South  African 
Bill,  and  who  has  since  been  justified,  as  well  as  Mr.  Parnell 
and  Mr.  Biggar,  by  the  disastrous  termination  to  the  measures 
of  which  the  South  African  Bill  was  the  starting-point.  But 


ISAAC   BUTT  277 

Mr.  Courtney  gave  up  the  struggle  in  the  small  hours  of  the 
night.  He  saw  that  the  Government  had  made  up  their 
minds  to  force  the  Bill  through,  characterised  this  proceeding 
as  encountering  '  rowdyism  by  rowdyism/  and  left.  The  fight 
still  went  on.  At  a  quarter-past  eight  in  the  morning,  after 
he  had  been  fifteen  hours  at  work,  Mr.  Parnell  retired  to  rest ; 
he  came  back  at  a  quarter- past  twelve,  four  hours  later,  and 
resumed  his  share  in  the  debates.  At  two  o'clock  the  last 
amendment  on  the  South  African  Bill  was  disposed  of,  and 
the  Bill  was  through.  When  the  House  rose  it  had  been 
sitting  for  twenty-six  hours.  One  other  little  incident  is 
worth  recording.  Throughout  the  long  watches  of  the  night 
the  Ladies'  Gallery  was  occupied  by  one  solitary  and  patient 
figure  ;  this  was  Miss  Fanny  Parnell,  who  shared  and  inspired 
the  convictions  of  her  brother,  and  who  afterwards  gave  to 
the  Irish  cause  some  of  its  most  stirring  lyrics  and  its  ablest 
argumentative  defences,  and  an  incessant  labour  amid  daily 
increasing  weakness  and  fast  approaching  death. 

This  unprecedented  sitting  in  the  House  of  Commons 
produced  in  England  a  tempestuous  burst  of  anger  and  excite- 
ment, and  for  some  days  Mr.  Parnell,  Mr.  Biggar,  and  their 
associates  were  denounced  with  a  wealth  of  invective  that 
would  not  have  been  unequal  to  the  merits  of  Guy  Fawkes  or 
Titus  Gates.  In  their  own  party,  too,  the  dissent  from  their 
tactics  was  reaching  a  climax  ;  Mr.  Butt  seemed  resolved  to 
throw  down  the  final  gage  of  battle,  and  call  upon  the  party  to 
make  their  choice  between  the  continuance  of  his  leadership 
and  the  suppression  of  the  two  mutineers.  But  all  efforts  to 
get  the  party  to  take  decisive  action  proved  abortive.  It 
should  be  said  for  Mr.  Butt  that  he  had  the  courage  of  his 
convictions  ;  that  being  convinced,  conscientiously  convinced, 
that  the  obstructive  policy  was  doing  great  injury  to  the 
national  cause,  he  was  ready  to  denounce,  and  if  possible,  to 
end  it.  But  the  majority  of  his  party,  while  hating  the 
'  obstructives  '  more  bitterly  than  Butt,  because  they  interfered 
with  their  selfish  purposes,  were  not  the  men  to  boldly  take 
action  against  them.  Time-servers  and  office-seekers,  they 
wanted  to  survive  till  the  advent  of  the  blessed  hour  when  the 
return  of  the  Liberals  to  power  would  give  them  the  long- 


2/8  THE   PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

desired  chance  of  throwing  off  the  temporary  mask  of 
national  views,  to  assume  the  permanent  livery  of  English 
officials.  Before  that  period  could  arrive,  they  well  knew  that 
a  General  Election  had  to  intervene,  and  who  knew  what 
control  over  that  election  might  be  exercised  by  such  extre- 
mists as  Mr.  Parnell  and  Mr.  Biggar  ?  The  only  political 
faith  which  these  gentlemen  really  knew  was,  what  has 
come  to  be  wittily  called  by  the  Pall  Mall  Gazette  '  the 
cult  of  the  jumping  cat.'  The  'jumping  cat '  might  jump  to 
the  side  of  Messrs.  Parnell  and  Biggar,  and  thus  it  behoved 
prudent  men  not  to  be  too  extreme  in  their  action  against 
them.  Thus  all  efforts  failed  to  have  them  formally  con- 
demned by  the  Home  Rule  party. 

This  fact  adds  another  element  of  tragedy  to  the  woeful 
eclipse  in  which  the  last  days  of  Butt  ended.  His  opponents 
were  honest  and  resolute  ;  his  friends,  self-seeking,  treacherous 
and  half-hearted,  ready  to  turn  without  a  blush  or  a  pause 
from  the  worship  of  the  setting  to  that  of  the  rising  sun. 

There  was  another  portent  of  the  time  which  still  more 
disquieted  Butt,  and  brought  the  peril  of  the  situation  more 
clearly  and  unmistakably  before  his  eyes.  The  policy  of 
Mr.  Parnell  and  Mr.  Biggar  might  not  as  yet  have  won  the 
intelligence  of  Ireland,  but  it  had  beyond  all  question  gained 
its  heart.  The  session  of  1877  had  ended  on  August  13  ;  on 
the  2  ist  of  the  same  month  there  was  a  meeting  in  the 
Rotunda  in  Dublin  in  honour  of  Mr.  Parnell  and  Mr.  Biggar ; 
the  meeting  was  crowded  ;  the  reception  was  enthusiastic  ; 
the  verdict  of  Dublin  was  given,  and  it  was  in  favour  of  the 
new  men  and  the  new  policy. 

The  reader,  to  understand  the  success  of  the  active  policy, 
has  to  recall  the  fact  which  I  have  endeavoured  all  through 
this  narrative  to  imprint  upon  his  mind  as  a  central  fact  of 
Irish  politics.  This  was  that,  since  the  betrayal  of  the  national 
cause  by  Keogh  and  Sadleir  in  1855,  the  heart  of  the  Irish 
people  had  never  been  won  for  parliamentary  agitation ;  there 
was  ever  the  tendency  to  the  cynic  doubtfulness  of  those  who 
have  once  been  greatly  deceived.  This  had  a  bad  effect  in 
several  ways.  In  the  first  place,  it  was  a  steady  obstacle  to 
that  infectious  enthusiasm  by  the  aid  of  which  alone  the 


ISAAC   BUTT 


279 


scattered  interests  and  forces  and  tendencies  of  a  nation  can 
be  moulded  into  the  unity  of  a  great  united  and  national 
movement.  It  left  the  constituencies  to  make  the  fight  on 
local  or  capricious  or  non-essential  issues  instead  of  a  common 
national  platform  ;  above  all  things,  it  left  the  parliamentary 
party  without  that  force  of  national  passion  behind  them 
without  which,  in  a  struggle  in  an  assembly  alien,  ignorant 
and  generally  hostile  like  the  House  of  Commons,  the  words 
of  Irish  national  representatives  were  but  as  sounding  brass 
and  tinkling  cymbal.  To  give  the  people  faith— that  was  the 
first  necessity  of  a  great  movement  in  Ireland  ;  that  was  the 
object,  and  that  is  the  chief  justification,  of  the  policy  of  the 
active  party. 

Meantime  the  struggle  was  going  on  inside  the  bosom  of 
the  Home  Rule  party  itself.  On  Monday  and  Tuesday, 
January  14  and  15,  1878,  a  conference  was  held  in  Dublin. 
There  had  been  reports  that  the  two  parties  would  come  into 
serious  collision  at  this  meeting.  On  both  sides,  too,  tokens  had 
been  given  which  sufficiently  indicated  determination  to  come 
to  close  quarters  and  to  have  the  issue  fought  out.  A  notice 
appeared,  in  the  name  of  Mr.  Butt,  recapitulating  resolutions 
which  had  been  passed  after  the  election  of  the  party  in 
1874 — resolutions  pledging  the  party  to  act  independently 
of  both  the  English  parties,  and  at  the  same  time  in  unity 
with  each  other.  Then  Mr.  Butt  proposed  to  add  the  following 
resolution  :  — 

That  in  the  opinion  of  this  conference  the  cordial  acquiescence 
in  the  resolutions  is  essential  to  that  unity  without  which  it  is  impos- 
sible to  maintain  an  independent  Irish  party  in  the  British  House  of 
Commons,  and  that  while  we  deprecate  any  undue  interference  with 
the  liberty  of  independent  action,  we  are  of  opinion  that  no  Irish 
member  ought  to  persevere  in  any  course  of  action  which  shall  be 
declared  by  a  resolution  adopted  at  a  meeting  of  the  Home  Rule 
members  to  be  calculated  to  be  injurious  to  the  National  cause.1 

On  the  other  hand  Mr.  O'Connor  Power  had  given  notice 
of  this  resolution  : — 

That  the  hostility  with  which  the  just  and  constitutional  demands 
for  self-government  made  by  a  majority  of  the  Irish  representatives 
1  Nation,  January  19,  1878. 


28o  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

has  been  met  with  by  both  English  parties  in  the  House  of  Commons 
increases  the  obligation  which  the  Home  Rule  members  are  under 
of  adhering  to  their  engagement  to  hold  themselves  aloof  from  under- 
standings, combinations,  or  alliances  with  any  English  party  not 
pledged  to  support  a  measure  for  the  establishment  of  an  Irish 
Parliament,  and  makes  it  essential  to  the  success  of  the  Irish  cause 
that  more  determined  and  vigorous  action  should  be  taken  by  the 
parliamentary  party.1 

As  the  time  for  the  conference  approached,  however,  Butt 
again  found  that  he  was  righting  without  his  army.  A 
private  meeting  of  the  Irish  members,  held  on  the  Saturday 
before  the  conference,  arrived  at  a  compromise.  The  rival 
resolutions  were  withdrawn,  and  a  set  of  resolutions  proposed 
by  a  Mr.  P.  McCabe  Fay  were  accepted,  which,  if  anything,  were 
more  favourable  to  Mr.  Parnell  than  Mr.  Butt  For  these 
resolutions,  while  recommending  '  united  and  energetic  action 
under  the  leadership  of  Mr.  Butt,'  also  laid  down,  that  on  ques- 
tions on  which  the  party  had  not  arrived  at  a  determination  to 
adopt  common  action,  '  the  members  of  the  party  have  full 
liberty  of  action  ' 2 ;  '  always  remembering  the  deep  obligation 
on  all  individual  action,  both  in  and  outside  the  House  of 
Commons,  to  endeavour  to  avoid  any  course  that  would 
injure  the  influence  of  unity  of  the  Home  Rule  party.'3  The 
resolutions  also  declared  it  desirable  '  that  more  energetic 
action  should  be  taken  in  Parliament,'  and  impressed  upon 
the  Home  Rule  members  '  the  necessity  of  increased  activity 
and  more  regular  attendance  during  the  ensuing  session.'  At 
the  conference,  accordingly,  everything  proceeded  with  perfect 
harmony.  Mr.  Butt  and  Mr.  Parnell  both  explained  their 
policy  in  calm  language,  and  with  that  unbroken  courtesy  to 
one  another  which  always  distinguished  their  relations  even 
in  the  midst  of  their  bitterest  differences  of  opinion.  A  few 
sentences  from  the  speeches  of  both  upon  the  occasion  will 
put  the  two  policies  in  juxtaposition,  and  enable  the  reader 
to  judge  between  the  two.  The  following  is  an  extract  from 
Mr.  Butt's  speech  :— 

I  took  the  liberty  some  time  ago  at  Limerick  to  lay  down  what 
I  believed  was  the  policy  to  pursue,  and  that  was  to  make  an  assault 
}  Nation,  January  19,  1878.  2  Ib,  8  Ib. 


ISAAC   BUTT 


281 


along  the  whole  line  of  English  misgovernment,  to  bring  forward 
every  grievance  of  Ireland,  to  press  the  English  House  of  Commons 
for  their  redress  ;  and  I  believed,  and  believe  it  still,  that  if  once  we 
get  liberal-minded  Englishmen  fairly  to  consider  how  they  would  re- 
dress the  grievance  of  Irish  misgovernment,  they  would  come  in  the 
end  to  the  conclusion  that  they  had  but  one  way  of  giving  us  good 
government,  and  that  was  by  allowing  us  to  govern  ourselves. 

And  this  is  an  extract  from  the  speech  of  Mr.  Parnell  : — 

If  I  refrain  from  asking  the  country  to-day,  by  the  voice  of  this 
conference,  to  adopt  any  particular  line  of  action  or  any  particular 
policy,  or  to  put  any  definite  issue  in  reference  to  it  before  this 
conference,  I  do  so  solely  because  I  am  young  and  can  wait 
(applause). 

Mr.  Butt  — Hear,  hear. 

And  because  I  believe  the  country  can  also  wait,  and  that  the 
country  which  has  waited  so  long  can  afford  to  be  patient  a  little 
longer  (cheers).  .  .  .  Mr.  Butt  has  very  fairly  explained  the  policy 
that  he  has  carried  out  during  the  three  or  four  years  that  this  Par- 
liament has  lasted,  and  he  has  pointed  to  his  speech  at  Limerick,  in 
which  he  described  his  policy  as  one  which  was  designed  to  make  an 
attack  on  the  whole  line  of  English  misgovernment  in  Ireland,  by 
laying  bare  the  grievances  under  which  Ireland  suffers,  and  he  has 
told  us  his  belief  that  if  ...  he  made  it  clear  to  Englishmen  that 
we  really  did  suffer  under  many  unjust  laws,  that  he  would  be  able 
to  induce  fair-minded  Englishmen  to  direct  their  attention  to  the 
redress  of  these  grievances,  and  that  he  would  be  able  to  persuade 
them  that  the  best  way  to  redress  our  grievances  would  be  to  leave 
us  to  redress  them  ourselves.  Now  I  gladly  agree  with  Mr.  Butt 
that  I  think  it  is  very  possible  and  very  probable  that  he  would  be 
able  to  persuade  fair-minded  Englishmen  in  the  direction  that  is  in- 
dicated— (hear,  hear) — but  still,  I  do  not  think  that  the  House  of 
Commons  is  mainly  composed  of  fair-minded  Englishmen.  If  we 
had  to  deal  with  men  who  were  capable  of  listening  to  fair  arguments, 
there  would  be  every  hope  of  success  for  the  policy  of  Mr.  Butt  as 
carried  out  in  past  sessions,  but  we  are  dealing  with  political  parties 
who  really  consider  the  interests  of  their  political  organisations  as 
paramount  beyond  every  other  consideration.  (Hear  !  hear  !) 

The  conference  discussed  at  great  length  another  question 
of  even  more  importance.  This  was  the  period  when  the 
two  English  parties  were  in  their  fiercest  antagonism  to  one 
another  in  reference  to  Lord  Beaconsfield's  policy  on  the 


282  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

Eastern  Question,  and  it  was  expected  that  there  would  be, 
during  the  approaching  session  of  1878,  a  great  party  fight  in 
which  the  Irish  vote,  if  united,  could  make  itself  a  potent 
factor  on  one  side  or  the  other.  After  a  long  discussion  it 
was  agreed  that  the  party  should  be  recommended  to  agree 
to  united  action,  and  to  vote  solidly  for  one  side  or  the 
other. 

So  the  conference  ended  in  a  drawn  battle,  but  the  session 
of  1878  was  soon  to  show  how  impossible  it  was  to  do  any- 
thing with  the  existing  party,  or  with  Mr.  Butt  himself.  A 
more  regular  attendance  on  the  part  of  members  was  re- 
quested, and  the  only  result  was  that  often  when  an  impor- 
tant Irish  Bill  was  proposed  there  were  not  half-a-dozen  Irish 
members  in  their  places.  Joint  action  had  been  recommended 
on  the  Eastern  Question,  and  when  the  great  party  division 
came  the  members  took  different  sides.  There  was  even  a 
graver  scandal,  for  Mr.  Butt,  the  leader  of  the  party,  not  only 
voted  with  the  Ministry,  and  thereby  swelled  the  majority  of 
a  party  that  had  up  to  that  time  refused  every  single  demand 
of  the  Irish  people,  but  he  spoke  in  a  tone  far  more  worthy  of 
an  Imperialist  'Jingo'  than  of  an  Irish  Nationalist. 

This  was  an  important  victory  for  Mr.  Parnell,  and  another 
success  had  immediately  preceded.  There  are  no  Irishmen 
more  fierce  or  resolute  in  the  national  faith  than  the  Irishmen 
settled  in  England  and  Scotland.  They  are,  though  this  is  not 
generally  thought,  far  more  extreme  in  their  views  than  the 
majority  of  the  Irish  in  America,  and  they  have  an  unbroken 
unity  and  a  clear-sighted  appreciation  of  the  essential  truth 
in  grave  national  controversies  that  might  well  put  to  the 
blush  the  half-heartedness,  the  wavering  purposes,  and  the 
divided  counsels  of  the  Irish  who  have  remained  in  Ireland. 
The  reasons  of  the  political  temper  of  the  Irish  in  England 
are  chiefly  these  :  first,  the  true  state  of  Ireland  is  only  appre- 
ciated properly  by  contrast  ;  and  the  Irishman  in  England, 
when  he  goes  back  to  his  own  country  after  a  residence  in  a 
free  and  prosperous  community  like  that  in  England,  perceives 
more  clearly  and  feels  far  more  keenly  the  desperate  state  of 
his  country  than  the  Irishman  who  never  has  had  the  oppor- 
tunity of  seeing  anything  but  the  poverty,  servitude,  and 


ISAAC   BUTT  283 

squalor  amid  which  he  has  always  lived.  Then  the  Irish  in 
England — uncompromising  in  their  attachment  to  their  creed 
and  their  nationality,  wearing  the  shamrock  on  St.  Patrick's 
day,  bearing  the  palm  on  Palm  Sundays — are  to  a  certain 
extent  a  caste  apart,  and  have  something  of  the  narrowness, 
and  provoke  and  resent  something  of  the  enmity  which  isola- 
tion produces.  Thus  it  comes  to  pass  that,  of  all  the  scattered 
branches  of  the  Irish  race,  the  Irishmen  settled  in  England 
maintain  a  political  faith  more  extreme  and  resolute  than  the 
Irish  in  any  other  part  of  the  world.  The  Irish  in  England 
were  from  the  very  first  on  the  side  of  Mr.  Parnell.  They  are 
usually  enrolled  in  some  organisation  more  or  less  intimately 
affiliated  with  the  similar  organisation  in  Ireland.  At  this  period 
the  name  of  the  English  organisation  was  the  Home  Rule  Con- 
federation, and  Mr.  Butt  was  its  president.  At  the  annual 
convention  of  the  Confederation  at  the  close  of  1877,  Mr.  Butt 
was  deposed  and  Mr.  Parnell  was  elected  in  his  place.  The 
man  who  proposed  the  change  bore  to  Butt  that  extraordinary 
affection  with  which  this  weak,  kindly,  unassuming,  and  child- 
ishly simple  old  man  was  accustomed  to  inspire  nearly  every 
man,  and  could  with  difficulty  maintain  his  composure  as  he 
gave  the  tottering  Csesar  the  fatal  stab. 

Mr.  Butt  now  virtually  retired  from  the  leadership  of  the 
Home  Rule  party.  His  resignation  of  his  position  was  not 
accepted,  and  he  was  induced  to  retain  at  least  the  nominal 
lead  of  the  party.  He  accepted  on  the  condition  that  his 
attendance  should  not  be  regular ;  this  condition  was  for  the 
purpose  of  allowing  him  to  devote  his  attention  to  his  practice. 
Like  O'Connell,  he  had  virtually  to  abandon  his  profession 
when  he  undertook  the  duties  of  parliamentary  leadership.  In 
this  way  his  already  vast  load  of  debt  had  been  increased, 
and  his  hours  of  waking  and  sleeping  were  tortured  by  duns, 
threats  of  proceedings,  and  all  the  other  shifts  and  worries  of 
the  impecunious.  His  quarrel  with  the  'obstructives'  had  now 
come  to  interfere  with  his  financial  as  well  as  with  his  poli- 
tical position.  A  national  subscription  had  been  started.  In 
Ireland  the  response  of  the  people  to  the  needs  of  their 
leaders  has  often  been  bountifully  generous,  more  often  than 
perhaps  in  any  other  country  ;  but  those  who  depend  on  the 


284  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

assistance  of  the  public  are  subject  to  the  chances  of  fortune 
that  always  dog  the  dependents  in  any  degree  on  the  popular 
mood.  There  are  times  and  seasons  when  even  the  most 
popular  leader  will  not  receive  one-tenth  of  the  support  which 
would  be  given  in  more  favourable  circumstances,  and  the 
popular  leader  dependent  for  his  living  on  the  pence  of  the 
people  has  the  life  of  the  gambler  or  the  theatrical  specu- 
lator. The  support  of  the  people  had  been  definitely  trans- 
ferred from  Mr.  Butt  to  Mr.  Parnell,  and  financial  support 
followed  the  tide  of  popular  favour.  The  subscription  was  a 
miserable  failure,  and  Butt  was  now  without  any  resource  but 
his  profession. 

But  the  time  had  passed  when  he  could  do  anything  there. 
The  weakness  of  the  heart's  action,  which  had  pursued  him 
from  his  early  years,  was  rapidly  becoming  worse,  and  in 
1878  there  were  many  warnings  of  the  approaching  end.  In 
that  year  he  made  the  remark  to  a  friend,  speaking  of  some 
troublesome  symptoms  from  his  heart,  '  Is  not  this  the  curfew 
bell,  warning  us  that  the  light  must  be  put  out  and  the  fire 
extinguished  ? ; 

Still  he  fought  on,  attending  the  law  courts  daily,  and 
now  and  then  joining  in  a  desperate  attempt  to  meet  his  daily 
triumphant  opponents. 

His  last  appearance  was  at  a  meeting  in  Molesworth  Hall 
on  February  4,  1879.  He  was  at  this  time  engaged  in  the 
cause  cclcbre  of  Bagot  v.  Bagot. 

The  appearance  of  the  old  man  at  this  meeting  has  left  a 
deep  and  a  sacl  impression  on  the  minds  of  all  those  who  were 
present.  When  he  came  in  the  look  of  death  was  on  his 
face  ;  the  death  of  his  hopes  and  his  spirits  had  already  come. 
There  were  many  faces  among  those  around  that  once  had 
lighted  at  his  look  and  that  now  turned  away  in  estrange- 
ment. '  Won't  you  speak  to  me  ? '  he  said  in  trembling  tones 
to  one  man  who  had  been  his  associate  in  many  fights  and 
amid  many  stirring  scenes.  But  his  old  persuasive  eloquence 
was  still  as  fresh  as  ever,  and  he  defended  his  whole  policy 
with  a  vigour,  plausibility,  a  closeness  of  reasoning  that  were 
worthy  of  his  best  days. 

This  was  the  last  meeting  he  ever  attended.     The  next 


ISAAC   BUTT 


285 


day  he  fell  sick.  The  heart  had  at  last  refused  to  do  its 
work  ;  the  brain  could  no  longer  be  supplied  ;  he  lingered 
for  nearly  a  month  with  his  great  intellect  obscured,  and  on 
May  5,  1879,  he  died. 

The  people  retained  a  kindly  feeling  for  him  to  the  end, 
but  he  had  unquestionably  outlived  his  usefulness  ;  and  his 
triumph  over  Mr.  Parnell  at  this  period  of  Irish  history  would 
have  been  a  national  calamity  that  might  have  brought  hideous 
disasters.  Sufficient  time  has  elapsed  since  his  death  to  pro- 
nounce a  calm  estimate  of  his  career.  The  unwisdom  of  his 
policy  was  largely  due  undoubtedly  to  the  difficulties  of  his 
circumstances.  He  had  a  wretched  party — with  one  honest 
and  unselfish  man  to  five  self-seekers — but  he  laid  the  foun- 
dations of  a  great  party  in  the  future,  and,  more  than  any 
other  man,  he  prepared  the  people  for  the  new  struggle  for 
self-government.  It  was  his  misfortune  to  come  at  the  un- 
happy interval  of  transition  from  the  bad  and  old  and  hope- 
less order  of  things  to  a  new  and  a  better  and  brighter 
epoch.  Between  the  era  of  1865  and  the  era  of  1878  Ireland 
was,  so  far  as  constitutional  movements  were  concerned,  in  a 
political  morass.  It  was  Butt  that  carried  the  country  over 
that  dangerous  ground.  His  foot  was  light,  and  slippery,  and 
timid ;  but  the  ground  over  which  he  had  to  pass  was 
treacherous,  perilous,  and  full  of  invisible  and  bottomless 
pools. 

But  all  the  same,  it  was  well  for  Ireland  that  Butt  died  at 
this  moment.  The  country  was  again  approaching  one  of  those 
crises  the  outcome  of  which  was  to  mean  either  a  re-plunge 
into  the  Slough  of  Despond,  such  as  she  had  been  immersed  in 
from  1845  to  1865,  or  the  start  of  a  new  era  of  hope,  effort, 
and  prosperity.  If  Butt  had  survived,  and  had  retained  the 
leadership,  there  is  little  doubt  that  he  would  have  been  in- 
capable of  rising  to  the  height  of  the  argument,  and  would 
have  counselled  shilly-shallying  where  shilly-shallying  meant 
death,  and  moderation  where  extreme  courses  were  required 
to  avert  a  national  disaster,  wholesale,  violent,  and  perhaps 
fatal ;  or,  if  he  had  not  retained  the  full  leadership  by  the  de- 
struction of  the  rising  efforts  of  Mr.  Parnell  and  Mr.  Biggar, 
and  if  he  and  they  still  remained  in  political  existence,  and  to 


286  tfcE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

some  extent  in  political  alliance,  then  there  would  have  been 
divided  counsels  ;  and  the  time  was  one  for  unity.  All  the 
meanness  and  servility  and  half-heartedness  of  the  country 
would  have  found  in  Butt  a  rallying-point,  and  the  crisis  was 
one  that  demanded  all  the  energy  and  courage  and  concen- 
trated purpose  of  the  country.  For  the  year  of  1879  was  at 
hand. 


287 


CHAPTER   IX. 
FAMINE    AGAIN! 

BEFORE  coming  to  1879,  a  few  words  more  on  the  progress 
of  Mr,  Parnell.  The  arrangement  in  the  Home  Rule  party 
was  to  elect,  not  a  leader  by  that  name,  but  a  sessional  chair- 
man. Mr.  Shaw  was  elected  as  the  successor  of  Mr.  Butt. 
The  selection  was  regarded  at  the  time  as  rather  happy.  Mr. 
Shaw  was  a  banker,  and  represented  well  the  conviction  of 
cool,  unemotional  business  men  that  the  union  was  fatal  to 
the  material  interests  of  Ireland.  He  was,  besides,  a  Protes- 
tant, and  in  the  politics  of  a  country  so  intensely  Catholic  as 
Ireland  it  is,  curiously  enough,  an  advantage  to  belong  to  a 
creed  different  from  that  of  the  majority  of  the  people.  It  was 
supposed,  too,  that  Mr.  Shaw  would  not  fall  into  the  same  mis- 
take in  dealing  with  Mr.  Parnell  and  Mr.  Biggar  as  had  been 
committed  by  Mr.  Butt ;  if  he  could  not  approve  or  join  in 
all  their  proceedings  as  the  leader  of  a  regular  army,  at  least 
he  might  not  object  to  the  services  they  rendered  him  as 
guerilleros. 

Meantime  the  Ministry  was  about  to  supply  Mr.  Parnell 
with  the  best  of  all  justifications  for  his  policy.  It  has  been 
seen  with  what  contemptuous  scorn  the  Government  rejected 
all  Mr.  Butt's  proposed  reforms.  Mr.  Butt  and  his  methods 
had  thus  been  flouted  for  three  years  ;  within  one  year  of  the 
growth  of  '  obstruction,'  the  Government  proceeded  to  bring 
forward  concessions  to  Ireland.  In  the  session  of  1878  they 
introduced  an  Intermediate  Education  Bill.  This  was  es- 
pecially satisfactory  to  Mr.  Parnell ;  his  practical  mind  judges 
every  policy  by  its  results,  and  he  was  now  able  to  show 
to  the  Irish  people  a  practical  result  from  his  policy.  In 
this  session,  too,  a  curious  testimony  was  given  to  his  grow- 
ing position.  A  committee  was  appointed  to  consider  the 


288  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

question  of  obstruction,  and  the  means  by  which  it  should  be 
met.  Mr.  Parnell  was  appointed  one  of  the  members  of  this 
committee  ;  and  there  was  a  certain  sense  of  mingled  dis- 
gust, amusement,  and  admiration  at  the  skill  with  which  Mr. 
Parnell  cross-examined  the  different  witnesses  who  were  called 
to  bear  testimony  against  himself.  Without  ever  changing 
countenance,  or  losing  temper,  or  saying  a  hasty,  or  a  rude,  or 
an  impatient  word,  he  took  the  Speaker  and  Mr.  Raikes  point 
by  point  through  the  whole  genesis  and  nature  of  obstruction 
till  he  compelled  them  to  give  it  that  exactness  of  definition 
which  made  it  the  more  difficult  to  deal  with.  The  sight  of 
this  gentleman,  calmly  asking  what  was  '  obstruction,'  at  the 
moment  when  the  whole  press  and  all  the  Parliament  of 
England  were  howling  at  him  as  an  unscrupulous  and  persis- 
tent practician  of  the  art  of  obstruction,  had  something  very 
curious  about  it. 

In  the  session  of  1879  Mr.  Parnell  succeeded,  after  his 
dexterous  fashion,  in  catching  hold  of  a  subject  upon  which 
it  was  possible  to  address  the  House  with  great  frequency 
and  at  great  length.  The  Army  Regulation  Bill,  among 
other  things,  regulated  the  question  of  flogging.  Mr.  Parnell 
knew  that  there  were  a  certain  number  of  members  among 
the  Liberals  who  strongly  objected  to  this  form  of  punishment, 
and  he  determined  to  utilise  their  feeling.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  were  many  among  the  Liberals  who  were  shrewd 
enough  to  sec  that  this  was  a  question  upon  which  it  was 
possible  to  raise  a  considerable  amount  of  popular  feeling. 
A  general  election  was  impending,  and  the  abolition  of 
flogging  in  the  army  naturally  presented  itself  as  a  very  good 
cry  for  catching  the  voters.  In  the  previous  session,  Mr. 
Parnell  and  Mr.  Biggar  had  been  left  to  fight  the  question  of 
flogging  alone.  Now  the  curious  spectacle  was  presented  of 
the  Irish  'obstructives'  being  supported  by  Mr.  Chamberlain 
and  several  other  prominent  and  promising  members  of  the 
Radical  section.  In  the  end,  Parnell  and  Biggar,  seeing  how 
well  their  purpose  was  being  served  by  the  Liberal  opposition, 
drew  slightly  into  the  background,  and  allowed  the  question 
to  be  practically  taken  out  of  their  hands  ;  and  this  brought 
curious  developments.  As  Mr.  Parnell  had  been  left  fighting 


FAMINE  AGAIN 


289 


the  battle  against  flogging  alone  when  he  began  the  struggle, 
so  Mr.  Chamberlain  was  left  alone  by  the  orthodox  Liberals 
when  he  took  it  up.  In  the  same  way,  too,  as  Mr.  Parnell 
had  been  vehemently  attacked  by  the  whole  force  of  the  two 
parties  combined  in  his  early  days  of  assault  upon  the  lash, 
the  persistence  of  Mr.  Chamberlain's  agitation  of  the  question 
in  the  House  drew  down  upon  him  a  rebuke  from  the  Marquis 
of  Hartington,  and  there  was  a  sharp  scene  between  the 
two.  But  in  the  end  the  agitation  against  the  lash  became 
strong  enough  to  be  taken  up  by  the  orthodox  Liberals,  and 
in  the  same  way  as  Parnell  was  succeeded  by  Chamberlain, 
Chamberlain  was  succeeded  by  Lord  Hartington  and  the 
Liberal  leaders.  The  result  of  this  was  that  the  lash  became 
one  of  the  prominent  subjects  of  debate  between  the  two 
parties,  and  in  more  than  one  constituency  a  Conservative 
member  was  hounded  out  of  public  life  by  the  vehement 
speeches  of  Liberals  upon  the  question. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  Mr.  Parnell  was  not  allowed  to 
go  through  the  sessions  of  1878  and  1879  without  occasionally 
passing  through  storms  of  the  most  tempestuous  violence. 

He  was  denounced  by  Ministers  and  by  the  leaders  of  the 
Opposition,  and  was  over  and  over  again  repudiated  by  the 
members  of  his  own  party,  who  were  delighted  by  the  un- 
usual incident  of  attentive  and  enthusiastic  Houses.  It  would 
be  useless  to  cumber  the  narrative  with  any  record  of  these 
utterances  by  forgotten  slaves. 

By  way  of  illustrating  the  sweet  and  gentlemanly  delicacy 
of  the  observations  of  some  London  journals  on  Mr.  Parnell, 
the  following  passages  from  a  writer  already  quoted,  may  not 
be  uninstructive  nor,  indeed,  unamusing  : — 

Mr.  Parnell  is  always  at  a  white  heat  of  rage,  and  makes  with 
savage  earnestness  fancifully  ridiculous  statements,  such  as  you  may 
hear  from  your  partner  in  the  quadrille  if  you  have  the  good  fortune 
to  be  a  guest  at  the  annual  ball  at  Colney  Hatch. —  World,  March  29, 
1876. 

The  writer  who  cherishes  a  real  affection  of  Ireland,  and  who  has 
an  unaffected  admiration  for  the  genius  of  her  sons,  bitterly  reproaches 
Meath  that  it  should  have  wronged  Ireland  by  making  such  scenes 
possible  under  the  eye  of  the  House. —  World,  March  29,  1876. 

U 


- 


29o  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

Mr.  Biggar,  though  occasionally  endurable,  is  invariably  grotesque. 
...  but  Mr.  Parnell  has  no  redeeming  qualities,  unless  we  regard  it 
as  an  advantage  to  have  in  the  House  a  man  who  unites  in  his  own 
person  all  the  childish  unreasonableness  of  the  ill-regulated  suspicion, 
and  all  the  childish  credulity,  of  the  Irish  peasant,  without  any  of 
the  humour,  the  courtliness,  or  dash  of  the  Irish  gentleman.—  World, 
March  29,  1876. 

Meantime  events  were  developing  in  Ireland  which  were 
destined  to  mould  his  future  and  to  meet  his  career  at  the 
true  psychological  moment.  The  Land  Act  of  1870,  as  I 
have  already  told,  had  been  put  forward  by  Mr.  Gladstone 
and  his  supporters  in  the  House  of  Commons  as  a  just  and 
final  settlement  of  the  Land  question.  It  has  been  seen  that 
no  Irish  popular  leader  really  acquainted  with  the  facts  of  the 
case,  like  Mr.  Butt  or  Sir  John  Gray,  believed  in  1870  that 
these  views  of  the  Act  would  be  justified.  It  has  also  been 
seen  that  in  all  the  years  which  elapsed  between  1870  and 
1879  there  was  scarcely  a  session  during  which  an  attempt 
was  not  made  to  remove  the  defects  of  the  measure  and  to 
apply  a  really  effective  remedy  to  the  evils  of  the  agrarian 
system. 

What  had  been  the  state  of  Ireland  since  1870?  The 
Land  Act  of  1870  made  no  provision  against  rack-rent; 
rack-renting  went  on  in  many  parts  of  Ireland,  especially 
in  the  province  of  Ulster,  more  relentlessly  and  continuously 
than  perhaps  ever  before.  Eviction  was  but  partly  provided 
against  by  an  arrangement  that  compelled  the  landlord  to 
give  compensation  for  disturbance.  It  was  supposed,  and 
perhaps  intended  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  that  this  compensation 
should  bear  some  relation  to  the  loss  of  the  tenant  ;  but  in  a 
country  where  the  land  supplied  a  man  with  the  only  means 
of  livelihood,  it  was  plain  that  the  only  compensation  which 
would  really  supply  the  place  of  his  lost  farm  would  be 
a  compensation  that  would  give  him  an  income  for  the 
remainder  of  his  days.  Thus  compensation  for  disturbance 
was,  in  Ireland,  practically  a  contradiction  in  terms ;  to 
talk  of  a  man  being  compensated  for  disturbance  was  the 
same  thing  as  to  talk  of  the  compensating  of  an  ocean  waif 
for  the  loss  of  the  raft  which  alone  gives  him  a  hope  of 
safety.  In  the  next  place,  the  courts  to  which  the  question 


FAMINE   AGAIN 


291 


of  disturbance  was  referred  had  prejudices  and  concep- 
tions on  the  relations  between  landlord  and  tenant  which 
rendered  it  absolutely  impossible  for  them  to  administer 
justice.  It  must  be  remembered,  as  one  of  the  leading  facts 
of  this  whole  controversy,  that  the  whole  bent  of  the  land  law 
in  Ireland,  not  for  years  or  for  generations,  but  for  centuries, 
was  to  make  the  landlord  omnipotent ;  that  the  lawyers 
dealing  with  the  question,  whether  Protestant  or  Catholic, 
Conservative  or  Liberal,  were  saturated  with  the  principles  of 
a  law  founded  on  this  basis  ;  and  that,  therefore,  the  rights  of 
the  tenants  were  often  honestly  held  to  be  legally  infinitesimal. 
Finally,  there  was  no  provision — at  least  no  adequate  pro- 
vision— in  the  Land  Act  of  1 870  for  compensation  for  disturb- 
ance in  cases  where  the  tenant  was  unable  to  pay  the  rent. 
This  also  was  contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the  Act,  because  Mr. 
Gladstone  plainly  laid  down,  in  discussing  the  Bill,  that  over 
and  above  his  right  for  any  improvements  he  might  have 
made  upon  the  soil,  the  tenant  .was  entitled  to  compensation 
from  the  mere  fact  of  being  disturbed  or  evicted  ;  and  it  was 
plainly  the  spirit  of  the  Land  Act  of  1870  that,  even  when 
the  tenant  was  unable  to  pay  his  rent,  eviction  should  not 
necessarily  deprive  him  of  compensation  for  his  own  pro- 
perty in  the  shape  of  improvements  added  to  the  land.  But  as 
the  law  stood,  or  was  interpreted,  the  way  the  Act  of  1870 
worked  was  that  the  landlord  was  enabled,  on  the  one  hand 
to  raise  the  rent  to  the  highest  point  he  thought  fit ;  that  the 
tenant  could  only  obtain  compensation  for  eviction  ;  and  finally 
that  when  either  through  the  rack-rent  or  bad  seasons  the 
tenant  was  unable  to  pay 'his  rent,  all  his  improvements  could 
be  confiscated  by  the  landlord,  and  he  himself  be  thrown  upon 
the  world  without  house,  without  resources,  without  mercy. 

It  was  obvious  to  anybody  who  considered  the  Irish  Land 
question  with  an  impartial  mind  that  legislation  of  this  kind 
could  only  be  endured  as  long  as  the  people  were  utterly  inca- 
pable of  having  it  mended.  Another  fact  was  equally  obvious, 
that  it  only  required  the  strain  of  a  few  bad  seasons  to  reduce 
the  greater  portion  of  the  tenantry  of  Ireland  to  a  state  of 
bankruptcy.  And,  finally,  with  the  farmers  dependent  for  the 
most  part  on  a  crop  whose  fickleness  had  been  proved  by 


u  2 


292  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

such  tragic  testimony  in  the  previous  history  of  Ireland,  it 
was  plain  that  such  stress  was  bound  at  some  period  to  come. 
It  is  an  instructive  commentary  on  the  effect  of  the 
government  of  Ireland  from  Westminster  that,  seventy-nine 
years  after  the  Act  of  Union,  the  farmers  remained  in  practi- 
cally the  same  position  as  at  the  beginning  of  the  century  ;  that 
in  these  seventy-nine  years  there  had  been  two  famines,  one 
among  the  most  tragic  in  the  awful  depths  of  its  horrors  and 
sufferings  of  all  human  events  ;  and  that,  after  two  famines,  the 
country  was  approaching  a  third.  In  1879  too,  as  in  1846, 
the  potato  crop  could  without  exaggeration  be  described  as 
the  thin  partition  which  stood  between  famine  and  a  vast 
number  of  the  Irish  tenantry.  Let  us  take  this  fact  in  con- 
nection with  the  following  figures  showing  the  depreciation  in 
the  potato  crop  for  the  years  1876,  1877  and  1878. 

VALUE.1 

1876  .  ...     £12,464,382 

1877  5,271,822 

7,579>512 


There  was  hope,  of  course,  that  1879  would  repair  the  loss 
which  had  been  inflicted  by  the  two  previous  years  ;  but  1879, 
instead  of  bringing  relief,  aggravated  the  disaster,  and  brought 
a  supreme  national  crisis.  The  state  of  the  weather  and  the 
reports  from  the  country  showed  clearly  to  any  observer  of 
the  time  that  a  disaster  was  impending  that  might,  unless 
properly  met,  plunge  Ireland  into  the  odious  and  tragic 
horrors  of  1846  and  1847.  Another  circumstance  tended 
very  much  to  aggravate  the  distress  in  the  poorer  parts  of 
the  country.  It  is  the  habit  of  a  considerable  section  of  the 
farmers  of  Mayo,  Galway,  and  Donegal  to  migrate  to  Eng- 
land and  Scotland  for  the  harvest  season  every  year.  The 
sums  which  they  thus  earned  by  the  migration,  calculated  at 
about  ioo,ooo/.,  went,  not  to  their  wives  and  families,  but 
to  the  landlord.  Labour  for  English  and  Scotch  farmers 
was  part  of  the  tribute  they  had  yearly  to  pay  to  their  oppres- 
sors. It  was,  indeed,  a  peculiarity  of  the  Irish  land  system 
that  it  pursued  the  Irish  race  wherever  that  race  went.  The 

1    Thorn*  s  Directory. 


FAMINE   AGAIN  293 

son  or  daughter  of  the  Irish  farmer  who  had  emigrated  to 
America,  or  Australia,  or  New  Zealand  did  not  leave  behind 
in  Ireland  the  curse  of  his  race.  The  wages  earned  as  a 
labourer,  or  a  servant-maid,  or  a  miner,  or  a  sheep- farmer  in 
any  of  these  places  of  exile  went  home  to  help  their  parents 
in  their  yearly  deepening  poverty,  through  their  yearly  in^ 
creasing  rent.  It  has  been  calculated  that  between  the  years 
1848  and  1864  no  less  a  sum  than  I3,ooo,ooo/.  'was  sent  by 
the  Irish  in  America  to  their  people  at  home.1  The  people  at 
home,  in  the  meantime,  remained  either  in  the  same  condition 
or  usually  sank  deeper  into  the  mire  of  inextricable  poverty. 
In  other  words,  the  money  sent  from  the  Irish  in  America  did 
the  farmer  no  good,  it  was  all  swallowed  up  by  the  Irish 
landlord  ;  it  was  part  of  the  world-wide  tribute  this  caste  was 
able  to  extort.  This  incontestable  fact  adds  another  element 
of  humour  to  the  complaint  of  the  landlord  class  that  the  sub- 
scriptions which  were  brought  into  the  Irish  National  League 
by  the  Irish  race  in  America  and  Australia  came  mostly 
from  servant-girls,  and  much  rhetoric  was  expended  from  the 
same  quarter  in  denunciation  of  the  agitators  who  lived  on 
their  hard-won  wages.  These  denunciations,  which,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  were  not  founded  upon  truth,  would  have  been 
more  becoming  if  they  had  not  proceeded  from  a  class  which 
had  been  for  a  generation  the  greatest  tax  and  the  most  pro- 
minent burden  of  the  servant-girls  of  New  York,  Chicago, 
Melbourne,  and  every  other  city  where  exiled  Irish  labour 
seeks  the  market  it  has  been  refused  at  home. 

The  loss  of  the  migratory  labourers  in  1877  is  calculated 
by  Dr.  Wilson  Hancock  at  25o,ooo/.2  The  amount  of 
value  of  the  potato  in  iS/Q3  was  3,341,0287.  In  other 
words,  two-thirds  of  the  entire  potato  crop  was  gone, 
and  in  some  parts  of  the  country  the  crop  was  entirely 
gone.  '  The  potato  crop,'  said  the  Registrar-General,  '  will 
be  deficient  in  every  province,  county,  and  union.'  'The 
salient  point  is,'  says  the  same  authority,  'that  in  1878  the 
estimated  produce  of  potatoes  in  Ireland  was  50,530,080  cwts., 
the  average  for  ten  years  being  60,752,918  cwts.,  whereas  the 

1  Lord  Dufferin,  quoted  byZHealy,  p.  49.  2  Healy,  p.  72.  a  Ib. 


294  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

estimated  yield  for  1879  is  only  22,273,520  cwts.,  a  most 
alarming  decrease.' l  The  meaning  of  these  figures  is  unmis- 
takable. Famine  was  coming  again  ! 

The  next  factor  in  the  situation  is  the  action  of  the  land- 
lords. The  English  reader  will  at  once  assume  that,  in  the 
face  of  a  great  emergency  like  this,  there  would  have  been  a 
tendency  on  the  part  of  the  owners  of  the  soil  to  take  their 
share  of  the  calamity  that  threatened  the  entire  Irish  nation. 
During  the  agricultural  crisis  of  these  three  years  the  English 
landlords  had  accepted  the  common  lot,  and  there  was  scarcely 
a  newspaper  which  did  not  contain  the  announcement  of  an 
abatement  of  rent  by  the  landlords  of  England — abatements 
rising  from  ten  to  fifty  per  cent.,  and  in  many  cases  to  the 
whole  of  the  half-year's  rent.  The  English  landlords  were 
considerate  enough,  and  it  may  be  added  wise  enough,  to 
make  these  abatements  ;  but  the  Irish  landlord  adopted  no 
such  method. 

And  here  let  it  be  remarked  that  one  of  the  insurmount- 
able difficulties  of  the  Irish  question  is  that  things  bear  the 
same  name  in  England  and  Ireland  without  having  the  same 
meaning.  Thus,  the  Irish  and  the  English  owners  of  the  soil 
are  both  known  by  the  name  of  landlords,  yet  is  there  no 
similarity  whatever  in  the  relations  of  the  two  to  the  general 
tenure  of  land  or  to  the  tillers  of  the  soil.  It  has  already 
been  shown  how  the  relation  differs  :  first,  in  the  great  essen- 
tial point  that  the  landlord,  in  England,  supplies  the  farm- 
houses, the  farm  buildings,  the  drainage,  and  practically  all 
the  other  outfit  of  a  farm  ;  while  in  Ireland  the  contribution 
of  the  landlord  has  been  confined  to  the  bare  soil.  It  is 
known  that  the  occupier  in  Ireland  was,  as  a  rule,  a  small 
farmer,  while  in  England  the  occupier  was  usually  a  large 
farmer  who  invested  a  considerable  capital  in  land.  But  the 
moral  difference  between  the  relations  was  still  greater.  In 
England  the  community  of  race,  and  generally  of  creed,  as 
well  as  a  strong  sense  of  duty  in  the  landlord  class  and  a 
healthy  public  opinion,  often  made  the  relations  between  the 
owner  and  the  occupier  of  the  soil  kindly.  If  one  is  to  judge 

1  Quoted  by  Ilealy,  p.  71. 


FAMINE   AGAIN  295 

of  these  relations  by  their  portraiture  in  fiction,  it  has  been 
regarded  as  a  duty  by  the  men  and  women  of  the  squire's 
household  to  attend  to  the  wants  of  those  placed  beneath 
them.  The  Lady  Bountiful  who  visits  the  sick  agriculturat 
labourer,  and  gives  him  both  physical  and  spiritual  consola- 
tion, is  one  of  the  stock  characters  in  English  fiction,  and, 
I  assume  also,  in  English  life.  All  such  relations  as  these 
between  the  family  of  the  Irish  landlord  and  that  of  the  Irish 
tenant  are  practically  unknown.  Between  them  there  is  a 
chasm  of  difference  of  race  and  creed,  with  the  contempt  of  a 
master  to  a  serf  on  the  one  hand  and  the  sullen  hatred  of  the 
serf  to  the  master  on  the  other.  The  relation  between  the 
Irish  landlord  and  the  Irish  tenant  bore  far  more  resem- 
blance to  that  between  the  French  nobleman  and  the  French 
peasant  in  pre-revolutionary  days,  than  to  that  between  the 
English  squires  and  the  English  farmer  or  labourer  of  the 
present  day.  This  difference  has  always  been  one  of  the  diffi- 
culties in  the  way  of  obtaining  land  reform.  The  English 
landlords,  conscious  of  the  kindly  relations  subsisting  between 
them  and  their  dependents,  naturally  rejected  as  loathsome 
calumnies  the  stories  told  of  the  relations  between  the  body 
of  the  Irish  people  and  men  called  by  the  same  name,  speak- 
ing the  same  language—  intimates,  associates,  and  relatives. 
And  thus  it  was  that  stories  of  wholesale  clearances,  in  cir- 
cumstances of  shocking  and  heartrending  cruelty ;  of  the 
razing  of  cabins  which  the  tenant  had  built  with  his  own 
hands  and  at  his  own  expense  ;  of  his  expulsion  from  the  plot 
of  ground,  the  rent  of  which  had  been  raised  to  a  degree  im- 
possible of  payment,  solely  because  the  tenant  himself  had 
transformed  it  from  a  barren  and  rocky  mountain  slope  into 
a  garden  of  fertility  ; — stories  such  as  these  were  told  to  ears 
that  were  closed  by  the  scepticism  of  invincible  ignorance 
and  of  false  analogy. 

The  action  of  the  Irish  landlords  in  1879  justified  their 
whole  traditions.  It  may  be  summed  up  in  a  sentence  :  the 
deeper  grew  the  distress  of  farmers,  the  more  exacting  be- 
came the  demands  and  the  more  merciless  became  the 
attitude  of  the  landlords.  Here  are  the  official  figures 
upon  the  subject,  and  they  may  be  left  to  tell  their  own  tale  : 


296  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

EVICTIONS. 

1876  .         . 1269 

1877  ....  •  1323 

1878  .                                                   •  '  1749 
1879 .  2667 

It  was  at  first  sight  apparently  one  of  the  tragic  facts  of 
the  case  that  the  Chief  Secretaryship  of  Ireland  at  this  period 
of  impending  and  awful  disaster  was  held  by  such  a  man  as 
Mr.  James  Lowther.  The  character  of  Mr.  Lowther  is  now 
pretty  well  known.  The  appointment  of  such  a  person,  with 
his  illiterate  mind,  his  mediaeval  and  impenetrable  ignorance, 
his  bold  but  perilous  stubbornness,  was  universally  regarded 
as  one  of  the  jokes  by  which  Lord  Beaconsfield  occasionally 
gratified  the  wanton  caprice  of  great  power.  Even  before  the 
crisis  of  1879,  Mr.  Lowther  had  given  open  expression  to  the 
treatment  which  any  proposals  to  deal  with  the  relations  of 
landlord  and  tenant  would  meet  with  from  him.  He  has 
the  sinister  courage  of  his  senseless  convictions,  and  to-day 
openly  preaches  those  protectionist  doctrines  which  are 
generally  supposed,  among  all  English  politicians  of  intelli- 
gence, to  be  as  dead  as  the  Ptolemaic  system  of  astronomy. 
Thus,  while  the  majority  of  his  party  had  accepted  the  land 
legislation  of  1870  as  an  accomplished  fact,  Mr.  Lowther 
still  maintained  his  attitude  of  dull  and  unchangeable  protest. 
The  Land  Act  of  1870,  he  declared,  in  debate  on  a  motion  of 
Mr.  Butt,  was  l  undiluted  communism.' 

As  if  to  deepen  the  contrast  between  the  condition  of 
Ireland  and  the  tenure  of  the  Chief  Secretary's  office  by  such 
a  man,  Mr.  Lowther  was  accustomed  to  clothe  his  thoughts 
in  a  brusque  humour  that  smacked  somewhat  of  the  stable, 
but  at  the  same  time  was  not  unamusing.  Of  him  at  that 
period  the  story  used  to  be  told  that,  when  addressing  his 
constituents  on  his  appointment  as  Under  Secretary  for  the 
Colonies,  he  was  askccl  to  say  something  about  colonial  affairs. 
'Oh,  don't  let  us  talk  shop,'  was  the  audacious  and  comical 
reply.  But  the  Irish  people  were  not  in  the  condition  to 
relish  jokes,  especially  at  their  own  expense  ;  and  to  Irish- 
men acquainted  with  the  history  of  their  country,  it  seemed 
an  almost  intolerable  aggravation  of  their  lot  that  this  hope- 


FAMINE   AGAIN  297 

lessly  ignorant  and  densely  obstinate  man  should  grin, 
buffoonlike,  as  the  succession  of  scenes  in  the  national  tragedy 
unveiled  themselves  before  his  eyes. 

During  the  earlier  months  of  1879  the  attention  of  the 
Chief  Secretary  had  been  called  more  than  once  to  the  cala- 
mity that  was  impending  over  Ireland.  He  received  all 
these  statements  with  easy  and  jaunty  denials.  At  last,  on 
May  27,  when  the  House  was  adjourning  for  the  Whitsuntide 
recess,  the  Irish  members  made  a  final  attempt  to  force  the 
condition  of  the  country  upon  the  attention  of  the  Chief 
Secretary.  Mr.  McCarthy,  the  late  Mr.  A.  M.  Sullivan, 
Mr.  O'Donnell,  Mr.  O'Connor  Power,  Mr.  Mitchell  Henry,  all 
asked  for  some  declaration  on  the  part  of  the  Government 
which  would  show  that  they  were  acquainted  with  the  real 
state  of  things,  and  that  they  were  preparing  some  remedy  for 
it.  Entreaty,  argument,  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  facts 
of  the  case — graphic  pictures  of  the  dire  distress  of  the 
country — all  were  lost  on  Mr.  Lowther.  He  was  ready  to  go 
so  far  as  to  acknowledge  that  there  was  '  some  '  depression 
in  the  agriculture  of  Ireland  ;  but  he  went  on  to  say,  he  was 
glad  to  think  that  that  depression,  although  undoubted,  was 
1  neither  so  prevalent  nor  so  acute  as  the  depression  existing 
in  other  parts  of  the  United  Kingdom.' l 

Such  was  the  pronouncement  of  Mr.  Lowther,  and  a  result 
followed  similar  to  many  such  experiences  in  history.  The 
obstinacy  of  the  defender  proved  the  downfall  of  the  institu- 
tion. 'Seldom,'  justly  remarks  Mr.  A.  M.  Sullivan,  'did  an 
English  minister  speak  a  sentence  destined  to  have  more 
memorable  results.  In  that  moment  Mr.  James  Lowther  sealed 
the  doom  of  Irish  landlordism ; ' 2  for  Mr.  Lowther's  answer 
drove  Mr.  Parnell  into  the  ranks  of  the  Land  League.  The 
attitude  of  Mr.  Lowther  convinced  Mr.  Parnell  that  there  was 
no  hope  from  Parliament,  that  mild  methods  were  no  longer 
in  place,  and  that,  if  Ireland  were  to  be  saved  from  a  dreaded 
calamity,  resort  must  be  had  to  desperate  expedients. 

The  Agrarian  movement  in  Ireland  meantime  had  been 
greatly  stimulated  by  Mr.  Davitt  Mr.  Davitt  had  the  advan- 
tage which  Gambetta  had  in  the  politics  of  republican  France  ; 

1  Hansard,  vol.  ccxlvi.  p.  246.  2  New  Ireland,  p.  438. 


298  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

he  had  a  legend.  He  had  but  a  short  time  before  been  liberated 
from  penal  servitude.  To  have  been  a  convict  by  English  law 
for  devotion  to  Ireland  is  held,  and  justly  held,  by  Irishmen  to 
be  the  best  passport  to  their  confidence  and  affections.  There 
was  a  singularly  dramatic  appropriateness  in  Mr.  Davitt 
being  one  of  the  leaders  of  an  agrarian  revolt  His  history 
was  the  history  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  his  countrymen, 
and  the  rapacity  and  cruelty  of  landlordism  was  the  central 
fact  that  moved  and  coloured  it  all. 

Michael  Davitt  was  born  in  1846,  near  the  small  village  of 
Straid,  in  the  county  of  Mayo.  His  father  was  a  farmer  who 
was  among  the  many  thousand  victims  of  those  wholesale 
evictions  in  that  dread  period  which  have  been  fully  described 
in  previous  pages  of  this  book.  Mr.  Davitt  was  but  four 
years  of  age  when  he  saw  his  home  destroyed.  His  father 
and  mother  came  to  England,  '  and  had  to  beg  through  the 
streets  of  England  for  bread.'  The  family  settled  in  the  little 
town  of  Haslingdcn  in  Lancashire.  His  mother  was  in  the 
habit  of  frequently  repeating  the  details  of  this  cruel  and 
memorable  episode  in  his  earliest  years  ;  and,  undoubtedly, 
it  was  this  eviction  scene  which  influenced  the  fortunes  of  his 
entire  family,  and  has  been  the  fiercest  incentive  of  Davitt's 
attitude  towards  landlordism  ever  since.  Over  and  over  again 
references  to  this  incident  occur  in  his  speeches.  Replying 
once  to  an  ungenerous  attack  made  upon  him,  which  appeared 
under  the  name  of  the  late  Archbishop  MacHale,  though 
probably  never  written  by  him,  he  wrote : — 

Some  twenty-five  years  ago  my  father  was  ejected  from  a  small 
holding  near  the  parish  of  Straid,  in  Mayo,  because  unable  to  pay  a 
rent  which  the  crippled  state  of  his  resources,  after  struggling  through 
the  famine  years,  rendered  impossible.  Trials  and  sufferings  in  exile 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  in  which  I  became  physically  disabled  for 
life,  a  father's  grave  dug  beneath  American  soil,  myself  the  only 
member  ever  destined  to  live  or  die  in  Ireland,  and  this  privilege 
existing  only  by  virtue  of  '  ticket  of  leave,'  are  the  consequence  which 
followed  that  eviction.1 

When  he  was  still  a  child  he  was  sent  to  a  mill  to  work, 

1  D.   B.  Cashman  's  Life  of  Michael  Davitt,  p.  96. 


FAMINE   AGAIN 


299 


and  there  he  was  by  an  accident  deprived  of  his  right  arm. 
At  this  time  he  had  received  but  the  merest  rudiments  of 
education,  and  this  accident  obtained  for  him  the  advantage 
of  another  instalment  of  instruction.  At  eleven  years  of 
age  he  secured  employment  in  the  local  post-office  ;  and  as 
the  postmaster  had  also  a  business  in  printing  and  stationery, 
Mr.  Davitt  had  an  opportunity  of  taking  an  occasional  peep 
at  books.1 

In  this  way  he  had  already  attained  to  some  prominence 
among  the  Irishmen  of  his  district ;  but  up  to  this  time  he 
had  not  formed  strong  national  opinions  ;  or,  if  there  were 
the  germs  of  such  opinions  in  his  mind,  they  had  not  assumed 
definite  shape.  One  night  he  went  to  hear  an  address  on 
an  Irish  subject.  The  wrongs  of  Ireland  were  narrated 
by  an  eloquent  tongue.  All  the  latent  forces  and  unformed 
notions  in  Mr.  Davitt's  nature  were  at  once  crystallised  ; 
and  from  that  hour  forward  he  was  an  ardent  Irish  Nation  - 
alist.  He  soon  became  an  active  member  of  the  Fenian 
organisation,  and  he  took  part  in  the  attempted  seizure  of 
Chester  Castle.  <  Unable  to  shoulder  a  rifle  with  his  single 
arm,  he  carried  a  small  store  of  cartridges  in  a  bag  made  from 
a  pocket-handkerchief.' 2 

After  the  failure  of  the  enterprise  he  managed  to  escape 
arrest  and  return  to  Haslingden  ;  but  he  soon  entered  on 
active  operations  again  in  connection  with  the  movement,  and 
was  employed  in  the  work  of  purchasing  arms  and  forwarding 
them  to  Ireland.  On  May  14,  1870,  he  was  arrested  in  London 
along  with  an  Englishman  named  John  Wilson,  a  gunsmith 
of  Birmingham,  and  he  was  convicted  mainly  on  the  evidence 
of  an  informer  named  Corydon — and  sentenced  to  fifteen  years' 
penal  servitude.  He  was  often  subjected,  like  the  other  Irish 
political  prisoners,  to  that  brutality  of  punishment  which 
England  and  Russia  are  alone  among  European  countries  in 
inflicting  upon  political  prisoners.  It  is  impossible  for  a  man 
of  any  nationality  to  read  his  own  account  of  the  sufferings 
and  indignities  through  which  he  had  to  pass  without  feelings 
of  burning  anger.  A  rebel  against  laws  which  had  broken  up 
his  home,  impoverished  and  exiled  those  dearest  to  him,  he 

1  Land  of  Eire,  by  John  Devoy,  p.  38.  2  Ib.  p.  38. 


300  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

had  resorted  to  the  only  weapons  which  then  seemed  capable 
of  arresting  the  attention  of  that  country  whose  apathy  to 
Irish  ruin  Mr.  Gladstone  has  so  well  described,  and  he  was 
but  ante-dating  reforms,  most  of  which  have  since  passed  into 
law  ;  but  he  was  sent  to  herd  with  murderers,  pickpockets, 
and  burglars,  passed  through  solitary  confinement,  or  was 
overworked,  underfed,  and  exposed  to  all  changes  of  the 
seasons. 

At  last,  on  Wednesday  morning,  December  19,  1877-  - 
after  seven  years  and  seven  months  of  this  dread  suffering — 
he  was  released.  A  series  of  enthusiastic  receptions  awaited 
him  and  three  other  Fenian  prisoners  who  had  been  released 
about  the  same  time,  namely,  Colour-Sergeant  McCarthy, 
Corporal  Thomas  Chambers,  and  Private  John  P.  Bryan.  It 
had  been  constantly  denied  that  Sergeant  McCarthy  had  been 
ill-treated  in  prison,  and  asserted  that  his  health  had  in  no 
way  suffered.  Two  days  after  his  arrival  in  Dublin,  however, 
McCarthy  gave  testimony  that  could  no  longer  be  denied. 
Mr.  Davitt,  McCarthy,  and  the  two  other  released  prisoners 
had  been  invited  by  Mr.  Parnell  to  breakfast  with  him  in 
Morrisson's  Hotel.  While  they  were  awaiting  breakfast, 
McCarthy  was  observed  to  grow  pale  and  totter  across  the 
room,  and,  having  been  laid  on  the  sofa,  in  a  few  moments  he 
was  dead.  The  twelve  years  of  penal  servitude  had  at  last 
done  their  work. 

Mr.  Davitt  then  proceeded  on  a  lecturing  tour  throughout 
England  and  Scotland.  Later  on,  he  determined  to  go  to 
America  to  sec  his  mother  and  other  relatives  who  had  settled 
in  the  town  of  Manayunk  in  Pennsylvania.  He  landed  in 
New  York  about  the  beginning  of  August,  1878.  At  this 
time  he  had  very  few  acquaintances  in  America ; l  he  soon, 
however,  came  in  contact  with  some  leading  Irishmen  settled 
in  that  country,  and  made  a  favourable  impression  upon 
them.  Meantime,  events  had  occurred  which  had  prepared 
the  way  for  the  agitation  in  which  Mr.  Davitt  afterwards 
played  so  prominent  a  part.  In  the  early  days  of  the  revolu- 
tionary party,  a  fundamental  doctrine,  as  has  been  mentioned, 
was  that  not  only  was  constitutional  agitation  futile,  but  it 

1    Devoy,  p.  40. 


FAMINE  AGAIN  301 

was  so  prejudicial  that  all  true  Nationalists  were  bound  to 
make  war  against  it.  Some  of  the  intelligent  leaders  among 
the  Nationalists  in  America  had  begun  to  see  that  this  policy 
was  impracticable  ;  and  to  these  views  a  clear  expression  was 
given  in  an  able  letter  written  by  Mr.  John  Devoy.  This 
communication  started  what  came  to  be  known  as  the  '  new 
departure '  in  Irish  politics.  A  fundamental  principle  of  this 
new  departure  was  that  attention  should  be  directed  to  the 
reform  of  the  land  system  of  Ireland,  and  the  establishment 
of  Peasant  Proprietary.  Mr.  Davitt  had,  after  various  consul- 
tations with  Mr.  Devoy  and  others,  formed  an  outline  of 
a  land  movement ;  but  his  ideas  were  still  in  a  crude  and 
indefinite  shape.1 

When  he  returned  to  Ireland  he  met  with  very  serious 
obstacles.  The  newspaper  which  at  the  time  was  supposed 
to  speak  the  opinions  of  the  revolutionary  party,  denounced 
the  '  new  departure  '  as  an  insidious  conspiracy,  with  the 
object  of  seducing  believers  in  '  physical  force '  doctrines  to 
the  treacherous  paths  of  constitutional  agitation  ;  and  several 
times  Mr.  Davitt  was  tempted  to  give  up  the  attempt  in 
despair  of  carrying  out  the  movement.  However,  time  and  the 
seasons  fought  upon  his  side.  Widespread  distress  threatened 
to  be  most  severe  in  the  West,  and,  curiously  enough,  there 
already  existed  in  that  region  the  germs  of  a  land  movement. 

The  tenants  had  kept  up  some  form  of  association  from 
the  moment  at  which  the  worthlessness  of  the  Land  Act  of 
1870  was  discovered.  In  Dublin,  for  instance,  there  was  an 
organisation  known  as  '  The  Central  Tenants'  Defence  Asso- 
ciation/ the  object  of  which  was  the  attainment  of  what 
afterwards  became  known  as  the  '  Three  FV  There  was  also 
a  local  organisation  which  afterwards  perhaps  did  more  than 
any  other  to  beget  the  Land  League  ;  this  was  the  Tenants' 
Defence  Association  of  Ballinasloe.  The  foremost  figure  of 
this  association  was  a  man  named  Matthew  Harris.  Matthew 
Harris  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  striking  figures  of 
the  Irish  movements  of  the  last  thirty  years.  During  all  this 
period  he  has  devoted  himself  with  self-sacrificing  and  un- 
remitting zeal  to  the  attainment  of  complete  redress  of  his 

1  Devoy,  p.  49. 


302  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

country's  grievances.  In  this  respect  politics  are  with  him 
an  absorbing  passion,  almost  a  religion.  In  pursuit  of  this 
high  and  noble  end  he  has  risked  death,  lost  liberty,  ruined 
his  business  prospects.  Eager,  enthusiastic,  vehement,  he  has 
at  the  same  time  that  grim  tenacity  of  purpose  by  which 
forlorn  hopes  are  changed  into  triumphant  fruitions.  He  has 
fought  the  battle  against  landlordism  in  the  dark  as  well  as 
in  the  brightest  hour  with  unshaken  resolution.  Reared  in 
the  country,  from  an  early  age  he  saw  landlordism  in  its 
worst  shape  and  aspect ;  his  childish  recollections  are  of 
cruel  and  heartless  evictions.  Thus  it  is  that  in  every  move- 
ment for  the  liberation  of  the  farmer  or  of  Ireland  during  the 
last  thirty  years  he  has  been  a  conspicuous  figure,  as  hopeful, 
energetic,  laborious  in  the  hour  of  despair,  apathy,  and  lassi- 
tude, as  in  times  of  universal  vigour,  exultation,  and  activity. 

Matthew  Harris  had  made  war  on  landlordism,  which  in 
the  county  of  Galway  has  been  particularly  atrocious  for  many 
years  before  the  Land  League  was  thought  of,  and  in  this 
way  became  the  germ  of  a  new  movement.  But  it  was  not 
in  the  county  of  Galway  that  this  movement  took  its  birth. 
Mr.  Davitt,  as  has  been  seen,  was  a  native  of  the  neighbouring 
county  of  Mayo,  and  there  he  determined  to  make  the  first 
start. 

Meetings  were  primarily  held  for  the  purpose  of  in- 
ducing the  landlords  to  reduce  the  rents.  The  Land  League 
may  be  dated  from  one  of  these  meetings.  This  was  a 
gathering  which  assembled  on  April  20,  1879,  at  Irishtown,  in 
the  county  of  Mayo.  This  meeting  was  convened  for  the 
purpose  of  protesting  against  some  acts  of  oppression  on  the 
part  of  the  landlords  of  the  district.  The  promoters  of  the 
meeting  were  Mr.  Davitt  and  Mr.  Brennan,  the  latter  after- 
wards secretary  of  the  Land  League.  Mr.  Davitt  did  not 
attend  the  meeting,  and  the  chief  speaker  at  it  was  Mr. 
O'Connor  Power,  M.P. 

Several  other  meetings  followed.  The  deepening  distress 
among  the  farmers  and  the  increase  of  evictions  by  the  land- 
lords supplied  an  impetus  which  had  the  effect  of  advancing 
the  movement  with  extraordinary  rapidity.  The  times,  in  fact, 
were  ripe  for  an  agrarian  revolt.  But  as  yet^the  movement  was 


FAMINE  AGAIN 


303 


local  and  obscure.  Scarcely  any  reports  found  their  way  into 
the  metropolitan  newspapers,  and  the  country  was  generally 
unconscious  of  the  portentous  new  birth.  One  of  the  reasons 
of  this  was  that  most  of  the  gentlemen  who  had  started  this 
movement,  though  their  names  afterwards  came  to  be  world- 
wide, were  at  this  period  comparatively  unknown,  and  filled 
no  large  space  in  the  public  eye.  There  was  one  man  who 
had  already  attained  prominence  as  the  figure  which  had  the 
greatest  hold  upon  the  affections  of  the  country,  and  who 
seemed  to  present,  in  his  own  person,  some  chance  of  being 
the  rallying-point  of  an  advanced  movement.  This  man,  of 
course,  was  Mr.  Parnell.  But  Mr.  Parnell,  busy  in  Parliament, 
had  as  yet  made  little  or  no  sign.  He  had  spoken  upon  the 
Land  question  ;  his  views  were  well  known  to  be  favourable  to 
a  large  change  in  the  system,  but  he  had  not  given  in  his 
adhesion  to  the  new  movement,  which  seemed  not  only  to 
propose  revolutionary  and  perilous  remedies  for  the  imme- 
diate evil,  but  a  final  settlement  of  the  question  that  went  far 
beyond  the  most  sanguine  dreams  hitherto  indulged  in  by 
even  the  most  ardent  legislator. 

But,  deservedly  great  as  was  the  influence  of  Mr.  Davitt, 
and  immense  as  were  his  exertions,  the  movement  could  not 
be  said  yet  to  have  reached  its  pinnacle  until  the  leader  came 
to  whom,  at  this  moment,  the  eyes  and  hopes  and  affections 
of  all  Irish  Nationalists  were  gradually  turning. 

One  of  the  great  forces  which  had  inspired  the  hope 
and  strength  that  made  the  new  movement  possible  was  the 
spirit  excited  throughout  Ireland  by  the  attitude  of  Mr.  Parnell 
and  Mr.  Biggar  in  the  House  of  Commons.  The  scenes-- 
vexatious, indecorous,  wanton,  or  boorish,  as  they  appeared 
to  the  English  public — were  to  the  people  of  Ireland  the 
electric  messages  of  new  hopes.  Every  word  of  these  scenes 
was  read  with  fierce  and  breathless  eagerness.  The  repre- 
sentatives of  a  country  trodden  under  foot  for  centuries  were 
seen  in  the  citadel  of  the  enemy,  aggressive  and  defiant. 
The  Parliament  that  trampled  upon  every  Irish  demand  for 
so  many  generations  was  seen  raging  in  hysteric  and  impotent 
fury  against  the  growing  omnipotence  of  two  determined  men. 
The  movement  that  starts  from  1879  will  not  be  understood 


3o4  HE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

unless  the  fact  is  grasped  that  Ireland  at  that  moment  was 
living  under  the  burning  glow  of  parliamentary  *  obstruc- 
tion.' The  temper  which  this  fact  produced  was  the  original 
impulse  in  preventing  the  farmers  of  1879  from  lying  down, 
dumb,  helpless,  and  cowering,  under  eviction,  famine,  and 
plague,  as  had  been  done  by  their  fathers  in  1846-47. 

The  position  Mr.  Parnell  had  already  attained  marked 
him  out  as  a  man  who,  if  he  undertook  the  leadership  of  a 
movement,  would  carry  it  through  every  defile  of  difficulty 
and  danger  to  the  end.  He  was  rapidly  becoming  the  idol 
of  the  people,  who  could  fuse  their  passions  and  their  affec- 
tions into  a  united  and  mighty  effort.  The  victories  he  had 
already  won  gave  him  the  prestige  of  a  child  of  destiny  before 
whom  hosts  of  enemies  and  gigantic  obstacles  melted  into 
vaporous  impotence.  For  a  considerable  time  Mr.  Parnell 
hesitated  before  taking  a  step  beyond  '  the  three  F's/  but  at 
last  he  crossed  the  Rubicon  and  joined  the  ranks  of  those  who 
declared  that  the  struggle  on  the  Land  question  should  only 
end  with  the  transfer  of  the  proprietorship  of  the  soil  from 
the  landlord  to  the  tiller. 

This  was  to  be  the  final  settlement  of  the  question  ;  but, 
meanwhile,  the  wolf  was  at  the  door.  How  was  the  emer- 
gency of  deepening  distress,  of  ever-advancing  famine  and 
ever-increasing  eviction  to  be  met  ?  This  was  the  terrible 
problem  which  Mr.  Parnell  had  now  to  face. 

And  now  I  have  come  to  one  of  the  cross-roads  in  my 
story.  All  that  I  have  written  will  have  failed  in  its  purpose 
if  the  reader  do  not  see  the  road  to  take  at  this  crisis,  clearly 
marked  out  as  with  an  iron  finger.  My  chief  reason  in  bring- 
ing into  this  chapter  of  Irish  history  an  account  of  1846  and 
1847  and  the  years  immediately  after,  was  because  1846  and 
1847  are  the  background  of  1879  and  1880.  The  second  epoch 
is  entirely  unintelligible  without  a  knowledge  and  true  apprecia- 
tion of  the  first.  1 846  and  1 847  left  two  memories :  the  memory 
of  the  terrible  suffering,  and  the  memory  of  how  that  suffer- 
ing was  submitted  to.  Ever  since  there  has  been  no  feeling 
so  bitter  in  the  hearts  of  Irishmen — especially  the  hearts  of 
young  Irishmen — as  the  feeling  that  much  of  the  awful 
suffering  could  have  been  prevented  if  the  people  only  had 


FAMINE   AGAIN  305 

had  the  courage  to  act  in  their  own  defence  ;  to  refuse  to 
allow  food  to  be  exported  from  a  starving  nation  ;  to  refuse 
the  payment  of  impossible  rents  that  one  man  might  luxuriate 
in  an  hour  of  national  cataclysm  and  tens  of  thousands  perish 
in  the  agonies  of  hunger  and  of  typhus  fever  ;  to  refuse  sub- 
mission to  decrees  of  eviction,  and  through  eviction  of  death  or 
exile  from  lands  brought  to  fertility  by  their  toil,  from  houses 
built  in  their  own  sweat  and  blood  and  tears.  And  this  is 
something  more  than  a  mere  feeling.  The  idea  will  stand 
the  test  of  the  severest  examination,  that  in  a  moment  of 
national  crisis,  such  as  the  Irish  famine,  the  safety  of  the 
nation  demanded  some  sacrifice  on  the  part  of  the  landlords — 
a  sacrifice  best  if  willingly  made,  as  by  the  landlords  in  Eng- 
land and  in  Scotland  ;  in  any  case,  a  sacrifice,  whether  willing 
or  unwilling.  The  principle  involved  is  indeed  one  that  has 
passed  from  the  region  of  debate  to  that  of  the  jurisprudence 
of  more  than  one  nation.  Anybody  who  will  take  the  trouble 
to  read  the  debates  on  the  Compensation  for  Disturbance  Bill 
will  find  the  instances  given  from  the  laws  of  Rome,  and  of 
Scotland,  and  of  Canada,  in  which  stress  of  season  is  held 
to  modify  all  contracts  for  rent.  In  the  case  of  Ireland  the 
whole  controversy  resolves  itself  into  the  question,  Which  is 
the  more  precious — rent  or  a  nation  ? 

The  story  I  have  already  told  of  1 846  and  1 847  prove  these 
things:  (i)  that  the  failure  of  the  potato  crop  in  Ireland  is 
liable  to  be  attended  with  widespread  distress  and  possibly 
with  famine ;  (2)  that  widespread  distress,  and  still  more 
famine,  is  pretty  certain  of  being  followed  in  Ireland  by  destruc- 
tive epidemics  ;  (3)  that  the  horrors  of  distress  or  famine  and 
of  epidemics  will  be  increased  by  wholesale  clearances  by  the 
landlords  ;  (4)  that  the  Imperial  Legislature  has  not  the  will 
or  the  power  to  deal  efficiently  with  such  a  crisis  ;  and  (5),  as 
a  consequence  of  all  these,  that  in  a  period  of  potato  failure, 
submission  by  the  farmers  to  the  landlords  and  reliance  on  the 
Imperial  Parliament  are  calculated  to  bring  about  wholesale 
loss  of  life  by  hunger  or  disease  or  eviction,  gigantic  waste 
of  natural  resources  through  emigration,  and  a  prolonged 
period  of  national  torpor  and  decay  through  the  loss  of  hope 
and  of  strength  brought  about  by  those  sufferings. 

X 


3o6  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

I  hold  that  I  am  called  upon  to  prove  this  and  this  alone ; 
that  the  circumstances  of  1 879  and  1 880  bore  a  sufficiently  close 
resemblance  to  those  of  1846  and  1847  to  justify  a  movement 
against  rent  and  against  eviction.  Was  there  this  resemblance  ? 
First,  there  was  the  failure  of  the  potato — that  I  have  proved 
by  official  statistics,  and  it  is  not  seriously  denied  by  anybody 
any  longer ;  second,  the  reality  and  severity  of  the  distress 
from  the  failure  is  proved  by  testimony  so  diverse  as  the 
Relief  Committees  of  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough,  of  the 
Mansion  House  and  of  Mr.  Parnell.  The  peril  of  whole- 
sale evictions  and  the  sameness  of  temper  of  the  Irish 
landlords  of  1879  as  in  those  of  1846  and  1847  are  too 
plainly  proved  by  the  yearly  increasing  number  of  evictions, 
and  the  name  of  Mr.  Lowther  alone  suffices  to  prove  the 
incompetence  of  the  British  Legislature.  This  incompetence 
received,  as  will  be  seen,  further  and  stronger  proof  when  an 
enlightened  Liberal  Minister  succeeded  to  the  Tory  obscur- 
antist in  the  Chief  Secretaryship  of  Ireland. 

Mr,  Parnell  then  found  the  majority  of  the  farmers  face 
to  face  with  either  of  these  two  dilemmas  :  If  they  had  all 
the  rent,  they  might  give  every  penny  to  the  landlord,  and 
allow  themselves,  their  wives,  and  their  children  to  perish.  If 
they  had  not  the  rent,  and  the  landlord  insisted  on  his  '  rights/ 
they  were  subject  to  eviction  on  a  scale  as  wholesale  as  the 
clearances  that  followed  1846  and  1847.  To  call  upon  the 
people,  under  circumstances  like  these,  to  pay  all  their  rent 
was  to  recommend  them  to  follow  the  example  of  1 846  with  the 
sequels  of  1847 — wholesale  starvation  and  wholesale  eviction. 
This  was  not  the  policy  that  recommended  itself  to  Mr. 
Parnell  ;  such  a  policy  would  have  been  that  of  a  coward  and 
a  traitor.  The  first  Land  meeting  attended  by  Mr.  Parnell 
took  place  at  Westport  on  June  8,  1879.  The  resolution  to 
which  Mr.  Parnell  spoke  on  this  occasion  was  as  follows  : 

'  That  whereas  many  landlords,  by  successfully  asserting  in  the 
courts  of  law  their  power  to  arbitrarily  increase  their  rents,  irrespec- 
tive of  the  value  of  the  holdings  on  their  estates,  have  rendered 
worthless  the  Land  Act  of  1870  as  a  means  of  protection  to  the  Irish 
tenants,  we  hereby  declare  that  not  only  political  expediency,  but 
justice,  and  the  vital  interests  of  Ireland,  demand  such  a  readjust- 


FAMINE  AGAIN  307 

ment  of  the  land  tenure — a  readjustment  based  upon  the  principle 
that  the  occupier  of  the  land  shall  be  the  owner  thereof — as  will  pre- 
vent further  confiscation  of  the  tenant's  property  by  unscrupulous 
landlords,  and  will  secure  to  the  people  of  Ireland  their  natural  right 
to  the  soil  of  their  country.' 

Mr.  Parnell,  in  his  speech,  laid  down  on  clear  and  distinct 
lines  the  Land  policy  of  the  future  and  the  policy  of  the  hour. 
He  declared  in  favour,  not  of  *  the  three  F's,'  but  of  Peasant 
Proprietary. 

'  In  Belgium,'  said  Mr.  Parnell,  '  in  Prussia,  in  France,  and  in 
Russia  the  land  has  been  given  to  the  people — to  the  occupiers  of 
the  land.  In  some  cases  the  landlords  have  been  deprived  of  their 
property  in  the  soil  by  the  iron  hand  of  revolution  ;  in  other  cases, 
as  in  Prussia,  the  landlords  have  been  purchased  out.  If  such  an 
arrangement  could  be  made  without  injuring  the  landlord,  so  as  to 
enable  the  tenant  to  have  his  land  as  his  own,  and  to  cultivate  it^as 
it  ought  to  be  cultivated,  it  would  be  for  the  benefit  and  prosperity 
of  the  country.' 

But  this,  as  he  said  immediately,  was  to  be  regarded  as 
the  final  settlement  of  the  question  ;  the  immediate  point  was 
what  the  people  were  to  do  in  order  to  avert  the  calamity 
which  was  at  that  moment  at  their  very  doors.  This  was  the 
occasion  on  which  he  first  formulated  the  policy  of  resisting 
eviction.  This  policy  he  formulated  in  a  phrase  which  became 
the  key-note  of  the  whole  agitation.  He  declared  that  a  fair 
rent  had  been  transformed,  by  the  failure  of  the  potato  crop, 
into  an  exorbitant  rent ;  that  if  the  rents  were  insisted  upon 
there  would  be  a  repetition  of  the  scenes  of  1847  and  1848. 

*  Now,'  he  said,  '  what  must  we  do  in  order  to  induce  the  land- 
lords to  see  the  position  ?  You  must  show  the  landlords  that  you 
intend  to  hold  a  firm  grip  of  your  homesteads  and  land.' l 

The  phrase  had  such  appropriateness  to  the  situation 
and  to  the  time  that  it  at  once  passed  into  men's  mouths. 
Mr.  Parnell  has  since  told  the  manner  in  which  it  suggested 
itself  to  his  mind.  While  in  the  train  which  brought  him 
to  this  meeting  he  was  passing  over  in  memory  some  of 

1  freeman1  s  Journal,  June  8,  1879. 

X  2 


3o8  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

the  scenes  in  which  Mr.  Biggar  and  himself  had  taken  part 
in  Parliament  He  was  musing  over  the  deadly  tenacity  with 
which  the  member  for  Cavan  always  stuck  to  his  purpose. 
Tenacity  was  translated  into  the  shorter  word  '  grip,'  and 
thus  was  born  the  memorable  and  potent  phrase  '  hold,'  or, 
as  it  was  afterwards  expressed,  '  keep  a  firm  grip  of  your 
homesteads  and  land.'' 

From  the  moment  Mr.  Parnell  put  himself  at  the  head  of 
the  Land  movement  it  spread  with  enormous  rapidity,  and 
soon  reached  startling  proportions.  He  had  once  more  said 
the  right  word  at  the  psychological  moment,  and  formulated 
a  great,  practical,  and  necessary  policy.  Meeting  after  meet- 
ing was  held  in  many  parts  of  Ireland,  and  before  long  it 
was  evident  that  Mr.  Parnell  was  at  the  head  of  the  mightiest 
popular  movement  since  the  days  of  O'Connell  and  1845. 
Meantime,  the  Government  and  the  English  press  looked  on 
with  sinister  eye.  The  appeals  of  Mr.  Parnell  to  the  Irish 
farmers  to  protect  themselves  and  their  families  and  their 
homes  against  a  gigantic  danger  found  little  sympathy  even 
in  a  so-called  Liberal  press.  Extracts  from  his  speeches  were 
quoted,  by  way  of  showing  the  desperate  and  the  wicked 
character  of  the  man  ;  but  the  context  containing  the  argu- 
ments by  which  he  justified  his  advice  was  carefully  sup- 
pressed, and  there  was  scarcely  a  word  about  the  desperate 
circumstances  of  Ireland  which  so  eloquently  and  convincingly 
pleaded  for  desperate  remedies.  The  Government,  on  the 
other  hand,  arrested  Mr.  Davitt,  Mr.  Brennan,  Mr.  Kellen, 
and  Mr.  Day,  of  Castlebar  ;  but  the  case  was  not  pressed  with 
any  particular  vigour,  and  was  finally  abandoned. 

The  iclca  of  forming  a  central  organisation  for  regulating 
and  directing  the  growing  movement  in  Ireland  was  formed 
in  September  1879.  The  draft  of  an  appeal  for  support  for 
this  organisation  was  prepared  by  Mr.  Parnell,  Mr.  Brennan, 
and  Mr.  Davitt.  On  October  21,  1879,  a  meeting  was  held 
by  circular  in  the  Imperial  Hotel,  Lower  O'Connell  (then 
Sackvillc)  Street  ;  Mr.  A.  J.  Kettle  presided.  The  Land 
League  was  then  and  there  founded.  The  following  resolu- 
tions set  forth  the  principles  of  the  new  organisation  : 

1.  That  the  objects  of  the    League  are,   first,  to  bring  about  a 


FAMINE   AGAIN  309 

reduction  of  rack-rents  ;  second,  to  facilitate  the  obtaining  of  the 
ownership  of  the  soil  by  the  occupiers. 

II.  That  the  objects  of  the  League  can  be  best  attained  (i)  by 
promoting  organisation  among  the  tenant-farmers  ;  (2)  by  defending 
those  who  may  be  threatened  with  eviction  for  refusing  to  pay  unjust 
rents  ;  (3)  by  facilitating  the  working  of  the  Bright  Clauses  of  the  Land 
Act  during  the  winter  ;  and  (4)  by  obtaining  such  reform  in  the  laws 
relating  to  land  as  will  enable  every  tenant  to  become  the  owner  of 
his  holding  by  paying  a  fair  rent  for  a  limited  number  of  years. 

Mr.  Parnell  was  elected  president,  and  Mr.  Kettle,  Mr. 
Davitt,  and  Mr.  Brennan  were  appointed  honorary  secre- 
taries. Mr.  J.  G.  Biggar,  M.P.,  Mr.  W.  H.  O'Sullivan,  M.P., 
and  Mr.  Patrick  Egan  were  appointed  treasurers,  and  a  reso- 
lution was  passed  calling  upon  Mr.  Parnell  to  go  to  America 
and  obtain  assistance.  Mr.  John  Dillon  was  to  accompany 
Mr.  Parnell  to  America. 

This  was  the  first  time  that  the  leader  of  a  constitutional 
movement  had  gone  among  the  Irish  in  America  for  the  pur- 
pose of  obtaining  assistance  for  the  people  at  home.  Mr. 
Parnell's  tour  was  a  series  of  enthusiastic  receptions.  Wher- 
ever he  went,  and  in  nearly  every  town  through  which  he 
passed,  he  addressed  thousands  of  people.  Officials  of  the 
United  States  attended  and  presided  over  his  meetings,  and 
at  last  he  was  paid  the  compliment  of  which  only  two 
other  men— Kossuth  and  Dr.  England — had  been  the  re- 
cipients in  the  whole  course  of  American  history  :  he  was 
permitted  to  address  the  House  of  Representatives  at 
Washington.  The  financial  results  of  this  tour  were  extra- 
ordinarily large.  The  Land  League,  owing  to  the  severity  of 
the  distress  throughout  the  country,  had  resolved  to  devote  a 
portion  of  their  funds  to  the  relief  of  the  distress.  The  funds 
raised  by  Mr.  Parnell  were  divided  into  two  parts — one  for 
the  purpose  of  organisation,  the  other  for  the  relief  of  distress. 
For  both,  about  72,ooo/.  had  been  subscribed. 

The  indirect  effects  of  this  tour  were,  perhaps,  even  more 
important.  The  reality  of  Irish  distress  could  no  longer  be 
denied,  and  there  grew  up  a  competition  between  different 
sections  as  to  which  should  most  liberally  contribute  towards 
the  movement  for  preventing  famine. 


3io  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

Thus,  although  Mr.  Lowther  as  Chief  Secretary  had  denied 
the  existence  of  distress,  the  fact  had  been  brought  so  clearly 
home  to  the  mind  of  the  Lord  Lieutenant,  that  his  wife,  the 
Duchess  of  Marlborough,  issued  an  appeal,  giving  a  dark 
picture  of  the  state  of  the  country,  and  formed  a  relief  com- 
mittee. The  Lord  Mayor  of  Dublin  for  1880  happened  to 
be  a  man  of  great  energy  and  ability — Mr.  E.  Dwyer  Gray— 
and  he  also  formed  a  committee  of  relief ;  and  thus,  by  the 
beginning  of  1880,  no  fewer  than  three  committees  were  work- 
ing to  prevent  the  occurrence  of  famine.  Thus  the  action  of 
Mr.  Parnell  and  the  Land  League  had  brought  the  condition 
of  the  country  from  the  region  of  debate  into  that  of  admitted 
fact,  notorious  to  all  the  nations  of  the  world. 

Even  Mr.  Lowther  and  the  Parliament  were  compelled  at 
last  to  listen.  Acknowledging  the  distress,  they  adopted  a 
method  for  meeting  it  which  is  perhaps  unexampled  even 
in  the  history  of  the  legislation  of  the  House  of  Commons 
on  the  Irish  Land  question.  While  the  landlords  were 
scattering  notices  of  eviction  over  the  country  wholesale,  the 
Government  conceived  the  felicitous  idea  that  the  landlords 
formed  the  most  suitable  agency  for  supplying  relief  to  the 
tenants.  Accordingly  a  Bill  was  introduced,  the  effect  of  which 
was  to  lend  to  the  landlords  the  sum  of  1,092,9857.  without 
interest  for  two  years,  and  at  one  per  cent,  interest  afterwards  ! 
This  money  was  to  be  used  by  the  landlords  in  giving  employ- 
ment to  their  tenants,  and  in  thus  preventing  the  spread  of 
famine.  With  unconscious  humour  this  extraordinary  measure 
was  called  '  The  Relief  of  Distress  Act.' 

Meantime,  another  great  event  affecting  Ireland  was  about 
to  happen.  In  March  1880  Lord  Beaconsfield  decided  to 
dissolve  Parliament.  It  is  now  known  that  the  postponement 
of  an  appeal  to  the  country  to  this  late  date  was  against  his 
views,  and  that  he  was  only  overborne  after  a  severe  struggle. 
It  was  his  idea  that  the  time  to  ask  for  a  renewal  of  the  confi- 
dence of  the  country  was  when  it  was  still  in  the  full  blaze  of 
its  frenzied  and  childish  joy  at  the  annexation  of  Cyprus  and 
the  return  of  the  Prime  Minister  from  Berlin  as  the  herald  of 
peace  with  honour.  But  that  fortunate  hour  had  been  allowed 
to  pass.  The  Afghan  and  Zulu  difficulties  had  ensued  ;  Mr. 


FAMINE   AGAIN  311 

Cross  had  brought  in  his  Water  Bill,  and  the  prestige  of  the 
Government  had  sunk  to  a  low  ebb.  Under  such  circum- 
stances the  astute  and  utterly  unscrupulous  leader  of  the  Tory 
party  saw  that  his  only  chance  of  success  at  the  poll  was  to 
approach  the  people  with  some  catching  cry.  The  cry  he  chose 
was  an  anti-Irish  manifesto.  I  will  not  stop  in  this  place  to 
examine  into  the  morality  of  the  statesman  who,  at  the 
moment  when  Ireland  was  in  the  very  agony  of  famine,  did 
not  scruple  to  arouse  the  fierce  racial  passions  of  the  more 
powerful  against  the  weaker  nation  ;  still  less  am  I  tempted 
to  point  a  moral  against  Tory  statesmanship.  What  was  the 
policy  of  Lord  Beaconsfield  in  1880  has  become  the  policy 
of  the  Liberal  party  in  1885.  They  are  now  in  the  same 
want  that  he  was  then,  and  in  default  of  any  other  'cry,' 
appeal  to  the  worst  passions  of  Englishmen  and  Scotchmen 
with  anti-Irish  manifestoes. 

The  news  of  the  impending  Dissolution  reached  Mr. 
Parnell  on  March  8,  when  he  was  speaking  at  Montreal. 
At  once  he  saw  that  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  proceed  to 
Ireland  without  one  moment's  delay.  His  lecture  delivered, 
he  started  for  New  York.  On  the  very  morning  of  his  de- 
parture he  laid  the  foundation  of  a  Land  League  in  America, 
and  on  March  10  he  sailed  for  home.  He  reached  Queens- 
town  on  March  21,  and  thus  he  lost  many  valuable  days.  The 
Dissolution  took  place  on  March  24,  and  the  first  election  in 
Ireland  on  April  I.  The  interval  for  a  general  electoral  cam- 
paign was  small  indeed.  However,  the  moment  he  landed  in 
Ireland  he  proceeded  to  fight  the  election  with  an  energy 
that  seemed  diabolic.  He  rushed  from  one  part  of  the 
country  to  another,  made  innumerable  speeches,  had  inter- 
views with  most  of  the  parliamentary  candidates,  himself 
stood  for  three  constituencies.  Throughout  all  this  feverish 
struggle  there  was  ever  by  his  side,  sharing,  and  often  doing 
most  of  his  work,  the  bright,  fiercely  industrious,  sleeplessly 
active  young  secretary  whom  he  had  summoned  to  him  in 
America.  There  was  one  stupendous  difficulty,  even  greater 
than  the  shortness  of  time.  At  the  very  first  meeting  of  the 
Land  League  this  resolution  had  been  passed  : 

'  That  none  of  the  funds  of  this  League  shall  be  used  for  the 


312  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

purchase  of  any  landlord's  interest  or  for  furthering  the  interests  of 
any  parliamentary  candidate.' 

The  argument,  I  assume,  in  favour  of  this  resolution  was, 
that  it  was  necessary  to  bend  to  the  fierce  distrust  felt  by 
some  of  the  most  ardent  and  energetic  spirits  of  the  country 
in  parliamentary  agitation  :  to  them  parliamentary  agitation 
was  still  associated  with  the  irrevocable  memories  of  Keogh's 
treason  and  the  long  race  of  treacherous  trimmers  and  self- 
seeking  hypocrites.  This  view  may  have  been  sound,  but 
the  fact  was,  that  of  the  thousands  of  pounds  which  were  at 
the  disposal  of  the  Land  League,  either  for  purposes  of  relief 
or  of  organisation,  every  single  penny  had  been  subscribed 
under  the  influence  of  Mr.  Parnell's  name  and  in  trust  in  his 
honour,  his  patriotism,  and  his  methods.  It  is  certain  also 
that  this  resolution  had  the  effect  of  seriously  crippling  Mr. 
Parnell's  efforts.  He  fought  the  entire  election  with  the  sum 
of  i,25o/. —  i,ooo/.  which  he  obtained  as  a  personal  loan,  ioo/. 
sent  from  Liverpool,  and  1 5o/.  which  were  obtained  by  his 
astute  secretary  from  political  opponents  after  a  fashion  not 
unamusing.1  He  was  thus  unable  to  put  forward  candidates 
for  several  constituencies  in  which  his  name  would  have  en- 
sured success,  and  he  was  obliged  to  put  up  with  the  wrecks 
of  broken  faith  and  of  falsified  pledges  which  previous  Par- 
liaments had  laid  high  and  dry  on  the  political  shore.  Thus 
for  Kerry,  which  would  have  returned  two  of  his  nominees, 
he  had  to  be  satisfied  with  the  two  Blennerhassetts.  He  went 
to  Kildare,  and  had  to  accept  from  Mr.  Meldon  a  promise 
which  he  knew  might  be  true  to  the  letter  but  would  be  false 
to  the  spirit.  In  some  other  constituencies  he  did  not  find 
time  or  opportunity  to  interfere  at  all.  And  in  this  way  he 
and  the  constituencies  and  the  Irish  cause  were  deprived  of 
many  a  man  who  might  have  swelled  the  ranks  of  those  who 
fought  throughout  the  memorable  years  between  1880  and 
1885.  His  toughest  contest  was  in  the  city  of  Cork.  For 
years  that  city  had  been  represented  by  Mr.  Nicholas 
1).  Murphy,  a  characteristic  specimen  of  the  class  of  Catholic 
Whigs  whose  timidity  and  treachery  have  been  one  of  the 
most  potent  agencies  in  the  hands  of  English  ministers  for 

1   T.  M.  Mealy  in  United  Ireland,  August  29,   1885. 


FAMINE   AGAIN  313 

prolonging  the  reign  of  Irish  misery  and  of  Irish  servitude. 
When  Mr.  Parnell  entered  upon  the  contest  it  was  everywhere 
regarded  as  a  forlorn  hope.  The  bishop  and  many  of  the 
priests  of  the  diocese  took  an  active  and  energetic  part  against 
him  ;  the  shopkeepers  were  supposed  to  be  still  buried  in  the 
morass  of  Whiggery  ;  Mr.  Murphy  and  his  family  were  re- 
puted to  be  of  great  wealth,  and  certainly  had  large  and  far- 
reaching  relations  with  the  trading  interests  of  the  city.  It 
was  a  great  and  bewildering  surprise  to  the  earnest  Nationalists 
of  the  city  when  Mr.  Parnell  was  found  to  have  won.  The 
result  of  the  election  was  that  there  were  sixty-eight  men  re- 
turned as  Home  Rulers.  The  deceptiveness  of  this  total  will 
be  judged  from  the  fact  that  among  the  Home  Rulers  were 
reckoned  such  men  as  Mr.  J.  Orrell  Lever,  returned  as  one  of 
the  members  for  Galway,  and  Mr.  Whitworth,  returned  for 
Drogheda.  Of  the  other  Home  Rulers  the  majority  were 
reckoned  supporters  of  Mr.  Shaw,  and  but  a  small  minority 
were  openly  pledged  to  follow  Mr.  Parnell ;  a  considerable 
number  had  not  made  a  definite  choice  between  the  policies 
of  the  rival  leaders. 

In  England  and  Scotland,  meantime,  the  General  Election 
had  resulted  in  an  overwhelming  triumph  for  the  Liberal  party 
and  the  return  of  Mr.  Gladstone  to  power  as  the  master  of 
a  great  majority.  The  masses  of  the  Irish  people  received 
the  news  of  this  victory  with  intense  joy.  The  anti-Irish 
manifesto  of  Lord  Beaconsfield  had  suggested  the  idea  that 
the  defeat  of  the  Tories  became  the  first  duty  of  Irishmen 
everywhere.  The  leaders  of  the  Home  Rule  Confederation 
in  England  and  Scotland  issued  a  manifesto  calling  upon  the 
Irish  electors  in  every  English  and  Scotch  constituency  to  go 
solid  for  the  Liberal  candidates.  This  advice  the  Irish  electors 
had  too  well  obeyed,  and  in  every  constituency  marched  in 
unbroken  battalions  to  vote  solidly  Liberal.  *  I  went  without 
my  dinner,'  said  a  Poplar  Irishman  to  me  once  at  an  anti- 
coercion  meeting  in  Hyde  Park, '  to  vote  for  Mr.  Bryce,and  now 
Mr.  Bryce  is  voting  for  coercion.'  The  Liberal  candidates 
on  their  part  showed  themselves  not  ungrateful  for  this  sup- 
port. Their  addresses  and  speeches  overflowed  with  words 
of  sympathy  and  affection  for  Ireland,  of  denunciations  of 


3i4  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

Lord  Beaconsfielcl    and    of  his  manifesto,    and  with  solemn 
vows  of  eternal  hostility  to  coercion. 

Mr.  Parnell  had  been  no  party  to  this  wholesale  and 
blind  adhesion  of  the  Irish  party  to  the  English  Liberals. 
His  keen  political  instinct  had  already  foreseen  the  circum- 
stances which  would  bring  the  interests  of  English  Liberalism 
and  of  Irish  Nationality  into  irreconcilable  collision,  and  he 
would  have  preserved  a  policy  which  would  have  produced  a 
more  equal  distribution  of  political  power.  Nor  had  he  read 
the  history  of  Ireland  in  vain.  To  him  the  most  pregnant 
moral  of  that  history  had  been  that,  whenever  Irish  Nation- 
alists had  trusted  the  fortunes  of  their  country  to  English 
Liberals,  treachery,  coercion,  delayed  or  half-hearted  reform 
had  been  the  return.  Most  Irishmen  would  have  mocked  at 
these  fears  just  then  ;  the  English  Liberal  was  regarded  as 
Ireland's  best  friend  ;  and  for  the  third  time  in  the  history  of 
the  epoch  described  in  these  pages,  the  Irish  people  placed 
their  confidence  in  the  honour  and  good-will,  the  pledges  and 
principles,  of  the  Liberal  party.  It  will  not  be  uninstructive 
to  watch  how  this  third  experiment  ended. 


CHAPTER   X. 

THE    LAND     LEAGUE. 

THE  struggle  between  the  two  sections  of  the  Home  Rule 
party  soon  began.  Without  any  consultation  with  Mr. 
Parnell  a  meeting  of  the  new  party  was  called  for.  Several 
of  the  new  members  refused  to  attend.  A  second  meeting  had 
to  be  convened,  and  this  took  place  at  the  City  Hall,  Dublin, 
on  May  17.  On  this  occasion  nearly  every  one  of  the  new 
men  who  had  been  returned  to  support  Mr.  Parnell  was 
present.  To  the  general  world  they  were  unknown,  obscure, 
and  to.  some  extent  despised  ;  and  many  of  them  were  young. 
But  there  was  scarcely  one  of  them  whose  previous  career  had 
not  been  a  preparation  for  the  position  which  he  now  held, 
and  who  had  not  been  living  a  life  either  of  action  or  of 
thought  to  which  membership  of  a  party  led  by  such  a  leader 
as  Mr.  Parnell  was  an  appropriate  climax.  Amid  their  varied 
characters  they  all  possessed  something  alike  in  a  certain  dash 
of  fanaticism.  Mr.  Justin  McCarthy  had  been  elected  before. 
Almost  from  his  entry  into  the  House  of  Commons  he  had 
drifted  towards  the  side  of  Mr.  Parnell.  Some  surprise  was  felt 
when  he  consented  to  stand  and  be  elected  as  an  Irish  member. 
When  he  took  his  seat  for  the  first  time  in  the  House  of 
Commons  Mr.  John  Bright  congratulated  Parliament  on  the 
accession  to  its  ranks,  and  Parliament  cheered  in  cordial 
agreement.  But  there  was  some  little  regret  that  it  had  not 
fallen  to  his  lot  to  be  the  member  for  a  British  instead  of  an 
Irish  constituency ;  probably  there  was  more  than  one  city  in 
England  or  Scotland  that  would  have  felt  honoured  by  such 
a  representative  as  the  author  of  the  <  History  of  Our  Own 
Times,'  and  there  certainly  would  in  time  have  been  a  Liberal 
Administration  that  would  have  been  glad  to  have  counted 
him  among  its  members.  Even  many  Irishmen  at  the  start 


3i6  TfiE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

of  Justin  McCarthy's  career  may  have  felt  that  he  would 
have  taken  his  place  in  the  ranks  of  an  English  Liberal 
Government  as  appropriately  as  in  those  of  an  Irish  National 
Party.  And  yet  Justin  McCarthy  had  a  past  of  which  but  few 
people  knew  ;  but  to  those  who  knew  that  past,  its  most  com- 
plete and  fitting  sequel  was  that  McCarthy  should  be  one  of 
the  leaders  of  the  first  really  independent  party  in  the  British 
Parliament. 

Justin  McCarthy  was  born  in  Cork  in  1830.  When  he 
was  a  boy  the  capital  of  Munster  could  lay  claim  to  really 
deserve  the  traditional  reputation  of  the  province  for  learn- 
ing. Mr.  McCarthy's  father  was  one  of  the  best  classical 
scholars  of  the  day,  and  there  was  at  that  time  a  school- 
master named  Goulding — the  name  is  familiar  to  many  a 
Corkman  still  —  who  was  a  really  fine  scholar.  Justin 
McCarthy  was  one  of  Goulding's  pupils,  and  when  he  left 
school  he  had  the  not  common  power  even  among  hard 
students  of  being  able  to  read  Greek  fluently  and  to  write 
as  well  as  translate  Latin  with  complete  ease.  Journalism 
appeared  to  him  the  readiest  form  of  making  a  livelihood, 
and,  like  so  many  other  literary  men,  he  began  at  one  of  the 
low  rungs  of  the  ladder.  lie  had  taught  himself  shorthand, 
and  his  first  employment  was  that  of  a  reporter  on  the  Cork 
Examiner.  It  may  be  an  interesting  fact  to  note  that  his 
hand  still  retains  its  cunning,  and  that  he  may  often  be 
observed  taking  down  on  the  margin  of  the  Parliamentary 
Order  Paper  the  exact  words  of  some  important  Ministerial 
statement  for  quotation  in  his  leading  article.  The  first 
important  piece  of  work,  it  may  also  here  be  mentioned, 
which  Mr.  McCarthy  was  sent  to  do  was  to  report  the  trials  of 
Smith  O'Brien  and  his  colleagues  at  Clonmel.  There  are  two 
other  important  reminiscences  of  Mr.  McCarthy's  reporting 
days.  He  was  present  at  the  meeting  in  Cork  at  which  the 
late  Judge  Kcogh  swore  that  oath  which  played  so  tragic 
a  part  in  Irish  history  ;  and  he  was  also  present,  as  has  been 
seen,  at  the  famous  dinner  at  which  the  present  Lord  Fitz- 
gerald, then  a  rising  young  lawyer,  in  the  ardour  and  viru- 
lence of  his  patriotism,  bearded  a  lord-lieutenant  and 
scandalised  an  audience  of  Cork's  choicest  Whigs.  It  was  in 


THE   LAND    LEAGUE 


317 


1847  that  Mr.  McCarthy  started  his  professional  life,  and 
everybody  knows  that  all  that  was  young,  enthusiastic,  and 
earnest  in  Cork  shared  the  political  aspirations  of  that  stormy 
time.  There  had  been  in  existence  for  many  years  a  de- 
bating society  known  as  the  '  Scientific  and  Literary  Society,' 
and  one  of  the  many  forms  in  which  the  new  spirit  roused  by 
Young  Ireland  showed  itself  was  the  starting  of  that  body 
known  as  the  Cork  Historical  Society,  as  a  rival  to  the  older 
and  tamer  association.  Among  the  members  of  this  body 
were  many  young  fellows  who  afterwards  rose  to  importance. 
Sir  John  Pope  Hennessy,  now  Governor  of  the  Mauritius, 
and  Justin  McCarthy  himself  were  among  its  first  recruits. 
The  Historical  Society  became  a  recruiting  ground  for  Young 
Ireland  ;  nearly  all  its  members  joined  the  party  of  combat, 
and  they  founded  one  of  the  many  Confederate  Clubs  that 
were  started  to  prepare  for  the  coming  struggle. 

President  Grevy  in  his  sober  age  remembers  the  day  when 
he  mounted  a  barricade.  Similarly  Justin  McCarthy,  in  his 
maturity  of  philosophic  calm,  can  look  back  to  a  time  when 
he  dreamed  of  rifles  and  bayonet  charges  and  death  in  the 
midst  of  fierce  fight  for  the  cause  of  Ireland.  To  those  who 
know  him  there  is  no  difference  in  the  man  of  to-day  and  the 
man  of  '48.  He  has  still  the  same  unflinching  courage  as 
then.  In  this  respect,  indeed,  Justin  McCarthy  is  a  singular 
mixture  of  apparent  incompatibilities.  There  is  no  man  who 
enjoys  the  hour  more  keenly.  He  has  the  capacity  of  M.  Renan 
for  finding  the  life  around  him  amusing ;  enjoys  society  and 
solitude,  work  and  play,  a  choice  dinner  or  an  all-night  sitting. 
But  he  has  eminently  '  a  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  courage  '— 
a  readiness  to  face  the  worst  without  notice.  With  his  fifty- 
five  years  he  is  still  a  man  of  sanguine  temperament  ;  but  in 
'48  he  was  only  eighteen.  He  naturally,  therefore,  belonged 
to  the  section  which  had  Mitchel  for  its  apostle,  and  open 
and  immediate  insurrection  for  its  gospel.  Mitchel  was 
arrested,  and  no  attempt  was  made  to  rescue  him  ;  and  there 
were  many  among  the  companions  of  McCarthy  who  saw  in 
this  failure  the  death  of  their  hopes,  the  end  of  their  efforts 
for  the  Irish  cause.  Justin  McCarthy  was  not  one  of  those. 
Let  the  remainder  of  this  portion  of  his  life  be  told  in  the 
words  of  his  son  : — 


3i8  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

There  were  young  men  in  that  city  by  the  Lee  who  did  not  think, 
even  because  the  men  of  '48  had  made  no  attempt  to  rescue  John 
Mitchel  from  his  sentence,  that  therefore  the  fires  of  patriotism  were 
necessarily  extinguished  upon  the  altars  of  liberty  :  '48  had  failed, 
but  there  was  no  reason  why  '49  should  fail.  In  this  very  year, 
when  the  English  Queen  was  in  Dublin  listening  to  the  loyal  protests 
of  loyal  citizens,  and  while  she  was  being  assured  by  the  Orange 
clique  that  the  Young  Ireland  movement  meant  nothing,  and  that 
Ireland  was  heart  and  soul  devoted  to  her  service  and  to  English 
rule,  in  that  year  a  young  man  came  down  on  a  special  visit  from 
Dublin  to  Cork.  The  young  man  bore  a  name  which  is  deservedly 
dear  to  Irishmen  —  Joseph  Brennan,  better  known  to  his  friends,  and 
better  known  to  us  to-day,  as  Joe  Brennan.  Those  who  knew  Joe 
Brennan  are  not  likely  to  forget  his  wonderful  dark  eyes,  his  brilliant 
talk,  and,  what  was  better  than  either,  one  of  the  most  National  hearts 
that  ever  beat  for  Ireland.  Joe  Brennan  was  a  young  Corkman  who 
had  gone  to  Dublin  and  become  a  writer  on  Mitchel's  paper,  and  who, 
when  Mitchel  was  exiled,  had  started  a  paper  of  his  own.  He  came 
down  to  Cork  with  the  deliberate  purpose  of  trying  if  he  could  not 
do  something  to  stir  into  blaze  again  the  revolutionary  fires  which 
seemed  to  have  been  extinguished  when  Meagher  and  O'Doherty, 
and  Smith  O'Brien  and  the  others  were  sentenced  to  transporta- 
tion. .  .  .  Brennan  .  .  .  entered  into  negotiations  with  two  men, 
both  young  men  about  his  own  age.  One  of  them  is  a  member  of 
the  present  Irish  Parliamentary  party,  and  his  name  is  not  altogether 
unknown  in  literature.  The  other  is  now  the  editor  of  the  most 
influential  paper  in  the  South  of  Ireland.  .  .  .  Joe  Brennan's  plan  was 
simple  and  not  unpractical  ;  and,  of  course,  his  purpose  was  revolu- 
tionary. He  had  no  great  hope  of  a  successful  revolution.  His  idea 
was  that  a  number  of  small  risings  should  take  place  on  the  very 
same  day,  hour,  and  minute,  in  different  parts  of  Ireland  ;  that 
their  suddenness  and  unanimity  might  serve  to  distract  authority ; 
that  at  least  there  would  be  a  struggle  ;  that  some  brave  men  would 
die  for  Ireland ;  and  that  something  good  for  the  country  must 
happen  out  of  that.  '  Who  knows  but  the  world  may  end  to-night?' 
says  the  lover  in  Browning's  poem.  Something  of  the  same  desperate 
mood  seemed  to  possess  Joe  Brennan's  men  at  that  time.  Let  it  at 
least  be  shown  to  English  dominion  that  there  were  young  men  in 

Ireland  ready  to  die  for  their  country,  and  then ?     Well,  the  world 

might  end,  or  the  English  rule  might  grow  humane,  or  any  other 
strange  and  exceedingly  unlikely  thing  might  come  to  pass.  It  was 
the.  dream  of  a  young  man  ;  and  Joe  Brennan  was  a  young  man,  and 


THE   LAND    LEAGUE 


319 


his  friends  were  all  young  men— many  of  them  very  young  men.  .  .  . 
Soon  in  Cork  alone  there  were  a  very  large  number  of  generous, 
high-souled,  pure-hearted  young  men,  whose  one  dream,  hope,  and 
ambition  was  to  give  their  lives  for  the  sake  of  their  country.  .  .  .  They 
had  plenty  of  arms,  to  begin  with.  There  were  few  young  men  in 
Cork  in  1848  who  could  not  boast  the  possession  of  a  rifle,  or  a 
sabre,  or  a  pike  ;  and  when  1848  failed,  these  rifles  and  sabres  and 
pikes  were  hidden  away  in  all  sorts  of  unlikely  places — buried  in 
back-gardens,  or  stored  away  in  unsuspicious-looking  barrels,  or  put 
out  of  sight,  if  not  out  of  mind,  somehow.  .  .  .  They  did  not  hope  of 
themselves  to  win  the  freedom  of  Ireland.  They  only  hoped  to 
make  a  series  of  desperate  efforts,  to  die  gallantly,  and  by  their  brave 
deaths  to  stimulate  the  national  feeling  of  their  country,  and  to  con- 
vince the  oppressor  of  their  earnestness  of  purpose  and  of  their 
hatred  of  his  rule.  ...  It  was  the  duty  of  every  one  of  Joe  Brennan's 
friends  to  swear  in  as  many  recruits  as  he  could,  and  to  get  these 
recruits  to  bring  in  others  to  swell  the  total  of  insurrection.  There 
were  incessant  nightly  drillings  in  out-of-the-way  places.  There 
were  incessant  meetings  of  the  revolutionary  leaders  and  of  their 
followers,  organised  under  the  pretence  of  temperance  meetings, 
literary  associations,  and  the  like.  One  spot  in  especial  was  a 
favourite  place  for  secret  drillings — the  place  known  as  Cork  Park 
in  the  region  where  the  Cork  and  Bandon  railway  is— then  slob  land. 
Here  there  were  continual  drillings,  where  the  great  object  was  to 
get  large  bodies  of  men  to  obey  readily  the  word  of  command,  and  to 
go  through  military  evolutions  swiftly  and  silently.  Here,  too,  it 
was  a  great  advantage  that  if  at  any  time  unwelcome  persons — police 
or  others — did  make  their  appearance,  any  body  of  men  could  imme- 
diately and  easily  disperse,  and  be  lost  to  sight  in  a  few  moments.  .  .  . 
They  had  their  passwords,  of  course — their  signs  and  countersigns. 
If  one  recruit  met  another,  and  wished  to  be  certain  of  his  comrade- 
ship and  brotherhood,  he  began  by  asking  him,  '  What's  the  news  ?  ' 
If  the  other  were  one  of  the  league,  he  immediately  made  answer, 
'  The  harvest  is  coming  ! '  If  this  answer  were  not  quite  sufficient 
—if  it  seemed  an  answer  that  might  possibly  have  been  made  by 
chance  by  some  uninitiated  one,  for  the  harvest  was  near — he  spoke 
again,  interrogating  thus  :  'How  are  we  to  reap  it  ? '  If  the  man 
thus  interrogated  answered,  '  We'll  reap  it  with  steel,'  he  was  at  once 
recognised  as  being  of  the  company  of  the  chosen. 

What  Joe  Brennan  was  doing  in  Cork  John  O'Leary  was  engaged 
upon  elsewhere,  and  other  men  were  working  in  other  parts  of  Ireland. 
.  .  .  When  one  rising  has  failed,  it  is  very  difficult  to  rouse  popular 


32o  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

passions  to  the  fever  heat  of  another  insurrection.  Still,  with  all  these 
difficulties  in  the  way,  the  young  men  of  the  new  movement  were 
determined  to  go  on,  ...  and  made  ready  for  the  signal  which  was  to 
come  to  them,  and  which  was  to  be  the  match  which  would  fire  the 
flames  of  rebellion  in  many  parts  of  the  country  at  the  same 
moment.  Unfortunately  the  signal  was  not  properly  given.  It 
reached  some  places  and  not  others.  The  insurrection  did  not 
break  out  simultaneously.  There  were  one  or  two  abortive  risings 
in  different  parts  of  the  country.  Joe  Brennan  did  his  part  of  the 
business.  He  rose  at  Cappoquin.  He  led  his  little  body  of  insur- 
gents to  take  the  police  barrack  there.  The  police  were  prepared  for 
their  coming.  There  was  a  sharp,  short  exchange  of  shots,  and  then  Joe 
Brennan  saw  that  this  thing  was  hopeless.  His  men  dispersed.  He 
himself  threw  away  his  revolver,  and  walked  quietly  from  the  scene  of 
action  and  got  into  hiding,  later  on  making  good  his  escape  to  America. 
That  was  the  end  of  insurrection  for  a  time.  The  little  centres 
of  conspiracy,  that  had  been  waiting  for  the  watchword  that  was  to 
hurl  them  into  action,  heard  with  despair  of  the  disaster  at  Cappoquin 
and  the  failure  of  their  hopes.  There  was  nothing  further  to  be  done 
for  the  moment.  ...  Joe  Brennan's  future  career  is  familiar  to  all 
Irishmen.  He  made  his  way  to  America — to  New  Orleans.  There, 
in  that  wonderful  city  on  the  Mississippi,  which  is  still  a  marvellous 
combination  of  France  before  the  Revolution,  of  tropical  Creole  life, 
and  of  modern  American  enterprise,  and  which  was  then  still  more 
striking  and  vivid  in  its  contrast  than  it  now  is,  he  founded  a  news- 
paper, and  married — but  not  the  love  of  his  youth,  not  '  Mary '  of 
the  '  Nation.'  She  died  unmarried.  Blindness  came  upon  him,  and 
he  wrote  some  melancholy,  beautiful  verses  upon  the  calamity  which 
darkened  his  life.  That  was  not  long.  He  died  while  he  was  still 
what  may  be  called  a  young  man.1 

With  this  episode  ended  for  the  moment  Justin  McCarthy's 
political  history,  and  from  this  period,  for  many  years,  his 
story  is  that  of  the  literary  man.  That  story  is  not  one  of 
success  gained  rapidly  or  without  very  severe  work.  It  was 
in  the  year  1851  that  Mr.  McCarthy  first  tried  his  fortunes  in 
London.  The  attempt  ended  in  failure,  and  he  had  to  return 
to  the  reporter's  place  in  Cork.  Not  long  after  this  he  met 
with  his  first  piece  of  luck.  There  was  at  that  time  a  Royal 
Commission  for  inquiring  into  the  fairs  and  markets  of  Ire- 
hind,  and  the  secretary  having  broken  down,  Justin  McCarthy 

1   United  Ireland. 


THE   LAND    LEAGUE 


321 


was  taken  on  as  the  official  shorthand  writer.     His  aptitude 
was  such  that  some  member  of  the  Commission  urged  him  to 
again  go  to  London,  and  armed  him  with  letters  of  introduc- 
tion to  persons  of  influence.     This  was  in  1852.     McCarthy 
again  tried  his  chance,  and  went  to  the  *  Times '  and  other 
offices,  but  without  success.     Before  he  could  continue  this 
fruitless  labour  he  heard  of  the  '  Northern  Times,'  the  first 
provincial    daily   of   England,   which  was  just  about   to  be 
started  in  Liverpool,  applied  for  a  situation,  and  was  accepted. 
But  he  was  still  only  a  reporter,  and  even  he  himself  did 
not  yet   very   well    know  whether   he  was  fitted  for  better 
things.     It  is  one  of  the  sad  experiences  of  those  who  have 
to  begin  low  down  in  a  profession  that  their  upward  progress 
is  often  much  slower  than  that  of  those  who  have  been  able 
to  start  from  a  higher  grade,  or  who  have  not  even  started  at 
all.     The  ballet  girl  may  be  a  tragedienne  of  genius,  but  she 
probably  finds  it  more  difficult  to  convince  the  manager  of 
that  than   the  amateur  with  influential  friends  ;  and  in  the 
same  way  the  presumption  always  is  that  the  journalist  who 
begins  as  a  reporter  should  be  allowed  so  to  continue.     But 
with  that  persistent,  though — so  to  speak — invisible  energy 
which  is  characteristic  of  Justin  McCarthy,  he  worked   on, 
gave  literary  lectures,  and  in  the  end  was  allowed  the  privi- 
lege of  contributing  to  the  editorial  columns.     He  remained 
in  Liverpool  till   1860;  in  that  year  the  'Northern   Times/ 
pressed  hard  by  more  daring  rivals,  failed.     McCarthy  was 
contended  for  by  several  Liverpool  journals,  but  he  declined  all, 
fixed  in  the  resolve  to  make  or  mar  his  fortune  in  London. 

At  this  time  the  young  journalist  had  a  counsellor  who 
for  many  years  was  the  chief  arbiter  of  his  destiny  in  all  the 
crises  of  his  life.  Before  he  had  left  Cork  he  had  seen,  but  he 
had  never  spoken  to,  Miss  Charlotte  Allman,  a  member  of  the 
well-known  Munster  family,  and,  in  the  meantime,  Miss 
Allman  had  come  to  reside  with  her  brother  in  Liverpool. 
The  two  young  people  resolved  to  marry,  in  spite  of  the 
strong  opposition  of  relatives  and  in  face  of  the  frowning 
fortunes  of  a  young,  a  badly  paid,  and  as  yet  unknown  jour- 
nalist ;  and  in  1855  they  were  married  in  the  town  of  Maccles- 
field.  The  folly  of  these  young  people  was  more  truly  wise 

Y 


322  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

than  the  sagacity  of  their  elders,  for  their  marriage  was  to 
both  the  best  and  the  most  beneficent  event  in  their  lives. 
To  those  who  knew  Mrs.  McCarthy  there  is  no  need  to  dilate 
on  the  resistless  charm  of  her  truly  beautiful  nature.  To  her 
husband  she  was  the  mainspring  of  his  life.  She  never  wrote 
a  line  ;  she  did  not  even  pretend  to  any  literary  power  ;  but 
she  had  the  keen  intelligence  of  sympathy :  she  had  faith  in 
her  husband,  and  she  had  indomitable  courage.  It  was  she 
that  induced  Mr.  McCarthy  to  refuse  all  the  Liverpool  offers, 
and  that  turned  his  face  steadily  to  the  larger  hopes  of 
London  ;  and  how  much  hopefulness  it  required  to  urge  this 
course  will  be  seen  from  the  fact  that  the  joint  capital  of  the 
young  couple  when  they  landed  in  London  was  io/.  Of  that 
they  spent  more  than  I/,  in  buying  an  olive  or  some  other 
sprout,  which  was  planted  with  lofty  hopes  in  the  garden  of 
their  new  hoube  in  Battersea,  and  which,  of  course,  perished 
after  a  short  and  sickly  existence. 

Mr.  McCarthy's  first   engagement  in   London  was   as    a 
Parliamentary  reporter  on  the   '  Morning  Star.'     He  found 
time  to  do  other  work  in  the  intervals  of  this  hard  occupa- 
tion, and,  mainly  through  the  persuasions  of  his  wife,  tried  his 
hand  at  an  essay  for  one  of  the    big    magazines.     He  had 
taught  himself  French,   German,   and   Italian  ;  was   familiar 
with  the  three  literatures  ;  and    his    first  attempt  at  essay- 
writing   had    Schiller   for    its    subject.      He   next   tried    the 
4  Westminster  Review,'  and  two  articles  of  his  in  that  period- 
ical  suggested    views  so    novel,    and    at   the    same    time  so 
correct,  that  they  attracted  the  attention  of  John  Stuart  Mill. 
The  philosopher  was  introduced  to  the  young  writer,  showed 
a  friendly  interest  in  his  welfare,  and  helped  to  advance  his 
fortunes.     Promotion    at   last    began    to    come    rapidly.     In 
the  autumn  of  1860  he  was  appointed  foreign  editor  of  the 
'Morning    Star,'    and    in     1865     he   became    editor-in-chief. 
Those  who  remember  the  journal  and  the  times  when  it  lived 
will  know  what  splendid  service  it  did  to  the  cause  of  Ireland, 
which  at  that  period  seemed  terribly  hopeless  indeed  ;  and 
its  tone  of  energetic  and  even  fierce  advocacy  of  Irish  national 
claims  was,  of  course,  largely  due  to  the  inspiration  of  the 
ardent  Irishman  who  was  then  at  its  head.     It  was  while  he 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE 


323 


was  in  this  position  that  Mr.  McCarthy  became  intimately 
acquainted  with  Mr.  John  Bright.  In  these  days  the  ex- 
Minister  was  still  the  great  tribune  in  the  eyes  of  his  admirers, 
and  the  mere  blatant  demagogue  in  the  mouths  of  his  oppo- 
nents. He  was  fond  of  spending  some  hours  in  the  office  of 
the  'Star,'  in  which  his  sister — the  widow  of  Samuel  Lucas, 
who  was  brother  of  the  Frederick  Lucas  of  Irish  history — had 
some  shares  ;  and  many  an  hour  did  the  editor  and  the  poli- 
tician spend  together  in  discussing  the  oratorical  exploits  of 
Mr.  Gladstone,  the  thing  that  did  duty  for  a  conscience  in 
Mr.  Disraeli,  or  the  comparative  merits  of  Shakespeare  and 
Milton.  It  is  one  of  the  unpleasant  consequences  of  the 
fierce  struggles  of  the  last  few  years  that  those  two  old  friends 
have  ceased  even  to  speak  to  one  another.  But  in  1868, 
when  it  became  clear  that  Mr.  Bright  was  going  to  become  a 
Minister,  and  when  he  sold  out  his  share  in  the  '  Morning 
Star,'  Mr.  McCarthy  lost  all  desire  to  be  further  connected 
with  the  journal,  and  resigned  his  position. 

He  then  entered  on  a  completely  new  and  a  highly  in- 
teresting experience.  He  went  to  America.  His  reputation 
had  gone  before  him,  and  he  found  an  embarrassing  choice  of 
offers  awaiting  him.  He  had,  while  still  editor  of  the  *  Star,' 
published  his  first  novel,  *  Paul  Massey '  (this  appeared  in 
1866)  — a  story  written  after  the  sensational  fashion  of  that 
hour,  which  Mr.  McCarthy  has  since  suppressed.  This  had 
been  followed,  in  1867,  by  the  'Waterdale  Neighbours' — a 
charming  story.  One  of  Mr.  McCarthy's  first  engagements 
was  to  write  a  series  of  stories  for  the  '  Galaxy,'  then  perhaps 
the  chief  literary  magazine  in  America.  He  was  also  asked 
to  lecture,  and  partly  because  the  terms  were  extremely 
remunerative,  and  partly  out  of  a  desire  to  see  the  country, 
he  consented.  The  result  is  that  Mr.  McCarthy  has  seen 
more  of  America  than  almost  any  European,  and  than  nine- 
tenths  of  Americans.  America  has  changed  greatly  since 
the  Irish  lecturer  went  on  his  first  tour,  for  at  that  period 
the  Pacific  Railway  had  but  just  been  completed,  and 
the  Red  Indians  used  still  to  haunt  the  depots  in  numbers 
sufficiently  large  to  be  sometimes  dangerous,  and  camp  fires 
along  the  line,  around  which  soldiers  gathered,  reminded  the 


Y  2 


324  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

traveller  how  recent  had  been  the  conquest  over  barbarism. 
Mr.  McCarthy  was  an  extremely  successful  lecturer,  and 
between  his  pen  and  his  tongue  found  the  United  States  the 
El  Dorado  it  has  proved  to  so  many  from  the  old  world.  He 
paid  a  brief  visit  to  London  in  the  middle  of  1870,  returned 
again  in  the  autumn  of  that  year,  and  finally  in  the  autumn 
of  1871  came  back  to  England  for  good. 

His  name  meantime  had  been  kept  steadily  before  the 
English  reading  public.  In  1869  'My  Enemy's  Daughter,' 
which  had  been  written  nearly  ten  years  before,  ran  through 
'  Belgravia,'  then  under  the  management  of  Miss  Braddon. 
Immediately  after  his  return  Mr.  McCarthy  was  offered,  and 
accepted,  an  engagement  on  the  '  Daily  News '  as  Parliamentary 
leader  writer.  For  years  he  was  one  of  the  best  known 
figures  in  the  Reporters'  Gallery,  and  was  looked  up  to  by 
most  of  his  editorial  colleagues,  as  the  man  who  took  the 
most  rapid  and  the  most  accurate  view  of  a  Parliamentary 
situation,  and  as  having  the  most  sagacious  head  of  the 
political  writers  of  his  time.  The  work  of  a  Parliamentary 
leader  writer  is  by  no  means  easy.  He  has  to  keep  the 
abominable  hours  of  the  House  of  Commons  ;  he  has  to 
watch  for  hours  before  he  can  put  a  pen  to  paper,  and  up  to 
a  recent  period — and  possibly  still — he  had  to  get  through 
his  task  under  circumstances  of  savage  inconvenience.  But 
Mr.  McCarthy  has  a  singularly  robust  and  well-balanced 
physique,  and  every  night  between  four  and  five  his  spectacled 
and  tranquilly  philosophic  face  might  be  seen  in  Palace  Yard 
with  a  regularity  that  successive  Premiers  strove  after,  but 
never  attained.  His  literary  fortunes,  meantime,  steadily  ad- 
vanced ;  and  in  '  Dear  Lady  Disdain  '  he  wrote  a  novel  which 
everybody  talked  about,  and  upon  which  there  was  a  real  run. 
With  the  versatility  which  is  so  singular  he  soon  after  devoted 
himself  to  another  and  a  very  different  kind  of  work,  under- 
taking a  contemporary  chronicle,  under  the  title,  'The  History 
of  Our  Own  Times,'  the  first  two  volumes  of  which  were 
published  in  iS/S.  Everybody  knows  the  result.  The  book 
—to  quote  the  hackneyed  expression — took  the  town  by 
storm.  It  was  praised  with  equal  fervour  by  Conservative 
and  by  Liberal  critics  ;  its  style  was  as  much  an  object  of 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE  325 

eulogy  as  its  tone  and  its  temper.  It  was,  indeed,  a  model  of 
what  contemporary  history  should  be.  Equal  justice  was 
dealt  out  to  all  parties  ;  the  portraits  of  men  were  clear-cut 
and  sympathetic,  and  the  style  was  evenly  melodious  without 
one  single  attempt  at  rhetoric,  without  one  phrase  or  one 
passage  that  could  be  called  pretentious.  The  book  sold 
with  enormous  rapidity,  and  edition  followed  edition  in  rapid 
succession.  Great  as  was  its  success  on  this  side  of  the 
water,  it  was  still  greater  in  America.  Rival  publishers 
brought  out  rival  editions,  and  the  present  writer  never  re- 
members to  have  gone  on  any  journey  in  America  without 
seeing  a  copy  of  the  '  History  of  Our  Own  Times  '  in  the  hands 
of  several  of  the  passengers.  But  the  hapless  author  gained 
little  from  this  enormous  American  sale,  for  as  yet  there  is  no 
copyright  between  England  and  America.  His  old  publishers, 
the  Messrs.  Harper  Brothers,  with  that  fair  dealing  which 
characterises  all  their  transactions,  did  send  him  voluntarily 
an  occasional  instalment  of  a  hundred  pounds  or  so,  but  they 
at  the  same  time  told  him  that  if  there  had  been  an  inter- 
national copyright  they  could  have  well  afforded  to  have  given 
him  io,ooo/.  for  his  rights.  It  may  be  interesting  to  note 
that  Mr.  McCarthy's  profits  from  the  book  up  to  the  present 
have  been  6,ooo/. 

Little  has  been  said  cf  Mr.  McCarthy's  modern  political 
career.  The  member  for  Longford  is  one  of  the  men  who 
does  not  owe  Mr.  Parnell  anything — as  the  Irish  leader  would 
himself  be  the  first  to  acknowledge — but  Mr.  McCarthy  soon 
saw  that  in  Mr.  Parnell  there  was  the  real  chief  of  that  honest 
and  independent  Parliamentary  party  for  which,  like  so  many 
of  the  old  '48  men,  he  had  been  vainly  looking  upwards  of 
thirty  years  ;  to  Mr.  Parnell  then  he  unreservedly  gave  his  con- 
fidence and  his  support.  Sagacious,  tranquil,  and  experienced, 
he  was  thrown  into  a  prominent  position  at  an  epoch  of  fierce 
and  tempestuous  passions  ;  but  nobody  was  readier  to  see, 
when  the  time  came,  the  necessity  for  strong  action.  Occa- 
sionally he  differed  from  the  counsels  of  younger  and  less- 
trained  men,  and  there  are  few  of  these  colleagues  of  his  who 
can  look  back  upon  those  occasions  when  they  ventured  to 
differ  from  their  wise  counsellor  without  certain  twinges  and 


326  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

misgivings.  But  whatever  might  be  his  views  in  the  privacy 
of  the  council  chamber,  Mr.  McCarthy  always  stood  by  the 
rule,  which  with  him  has  been  thought  out  till  it  has  become 
a  profound  conviction— the  rule  that,  in  the  face  of  the  enemy, 
the  Irish  party  should  be  a  unit.  He  has  been  ready  on  every 
emergency  to  take  his  share  of  the  unspeakable  drudgery  to 
which  Irish  members  have  been  subjected  during  the  last  few 
years  ;  and  it  imposed  a  greater  sacrifice  on  him  than  on  any 
other  member  of  the  Irish  party  to  face  the  odium  and  the 
loss  of  personal  and  professional  prestige  which  a  part  in  these 
unpopular  labours  involved.  If  the  delivery  of  Mr.  McCarthy 
were  equal  to  his  intellectual  and  rhetorical  powers,  he  would 
be  amongst  the  foremost  speakers  of  the  House.  He  is  ready  ; 
he  has  eminently  clearness  of  head  and  calmness  of  temper  ; 
and  his  ideas  clothe  themselves  in  language  of  beauty, 
smoothness,  and  appropriateness  with  an  unerring  regularity 
which  belongs  to  but  two  other  speakers  in  the  House- 
Mr.  Gladstone  and  Mr.  Sexton.  He  has  in  more  than  one 
debate  delivered  the  best  speech  in  point  of  matter  and  of 
form.  His  was  the  best  speech  in  the  strange  debate  which 
occurred  on  Mr.  O'Donnell's  suspension  for  his  attacks  on 
M.  Challemel-Lacour,  and  his  was  the  most  effective  of  the 
many  effective  replies  given  to  Mr.  Forster's  historic  attack 
on  Mr.  Parnell.  Mr.  McCarthy  in  one  style  of  speech  is  far 
and  away  superior  to  any  of  his  party,  and  probably  to  any 
man  in  the  House — that  is,  as  an  after-dinner  speaker.  He 
bubbles  over  with  wit  of  the  most  delicate  and  playful  kind, 
and  can  literally  keep  the  table,  if  not  in  a  roar,  at  least  '  on 
the  smile ' — to  use  the  expressive  Americanism. 

Finally,  let  this  sketch  of  Mr.  McCarthy's  career  be  closed 
with  the  mention  of  the  saddest  and  darkest  page  of  his  life. 
Just  as  his  long  struggle  was  crowned  with  success,  and  as  he 
became  from  the  poor  and  obscure  reporter  the  popular 
novelist,  the  successful  historian,  and  the  member  of  Parlia- 
ment, the  woman  without  whom  he  would  have  remained,  in 
all  probability,  poor  and  obscure  to  the  end,  was  seized  with  a 
lingering  illness  and  died.  It  would  be  unbecoming  to  even 
attempt  a  description  of  what  this  loss  meant  to  Mr.  McCarthy. 
He  has  one  daughter  and  one  son.  They  share  the  political 


THE  LAND    LEAGUE 


327 


opinions  of  their  father,  and,  indeed,  of  their  mother,  who  was 
a  fierce  Nationalist. 

Few  can  paint  a  character  completely,  and  it  is  acquaint- 
ance only  with  the  member  for  Longford  that  can  make 
intelligible  the  peculiarly  strong  hold  he  has  over  the  affec- 
tions and  admiration  of  his  intimates.  It  is  not  often  that 
there  are  found  united  in  the  same  man  modesty  and  literary 
genius,  a  toleration  of  others  with  a  power  of  absolute  self- 
abnegation,  a  sane  enjoyment  of  every  hour,  with  the  courage 
of  calmly  facing,  for  the  sake  of  the  right  cause,  Fortune's 
worst  blows,  Destiny's  most  cruel  decree.  Moderate  in  advice, 
when  the  fortunes  of  his  country  are  at  stake,  he  is  always 
boldest  when  acts  involve  only  personal  risk  to  himself.  It 
is  this  curious  mixture  of  tenderness,  shyness,  and  almost 
feminine  romanticism  with  a  thoroughly  masculine  and  fearless 
spirit,  that  make  him  so  beloved.  There  is  something  in- 
complete, says  the  French  epigram,  in  the  noble  life  that 
does  not  end  on  the  scaffold,  in  the  prison,  or  on  the  field  of 
battle.  May  Justin  McCarthy  have  many  and  prosperous 
days,  and  a  tranquil  and  honourable  end  !  But  it  is  almost 
a  pity  that  he  cannot  be  hanged  for  high  treason,  to  show  how 
calmly  a  quiet  man  can  die  for  Ireland. 

In  the  debates  of  the  meeting  in  the  City  Hall,  Mr. 
Thomas  Sexton  broke  silence  for  only  a  few  minutes. 
Nobody  could  help  remarking  that  his  voice  was  peculiarly 
melodious  ;  but  few  had  any  conception  of  the  great  things 
that  were  in  this  thin,  delicate,  rather  retiring  man. 

Thomas  Sexton  was  born  in  Waterford  in  1848.  Most 
of  his  colleagues  have  had  to  begin  the  struggle  of  life  at  an 
early  age,  but  few  even  of  them  faced  the  world  a  so  early 
a  period  as  Sexton.  He  had  not  yet  reached  his  thirteenth 
birthday  when  he  entered  a  competition  for  a  clerkship  in 
the  secretary's  office  of  the  Waterford  and  Limerick  Company. 
The  post  was  naturally  unimportant  ;  the  salary,  of  course, 
small  ;  but  that  did  not  prevent  thirty  youths  entering  the 
lists.  Of  these  Sexton  was  the  youngest,  and  Sexton  ob- 
tained the  first  place.  He  remained  in  the  secretary's  office 
till  he  was  between  twenty  and  twenty-one  years  of  age, 


328  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

when,  as  will   be  seen,  he  left  his  native  town,  drawn  to  the 
metropolis,  like  most  young  men  of  ability  and  enterprise. 

The  influence  of  his  many  years  of  dry  toil  in  an  office  is 
visible  in  Sexton  to-day.  It  has  often  been  remarked  that  he 
has  what  is  considered  an  un-Irish  talent  of  dealing  readily, 
clearly,  and  accurately  with  figures.  This  is  no  new  talent. 
When  he  was  in  the  railway  office  in  Waterford  his  friends 
used  to  amuse  themselves  by  giving  him  a  long  sum  in  com- 
pound addition,  which  most  people  would  find  it  hard  to 
calculate  rapidly  even  with  the  aid  of  pen  and  ink.  Sexton 
would  close  his  eyes,  and  in  a  few  minutes  would  give  the 
answer  with  invariable  accuracy.  He  used  to  say  that  the 
figures  were  '  written  on  his  brain.'  Mr.  Trevelyan  once 
brought  in  a  Bill  to  increase  official  pay  ;  and,  speaking 
within  a  few  minutes  after  the  Chief  Secretary  had  con- 
cluded, Sexton  was  able  to  tell,  almost  to  a  penny,  what 
the  sum- total  meant  to  each  individual,  and  was  compli- 
mented by  Mr.  Trevelyan  on  his  accuracy.  But  Sexton 
had  another  life  besides  that  of  the  railway  official.  In  his 
boyhood's  days  there  was  still  a  good  deal  of  literary  and 
social  activity  in  the  Irish  provincial  towns.  These  were 
the  days  of  Mechanics'  Institutes  and  of  the  Catholic  Young 
Men's  Societies — things  that  now  in  most  Irish  towns  are  but 
recollections,  vanished  under  the  universal  miasma  that  has 
killed  alike  the  things  of  industry  and  the  things  of  joy. 
The  sight  of  the  silent  mill,  the  unroofed  cottage,  the  rotting 
boat,  the  disappearance  of  the  peasant  of  Meath,  the  artizan 
of  Dublin,  the  fisherman  of  Claddagh  or  of  Bantry  Bay, 
bring  the  advancing  desolation  of  Ireland  no  more  clearly 
home  to  the  mind  than  the  departure  of  the  boisterous  whirl 
of  the  hurling  match,  of  the  wild  gaiety  of  the  '  pattern,'  and 
of  the  literary  and  other  societies  in  which  the  people  of  the 
Irish  towns  used  in  happier  days  to  meet,  and  amuse  and 
teach  each  other.  Though  Sexton  and  most  of  his  com- 
panions in  arms  are  still  young,  they  can  look  back  on  a 
comparative  change  in  Ireland  in  this  regard.  They  can 
remember  the  time  when,  on  Sunday  evenings  at  least,  there 
was  no  difficulty  about  knowing  where  the  hours  could  be 
passed  pleasantly  and  usefully,  and  where  the  beginning 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE 


329 


could  be  made  of  acquaintance  with  poetry,  history,  with  the 
arts  of  oratory  and  of  elocution,  and  sometimes  even  the 
gentler  but  equally  necessary  arts  of  singing  and  dancing. 

Though,  as  will  be  seen  by-and-by,  it  was  a  long  time 
before  Sexton  discovered  the  real  strength  of  his  abilities  or 
his  true  place  in  life,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  he  might 
never  have  become  the  man  he  is  to-day  if  he  had  not  been 
a  member  of  a  Catholic  Young  Men's  Association  and  a 
Mechanics'  Institute  in  Waterford  when  he  was  a  boy.  The 
Young  Men's  Society  he  joined  when  he  was  fourteen,  and 
before  long  he  had  gained  an  audience  which  admired  and 
believed  in  him.  When  he  was  about  sixteen  he  delivered  a 
lecture  on  Oliver  Goldsmith,  and  another  on  John  Banim,  the 
novelist.  The  prominence  to  which  his  talents  entitled  him 
was  recognised  in  his  election  as  honorary  secretary  of  the 
society.  He  showed  some  anticipation  of  his  own  future  posi- 
tion by  promoting  the  formation  of  a  debating  club  within  the 
society,  and  was,  of  course,  one  of  the  most  frequent  com- 
batants in  the  dialectical  duels  of  this  body.  He  was  finally 
elected  president  of  the  club,  and  he  held  this  position  up  to 
the  time  of  his  leaving  Waterford.  He  had  meantime  been 
an  active  member  of  another  organisation,  and  had  been 
employed  in  pretty  much  the  same  way.  He  joined  the 
Mechanics'  Institute  when  he  was  about  fifteen.  The 
Mechanics'  Institute  in  Waterford,  as  in  other  Irish  towns, 
was  not  confined  to  the  class  for  whose  benefit  such  bodies 
were  supposed  mainly  to  exist,  for  among  its  members  were 
the  professional  men  and  merchants  of  the  city.  Here  also 
Sexton's  mind  naturally  turned  to  the  idea  of  a  debating 
club,  and  with  his  co-operation  such  a  club  was  started. 
The  new  debating  society  became  in  time  one  of  the  pro- 
minent features  in  the  life  of  Waterford.  It  gave  public 
readings  and  debates  in  the  Town  Hall,  and  it  may  be  worth 
recalling  that  on  one  occasion  there  was  a  debate  between 
two  members  of  the  Institute,  of  whom  Sexton  was  one,  and 
two  members  of  the  Portlaw  Debating  Society.  The  subject 
of  discussion  was  whether  emigration  was  beneficial  to  Ire- 
land. Sexton  was  elected  a  member  of  the  committee  of  the 
Institute,  and  afterwards  was  appointed  secretary,  a  position 


330  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

which,  like  that  of  the  presidency  of  the  debating  club  of  the 
Catholic  Young  Men's  Society,  and  the  secretaryship  of  that 
society  itself,  he  held  until  his  departure  from  Waterford. 

Meantime  Sexton's  ideas  had  been  straying  towards 
Dublin,  and  the  chances  of  there  making  a  livelihood  by 
work  more  suitable  to  his  tastes  than  that  of  the  railway 
office.  He  had  plenty  of  friends  who  were  ready  to  echo  the 
whispers  in  his  own  heart  that  he  had  within  him  the 
makings  of  great  things  ;  and  when  he  was  twenty-one  he  at 
last  determined  to  make  a  bid  for  better  fortunes.  It  speaks 
well,  not  merely  for  Sexton's  own  power  of  personal  influence, 
but  also  for  the  keenness  of  appreciation  in  the  Waterford 
people,  that  even  at  that  early  period  in  his  career  the  de- 
parture of  Sexton  from  his  native  city  should  have  been 
regarded  as  an  event  of  some  importance.  A  public  dinner 
was  held  in  honour  of  the  departing  young  citizen,  and 
addresses  were  presented  to  him  by  the  Young  Men's  Society 
and  the  Debating  Club.  Sexton  had  become  the  centre  of 
a  group  of  able  young  Waterford  men,  of  whom  two,  at 
least,  have  since  achieved  a  position  of  importance — Edmund 
Leamy,  now  M.P,  for  Cork  county,  and  Richard  Dowling, 
the  well-known  novelist :  most  of  them,  in  happier  times  and 
in  another  land,  would  probably  have  added  to  the  glory  and 
happiness  of  their  country.  Sexton  went  to  Dublin  with  all 
kinds  of  good  wishes,  and  with  the  strongest  encouragement 
from  friends  who  had  faith  in  his  future.  This  was  in  1869, 
when  Sexton  was  in  his  twenty-first  year.  His  start  in  the 
Irish  capital  was  good,  for  he  immediately  obtained  a  perma- 
nent post  as  a  leader-writer  in  the  *  Nation '  office  from 
A.  M.  Sullivan,  who  was  at  that  time  the  editor.  He  con- 
tributed regularly  his  leading  articles  every  week  to  the 
National  journal,  and  when  Mr.  D.  B.  Sullivan  went  to  the 
Irish  Bar,  he  took  up,  besides,  the  editorship  of  the  '  Weekly 
News.'  He  was  for  a  while  also  the  editor  of  '  Young  Ireland  ' 
—a  literary  weekly  which  is  published  from  the  *  Nation  '  office. 

While  he  was  thus  busy  with  his  pen  Sexton  took  prac- 
tically no  part  whatever  in  politics,  and  had  done  little 
to  justify  those  promises  of  oratorical  eminence  which  had 
been  given  by  his  boyish  exploits  in  the  debating  societies 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE 


331 


of  Waterford.  Indeed,  from  1869  to  1878  it  would  probably 
not  be  easy  to  find  a  single  speech  or  even  a  remark  of 
Sexton's  reported  in  the  newspapers.  However,  when  the 
Home  Rule  League  was  formed,  he  had  given  public  proof 
of  the  faith  that  was  in  him  by  joining  its  ranks,  and  he  was 
elected  a  member  of  its  council.  In  1879  came  Sexton's 
first  appearance  on  a  public  arena  in  Irish  politics.  In  that 
year  he  was  requested  by  the  council  of  the  Land  League 
to  attend  as  their  delegate  at  a  county  meeting  at  Dromore 
West,  county  Sligo.  The  people  of  the  county  which  he 
represents  were,  to  their  credit,  quick  to  discern  the  abilities 
of  the  then  unknown  young  man,  and  he  made,  from  his 
very  first  appearance  among  them,  a  profound  impression. 
Indeed,  even  after  he  was  elected,  Sexton  was  known  by 
Sligo  long  before  he  was  recognised  by  Ireland  generally. 
When  the  general  election  came  it  seemed  very  doubtful 
whether  Sexton  would  be  one  of  those  chosen  to  represent 
Irish  demands  in  the  House  of  Commons.  There  were  few 
then  who  had  the  least  conception  of  what  his  powers  really 
were.  He  was  simply  a  writer  in  the  *  Nation  ' — a  clever 
fellow  enough,  of  course,  in  his  way — able  to  write  a  pretty 
article  or  a  nice  little  story,  but  beyond  that,  nothing  in 
particular.  It  might  be  desirable,  perhaps,  that  he  should  be 
run — first,  because  good  candidates  were  so  hard  to  get ; 
and,  secondly,  because  his  long  training  in  the  '  Nation  ' 
office  was  some  security  that  he  had  the  right  opinions  and 
would  vote  the  right  way.  There  can  be  no  harm  in  recalling 
these  disparaging  estimates  at  a  moment  when  Sexton  has 
established  a  position  so  great  in  the  councils  of  his  party 
and  in  the  esteem  of  the  whole  Irish  race  ;  and  they  serve  to 
show  how  little  Sexton  owes  his  rank  to  any  efforts  to  make 
the  most  of  himself  or  push  himself  into  notice.  His  name 
was  mentioned  for  the  county  Waterford,  but  withdrawn  ; 
immediately  after  it  having  been  resolved  that  he  should 
be  run  for  the  county  Sligo.  It  is,  perhaps,  no  breach  of 
confidence  to  reveal  the  fact  that  one  of  the  first  to  dis- 
cern the  commanding  abilities  of  Sexton  was  Mr.  Healy,  and 
that  the  present  member  for  South  Derry  was  one  of  those 
who  urgently  and  constantly  pressed  the  claims  of  his  friend 


332  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

—and  in  the  position  which  Mr.  Healy  then  held  as  secretary, 
to  Mr.  Parnell  he  was  indeed  a  powerful  ally.  When  at  last 
Sexton  was  sent  to  Sligo  his  difficulties  were  not  at  an  end. 
It  would  be  amusing,  and  perhaps  even  a  little  painful,  to  recall 
the  rigid  inquisition  through  which  he  had  to  pass  before  he 
was  able  to  obtain  promises  of  support  among  certain  sections 
of  the  electorate  ;  it  was,  indeed,  considered  at  that  time  so 
great  a  concession  that  a  Sexton  should  be  allowed  to  oppose 
a  King-Harman  !  These  petty  obstacles,  however,  did  not 
come  from  the  masses  of  the  people,  many  of  whom  had 
already,  as  has  been  indicated,  begun  to  appreciate  the  real 
worth  of  the  man  with  whom  they  had  to  deal.  The  canvass 
which  he  made  through  the  county  confirmed  the  impression, 
and  the  unknown  young  writer  from  the  '  Nation  '  office  was 
elected  at  the  head  of  the  poll,  above  both  the  Whig  and  the 
Tory  magnates  who  had  previously  sat  for  the  county. 

Sexton  was  at  last  a  member  of  Parliament,  and  for  the 
first  time  was  in  the  arena  where  his  abilities  had  the  oppor- 
tunity of  asserting  themselves.  But  even  in  this  position, 
recognition  came  to  him  slowly.  The  present  writer,  who 
was  personally  unacquainted  with  Mr.  Sexton  at  the  time  of 
the  general  election,  heard  him  for  the  first  time  at  the  meet- 
ing of  the  Irish  members  in  the  City  Hall,  and  though  Mr. 
Sexton  spoke  but  a  few  words,  was  immediately  struck  by 
him  as  one  who  had  the  true  oratorical  nature,  and  Mr.  T.  D. 
Sullivan — it  should  be  added — had  already  so  accurately 
gauged  the  new  member  for  Sligo  as  to  prophesy  that  he— 
with  one  or  two  others — would  be  the  orators  of  the  Irish 
party.  But  Sexton  seemed  in  no  hurry  to  justify  these  anti- 
cipations. During  his  first  session  of  Parliament  he  remained, 
comparatively  speaking,  unnoticed.  It  was  seen  that  he  was 
phenomenally  constant  in  attendance,  that  at  almost  any 
hour  of  the  day  or  night  he  was  to  be  found  in  that  first  seat 
on  the  third  bench  below  the  gangway  which  he  had  marked 
for  his  own,  and  that  he  was  in  the  habit  of  putting  what,  in 
these  early  days  of  the  new  Irish  party,  was  considered  a 
very  large  number  of  questions.  But  nobody  yet  had  any 
idea  that  there  was  anything  in  him  above  very  earnest  and 
very  respectable  mediocrity,  nor  during  the  recess  which 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE  333 

followed  did  he  advance  his  position  to  any  appreciable 
degree.  He  was  certainly  one  of  the  most  constant  among 
the  speakers  at  the  Land  League  meetings  throughout  the 
country  ;  but  this  fact,  while  it  procured  him  the  notice  of  the 
Government  so  far  that  he  was  included  in  the  famous  trial  of 
the  traversers,  did  not  have  any  very  perceptible  effect  upon 
his  own  political  fortunes.  It  was  on  an  evening  when  Mr. 
Forster's  Coercion  Bill  was  under  discussion  that  Sexton 
broke  upon  the  House  for  the  first  time  as  a  great  orator. 
It  will  be  seen  later  on  that  Mr.  Forster  did  not  produce  the 
Blue  Book  in  which  there  were  the  statistics  of  increased 
crime,  that  begot  coercion,  until  weeks  after  he  had  com- 
mitted the  Government  to  coercion,  and  days  after  he  had 
introduced  his  bill  into  the  House  of  Commons.  It  was 
in  the  dissection  of  the  extraordinary  details  which  appeared 
in  the  famous  Blue  Book,  at  last  produced,  that  Sexton 
showed  his  powers.  The  House  was,  when  he  rose,  but  ill- 
prepared,  indeed,  for  such  a  speech,  especially  from  an  Irish 
member;  for  of  the  subject  it  was  already  sick  to  death  ;  and 
the  final  outcome  was  as  predestined  as  the  procession  of  the 
earth  through  the  regions  of  the  air.  If  the  writer,  too,  re- 
members rightly,  the  physical  circumstances  of  the  moment 
tended  to  increase  the  prevalent  depression,  for  it  was  a  dull, 
dark,  dismal  evening.  The  House  was,  therefore,  listless, 
sombre,  and  but  thinly  filled  when  -Sexton  rose.  He  spoke 
for  two  hours,  not  amid  the  enthusiastic  plaudits  which  greet 
a  powerful  exponent  of  a  great  party's  principles,  but  amid 
chilling  silence,  interrupted  but  occasionally  by  the  thin  cheers 
of  the  small  group  of  Irishmen  around  him — and  yet  when  he 
sat  down  the  whole  House  instinctively  felt  that  a  great  orator 
had  appeared  among  them.  Still  there  was  no  particular  no- 
tice of  this  splendid  effort  in  the  newspapers  ;  it  was  reported 
in  but  a  few  lines.  But  members  talked  of  it  in  the  lobby 
and  the  smoke-room  ;  Sir  Stafford  Northcote  was  reported 
to  have  praised  it  highly,  and,  among  members  of  the  House 
of  Commons  at  least,  Sexton's  reputation  was  established. 

In  the  councils  of  his  party,  the  voice  of  Sexton  has 
always  been  for  good  sense.  Sagacity  is,  indeed,  the  very 
soul  of  his  oratory.  He  not  only  says  everything  better 


334  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

than  anybody  else  can  say  it,  but  he  always  says  the  right 
thing.  To  think  of  him  merely  as  the  eloquent  speaker  is  to 
forget  the  still  greater  claim  to  respect  he  holds  as  a  man  of 
remarkably  well-balanced  mind,  of  keen  and  almost  fault- 
less judgment.  And  in  connection  with  this  it  cannot  have 
failed  to  strike  any  intelligent  observer  that  there  have  been 
few  men  who  are  less  controlled  by  words  than  this  master  of 
words  ;  for,  in  spite  of  the  many  speeches  he  has  delivered 
within  the  last  few  years,  there  cannot  be  pointed  out  a  sin- 
gle sentence  which  could  give  just  offence  to  any  section  of 
patriotic  Irishmen.  To  say  the  right  thing  is  much  ;  to  leave 
unsaid  the  wrong  thing  counts,  in  politics,  even  for  something 
more.  To  describe  the  characteristics  of  Sexton's  oratory  is 
a  task  of  extreme  difficulty.  He  can  marshal  facts  ;  he  can 
discuss  figures  with  the  driest  statistician,  and  can  balance 
arguments  with  the  most  logic-chopping  member  of  the 
House  ;  and  he  can  at  the  same  time  invest  every  subject 
with  the  glory  of  splendid  language.  He  is  at  once  orator 
and  debater  ;  his  manner  fascinates,  his  matter  convinces. 
The  present  writer  best  conveys  his  impression  in  listening  to 
Sexton  by  saying  that  he  would  feel — if  he  were  even  antago- 
nistic to  Sexton — that  Sexton  can  use  words  as  the  retiarius 
employed  his  net  in  the  struggles  of  the  gladiators.  Sexton's 
opponent  might  think  that  his  arguments  were  bad,  that  he 
was  making  the  worse  appear  the  better  reason  ;  but  all  the 
same  Sexton's  vocabulary  would  so  ensnare  him  as  to  leave 
him  powerless  to  think  or  argue  in  reply.  In  short,  Sexton 
can  do  what  he  likes  with  words. 

For  the  rest  Sexton  is  a  keen  observer,  and  his  reading 
of  men's  motives  is  helped  by  a  slight  dash  of  cynicism.  In 
ordinary  affairs  blase  and  physically  lethargic,  his  political 
industry  is  marvellous.  He  enters  the  House  of  Commons 
when  the  Speaker  takes  the  chair,  and  never  leaves  it  until 
the  door-keeper's  cry  of  '  Who  goes  home  ? '  is  heard.  He 
sits  in  his  place  during  all  those  long  hours,  grudging  the 
time  he  spends  at  a  hasty  dinner— practically  the  one  meal 
he  takes  in  the  day — or  the  few  minutes  he  gives  to  the 
smoking  of  the  dearly-loved  cigar.  Before  he  goes  down  to 
the  House  he  has  mastered  all  the  business  of  the  day,  and 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE 


335 


his  breakfast  is  of  Blue  Books.  Orderly  in  many  of  his  habits, 
he  rarely  approaches  the  discussion  of  any  question  without 
full  knowledge  of  all  the  facts  carefully  arranged  and  abun- 
dantly illustrated  by  letters  or  other  documents.  He  has 
great  mastery  of  detail.  Probably  he  was  the  only  one  except 
Sir  Charles  Dilke  who  knew  all  the  figures  connected  with 
the  Redistribution  Bill.  With  every  measure  that  in  the 
least  degree  concerns  Ireland  he  is  acquainted  down  to  the 
last  clause,  and  thus  it  is  that  he  enters  on  all  debates  with  a 
singularly  complete  equipment.  Finally,  his  mind  is  extra- 
ordinarily alert.  His  opponent  has  scarcely  sat  down  when  he 
is  on  his  feet  with  counter-arguments  to  meet  even  the  plausible 
case  that  has  been  made  against  him.  It  seems  impossible 
to  take  him  unawares,  and  words  come  without  hesitation  to 
express  every  shape  of  meaning.  This  gift,  aided  by  sang- 
froid, makes  him  a  most  formidable  opponent,  and  even  the 
Speaker,  backed  by  all  the  new  rules  of  the  House,  and  his 
own  large  and  generous  interpretation  of  his  powers,  has  had 
more  than  once  to  succumb  before  the  ready  answer  and  the 
cool  temper  of  Mr.  Sexton. 

When  Mr.  Parnell  made  his  first  attempt  to  enter  political 
life  at  the  county  Dublin  election  of  1874,  one  of  the  main 
objections  against  him,  as  will  be  remembered,  was  that  he 
had  the  highest  of  high  English  accents.  Then  his  manner 
was  regarded  as  Saxon  in  its  reserve,  and  his  speech  was  still 
more  Saxon  in  its  rigidity.  But  Mr.  Parnell  has  a  violent 
brogue,  is  open-heartedness  personified,  and  speaks  with  a 
tongue  of  flame  when  he  is  brought  in  contrast  with  Arthur 
O'Connor.  Not  one  man  in  a  hundred  would  ever  guess 
when  he  heard  him  addressing  the  House  of  Commons  that 
O'Connor  had  a  drop  of  Irish  blood  in  his  veins.  The  whole 
air  of  the  member  for  Queen's  County  is  rigid,  serious,  icy. 
He  drops  his  words  with  calculated  slowness,  and  the  subjects 
he  selects  for  treatment  are  dry  and  formal  and  statistical — 
the  subjects,  in  short,  which  are  supposed  to  attract  the 
plodding  mind  of  the  typical  Englishman.  The  physique 
of  Arthur  O'Connor,  too,  suggests  the  same  idea  of  a  calm- 
ness and  unemotional  self-control  which  an  Irishman  is  rarely 
supposed  to  possess  ;  he  is  tall,  thin,  with  a  sombre  air,  and  a 


336  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

cold,  dark-blue  eye.  But  to  those  who  have  learned  to  know 
him,  all  these  outward  presentments  are  but  a  mask  ;  in  the 
whole  Irish  party — with  all  its  fierce  and  strange  spirits- 
there  is  not  one  whose  heart  beats  with  emotion  so  profound, 
with  a  hatred  so  fierce,  a  holy  rage  so  lethal.  The  keen 
analysis  of  the  French  mind  has  divided  enthusiasm  into  two 
kinds — the  enthusiasm  that  is  warm  and  the  enthusiasm  that 
is  cold.  The  enthusiasm  of  Arthur  O'Connor  is  of  the  cold, 
that  is  of  the  perilous,  type. 

Arthur  O'Connor  was  born  in  London  on  October  I,  1844. 
His  father  was  a  county  Kerry  man,  and  was  for  many  years 
one  of  the   most  eminent  physicians,  and  at  the  same  time 
one  of  the  best  known  figures  in  the  social  life  of  London. 
Arthur  was  educated  at  Ushaw  ;  and  in  the  year  1863  began 
life   for  himself  by  competing   for    a   clerkship  in  the  War 
Office.     There  was  but  one  vacancy,  and  there  were  thirty 
competitors  ;  O'Connor   got   the   place,    obtaining   a   higher 
average  of  marks  than  any  Civil  Service  competitor  for  many 
years.     For  the  space  of  sixteen  years  the  young  Irishman 
led  the  dull,  sombre,  monotonous  life  of  the  Civil  Servant  in 
the  gloomy  building  in  Pall  Mall.     He  was  a  model  clerk  in 
many  ways,  and  in  others  the  very  antithesis  of  what  a  clerk 
should  be.     He  was  a  model  clerk  in  being  always  accurate, 
attentive,  hardworking ;    there    never   was,   and    there  never 
could  be,   a   charge  of  a   single   act  of  neglect  or  stupidity 
during   the   entire   period.      But   outside   his   office   Arthur 
O'Connor  was  the  most  unclerklike  of  men.     He  had  poli- 
tical opinions — and  political  opinions  of  the  most  unpopular, 
the  most  unfashionable,  above  all  of  the  most  unprofitable, 
character.      An    effusive    and    unmeaning  address    to    some 
monarchical  personage  was   once  being  hawked  around  the 
War  Office  ;  it  came  in  the  end  to  Arthur  O'Connor's  desk. 
'  If  you  don't  take  that  away,'  said  O'Connor  to  the  gentle- 
man who  was  collecting  signatures,  *  before  I  count  twenty,  I 
will  put  it  into  the  fire.'     Then  he  not  only  professed   Irish 
National  principles,  but  he  joined  an   Irish  organisation,  and 
in  time  became  one  of  its  rulers  ;  for  he  was  elected  a  member 
of  the  executive  of  the  Home  Rule  Confederation.     Finally, 
he  began  to  be  seen  in  the  lobby  in  the  House  of  Commons 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE 


337 


in  earnest  and  frequent  colloquy  with  Mr.  Parnell,  and  the 
whisper  went  abroad  that  the  statistical  clerk  was  priming 
the  Irish  agitator  with  obstructive  powder  and  shot.  In  this 
connection  it  may  just  be  as  well  to  make  the  passing  ob- 
servation that  O'Connor  never  on  a-  single  occasion  told  Mr. 
Parnell  even  one  word  in  reference  to  matters  which  official 
honour  called  upon  him  to  keep  private.  The  gorge  of  the 
War  Office  rose  at  these  various  enormities,  and  the  clerk  got 
more  than  one  hint  that  these  things  were  not  unnoticed  by 
his  superior  officers.  O'Connor,  however,  strong  in  the  sense 
of  his  impregnability  as  an  official,  treated  all  these  threats 
with  scorn  ;  and  on  one  occasion,  when  one  of  his  chiefs  came 
to  patronise  him,  actually  turned  round  and  patronised  his 
superior.  *  I  always  took  a  great  interest  in  you/  said 
Arthur  to  his  astounded  elder.  *  Why  ?  '  asked  the  superior 
officer.  '  Because  you  entered  this  office  on  the  same  day  as 
I  was  born.'  Nevertheless,  Arthur  O'Connor  was  by  no 
means  anxious  to  remain  in  his  dingy  rooms  in  Pall  Mall. 
Under  a  scheme  of  reorganisation,  an  offer  was  made  to  him, 
as  well  as  to  other  clerks,  to  retire  if  he  chose.  He  did 
so  choose,  and  shook  the  dust  of  the  War  Office  from  off 
his  feet. 

He  had  already  given  a  taste  of  his  quality  as  a  political 
gladiator  in  minor  theatres,  and  the  poor-law  guardian  in  his 
case  was  veritably  the  father  of  the  member  of  Parliament. 
In  1879  he  was  elected  member  of  the  Chelsea  Board  of 
Guardians,  and  the  main  purpose  which  he  and  his  friends 
had  in  getting  this  place  was  that  he  might  look  after  Catho- 
lic interests.  These  interests  did,  indeed,  stand  in  sad  need  of 
some  advocate.  For  six  months,  not  one  of  the  Catholic 
inmates  of  the  workhouse  had  been  allowed  to  go  out  to  Mass, 
either  on  a  Sunday  or  on  a  holiday  ;  nor  was  a  Catholic  priest 
permitted  to  enter  the  place  ;  no  Catholic  prayer-books  were 
given  to  be  read,  and  the  Catholic  children  were  sent  to  Pro- 
testant schools  ;  and,  finally,  the  institution  was  not  stained 
by  having  a  single  '  Romanist ' — as  the  phrase  went  in  the 
vocabulary  of  the  Board — among  its  officials.  On  the  very 
first  day  on  which  O'Connor  took  his  seat,  the  most  eligible 
of  all  the  applicants  for  the  humble  position  of  scrubber'  was 

Z 


338  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

rejected  on  the  sole  ground  that  he  was  a  Catholic.  This  was 
the  large  and  complete  penal  code  which  the  new  member 
set  out  to  destroy,  and  the  task  seemed  certainly  audacious 
and  desperate  enough.  The  board  consisted  of  twenty  mem- 
bers. O'Connor  was  the  single  Catholic  in  the  whole  number 
— it  was  one  man  against  nineteen.  O'Connor  started  on  his 
enterprise  in  a  characteristic  fashion.  He  was  not  aggressive  in 
manner,  nor  violent  in  language  ;  he  made  no  speeches  either 
strong  or  long,  nor  did  he,  on  the  other  hand,  intrigue,  or 
smile  or  coax.  He  relied  on  two  weapons  alone — the  weapons 
of  knowledge  and  of  hard  work.  He  first  mastered  the  whole 
complicated  system  of  the  poor-law  code  :  and  O'Connor's 
power  of  learning  rules  is  now  well  known  to  every  member 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  It  is  reported  that  Lord  Hampden, 
when  Speaker,  once  declared  to  a  Radical  member  that  when- 
ever Arthur  O'Connor  stood  up  to  raise  a  point  upon  the  rules 
of  the  House,  he  always  took  up  his  note-book.  Lord  Hamp- 
den had  a  note-book  of  his  own  compilation,  in  which  there 
was  a  very  perfect  mine  of  Parliamentary  rules  and  precedents, 
and  this  note-book  he  consulted  whenever  he  was  confronted 
by  a  more  than  usually  knotty  point,  or  an  uncommonly  stiff 
opponent.  After  a  while  O'Connor  had  become  such  an 
expert  in  the  law  of  the  workhouse,  and  was  withal  so  calm 
and  so  composed,  that  his  fellow-guardians  found  he  was  a 
man  who  could  take  care  of  himself  in  all  instances.  Their 
first  step  was  to  abandon  any  attempt  to  trip  him  up,  and 
the  next  step  was  that  some  of  them  began  to  seek  his  aid 
as  an  ally  whenever  there  was  any  proposal  which  they 
thought  required  strong  backing. 

But  this  was  only  a  small  part  of  O'Connor's  work.  He 
had  been  elected  a  member  of  the  General  Purposes  Com- 
mittee— this  was  when  he  was  still  an  unknown  quantity  to 
his  fellow-guardians — and  the  General  Purposes  was  the  most 
important  of  all  the  committees.  It  was  the  committee  which 
had  the  contracts  to  give  and  to  examine,  which  dealt  with 
accounts  and  other  matters  of  high  import  in  the  economy 
of  the  workhouse.  O'Connor  devoted  days  and  weeks  to  the 
study  of  all  these  accounts,  with  the  result  that  he  knew  every 
item  as  intimately  as  if  he  had  to  pay  it  out  of  his  own 


THE   LAND    LEAGUE 


339 


pocket.  This  was  of  all  forms  of  knowledge  the  one  which 
made  O'Connor  most  formidable.  It  became  impossible  for 
a  penny  to  pass  muster  for  which  full  and  satisfactory  ex- 
planation was  not  given — jobbery  trembled  beneath  the  piti- 
less eye  of  this  cold  and  calm  inquisitor,  and  rogues  fled 
abashed.  All  this  could  not  be  accomplished  without  terribly 
hard  work.  The  meeting  of  the  General  Purposes  Com- 
mittee and  of  the  Board  was  on  the  same  day — Wednesday 
—and  every  Wednesday,  as  inevitable  as  night  or  death, 
O'Connor  was  in  his  place  on  the  Committee  or  at  the  Board  ; 
and  though  this  work  often  extended  continuously  from  ten 
o'clock  in  the  morning  till  eight  at  night,  with  the  exception 
of  half-an-hour  for  lunch,  in  his  place  he  remained  all  the 
time.  For  not  one  minute  could  he  be  induced  to  leave  the 
room,  for  even  a  minute's  absence  might  enable  the  jobber  to 
rush  through  his  scheme  ;  and  not  even  a  farthing  would 
O'Connor  allow  to  pass  without  criticism,  if  criticism  were 
demanded.  The  Board  was  shocked  at  this  indecent  scrupu- 
lousness, this  shocking  conscientiousness,  this  rude  industry, 
and  disappointed  jobbers  began  to  ask  how  it  was  that  a  man 
could  at  the  same  time  perform  efficiently  the  duties  of  a 
Civil  Servant  and  a  poor-law  guardian.  *  How,'  asked  a 
guardian,  '  could  Mr.  O'Connor  attend  every  Wednesday, 
without  exception,  from  ten  to  eight,  without  neglecting  his 
official  duties  for  at  least  one  day  in  the  week  ?  '  This  guar- 
dian resolved  to  have  the  matter  out,  and  proposed  a  resolu- 
tion calling  the  attention  of  the  Secretary  for  War  to  the 
conduct  of  the  War  Office  clerk.  The  gentleman's  disgust 
may  be  imagined  when  Mr.  O'Connor  himself  stood  up  to 
second  the  resolution  ;  and  so  had  it  laughed  out  of  court. 
O'Connor  had  nothing  to  fear  from  any  investigation  by  the 
War  Secretary,  or  anybody  else,  for  he  had  not  neglected 
his  official  duties  :  he  had  not  lost  one  single  day,  and  the 
manner  in  which  he  carried  out  this  programme  is  eminently 
characteristic,  and  will  indicate  the  kind  of  man  he  is.  In 
the  War  Office,  as  in  the  other  Civil  Service  departments, 
each  clerk  is  entitled  to  a  month's  vacation,  and  this  vacation 
he  is  generally  allowed  to  take  at  such  times  as  he  may  wish . 
He  may  take  it  in  a  continuous  month,  or  in  a  week  now  and 


340  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

a  week  again,  or  even  by  days  if  he  like.  Now  the  year  of 
the  War  Office  began  in  January;  that  of  the  Board  of 
Guardians  some  months  subsequently  ;  the  poor-law  year, 
therefore,  overlapped  the  year  of  the  War  Office.  Thus 
O'Connor  was  able  to  take  the  War  Office  vacation  of  two 
years. within  the  single  year  of  the  Board  ;  and  his  two  years' 
vacation  were  the  Wednesdays  which  he  spent  at  the  Board 
of  Guardians !  The  men  are  not  many  who  would  seek  re- 
creation, rest,  enjoyment,  in  ten  hours'  work  every  Wednes- 
day of  every  week,  and  in  work  without  pay,  without  glory, 
and  entirely  for  the  benefit  of  the  poorest  and  lowliest  of 
mankind.  The  reader  will,  of  course,  understand  that  all  this 
labour  was  but  a  means  to  an  end.  O'Connor,  of  course, 
found  some  pleasure  in  learning  the  details  of  the  poor-law  ; 
he  did  consider  it  part  of  his  duty  to  prevent  jobbery  ;  but  the 
legal  lore  and  the  prevention  of  jobbery  were  but  means  to 
an  end,  and  that  end  was  the  abolition  of  the  vile  system  of 
intolerance  under  which  the  Catholic  poor  were  suffering. 
Never  was  reformer  so  completely  and  so  rapidly  successful. 
He  was  but  one  year  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Guardians— 
the  combined  forces  of  bigotry  and  jobbery  took  care  that  he 
should  not  be  elected  a  second  time.  As  has  been  said,  he 
was  one  Catholic  against  nineteen  Protestants,  most  of  them 
bigoted  Protestants,  too  ;  and  at  the  end  of  that  year  every 
Catholic  could  go  to  church  on  Sunday  or  holiday  ;  the 
Catholic  priest  was  admitted  to  the  workhouse  once  a  week 
to  instruct  the  inmates  ;  Catholic  prayer-books  were  dis- 
tributed in  the  same  way  as  Protestant ;  Catholic  children 
were  sent  to  Catholic  schools  :  in  short,  of  the  vast  multitude 
of  Catholic  grievances  not  one  remained  unredressed.  And 
yet  all  this  had  been  accomplished  without  a  departure, 
perhaps,  for  one  second,  on  the  part  of  O'Connor,  from  his 
cold,  calm  delivery  :  without  one  violent  word,  with  that 
exterior  of  perfect  and,  on  occasion,  almost  genial  cour- 
tesy, under  which  lay  concealed  fierce  passion  and  relentless 
purpose. 

O'Connor  also  served  for  a  year  as  a  member  of  the 
Chelsea  Vestry.  He  had  not  here  the  same  great  motive  for 
activity  as  on  the  Board  of  Guardians  ;  but,  nevertheless,  he 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE  341 

made  his  presence  soon  and  severely  felt.  One  of  O'Connor's 
first  acts  threw  a  considerable  light  on  his  sharpness  of  per- 
ception, and,  at  the  same  time,  on  the  curious  manners  and 
methods  of  the  London  vestries.  The  auditors,  having 
brought  in  their  half-yearly  report,  Mr.  O'Connor  made  the 
request  that  he  should  see  the  manuscript  of  the  report.  The 
manuscript  was  produced,  and,  as  O'Connor  suspected, 
it  was  in  the  hand  of  the  Clerk  of  the  Board — the  man 
whose  accounts  were  principally  the  subject  of  examination. 
It  turned  out  that  the  virtuous  auditors  and  the  clerk  had 
dined  together — of  course  at  the  expense  of  the  clerk  ;  and 
had  gone  through  the  harsh  and  rigorous  work  of  auditing  the 
accounts  amid  the  softening  pleasantness  of  the  post-prandial 
hour.  Mr.  O'Connor  was  put  forward  as  a  candidate  for  the 
Southwark  district  of  the  School  Board,  but  was  defeated, 
chiefly  owing  to  the  fact  that  two  hundred  of  his  supporters 
came  up  late  to  the  poll.  The  one  remaining  part  of  Arthur 
O'Connor's  ante-parliamentary  career  which  need  be  noticed 
was  his  connection  with  the  Catholic  Union.  That  body,  as 
is  known,  was  founded  for  the  purpose  of  advocating  Catholic 
interests  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland.  O'Connor  took  upon 
himself  the  duty  of  attending  to  the  registration  of  voters,  and 
he  succeeded  in  thoroughly  organising  several  London  con- 
stituencies. When  he  had  a  portion  of  this  work  done,  the 
notable  discovery  was  made  by  one  of  the  English  members 
of  the  Union  that  it  was  Irish,  not  Catholic,  voters  whom 
O'Connor  had  been  getting  on  the  lists.  O'Connor  made  the 
pretty  obvious  retort  that  Catholic  and  Irish  were  practically 
synonymous  terms  so  far  as  the  duty  of  working  up  registra- 
tion was  concerned  ;  the  Catholics  who  were  English,  belong- 
ing, as  a  rule,  to  the  wealthier  classes,  could  look  after  their 
own  registration.  This  logic  did  not  recommend  itself  to  the 
authorities  of  the  Union,  and  registration  was  suspended. 
This  display  of  anti- Irish  bigotry  on  the  part  of  English 
Catholics  was  one  of  the  many  reasons  which  induced 
O'Connor  to  leave  the  Union,  and  the  same  course  drove  him 
out  of  St.  George's  Club — another  association  intended  for 
Catholics  in  England. 

Arthur  O'Connor's  part  in  Parliament  has  been  such  as 


342  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

one  might  have  anticipated  from  his  previous  career.  He  at 
once  devoted  himself  to  the  work  which  was  sorest  and  most 
uninviting  ;  had  acquired  in  a  short  time  a  knowledge  so 
intimate  of  the  rules  of  the  House  as  to  be  that  terror  to  the 
Speaker  of  which  mention  has  been  made,  and  was  a  more 
potent,  more  dangerous,  a  more  detailed  critic  of  the  Estimates 
than  Parnell  or  Biggar  in  their  palmiest  and  most  '  active ' 
days.  It  was  curious  to  see  O'Connor  enter  the  House  with  a 
bundle  of  notes,  which  apparently  must  have  consumed  days 
in  their  preparation  ;  to  hear  him  put  Mr.  Courtney  to  shame 
as  he  described  the  extravagant  wages  of  a  charwoman  in  the 
Foreign  Office  ;  and  to  bring  confusion  to  the  mind  of  the 
First  Commissioner  of  Works  as  he  dilated  on  the  bad 
quality  of  the  mortar  in  the  last  repairs  of  a  Royal  Palace. 
All  this  was  done  with  an  air  of  unbroken  severity,  but,  at  the 
same  time,  of  unruffled  temper  and  of  inflexible  courtesy. 
O'Connor  was  the  calm,  patient,  lofty  spirit  of  economy  that 
chided,  but  pitied,  and  that  spoke  in  the  accents  of  sorrow 
rather  than  of  anger.  But  he  would  go  on  criticising,  however 
painful  the  duty.  One  item  disposed  of,  another  was  taken 
up  ;  that  disposed  of,  there  was  yet  another  item  ;  and  so 
on  through  the  countless  figures  of  the  huge  volumes  that 
contain  the  Estimates.  But  it  was  not  always  criticism  or 
always  complaint.  At  some  moments  it  was  an  explanation 
which  O'Connor  prayed  for  with  his  inimitable  air  of  sad 
deference.  A  small  speech  was  required,  of  course,  to  preface 
the  inquiry.  The  Minister  having  answered  a  second  speech 
was  necessary  in  order  to  have  a  further  word  on  just  a  trifling 
little  difficulty  that  still  remained  to  disturb  O'Connor's  mind. 
Then  the  Minister  again  explained,  and  O'Connor,  now 
fully  satisfied,  had  to  express  his  gratitude  and  content ; 
and  the  expression  of  his  gratitude  and  content  required 
a  third  speech.  And  thus  it  went  on  hour  after  hour — 
O'Connor  calm,  deferential,  appallingly  inquisitive,  miracu- 
lously omniscient — the  Minister  restless,  apologetic,  divided 
between  the  desire  to  swear  and  the  dread  of  its  conse- 
quences— with  the  result  that,  when  the  night  was  over, 
the  Treasury  had  got  about  one  out  of  every  fifteen  votes 
it  had  hoped  to  carry.  Work  of  this  kind,  which  is  con- 


THE   LAND    LEAGUE  343 

stantly  done  by  such  men  as  O'Connor  and  Biggar — and  in 
former  days  by  gallant  Lysaght  Finigan — is  and  can  never 
be  reported,  is  rarely  even  described,  is  rarely  even  heard  of; 
but  it  is  in  willingly,  patiently,  relentlessly,  continuously 
going  through  the  hideous  drudgery  of  unrecognised  toil  like 
this  that  such  men  show  the  depths  of  their  self-devotion, 
the  reality  and  earnestness  of  their  self-forgetfulness.  Before 
passing  from  O'Connor's  part  in  Parliament,  let  there  be  just 
a  few  words  about  his  style  of  speech.  With  the  doubtful 
exception  of  Mr.  Parnell,  Arthur  O'Connor  has  the  most 
thoroughly  and  the  best  House-of-Commons  style  of  any 
man  in  the  party.  Clear,  deliberate,  passionless  in  language, 
gesture,  delivery,  he  is  the  very  best  model  of  an  official 
speaker.  The  narrow  limits  within  which  he  confines  him- 
self do  injustice  to  his  powers.  The  only  occasion  on  which 
he  did  prominently  enter  into  general  debate  was  on 
the  Bradlaugh  question  ;  and  his  answer  to  Mr.  Bright  on 
that  occasion  suggested  possibilities  of  sober,  but  lofty  elo- 
quence. 

Finally,  sufficient  has  been  written  of  Arthur  O'Connor 
to  make  intelligible  the  high  respect,  and  even  affection,  in 
which  he  is  held  by  his  friends  and  colleagues.  The  sternness 
of  his  faith  does  not  prevent  him  from  being  one  of  the  kind- 
liest of  companions,  one  of  the  most  tolerant  and  even- 
tempered  of  counsellors  ;  though  he  has  much  of  the  antique 
Roman,  he  has  much  also  of  the  social  charms  of  the  modern 
Irishman. 

Few  pages  are  more  picturesque,  or  more  touching  even, 
in  '  New  Ireland '  than  those  in  which  A.  M.  Sullivan  de- 
scribes the  native  place  of  himself  and  his  family,  and  the 
changes  that  the  years  have  made  in  it. 

Revisiting  recently  (he  writes),  the  scenes  of  my  early  life,  I  realised 
more  vividly  than  ever  the  changes  which  thirty  years  had  effected. 
I  sailed  once  more  over  the  blue  waters  of  the  bay  on  which  I  was, 
so  to  say,  cradled  ;  climbed  the  hills  and  trod  the  rugged  defiles  of 
Glengariffe  and  Beara,  by.,  paths  and  passes  learnt  in  childhood, 
and  remembered  still.  ,  .  .  The  extreme  south-west  of  Ireland,  the 
Atlantic  angle  formed  by  West  Cork  and  Kerry,  long  had  a  peculiar 


344  TLE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

interest  for  the  student  of  Irish  history.  ...  In  the  last  formidable 
struggle  of  the  Gaelic  princes  for  native  sovereignty  this  region  per- 
formed in  the  South  very  much  the  part  which  Donegal  played 
in  the  North  ;  the  three  men  under  whom  the  final  campaign  of 
1595-1599  was  fought  being  Hugh  O'Neill,  Prince  of  Tyrone  ;  Hugh 
O'Donnell,  Prince  of  Tyrconnell  :  and  Donal  O'Sullivan,  chieftain  of 
Beara.  In  that  struggle  Spain  was  the  ally  of  the  Irish  chiefs,  and 
the  proximity  of  the  Carbery  and  Beara  headlands  to  the  Iberian 
peninsula— the  facilities  offered  by  their  deep  bays  and  ready  har- 
bours for  the  landing  of  expeditions,  envoys,  arms,  and  subsidies — 
gave  to  the  district  that  importance  which  it  retained  down  to  1796, 
when  it  was  the  scene  of  the  attempted,  or  rather  intended,  French 
invasion  under  Hoche.  Declared  forfeit  in  1607,  on  the  conclusion 
of  the  campaign  above  referred  to,  confiscated  again  in  1641,  and 
a  third  time  in  1691,  Beara  at  length  passed  totally  from  the 
O'Sullivans.  The  last  notable  member  of  the  disinherited  family 
entered  the  service  of  France  with  the  Irish  army  under  Sarsfield,  on 
the  capitulation  of  Limerick.  The  clansmen  scowled  on  the  new 
landlords,  who,  indeed,  for  very  long  after  never  ventured  upon  even 
a  visit  to  the  place.  From  1700  to  1770,  as  Mr.  Froude  has  very 
graphically  described,  Bantry  and  the  surrounding  bays  were  the 
great  outlets  through  which,  in  defiance  of  the  utmost  power  and 
vigilance  of  the  Government,  shiploads  of  recruits  for  the  Irish 
Brigade  (called  '  wild  geese '  in  the  bills  of  lading)  and  cargoes  ox 
wool  (at  that  time  forbidden  to  be  exported)  were  despatched  to 
France,  Spain,  and  the  Low  Countries.  In  the  smuggling,  or  expor- 
tation, of  contraband  fleeces  and  importation  of  silk,  brandy,  and 
tobacco,  the  population  pushed  a  lucrative  and  exciting  trade  down 
very  nearly  to  the  close  of  the  last  century,  when  it  may  be  said 
to  have  totally  disappeared.  Henceforward  they  devoted  themselves 
exclusively  and  energetically  to  a  combination  of  fishing  and  petty 
agriculture.  .  .  .  Few  sights  could  be  more  picturesque  than 
the  ceremony  by  which  in  our  bay  the  fishing  season  was  formally 
opened.  Selecting  an  auspicious  day,  unusually  calm  and  fine, 
the  boats,  from  every  creek  and  inlet  for  miles  around,  assembled  at 
a  given  point,  and  then,  in  solemn  procession,  rowed  out  to  sea,  the 
leading  boat  carrying  the  priest  of  the  district.  Arrived  at  the  distant 
fishing  ground,  the  clergyman  vested  himself,  an  altar  was  improvised 
on  the  stern-sheets,  the  attendant  fleet  drew  around,  and  every  head 
was  bared  and  bowed  while  the  Mass  was  said.  I  have  seen  this 
'  Mass  on  the  ocean '  when  not  a  breeze  stirred,  and  the  tinkle  of  the 
little  bell  or  the  murmur  of  the  priest's  voice  was  the  only  sound  that 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE 


345 


reached  the  ear  ;  the  blue  hills  of  Bantry  faint  on  the  horizon  behind 
us,  and  nothing  nearer  beyond  than  the  American  shore.  Where 
are  all  these  now  ?  The  *  Mass  on  the  ocean  '  is  a  thing  of  the  past, 
heard  of  and  seen  no  more  ;  one  of  the  old  customs  gone  apparently 
for  ever.  The  fishermen — the  fine  big-framed  fellows,  of  tarry  hands 
and  storm-stained  faces  ?  The  workhouse  or  the  grave  holds  all 
who  are  not  docksidemen  on  the  Thames  or  the  Mersey,  on  the 
Hudson  or  the  Mississippi.  The  boats  ?  I  saw  nearly  all  that  remains 
of  them  when  I  last  visited  the  little  cove  that  in  my  early  days 
scarce  sufficed  to  hold  the  fleet  at  low  water  ;  skeleton  ribs  protrud- 
ing here  and  there  from  the  sand,  or  the  shattered  hulks  helplessly 
mouldering  under  the  trees  that  dropped  into  the  tide  when  at 
full. 

Such  is  in  brief  a  sketch  of  the  place  in  which  Timothy 
Daniel  Sullivan — the  future  ballad-writer  of  the  Irish  National 
cause — was  born  in  1827.  The  father  of  the  Sullivans  was  in 
but  moderate  circumstances,  but  education  and  refinement  de- 
scend socially  deeper  in  Ireland  than  in  most  other  countries 
— certainly  than  in  England  ;  and  the  parent  of  T.  D.  Sulli- 
van and  his  brothers  was  a  man  of  considerable  culture.  The 
mother  was  likewise  a  woman  of  large  gifts,  well  trained,  and 
was  for  many  years  a  National  school  teacher.  She  seems  to 
have  had,  besides,  a  very  attractive  personality,  one  proof  of 
which  is  the  tradition  that  she  was  a  godmother  to  half  the 
children  born  during  her  time  in  Bantry.  The  home  of  the 
Sullivans  was  thoroughly  National,  and  amid  the  stirring  times 
of  1 848,  and  the  hideous  disasters  of  the  two  preceding  years, 
there  were  all  the  circumstances  to  make  the  National  faith 
of  the  family  bitter  and  robust.  The  father  was  carried  away, 
like  the  majority  of  the  earnest  and  energetic  Irishmen  of  that 
time,  by  the  gospel  which  the  Young  Ireland  leaders  were 
preaching  with  such  fascination  of  voice  and  pen,  became  one 
of  the  leaders  of  the  local  '48  club,  and,  as  a  reward,  was  dis- 
missed from  his  employment  by  one  of  the  local  magistrates. 
One  of  the  episodes  of  this  time  is  justly  treasured  by  the 
whole  family.  Smith  O'Brien,  shortly  before  the  insurrec- 
tion, went  on  a  tour  of  inspection  through  the  south-west  and 
southern  countries  in  order  to  test  the  feeling  of  the  people. 
He  received  a  big  welcome  from  the  people  of  the  coast,  and 


346  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

when  passing  from  Glengariffe  to  Bantry,  across  the  bay,  he 
had  a  demonstration — Venetian  rather  than  Irish  in  its  char- 
acter. Around  the  boat  in  which  was  made  the  small  voyage 
gathered  the  fleet  of  these  fishing  smacks,  whose  decadence 
A.  M.  Sullivan  has  so  eloquently  described,  and  the  little 
yacht  which  carried  the  future  rebel  leader  and  his  fortunes 
was  the  property  of  the  Sullivans. 

T.  D.  Sullivan,  like  the  rest  of  his  brothers,  though  brought 
up  in  a  small  and  remote  town,  had  an  opportunity  of  re- 
ceiving a  good  education  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word,  and 
the  family  was  essentially  literary  as  well  as  national  in  its 
tendencies.  The  Sullivans  were  closely  associated  with  another 
Bantry  household,  which  was  destined  by-and-by  to  give  a 
prominent  figure  to  the  Irish  history  of  the  present  day. 
The  chief  and  the  best  schoolmaster  of  the  town  was  Mr. 
Healy,  the  grandfather  of  the  present  member  for  South  Deny. 
Under  his  charge  T.  D.  Sullivan  was  placed,  after  he  had  made 
a  beginning  in  the  National  school,  and  it  was  from  Mr.  Healy 
that  Mr.  Sullivan  learned  probably  the  most  of  what  he 
knows,  for  Mr.  Healy  belonged  to  that  race  of  fine  scholars 
who  were  to  be  found  in  the  old  days  in  nearly  all  the  towns 
in  Munster.  The  ties  between  the  two  families  were  after- 
wards drawn  still  closer  when  T.  D.  Sullivan  married  Miss 
Kate  Healy,  the  daughter  of  his  teacher.  Though  A.  M. 
Sullivan  was  younger  than  T.  D.,  he  was  the  first  to  leave 
home  and  seek  fortune  abroad.  After  trying  his  hand  as  an 
artist,  A.  M.  ultimately  adopted  journalism  as  a  profession, 
and  became  connected  with  the  Dublin  'Nation.'  T.  D. 
meantime  had  also  allowed  his  mind  to  run  into  dreams  of  a 
literary  future,  and  had  early  discovered  his  talent  for  versifi- 
cation. In  fact,  he  had  filled  a  whole  volume  with  his  com- 
positions ;  but,  with  the  secrecy  which  youth  loves,  he  had 
not  confided  his  transgression  to  anyone.  But  two  or  three 
of  the  pieces  had  even  appeared  in  print,  and  practically  it 
was  not  till  he  came  to  Dublin  and  began  to  write  in  the 
'  Nation  '  that  the  poetical  genius  of  T.  D.  Sullivan  sought 
recognition.  Into  the  columns  of  that  journal  he  began  at 
once  to  pour  the  verses  which  he  had  hitherto  so  religiously 


THE  LAND    LEAGUE 


347 


kept  secret,  and  from  the  first  his  songs  attracted  attention. 
He  had  not  been  more  than  a  few  months  on  the  '  Nation  ' 
when  a  musical  composer  called  on  the  then  editor,  Mr. 
Cashel  Hoey,  to  ask  permission  to  publish  two  of  the  poems 
which  had  recently  appeared  in  the  paper.  One  of  these  was 
signed  with  the  now  well-known  initials,  '  T.  D.  S.,'  while  the 
other  bore  a  different  signature  ;  but  both  were  from  the 
same  pen.  From  this  time  forward  the  name  of  T.  D. 
Sullivan  is  inextricably  associated  with  the  f  Nation.' 

Though  T.  D.  Sullivan  has  written  love-poems,  and  tender 
elegies,  his  preference  has  always  been  for  the  muse  that 
stirs  and  cheers.  Many  of  his  poems  became  popular  imme- 
diately on  their  appearance,  and  spread  over  that  vast  world 
of  the  Irish  race  which  now  extends  through  so  many  of  the 
nations  of  the  earth.  A  well-known  story  with  regard  to  the 
*  Song  from  the  Backwoods '  will  illustrate  the  influence  of 
T.  D.  Sullivan's  muse.  Most  Irishmen  know  that  splendid 
little  poem,  with  its  bold  opening,  and  its  splendid  re- 
frain : — 

Deep  in  Canadian  woods  we've  met, 

From  one  bright  island  flown  ; 
Great  is  the  land  we  tread,  but  yet 

Our  hearts  are  with  our  own. 
And  ere  we  leave  this  shanty  small, 
While  fades  the  autumn  day, 
We'll  toast  old  Ireland  ! 
Dear  Old  Ireland  ! 
Ireland,  boys,  hurrah  ! 

The  song,  which  was  published  in  the  '  Nation '  in  1857, 
first  became  popular  among  the  members  of  the  Phoenix 
Society — who,  it  will  be  remembered,  were  at  work  in  1858 
- — and  was  carried  to  America  by  Captain  D.  J.  Downing, 
one  of  the  association.  It  rapidly  became  popular,  both 
among  the  Fenians,  who  were  beginning  to  be  organised,  and 
among  the  Irish  soldiers  who  were  fighting  in  the  American 
army.  Every  man  of  the  Irish  Brigade  knew  it,  and  it  was 
often  sung  at  the  bivouac  fire  after  a  hard  day's  fighting. 
An  extraordinary  instance  of  its  popularity  was  given  by  a 


348  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

writer,  signing  himself '  Romeo/  in  the '  New  York  Irish  People' 
of  March  9,  1867.  '  On  the  night,'  he  writes,  'of  the  bloody 
battle  of  Fredericksburg,  the  Federal  army  lay  sleepless  and 
watchful  on  their  arms,  with  spirits  damped  by  the  loss  of  so 
many  gallant  comrades.  To  cheer  his  brother  officer,  Cap- 
tain Downing  sang  his  favourite  song.  The  chorus  of  the 
first  stanza  was  taken  up  by  his  dashing  regiment,  next  by 
the  brigade,  next  by  the  division,  then  by  the  entire  line 
of  the  army  for  six  miles  along  the  river ;  and  when  the  cap- 
tain ceased,  it  was  but  to  listen  with  indefinable  feelings  to 
the  chant  that  came  like  an  echo  from  the  Confederate  lines 
on  the  opposite  shore  of 

Dear  Old  Ireland, 
Brave  Old  Ireland, 
Ireland,  boys,  hurrah  ! 

The  song  '  God  save  Ireland  '  became  popular  with  even 
greater  rapidity.  It  wTas  issued  at  an  hour  when  all  Ireland 
was  stirred  to  intenser  depths  of  anger  and  of  sorrow  than 
perhaps  at  any  single  moment  in  the  last  quarter  of  a  cen- 
tury, and  this  profound  and  immense  feeling  longed  for  a 
voice.  When  '  God  save  Ireland '  was  produced  the  people 
at  once  took  it  up,  and  so  instantaneously  that  the  author 
himself  heard  it  sung  and  chorussed  in  a  railway  carriage  on 
the  very  day  after  its  publication  in  the  '  Nation.' 

On  several  other  occasions  the  pen  of  T.  D.  Sullivan  has 
given  popular  expression  to  popular  sentiment.  It  has  been 
his  invariable  rule  in  composing  these  songs  to  make  them 
*  ballads '  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word — songs,  that  is  to  say, 
that  expressed  popular  sentiment  in  the  language  of  every- 
day life,  that  had  good  catching  rhymes,  and  that  could  be 
easily  sung.  Some  of  his  very  best  poems  were  written 
during  the  Land  League  agitation,  and  will  be  very  useful 
to  the  historian  of  that  movement  in  the  insight  they  afford 
of  the  central  idea  of  the  people  at  each  succeeding  stage 
during  that  memorable  struggle.  An  immense  fillip  was  un- 
doubtedly given  to  the  demand  for  abatements  of  rent  by  the 
song,  '  Griffith's  Valuation  '— 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE  349 

Farmers  far  and  near, 

Long  despoiled  by  plunder, 
Let  your  tyrants  hear 

Your  voices  loud  as  thunder 
Shout  from  shore  to  shore 

Your  firm  determination 
To  pay  in  rents  no  more 

Than  '  Griffith's  Valuation.' 
That's  the  word  to  say 

To  end  their  confiscation  ; 
That's  the  rent  to  pay — 

'  Griffith's  Valuation.' 

Still  more  successful,  perhaps,  was  the  ballad  of  '  Murty 
Hynes.'  Nobody,  probably,  has  forgotten  the  story  of  the 
converted  land-grabber  of  the  county  Galway,  who  was  in- 
duced to  surrender  a  holding  from  which  another  tenant  had 
been  evicted.  The  poem  in  which  T.  D.  Sullivan  has  cele- 
brated this  historic  episode  is,  in  the  opinion  of  the  present 
writer,  one  of  the  most  felicitous  compositions  that  ever  came 
from  his  pen.  The  imitation  of  the  style  and  tone  of  the 
street  ballad  in  the  following  verses  is  excellent : — 

Come,  all  true  sons  of  Erin,  I  hope  you  will  draw  near, 
A  new  and  true  narration  I  mean  to  let  you  hear  ; 
'Tis  for  your  information  I  pen  these  simple  lines, 
Concarnin'  of  the  Land  League,  likewise  of  Murty  Hynes. 

The  place  that  Murty  lives  in  is  handy  to  Loughrea, 
The  man  is  good  and  dacent,  but  he  was  led  astray  ; 
He  did  what  every  Christian  must  call  a  burnin'  shame, 
But  now  he  has  repented,  and  cleared  his  honest  name. 

For  when  upon  the  roadside  poor  Bermingham  was  sint, 
Because  with  all  his  strivin'  he  could  not  pay  the  rint, 
And  keep  ould  Lord  Dunsandle  in  horses,  dogs,  and  wines, 
Who  comes  and  takes  the  houldin'  but  foolish  Murty  Hynes  ? 

But  when  the  noble  Land  League  got  word  of  this  disgrace, 
They  sint  a  man  to  Murty  to  raison  out  the  case  ; 
*  I  own  my  crime,'  says  Murty,  '  but  Fll  wash  out  the  stain  : 
I'll  keep  that  farm  no  longer ;  I'll  give  it  up  again.' 


350  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

And  then  he  wrote  a  letter  and  sint  it  to  the  Lague, 
Saying  '  From  the  cause  of  Ireland  I  never  will  renege, 
And  never  more  I  promise,  while  Heaven  above  me  shines, 
Will  I  for  land  go  grabbing'  says  honest  Murty  Hynes. 

Och  !  whin  the  people  heard  it,  they  gathered  in  a  crowd, 
The  boys  brought  out  their  banners,  and  bate  their  drums  aloud, 
And  there  was  songs  and  speeches,  and  dancin'  light  and  gay, 
Around  the  flamin'  bonfires  that  night  in  old  Loughrea. 

Now  all  true  sons  of  Erin,  wherever  you  may  be, 

Come  join  in  celebratin'  this  glorious  victoree, 

And  by  Columbia's  rivers,  and  'midst  Canadian  pines, 

Give  THREE  cheers  for  the  Land  League,  and  NINE  for  Murty 

Hynes. 

In  a  few  days  this  ballad  had  made  its  way  all  over 
Ireland,  was  learned  by  every  itinerant  songster  of  the 
country,  and  sold  by  the  tens  of  thousands.  When  T.  D. 
Sullivan  was  being  tried  as  one  of  the  traversers  in  the 
famous  case  of  the  Queen  v.  Parnell  and  others,  the  poem  of 
'  Murty  Hynes '  was  one  of  the  pieces  de  conviction.  Mr. 
Peter  O'Brien,  who  was  Mr.  Sullivan's  counsel,  wished  to  read 
the  poem  to  the  jurors,  but  Crown  counsel  objected  ;  and 
Judge  Fitzgerald,  on  being  appealed  to,  decided  the  point  by 
saying  that  he  would  allow  Mr.  O'Brien  to  bring  the  ballad 
in  evidence  if  he  would  sing  it — one  of  the  few  jokes  that  en- 
livened the  monotonous  dullness  of  the  Parnell  trials. 

One  other  of  the  poems  of  T.  D.  Sullivan  played  a  part 
in  the  trial  of  the  traversers.  By  way  of  proving  the  nature 
of  the  doctrines  preached  by  the  Land  League,  the  late  Mr. 
Law,  the  then  Attorney- General,  quoted  from  a  poem  called 
'  Our  Vow  '  the  following  stanza  : — 

No,  we  shall  leave  untilled,  unsown, 

The  lands,  however  fair, 
From  which  an  honest  man  was  thrown 

Upon  the  roadside  bare. 
As  if  a  curse  was  on  the  spot, 

That  saw  such  hateful  deeds, 
We'll  leave  the  empty  house  to  rot, 

The  fields  to  choke  with  weeds. 

1  By  an  honest   man/  commented  the  Attorney-General,  '  in 


THE   LAND    LEAGUE  351 

this  composition,  I  suppose,  is  meant  a  man  who  refuses  to 
pay  his  rent! 

It  will  not  be  necessary  to  write  at  any  great  length  of 
the  Parliamentary  career  of  T.  D.  Sullivan.  He  was  elected, 
as  is  known,  along  with  Mr.  H.  J.  Gill,  for  county  Westmeath, 
at  the  General  Election  of  1880  ;  and,  in  spite  of  the  absorbing 
nature  of  his  journalistic  duties  he  has  been  one  of  the  most 
active  and  one  of  the  most  attentive  members  of  the  party. 
He  has  been  perhaps  still  more  prominent  on  the  platform  : 
and  it  is  at  large  Irish  popular  gatherings  that  his  speech  is 
most  effective.  He  is  Irish  of  the  Irish  and  expresses  the 
deep  and  simple  gospel  of  the  people  in  language  that  goes 
home ;  and  then  his  keen  sense  of  humour  enables  him  to 
supply  that  element  of  amusement  which  is  always  looked 
forward  to  with  eagerness  by  the  crowd.  It  need  scarcely  be 
said  that  he  has  always  been  one  of  the  most  sagacious,  as 
well  as  one  of  the  most  loyal,  of  the  supporters  of  Mr.  Parnell. 
Like  other  men,  he  has  sometimes  been  overborne  by  the 
opinions  of  others,  but  when  the  decision  of  the  majority 
was  given,  there  was  not  a  moment  of  hesitation  in  standing 
by  the  unity  of  the  party.  In  another  way  T.  D.  Sullivan 
has  been  one  of  the  best  factors  in  the  party.  More  advanced 
in  years  than  many  of  his  colleagues,  he  has  nevertheless  been 
as  young  as  the  youngest  among  them  in  his  energy  and  in 
his  hopefulness — and  the  long  and  dreary  nights  of  struggle 
in  the  House  of  Commons  put  the  energy  and  the  hopeful- 
ness of  any  man  to  a  very  severe  test.  Like  Mr.  Biggar, 
Mr.  Sullivan  has  shrunk  from  no  work  which  the  exigencies 
of  the  situation  demanded,  and  has  been  ready  to  take  his 
share  of  the  talking — whether  the  House  considered  his 
intervention  seasonable  or  unseasonable  ;  whether  he  spoke 
to  benches  that  were  full  or  empty,  silent  or  uproarious. 
Erring,  perhaps,  as  a  rule,  on  the  side  of  over-earnestness, 
he  often  lights  up  his  Parliamentary,  like  his  conversational, 
efforts  with  bright  flashes  of  wit.  Speaking  of  special  clauses 
in  the  Crimes  Act  for  the  protection  of  certain  humble  agents 
of  the  law  one  night  he  declared,  'There's  a  divinity  doth 
hedge  a  bailiff  rough  tiuse  him  how  we  will.'  His  drinking 
the  health  of  the  Land  League  at  the  close  of  one  of  his 


352 


THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


speeches  in  the  House  was  an  incident  of  a  thoroughly 
original  nature.  He  had  defended  that  body  in  a  long 
speech  from  charges  that  had  been  made  against  it.  '  And 
now,  Mr.  Speaker/  said  he,  taking  up  the  glass  of  water 
which  he  had  by  him  on  the  bench,  and  raising  it  to  his  lips, 
*  all  I  have  to  say  in  conclusion  is — Here's  long  life  and  good 
health  to  the  Irish  National  Land  League.'  '  Punctuality/ 
he  said  once  to  a  colleague  who  turned  up  at  a  meeting  with 
characteristic  lateness,  '  punctuality,  in  the  opinion  of  the 
Irish  party,  is  the  thief  of  time.'  Some  of  his  lighter  poems 
are  greater  favourites  with  many  people  than  his  more  serious 
efforts,  because  of  this  same  vein  of  irrepressible  humour. 
Nothing  could  be  much  more  amusing  than  the  picture  in 
the  poem,  *  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Irish  Ideas/  of  the  Premier's 
visit  to  an  Exhibition,  at  which  he  was  induced  to  test  the. 
Irish  whisky. 

It  is  when  the  county  meeting  is  over,  and  T.  D.  Sullivan 
sits  amid  a  genial  crowd  of  sympathetic  friends,  that  his  best — 
certainly  his  most  attractive — talents  are  seen.  Like  all  the 
Sullivan  family,  he  has  plenty  of  musical  ability,  and  like 
poor  A.  M.,  has  a  splendid  voice.  A  song  by  T.  D.  Sullivan 
has  never  been  really  understood  until  it  has  been  heard 
sung  by  T.  D.  himself.  His  voice — loud,  clear,  penetrating — 
easily  leads  the  chorus,  no  matter  how  many  voices  join  in, 
and  he  throws  himself  into  the  spirit  of  the  thing  with  all 
his  heart  and  soul.  His  singing  of  *  Murty  Hynes  '  is  worth 
going  many  miles  to  hear.  Indeed,  there  is  scarcely  an 
Irishman  living  who  could  give  an  evening's  entertainment 
so  complete  as  T,  D.  Sullivan  ;  and  if  he  were  ever  to  assume 
the  profession  of  a  public  lecturer  his  success  would  be  un- 
questioned. A  series  of  lectures  in  which  he  would  give 
recitations  from  his  own  poems  and  sing  his  own  songs 
would  draw  overflowing  audiences  in  New  York  or  Boston, 
Philadelphia  or  Chicago.  He  certainly  would  spare  his 
manager  any  expense  of  advertising,  for  there  is  scarcely  an 
Irish  home  among  all  the  millions  of  Irish  homes  in  America 
in  which  his  verses  are  not  familiar  as  household  words. 

Such  has  been  the  career  of  T.  D.  Sullivan — honourable, 
consistent,  and  tranquil.  He  has  to-day  the  same  convictions 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE 


353 


which  guided  his  pen  when  he  wrote  surreptitious  verses  ;  he 
has  stood  by  these  convictions  through  •  years  of  trial  and 
failure  ;  he  is  as  fresh  and  as  vigorous  in  pushing  them 
forward  at  this  hour,  when  his  hairs  are  grey,  as  he  was  when 
he  sailed  in  boyhood's  auroral  days  over  Bantry  Bay.  His 
verses  have  marked  the  epochs  which  they  have  helped  to 
produce,  have  won  for  him  the  affection  of  millions  of  Irish 
hearts,  and  form  one  of  the  many  potent  chains  of  memory 
and  love  that  bind  the  scattered  children  of  the  Celtic  mother 
to  their  race  and  to  their  cradle-land. 

In  one  of  his  most  powerful  novels  Balzac  draws  a 
portrait  of  a  man  who,  equipped  by  nature  with  all  the 
qualities  to  make  a  great  commander,  or  a  minister  of  genius, 
is  forced,  by  the  resistless  facts  of  his  country's  and  his  own 
position,  into  a  private  life  of  small  cares  and  large  miseries. 
Such  a  lament  over  the  waste  of  Irish  genius  would  be  trite  ; 
yet  the  career  which  is  about  to  be  sketched  will  perhaps 
convince  that,  though  the  fate  be  old,  its  victims  belong  to 
every  year  of  Irish  serfdom.  The  writer  will  have  daubed 
his  portrait  if  the  reader  do  not  believe  that,  born  in  another 
country  and  to  other  times,  James  O'Kelly  might  have  left 
a  name  which  his  people  would  not  let  willingly  die. 

O'Kelly  was  born  in  Dublin  in  the  year  1845.  He  made 
acquaintance  at  an  early  age  with  the  passions  which  make 
the  Irish  patriot.  Among  his  companions  in  the  Irish 
metropolis  were  a  number  of  young  men  who,  even  in  the 
dark  hours  between  '55  and  '65,  worked  and  hoped  for  the 
elevation  of  the  country  :  and,  on  the  other  hand,  he  learned 
in  a  school  in  London,  in  which  he  spent  part  of  his  boyhood, 
the  scorn  that  belongs  to  the  child  of  a  conquered  race. 
O'Kelly  accordingly  entered  upon  political  work  at  an  un- 
usually precocious  age,  and  certainly  had  not  reached  his 
legal  majority  when  political  aims  had  become  the  lode-star 
of  his  dreams.  This  was  the  dark  period  when  the  treason 
of  Sadleir  and  Keogh  had  broken  all  faith  in  Parliamentary 
activity  and  constitutional  agitation  ;  and  when  Youth— 
especially  if  it  had  the  mental  and  physical  robustness  of 
O'Kelly — was  not  inclined  to  listen  to  statistical  comparisons 
between  the  resources  of  England  and  Ireland.  The  '  set  * 

A  A 


354  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

to  which  O'Kelly  belonged  were  certainly  arch-heretics 
against  the  orthodox  creed  of  constitutionalism,  and  had 
made  up  their  minds  to  set  about  the  liberation  of  Ireland 
in  quite  a  different  kind  of  style.  The  companions  whom 
O'Kelly  then  made  lived  to  try,  and  many  of  them  to  suffer 
for,  their  experiment.  Many  of  them  are  dead.  Some  of 
them  survived,  and  are  to-day  as  active  and  as  hopeful  as  if 
they  had  not  passed  through  hideous  suffering  and  abysmal 
disaster,  O'Kelly  was  to  meet  some  of  them  in  after-life,  in 
other  lands,  and  with  them  to  lay  the  foundations  of  a  new 
and  greater  movement  for  Irish  liberation. 

O'Kelly 's  political  projects  were  interrupted  in  1863.  He 
had  from  boyhood  longed  for  the  life  of  a  soldier.  There 
was  no  army  in  Ireland,  and  he  would  not  serve  under  the 
British  flag,  and — like  so  many  of  his  race  athirst  for  military 
glory — he  entered  the  army  of  France.  He  had  scarcely  been 
enrolled  in  the  Foreign  Legion  in  Paris  when  he  was  called 
upon  to  enter  into  active  service.  The  Arabs  in  the  province 
of  Oran  were  in  rebellion,  and  here  O'Kelly  had  an  oppor- 
tunity of  learning  all  the  wiles  as  well  as  all  the  dangers  of 
Arabian  warfare.  The  rebellion  had  scarcely  been  suppressed 
when  the  French  army  was  called  to  another  and  a  very 
different  scene  of  operations.  Everybody  remembers  that 
when  Maximilian  was  made  Emperor  of  Mexico  French 
forces  were  sent  by  the  Emperor  Napoleon  to  win  for  his 
nominee  his  new  dominion,  and  O'Kelly's  regiment  was  one 
of  those  which  were  detailed  for  this  service.  In  all  the 
fighting  which  went  on  O'Kelly  had  his  share.  He  took  part 
in  the  siege  of  Oajaca,  and  after  the  fall  of  that  town  and  the 
capture  of  General  Porfirio  Diaz — since  President  of  Mexico  — 
he  advanced  northward,  and  was  present  at  the  various  en- 
gagements which  placed  Monterey  and  the  whole  of  Northern 
Mexico  to  the  Rio  Grande  in  the  power  of  the  French  troops. 
Then  the  tide  turned  in  favour  of  the  Mexicans  ;  and  at  Mien 
the  troops  of  Maximilian  were  disastrously  beaten.  During 
this  engagement  O'Kelly  was  slightly  wounded,  and  shortly 
after  he  was  made  prisoner  by  the  forces  of  General  Canales 
in  June  1866.  O'Kelly  had  now  a  period  of  restraint,  dis- 
comfort, possibly  of  danger,  to  look  forward  to  ;  but  an 


THE   LAND    LEAGUE 


355 


attempt  to  escape,  unless  successful,  meant  death.  O'Kelly 
pondered  over  the  situation  for  a  considerable  time ;  but  in 
the  end  decided  to  make  a  dash  for  liberty  if  anything  like 
a  fair  opportunity  presented.  His  guards  proved  careless, 
and  in  the  darkness  of  the  night  he  eluded  their  vigilance, 
and  rushed  out  into  the  Unknown.  For  days  he  had  to 
wander  about  in  hourly  peril  of  his  life.  At  one  time  he  took 
to  the  river,  hoping  to  float  down  to  the  point  where  Mexican 
territory  joined  the  United  States.  The  inducement  to 
attempt  this  mode  of  escape  was  his  discovery  by  the  banks 
of  the  river  of  what  is  called  a  '  dug-out ' — a  rude  boat  made 
from  a  hollowed-out  tree — and  in  this  primitive  craft  he 
floated  with  the  stream  for  a  day.  He  had  at  last  to  come 
to  land,  owing  to  the  attentions  of  some  Mexicans  on  the 
shore.  They  proved,  however,  not  unfriendly,  and  finally 
O'Kelly  made  his  way  into  Texas.  On  American  soil  he 
was  once  more  a  free  man  ;  but  that  was  the  end  of  his 
blessings.  He  had  not  a  cent ;  his  clothes,  after  his  many 
days  of  wandering,  were  ragged  ;  and  who  looks  so  dis- 
reputable as  the  soldier  in  a  travel-stained  uniform  ?  How- 
ever, O'Kelly  managed  to  '  strike  '  a  fellow-countryman,  and 
was  by  him  given  a  job.  The  job — historical  accuracy  is 
especially  desirable  in  the  biography  of  a  soldier — was  that 
of  removing  some  lumber.  He  managed  finally  to  make  his 
way  to  New  York,  and  when  he  got  there  he  was  confronted 
with  stirring  news  that  led  him  for  a  while  to  the  hope  that 
the  next  time  he  went  a-soldiering  it  would  be  for  his  own 
land. 

The  stories  which  were  current  in  these  days  of  the 
possibilities  and  the  resources  for  rebellion  in  Ireland  have 
been  described  long  since  by  many  pens,  and  have  produced 
a  bitterness  of  controversy  that  warns  off  any  writer.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  O'Kelly  did  not  find  things  as  he  expected, 
that  he  had  seen  too  much  of  real  warfare  to  have  any  faith 
in  unarmed  crowds,  and  that  he  was  one  of  those  who  most 
fiercely  opposed  any  attempt  at  insurrection.  Everybody 
knows  that  these  counsels  did  not  then  prevail,  and  that  in 
1865  there  came  some  sporadic  risings  with  their  sad  sequel 
of  wholesale  arrests,  imprisonments,  and  long  terms  of  penal 


A  A  2 


356  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

servitude.  By-and-by  the  movement  began  to  be  more 
serious,  and  in  1867  there  seemed  some  hope  of  really  vigor- 
ous work.  O'Kelly  then  took  his  share  of  the  danger  and 
the  responsibility,  and  was  one  of  the  chief  men  of  the  move- 
ment. For  years  he  had  to  pass  through  the  daily  and 
nightly  risks,  the  never-ceasing  strain,  the  strange  under- 
ground life,  of  the  revolutionary.  O'Kelly — as  testimony  is 
unanimous  in  declaring — passed  through  it  all  with  that  calm 
courage  and  that  cool-headedness  which  everybody  recog- 
nises, and,  through  determination,  vigilance,  and  prudence 
combined,  succeeded  in  coming  out  unscathed.  Again  the 
French  cause  drew  him  from  politics,  and  during  the  Franco- 
Prussian  war  he  rejoined  the  French  army,  but  when  Paris 
surrendered  once  more  left  the  service. 

His  thoughts  now  turned  once  more  to  America,  and  he 
went  to  New  York.  Up  to  this  time  he  had  not  seriously 
contemplated  adopting  journalism  as  a  profession,  and  his 
efforts  had  been  confined  to  occasional  correspondence  in  the 
National  weeklies.  He  applied  for  a  situation  on  the  '  New 
York  Herald,'  and  his  application — like  that  of  most  begin- 
ners in  all  manners  of  life — was  received  coolly  enough.  At 
last,  through  the  absence  of  all  the  regular  employes  of  the 
journal  on  a  special  Sunday  morning,  O'Kelly  got  his  oppor- 
tunity. General  Sheridan  was  to  arrive  from  Europe  on  that 
morning,  and  there  was  a  general  anxiety  to  know  what  the 
American  Napoleon  had  to  say  about  the  military  resources 
and  the  military  strategy  of  the  Old  World.  The  task  of 
interviewing  so  distinguished  a  soldier  was  a  highly  honour- 
able one,  but  it  had  one  great  drawback  :  General  Sheridan 
was  a  man  who  was  known  to  hold  the  *  interviewer '  in 
mortal  hate.  There  was  a  whole  host  of  reporters  on  board 
the  steamer  which  went  out  to  meet  the  General.  The  com- 
petition, therefore,  was  keen  with  a  keenness  which  nobody 
who  has  not  been  in  America  can  completely  understand. 
Scratch  the  American  journalist  and  you  find  a  Red  Indian, 
not  content  to  kill  unless  he  can  also  scalp  his  competitor. 
Each  reporter,  in  his  turn,  tried  his  hand  on  the  General,  and 
each  went  back  disappointed.  At  length  O'Kelly  made  the 
attempt.  He  began  his  attack  altogether  out  of  the  ordinary, 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE 


357 


mentioned  places  in  France  which  the  General,  as  well  as  he, 
had  recently  seen,  gave  a  military  estimate  or  two,  and  in 
this  way  conveyed  the  impression  to  the  General  that  he  was 
something  of  a  kindred  spirit,  and  knew  what  he  was  talking 
about.  The  General  unbent,  and  O'Kelly,  who  was  the 
'  greenhorn  ' — as  newcomers  are  scornfully  called — of  the 
journalistic  host,  was  the  one  who  was  able  to  give  the  best 
account  of  General  Sheridan's  views  on  his  European  tour. 

O'Kelly,  starting  thus  well,  was  gradually  advanced,  until 
he  became  one  of  the  leader-writers — or  (  editors/  as  they 
are  called  in  America — of  the  '  New  York  Herald.'  In  1873 
there  arose  an  opportunity  of  making  or  marring  his  fortune, 
an  opportunity  which  O'Kelly  gladly  embraced,  but  which 
ninety-nine  out  of  every  hundred  men  would  have  absolutely 
and  unhesitatingly  rejected.  The  rebellion  in  Cuba  was 
going  on,  and  it  was  a  movement  in  which  the  people  of  the 
United  States  took  a  keen  interest,  these  being  the  days 
when  the  annexation  of  Cuba  was  one  of  the  political  possi- 
bilities and  aspirations  of  the  hour.  But  what  was  the  nature 
and  what  the  methods  of  the  rebels?  These  were  points 
upon  which  no  trustworthy  information  could  apparently  by 
any  possibility  be  obtained.  The  Spaniards  had  the  ear  of  the 
world,  somewhat  as  England  has  in  her  struggle  with  Ireland, 
and  the  story  they  told  was  that  there  was  no  such  a  thing 
as  a  rebellion  at  all.  If  there  had  ever  been  anything  of  the 
kind,  it  was  entirely  crushed,  and  Cespedes,  its  leader,  was 
dead.  What  now  remained  was  simply  a  few  scores  of 
scattered  marauders,  who  were  nothing  but  itinerant  robbers 
and  murderers.  There  was  a  strong  conviction  in  the  United 
States  that  these  representations  were  not  altogether  to  be 
relied  on,  and  there  were  plenty  of  Cuban  refugees  and  in- 
surrectionary committees  in  the  United  States  who  circulated 
reports  of  quite  a  different  character.  It  was  said,  for  instance,, 
that  the  Spanish  troops  were  guilty  of  horrible  cruelties,  that 
they  gave  no  quarter  to  men  and  foully  abused  women,  and 
the  rebellion,  instead  of  being  repressed,  was  represented  as 
fiercer  and  more  determined  than  ever  ;  but  how  were  these 
statements  to  be  confirmed  ?  The  rebels,  whether  few  or 
many,  were  hidden  behind  the  impenetrable  forests  of  the 


358  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

Mambi  Land— as  the  country  frequented  by  them  was  called 
—as  completely  as  if  they  had  ceased  to  exist.  To  reach 
these  rebels,  survey  their  forces  —  in  short,  attest  their 
existence  —  was  the  duty  which  O'Kelly  volunteered  to 
perform. 

He  knew  when  he  set  out  for  Cuba  that  his  task  was 
difficult  enough,  but  it  was  not  until  he  arrived  in  Cuba  that 
he  realised  to  the  full  the  meaning  of  his  enterprise.  He 
imagined  that  he  might  have  been  able  to  accompany  the 
Spanish  troops,  then  to  pass  through  their  lines  to  the  rebels, 
and,  investigations  among  the  latter  being  completed,  to 
return  to  the  Spanish  lines  again.  He  therefore  asked  a  safe- 
conduct  from  the  Captain-General  ;  but  that  functionary  soon 
made  it  apparent  that  nothing  would  induce  him  to  facilitate 
O'Kelly's  task  in  any  way,  and  he  plainly  told  him  that,  if  he 
persisted  in  trying  to  get  to  the  rebels,  he  would  do  so  at  his 
own  risk.  O'Kelly  soon  realised  the  true  meaning  of  these 
words.  Throughout  all  Cuba  there  was  a  perfect  reign  of 
terror,  Tribunals  hastily  tried  even  those  suspected  of 
treason,  and  within  a  few  hours  after  his  arrest  the  *  suspect ' 
was  a  riddled  corpse.  Any  person  who,  therefore,  was  under 
the  frown  of  the  authorities  was  avoided  as  if  he  had  the 
plague.  Thus  O'Kelly  was  invited  to  dinner  in  the  heartiest 
manner  by  a  descendant  of  an  Irishman,  but  when  this 
gentleman  heard  of  O'Kelly's  mission,  he  begged  him  not  to 
pay  the  visit,  and  promptly  went  to  the  Spanish  authorities  to 
explain  the  unlucky  invitation.  O'Kelly,  therefore,  was  passing 
among  a  people  nearly  every  one  of  whom  dreaded  to  be  seen 
even  talking  to  him,  and  a  vast  number  of  whom  would  have 
considered  it  a  patriotic  duty  to  dispose  of  his  person  by 
some  quiet  but  effective  method.  Then  life  was  terribly 
insecure  even  to  those  who  were  not  out  of  favour  of  autho- 
rity, murders  for  plunder  being  of  daily  occurrence.  O'Kelly 
looked  at  the  situation  in  the  same  way  as  was  done  under 
similar  circumstances  by  another  child  of  the  Irish  race, 
whom  the  '  New  York  Herald  '  had  the  luck  to  secure  to  its 
service — poor  J.  A.  MacGahan.  *  It  was  not  possible,'  writes 
O'Kelly  in  '  The  Mambi  Land ' — the  interesting  volume  in 
which  he  afterwards  recounted  his  adventures — ' it  was  not 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE 


359 


possible  to  turn  back  without  dishonour,  and  though  it  cost 
even  life  itself,  I  would  have  to  visit  the  Cuban  camp/  '  My 
word/  he  says  in  another  place,  '  had  been  given  to  accom- 
plish this,  and  at  whatever  cost  it  should  be  done  ' — language 
that  in  the  mouth  of  a  man  like  O'Kelly  really  means  the 
resolve  to  meet  the  worst  that  fortune  could  inflict. 

He  made  various  efforts  to  accompany  expeditions  of  the 
Spanish  troops  which  were  supposed  to  be  marching  against 
the  insurgents  ;  but  these  expeditions  either  were  postponed, 
or,  after  they  had  been  started,  turned  back  without  coming 
even  within  sight  of  the  rebel  lines.  Then  O'Kelly  thought 
that  his  purpose  might  be  carried  out  if  he  got  into  communi- 
cation with  some  of  the  secret  sympathisers  with  the  rebellion 
who  remained  in  the  towns  ;  but  they,  carrying  their  lives 
every  hour  in  their  hands,  would  not  trust  a  stranger — especi- 
ally as  the  report  had  been  industriously  spread  that  O'Kelly 
was  a  friend  to  the  Spaniards.  At  last  he  formed  a  desperate 
resolve :  he  determined  to  set  out  for  the  rebel  lines  alone, 
with  the  chances  of  being  shot  by  the  Spaniards  as  a  rebel, 
by  the  rebels  as  a  Spaniard,  through  a  country  which  in 
parts  was  supposed  to  be  overrun  by  robbers,  quite  ready  to 
murder,  with  impartial  ferocity,  Spaniard  or  rebel ;  and  into 
the  midst  of  almost  impenetrable  forest,  where  the  loss  of  the 
trail  meant  death.  But  he  had  not  proceeded  far  on  his  way 
when  he  was  placed  under  arrest  by  the  Spanish  authorities. 
Then  came  an  order  which  made  the  situation  still  more 
hopeless  ;  the  order  was  that  under  no  circumstances  should 
O'Kelly  be  permitted  to  penetrate  to  the  rebel  lines,  and  the 
penalty  was  affixed  in  no  obscure  language.  Brought  before 
General  Morales,  one  of  the  Spanish  authorities,  O'Kelly 
made  the  remark,  '  I  should  regret  very  much  if  one  of  these 
days  you  should  be  obliged  to  shoot  me.'  '  I  would  regret  it 
very  much  also,'  was  the  reply  of  the  Spaniard  ;  '  but  if  you 
are  found  in  the  insurgent  lines  or  coming  from  them,  you 
will  be  treated  as  a  spy  or  as  one  of  the  insurgents  ' — in 
other  words,  shot. 

And  still  O'Kelly  persevered.  His  plan  now  was  to  trust 
to  the  sympathisers  with  the  rebellion  ;  and  at  last  he  found 
a  letter  on  the  floor  of  his  room  in  his  hotel  one  night,  telling 


360  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

him  that  if  he  would  proceed  to  a  certain  point  alone  on  the 
following  day,  he  would  be  conducted  to  the  rebel  lines. 
Every  argument  of  prudence  was  against  accepting  this  invi- 
tation, which  might  well  be  a  trap  ;  but  O'Kelly,  armed  with 
a  couple  of  revolvers,  set  out  the  next  day,  reached  the  tryst- 
ing  place,  and  after  hours  of  waiting  in  the  blackness  of  a 
dark  night,  was  conducted  into  the  rebel  lines,  saw  General 
Cespedes,  President  of  the  Republic,  and  spent  a  month  in 
marching  and  countermarching,  and  in  generally  studying  the 
resources,  the  customs,  and  the  prospects  of  the  rebels.  His 
task  he  had  now  succeeded  in  accomplishing,  though  every 
other  person  attempting  it  had  failed.  He  had  ascertained 
the  existence  and  estimated  the  chances  of  the  rebels,  and 
the  only  thing  now  left  for  him  was  to  return  to  America, 
Cespedes  offered  to  send  him  home  by  Jamaica,  but  O'Kelly 
thought  it  necessary  to  go  into  the  Spanish  lines,  in  order 
that  there  might  be  no  possibility  of  a  denial  that  he  had 
actually  entered  into  the  rebel  camp.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  General  Morales  had  said  to  him,  '  If  you  are  found  in 
the  insurgent's  lines,  or  going  to  them,  or  returning  from  them, 
you  will  be  treated  as  a  spy,'  and  he  had  scarcely  returned  to 
the  settlements  of  the  Spaniards  when  he  found  himself  face 
to  face  with  the  prospect  of  this  threat  being  carried  into 
effect.  He  was  thrown  into  a  dungeon  in  a  fortress,  where 
the  stench  was  terrible,  his  only  companion  a  forger  ;  and  he 
was  convinced  that  the  object  of  his  captors  was,  if  they  could 
not  shoot  him,  to  kill  him  through  scarlet  fever.  For  weeks 
he  was  daily  tortured  while  in  this  terrible  den  by  inquisitions 
and  threats  of  immediate  execution,  alternating  with  tempt- 
ing offers  of  large  bribes  and  immediate  release  if  he  would 
betray  the  men  who  had  helped  him  to  reach  the  Cuban 
lines.  He  was  brought  several  times  before  a  sort  of  court- 
martial.  Informers  proved  that  they  had  seen  him  in  places 
that  he  had  never  laid  eyes  on,  and,  in  fact,  the  indictment  of 
high  treason  was  as  complete  as  if  he  were  before  a  judge  and 
jury  of  another  country  which  need  not  be  named.  At  the 
same  time  he  was  persecuted  at  night  by  sentinels  with 
loaded  muskets,  who  watched  his  every  movement ;  and  in 
this  way,  between  sham  trials,  threats,  the  daily  prospect  of 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE 


36] 


being  shot,  and  the  daily  horror  of  yellow  fever,  a  month 
passed.  In  time  he  was  removed  to  another  prison,  bound 
with  ropes  as  he  was  conveyed  there.  In  this  guise  he  reached 
Havana,  and  there  again  he  was  incarcerated  in  a  cell — this 
time  of  such  sickening  odour  that  he  had  to  fly  continually 
to  the  grated  door  in  the  hope  of  breathing  a  little  fresh  air. 
The  removal  of  the  filth  to  the  outside  of  the  entrance,  how- 
ever, rendered  this  impossible,  and  he  had  to  return  in  despair 
to  his  hammock.  It  was  evident  that  the  Spanish  authori- 
ties were  thoroughly  bent  on  inducing  his  death  from  yellow 
fever.  He  escaped  all  these  perils,  however,  was  sent  to 
Spain,  and  then,  through  the  united  efforts  of  General  Sickles, 
Senor  Castelar,  and  Isaac  Butt,  was  set  at  liberty. 

This  episode  in  Mr.  O'Kelly's  life  was  so  extraordinary  as 
to  justify  its  being  told  at  some  length  ;  and  this  makes  it 
necessary  to  sketch  the  remaining  events  of  his  career  with 
considerable  rapidity.  His  next  expedition  after  the  visit  to 
Cuba  was  to  Brazil.  He  returned  with  the  Emperor  from 
that  country  to  the  United  States,  and  accompanied  him 
throughout  his  entire  American  tour.  During  this  period, 
O'Kelly  performed  two  sufficiently  noteworthy  achievements. 
First,  he  saved  the  life  of  the  Empress  during  a  collision  in 
the  Bay  of  Rio  Janeiro :  and,  secondly,  he  kept  the  ruler  of 
Brazil  safe  throughout  the  whole  time  from  every  and  any  in- 
terviewer, except,  of  course,  that  of  the  ' New  York  Herald ' ; 
and  those  who  know  the  irrepressible,  irresistible,  and  relent- 
less nature  of  the  American  '  interviewer  J  will  appreciate  how 
much  of  good  management,  firmness,  and  dexterity  this 
achievement  of  O'Kelly  implies.  Next  there  came  the  war 
with  '  Sitting  Bull '  and  the  Sioux  Indians,  an  expedition  of 
considerable  peril,  and  O'Kelly  remained  throughout  the 
business  until  '  Sitting  Bull '  was  driven  to  take  refuge  in 
Canada. 

More  recently  O'Kelly  conceived  the  bold  idea  of  reach- 
ing  the  Mahdi.  The  continued  obstacles  which  were  placed  in 
his  way  frustrated  his  object,  but  he  did  not  abandon  his  pur- 
pose until  he  had  adopted  many  expedients  of  characteristic 
daring  and  adroitness.  The  letters  which  he  contributed  to 
the  *  Daily  News '  excited  much  attention,  and  were  the  first 


362  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

to  throw  any  light  upon  the  character  and  strength  of  the 
movement  under  the  Mahdi.  With  singular  accuracy  he 
pointed  out  the  future  of  the  movement,  and  sometime  later, 
in  a  series  of  articles  in  the  '  Freeman's  Journal,'  on  the 
strategy  of  Lord  Wolseley,  he  forecast  the  perils  and  the  final 
failure  of  the  campaign  with  striking  truth.  He  writes  with 
the  bold,  slightly  rugged,  realistic  pen  of  the  special  corre- 
spondent diverted  to  journalism  from  his  true  avocation  as  a 
soldier. 

Shortly  before  the  General  Election  of  1880,  O'Kelly 
returned  to  Europe,  without  the  least  intention  of  entering 
Parliament.  At  that  time,  though  he  was  known  to  every- 
body acquainted  with  the  inner  life  of  Irish  politics,  to  the 
general  public  at  large  he  was  practically  unknown,  except  as 
the  dashing  and  adventurous  special  correspondent.  And  it 
was  some  surprise  when  he  succeeded  in  beating  down  so 
formidable  an  opponent  as  The  O'Conor  Don.  And  yet, 
thus  regarded  by  the  majority  of  his  countrymen  as  outside 
politics,  and  remote  from  its  struggles,  its  aspirations,  and  its 
shaping,  O'Kelly  had  been  a  force  in  fashioning  the  history 
of  his  country  for  many  years.  In  every  hour  from  1858, 
when  while  still  a  boy  he  first  entered  upon  service,  he  had 
been  dreaming  and  working  for  Ireland.  When  Mr.  Butt 
started  the  Home  Rule  movement,  O'Kelly  was  one  of  the 
'  extreme  men '  who  thought  that  the  idiotic  and  barren  con- 
troversy between  various  forms  of  legitimate  political  effort 
should  be  closed  ;  the  meeting  at  the  Bilton  Hotel,  at  which 
the  new  movement  was  practically  started,  had  O'Kelly  as 
one  of  its  most  active  organisers,  and  he  appears  among  those 
who  were  present  under  the  name  of  *  James  Martin,'  though 
he  is  not  entitled  to  the  '  J.P.'  and  other  distinctions  with  which 
he  is  credited  in  A.  M.  Sullivan's  list  in  '  New  Ireland  '  (p.  339), 
who  confounded  the  alias  of  the  revolutionary  correspondent 
with  a  person  of  the  same  name.  Similarly,  at  a  later  period 
in  America  he  was  one  of  the  men  who  refused  to  sanction  a 
spirit  of  sullen  resistance  to  the  efforts  which  were  being 
then  started  by  Mr.  Parnell  to  make  constitutional  agitation 
a  reality,  and  a  Parliamentary  party  a  power.  In  Parliament, 
too,  O'Kelly  has,  while  little  known  to  the  public,  been  one 


THE   LAND    LEAGUE  363 

of  the  most  potent  forces  in  shaping  the  fortunes  and  decisions 
of  his  party.  He  has  brought  to  its  councils  great  firmness 
of  will,  world-wide  experience,  a  common  sense  which  may 
be  described  as  ferocious,  and  a  devotion  to  the  interests  of 
his  country  which  is  absolute.  Though  he  has  given  proof 
so  abundant  of  a  courage  that  dares  all,  O'Kelly's  advice  has 
always  been  on  the  side  of  well-calculated  rather  than  rash 
courses  ;  he  has,  in  fact,  the  true  soldier's  instinct  in  favour  of 
the  adaptation  of  ways  and  means  to  ends,  of  mathematical 
severity  in  estimating  the  strength  of  the  forces  for,  and  of 
the  forces  against,  his  own  side.  He  is,  like  so  many  men,  a 
bundle  of  contradictions.  His  whole  temperament  is  revolu- 
tionary ;  he  chafes  under  the  restraints  of  Parliamentary  life, 
and  hates  the  weary  contests  of  words  ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  insists  on  every  step  being  measured,  every  move 
calculated.  A  friend  jokingly  described  him  once  as  the 
*  Whig-rebel.'  Again,  his  large  experience  of  life  and  the 
ruggedness  of  his  sense,  give  to  his  thoughts  the  mould  of 
almost  cynic  realism,  and  yet  he  is  an  idealist  of  the  first 
water ;  for  throughout  his  whole  life  he  has  held  to  the  idea 
of  his  country's  resurrection  with  a  fanatical  faith  which  no 
danger  could  terrify,  no  disaster  depress,  no  labour  fatigue. 
And  it  is  as  a  steady  though  silent  labourer  for  the  elevation 
of  his  people  that  O'Kelly  would  himself  wish  to  be  remem- 
bered. *  My  best  work,'  he  wrote  to  a  friend,  *  was  not  the 
showy  pages  which  have  caught  the  general  eye,  but  rather 
the  quiet  political  work  which  I  have  done  for  the  last  twenty 
years.  To  the  mere  sabreur's  part  of  my  life  I  attach  no  im- 
portance whatever,  except  that  within  certain  limits  it  has 
furnished  me  with  the  opportunity  of  observing  men,  and 
acquainting  myself  with  the  motive  forces  which  induce  men 
to  do  or  not  to  do.' 

One  figure  was  absent  from  this  gathering  which  was 
destined  to  play  a  prominent  part  in  subsequent  struggles. 
This  was  Mr.  John  Dillon.  Mr.  Dillon  at  this  moment 
was  absent  in  America  completing  the  organisation  of  the 
Land  League  movement  that  had  been  started  by  Mr. 
Parnell  before  his  departure  from  that  country.  Mr.  Dillon, 
as  so  often  happens,  is  the  very  opposite  in  appearance  and 


364  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

manner  from  what  the  readers  of  his  speeches,  especially  the 
hostile  readers,  would  expect.  He  came  in  the  course  of 
time  to  be  regarded  by  large  sections  of  the  English  people 
as  the  embodiment  of  everything  that  was  brutal  and  san- 
guinary in  the  Irish  nature.  He  was  accustomed  during  the 
fiercer  days  of  the  Land  League  to  the  most  violent  denun- 
ciation, and  he  was  daily  in  receipt  of  letters  of  menace  or 
of  insult.  To  those  who  know  him  this  popular  image  was 
grotesquely  inaccurate.  Tall,  thin,  frail,  his  physique  is  that 
of  a  man  who  has  periodically  to  seek  flight  from  death  in 
change  of  scene  and  of  air.  His  face  is  long  and  narrow  ;  the 
features  singularly  delicate  and  refined.  Coal-black  hair  and 
large,  dark,  tranquil  eyes,  make  up  a  face  that  immediately 
arrests  attention,  and  that  can  never  be  forgotten.  A  stranger 
would  guess  that  Mr.  Dillon  was  an  artist  of  the  school  that 
found  delight  in  painting  Madonnas,  that  spoke  of  the  pur- 
suit of  art  for  art's  sake  alone,  with  a  sublime  unconcern  for 
the  struggles  and  aims  and  welfare  of  the  workaday  world. 
A  tranquil  voice  and  a  gentle  manner  would  further  combat 
the  idea  that  this  was  one  of  the  protagonists  in  one  of  the 
fiercest  struggles  of  modern  days.  The  speeches  of  Mr. 
Dillon  are  violent  in  their  conclusions  only.  The  proposi- 
tions which  startled  or  shocked  unsympathetic  hearers  are 
reached  by  him  through  calculations  of  apparently  mathe- 
matical frigidity,  and  are  delivered  in  an  unimpassioned  mono- 
tone. 

John  Dillon  is  the  son  of  Mr.  John  Blake  Dillon,  one  of 
the  bravest  and  purest  spirits  in  the  Young  Ireland  move- 
ment. His  father  was  one  of  those  who  opposed  the  rising 
to  the  last  moment  as  imprudent  and  hopeless,  and  then  was 
among  the  first  to  risk  liberty  and  life  when  it  was  finally 
resolved  upon.  John  was  born  in  Blackrock,  county  Dublin, 
in  the  year  1851.  He  never  went  to  a  boarding-school,  and 
probably  he  owes  more  of  his  education  to  home  than  to 
other  influences.  He  was  mainly  instructed  in  the  institu- 
tions connected  with  the  Catholic  University :  first  in  the 
University  school  in  Harcourt  Street,  Dublin,  and  afterwards 
in  the  University  buildings  in  Stephen's  Green.  He  was  in- 
tended for  the  medical  profession,  and  passed  through  the 


THE   LAND    LEAGUE 


365 


course  of  lectures,  and  took  the  degree  of  Licentiate  in  the 
College  of  Surgeons.  His  entrance  into  the  political  struggle 
was  not  precocious.  It  was  not  until  after  the  arrival  of 
John  Mitchel  in  Ireland  to  fight  the  Tipperary  struggle  after 
his  many  years  of  exile,  that  Dillon  first  appeared  in  the 
political  arena.  Mitchel  had  been  one  of  the  oldest  friends, 
as  he  had  been  one  of  the  earliest  companions,  of  his  father  ; 
and  he  was  among  those  who  went  down  to  Queenstown  to 
bid  a  welcome  to  Ireland  to  the  returning  and  still  unre- 
pentant rebel.  He  then  took  an  active  part  in  the  electoral 
contest,  and  helped  to  get  Mitchel  returned.  The  rise  of  Mr. 
Parnell  and  the  active  policy  brought  Mr.  Dillon  more  pro- 
minently to  the  front.  He  was  one  of  the  first  to  appreciate 
correctly  the  new  policy,  and  to  see  the  road  to  salvation  to 
which  it  pointed  the  way.  At  once  he  became  an  eager 
advocate  of  Mr.  Parnell  and  his  policy.  This  brought  him 
into  direct  collision  with  Mr.  Isaac  Butt,  and  his  was  the 
fiercest  and  most  damaging  speech  made  against  the  old 
leader  in  the  Molesworth  Hall  meeting,  at  which  Butt  made 
his  last  political  speech.  When  the  Land  League  move- 
ment was  started,  Dillon  at  once  threw  himself  into  the  agita- 
tion, and  was  appointed  to  accompany  Mr.  Parnell  upon  his 
historic  visit  to  America. 

There  were  many  other  members  at  the  meeting  in  the 
City  Hall  whose  history  would  throw  light  upon  the  circum- 
stances and  tendencies  of  Irish  life,  social  and  political,  but  I 
have  not  space  to  give  them  more  than  a  few  passing  words. 
Richard  Power,  who  was  elected  in  1874,  when  he  was  barely 
of  age,  is  a  member  of  a  Waterford  family  which  has  played 
a  prominent  and  often  a  romantic  part  in  Irish  history  for 
centuries.  Mr.  Edmund  Leamy  was  one  of  the  men  whose 
vote  was  considered  most  doubtful  in  the  coming  struggle 
between  Mr.  Shaw  and  Mr.  Parnell.  In  fact,  in  the  list  which 
Mr.  Parnell  had  in  his  hands,  the  name  of  Leamy  appeared 
amongst  the  names  of  certain  opponents.  He  was  entirely 
unknown  to  Mr.  Parnell  as  well  as  to  everyone  else  in  the 
room  except  those  who  came  from  Waterford,  and  he  was 
supposed  to  be  one  of  the  men  who  had  won  his  election 
on  a  purely  personal  issue,  and,  it  was  inferred,  for  purely 


366  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

personal  purposes.  Mr.  Parnet)  and  his  colleagues  now  re- 
member these  grotesque  misapprehensions  of  Leamy's  antece- 
dents and  character  with  amusement.  Edmund  Leamy  was 
born  in  Waterford  on  Christmas  Day  1 848.  Waterford  is  one 
of  the  towns  which,  amid  the  terrible  eclipse  over  the  rest  of 
Ireland,  shone  out  with  something  of  a  national  spirit.  This 
was  probably  due  largely  to  the  fact  that  it  is  the  native  town 
of  Thomas  Francis  Meagher.  Waterford,  too,  is  a  town  of 
historic  monuments  speaking  of  an  age  and  of  a  history  that 
had  its  glories  long  before  the  English  set  their  feet  on  Irish 
shores.  On  its  quay  stands  Reginald's  Tower,  erected  by  the 
Danish  king  in  1 102 ;  and  in  tracing  the  influences  of  his  own 
political  history,  Leamy  always  dwells  upon  this  and  like 
memorials  as  inspiring  him  with  his  passionate  love  of  his 
country,  and  his  hope  in  her  future.  Another  influence  that 
made  a  political  combatant  in  the  national  ranks  was  the 
companionship  of  Thomas  Sexton.  He  was  a  colleague  of 
Sexton's  in  the  Waterford  Young  Men's  Society,  and  it  was 
Sexton  who  first  pressed  him  into  the  young  debates  of  that 
body.  When  the  election  of  1874  came,  he  was  an  appren- 
tice in  a  solicitor's  office  ;  but  the  ardour  of  the  struggle 
between  Richard  Power  and  Major  O'Gorman  as  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  new  Home  Rule  movement,  and  Mr.  Gibson 
(now  Lord  Ashbourne),  Mr.  Bernal  Osborne,  and  Mr.  Dela- 
hunty,  as  representatives  of  effete  and  anti-national  creeds, 
brought  him  out  from  his  desk.  He  addressed  several  meet- 
ings with  an  effect  probably  more  startling  to  himself  than  to 
anybody  else,  and  his  delighted  townsmen  declared  that  the 
traditions  of  Meagher  were  not  dead  ;  and  one  prophetic  but 
grimy-faced  labourer  declared  that  he  would  yet  be  member 
for  the  city.  In  1880  Major  O'Gorman  was  again  a  candi- 
date. He  came  into  collision  with  some  local  feeling,  the 
details  of  which  it  would  be  needless  to  go  into.  Leamy  was 
put  forward  by  one  section  of  the  constituency,  and  was  re- 
turned. There  is  no  man  in  the  party  whose  real  abilities 
and  services  bear  so  little  resemblance  to  his  public  reputa- 
tion. A  touch  of  the  Paddy-go-aisy  spirit,  a  curious  love  for 
self-effacement,  have,  hidden  him  from  public  view  ;  but  to 
his  colleagues  he  is  known  as  having  one  of  the  keenest  and 


THE  LAND    LEAGUE 


367 


most  original  intellects,  and  one  of  the  most  stirring  tongues 
of  the  Irish  party. 

Richard  Lalor,  one  of  the  members  for  Queen's  County, 
represented  a  family  ancient  in  Irish  struggle.  His  father 
was  one  of  the  fierce  spirits  that  led  the  movement  against 
the  tithes,  and  for  many  years  was  the  foremost  man  in  every 
political  effort  in  the  Queen's  County.  James  Finton  Lalor, 
his  brother,  was  perhaps  the  most  truly  revolutionary  tempera- 
ment of  '48.  He  lives  again  in  the  pages  of  Duffy,1  and  he 
it  was  who  suggested  to  Mitchel  the  No  Rent  movement, 
which  Mitchel  is  alleged  to  have  spoiled,  and  which  for  the 
first  time  was  carried  into  effect  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 
century  after  Finton  Lalor's  fiery  and  restless  spirit  had 
passed  to  rest.  Another  brother  who  sought  a  home  in 
Australia  was  the  leader  in  a  small  insurrection  at  Ballarat, 
and  there  lost  an  arm.  When  the  reforms  he  fought  for  were 
granted  he  became  one  of  the  rulers  of  the  country,  and  is 
now  Speaker  of  the  Victorian  Parliament.  Richard  Lalor 
is  of  the  same  stern  spirit  as  all  his  stock.  To-day  he  is  a 
feeble  and  bent  man  with  wearied  eyes  and  a  thin  voice,  and 
a  constant  prey  to  ill-health,  but  his  spirit  is  exactly  the 
same  as  in  his  hot  youth.  In  1848  he  had  his  pike  and  his 
thousands  of  pikemen  ready  for  action  ;  to-day,  as  then,  he 
is  the  unconquerable  and  irreclaimable  rebel — the  Blanqui  of 
Irish  politics. 

The  O'Gorman  Mahon,  to  whom  was  entrusted  the  duty 
of  proposing  the  name  of  Mr.  Parnell,  belongs  to  even  an 
older  agitation.  Tall,  erect  as  a  pine,  with  huge  masses  of 
perfectly  white  hair  and  a  leonine  face,  he  is  the  majestic  relic 
of  a  stormy  and  glorious  youth.  He  is  the  last  survivor  of 
the  once  multitudinous  race  of  the  Irish  gentleman,  as  ready 
with  his  pistol  as  with  his  tongue.  Nobody  can  enumerate  the 
number  of  times  he  has  been '  out,'  and  the  still  larger  number 
of  occasions  in  which  he  despatched  or  received  the  cartel.  A 
man  of  the  spirit  of  The  O'Gorman  Mahon  was  necessary  in 
such  times  as  those  of  his  youth.  The  Irish  Catholic  was  still 
an  unemancipated  serf,  and  the  Lords  of  Ascendency  looked 

1  See  Pour  Years  of  Irish  History,  '  A  new  Tribune,  a  new  Policy, '  pp.  464  . 
532 


368  fHE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

down  upon  him  with  the  contempt  of  centuries  of  unbroken 
sway.  It  was  at  such  a  time  that  the  swaggering  adherent  of 
English  domination  had  to  be  met  by  a  representative  of  the 
ancient  faith  and  of  the  hidden  longings  of  the  oppressed 
majority,  before  whose  eagle-eye  privilege  had  to  quail. 
O'Connell  was  the  tongue,  but  The  O'Gorman  Mahon  was  the 
sword,  of  the  Irish  Democracy  rising  against  its  oppressors  after 
its  centuries  of  bondage  ;  and  so  he  did  his  own  useful  work 
in  his  own  day.  There  was  something  strangely  picturesque  in 
the  appearance  in  that  group  of  young  men  engaged  in  a  still 
infant  movement  of  a  man  who  had  stood  by  the  side  of 
O'Connell  at  the  Clare  election  which  won  Catholic  emanci- 
pation. It  was  almost  as  if  Thomas  Jefferson  were  to  rise 
and  with  the  same  pen  that  had  written  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  to  join  in  the  composition  of  Abraham  Lincoln's 
proclamation  against  slavery.  In  the  years  that  had  passed 
since  that  day  The  O'Gorman  Mahon  had  gone  through  a  life 
of  strange  and  varied  adventure.  When,  in  the  whirligig  of 
time,  he  was  thrust  from  Irish  politics,  he  had  gone  to  South 
America,  and  there  had  taken  part  in  the  struggles  of  the 
young  Republic  for  emancipation.  Returning  to  his  native 
land,  he  found  Isaac  Butt  starting  the  new  movement  for 
Home  Rule.  Several  constituencies  competed  for  him,  but 
he  had  chosen  the  historic  county  in  whose  history  he  had 
played  so  prominent  a  part. 

Garret  Byrne,  member  for  Wicklow,  is  in  direct  descent 
from  Garret  Byrne  who  was  hanged  in  the  Rebellion  of  '48. 
John  Barry,  his  colleague,  beginning  life  at  almost  its  hum- 
blest rung,  had  become  an  important  member  in  a  Scotch 
manufacturing  firm,  and  shortly  afterwards  was  in  business 
for  himself.  He  had  also  taken  a  share  in  political  struggles 
the  history  of  which  has  yet  to  be  told.  Mr.  Corbet  was  a 
member  of  an  ancient  Irish  family,  and  a  man  himself  of 
culture  and  of  considerable  literary  power. 

Charles  Dawson  was  born  in  Limerick  in  1842.  He  had 
led  a  life  of  keen  activity  before  his  entrance  into  Parliament. 
Brought  up  in  the  Catholic  University  side  by  side  with  John 
Dillon,  he  had  early  taken  an  interest  in  the  politics  of  his 
country,  and  had  been  one  of  Butt's  greatest  favourites.  In 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE 


369 


time,  like  all  the  other  young  men,  he  found  himself  forced  to 
accept  the  new  policy.  For  years  he  had  taken  sleepless 
interest  in  the  franchise  question,  preached  about  it  in  season 
and  out  of  season  years  before  anybody  regarded  it  as  a  ques- 
tion worth  discussing.  It  is  to  him,  almost  more  than  to  any 
other  Irishman,  the  final  triumph  of  that  act  of  emancipation 
is  due.  Mr.  R.  H.  Metge,  like  Mr.  Parnell,  was  a  landed  pro- 
prietor of  considerable  means  and  of  the  Protestant  faith,  and 
his  keen  sympathy  with  the  oppressed  had  thrown  him  into 
the  popular  ranks.  The  Rev.  Isaac  Nelson  was  not  present 
at  this  meeting,  but  a  short  time  afterwards  he  was  elected  for 
Mayo  ;  and  this  election  of  a  Presbyterian  minister  by  the 
most  Catholic  county  in  Ireland  was  held  up  by  the  friends 
of  religious  liberty  as  another  proof  of  religious  toleration  on 
the  part  of  the  Irish  people. 

Mr.  Marum,  another  landed  proprietor,  comes  from  a 
family  which  has  played  an  important  and  sometimes  a  tragic 
part  in  the  Irish  land  struggle.  His  grandfather  was  mur- 
dered, and  several  men  were  hanged  for  the  crime.  Mr. 
Marum  himself,  on  the  other  hand,  has  been  a  lifelong  friend 
of  the  tenantry. 

One  more  figure  requires  description.  On  the  first  day  of 
the  meeting  of  the  Irish  party  the  chair  was  occupied  by  the 
Lord  Mayor  of  Dublin — Mr.  E.  Dwyer  Gray,  M.P.  for  the 
county  Carlow.  Mr.  Gray  is  the  son  of  the  late  Sir  John  Gray, 
whose  name  has  figured  so  frequently  in  preceding  pages.  He 
was  born  in  the  year  1846.  Brought  up  from  his  earliest  youth 
in  the  opinions  of  his  father,  whose  favourite  son  he  was,  he 
attained  at  an  early  age  a  correct  judgment  of  political  affairs. 
His  father  had  received  many  bitter  lessons  during  a  long 
political  career.  One  story  he  was  never  tired  of  repeating 
to  his  son.  It  was  of  a  man  who  offered  to  him,  during  the 
Young  Ireland  excitement,  a  plan  of  the  defences  of  Dublin 
Castle.  Gray  treated  the  offer  of  the  surrender  of  the  Lord- 
Lieutenant's  citadel  with  suspicion,  and  a  few  days  afterwards 
was  not  surprised  to  find  that  the  would-be  traitor  was  a 
police  spy  in  disguise.  The  mind  of  the  son  is  even  clearer 
than  that  of  his  father,  and  refuses  steadily  to  accept  any 
doctrine  or  course  until  it  has  been  fully  thought  out.  In 

B  B 


370  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

this  way  Gray  has  sometimes  been  regarded  as  backward 
when  he  was  simply  demanding  the  full  reason  for  the  prof- 
fered policy,  and  had  not  yet  been  able  to  see  its  eventual 
outlet.  He  succeeded  his  father  in  the  management  of  the 
*  Freeman's  Journal,'  the  chief  newspaper  of  Ireland,  and  soon 
raised  it  to  double  its  previous  circulation.  Becoming  a 
member  of  the  Dublin  Corporation,  of  which  his  father  had 
been  the  guiding  star  for  many  years,  he  soon  attained  to  the 
position  of  its  leading  figure,  and  took  a  keen  interest  in 
advancing  the  hygienic  improvements  of  the  city.  At  this 
period  he  was  Lord  Mayor,  and  had  under  his  control  vast 
sums  which  had  been  subscribed  to  the  Mansion  House  for 
the  relief  of  distress.  Anticipating  a  little,  Gray  subsequently 
came  into  fierce  collision  with  James  Carey,  whom  he  ex- 
posed for  an  attempted  fraud  upon  the  Corporation,  and 
Carey  from  that  day  was  his  bitter  and  relentless  enemy. 
Gray  had  been  returned  to  the  House  of  Commons  shortly 
after  the  death  of  his  father,  and  though  not  a  frequent,  was 
already,  as  he  is  still,  one  of  its  most  influential  debaters. 
There  is  no  man  in  the  Irish  party,  and  few  outside  it,  who 
can  state  a  case  with  such  pellucid  clearness.  When  Gray 
has  completed  his  statement  the  whole  facts  are  as  clear  to 
the  minds  of  his  hearers  as  they  have  already  been  to  his  own 
searching  intellect. 

The  great  question  to  be  decided  at  this  meeting  was  the 
future  leadership  of  the  party.  It  was,  doubtless,  assumed  by 
the  friends  of  Mr.  Shaw,  and  probably  by  the  country  after- 
wards, that  the  Parnellites  had  come  to  this  meeting  with  a 
cut-and-dried  scheme  in  their  hands.  Nothing  could  be 
farther  from  the  truth.  Up  to  a  few  days  before  the  meeting 
there  was  practically  no  intention  even  of  proposing  Mr. 
Parnell  as  a  leader.  The  idea  never  even  assumed  shape 
until  the  night  before  the  meeting  in  the  City  Hall.  There 
happened  to  be  stopping  at  the  Imperial  Hotel  several 
gentlemen  who  had  been  returned  or  had  resolved  to  support 
Mr.  Parnell's  policy.  Among  them  they  discussed  the  question 
of  leadership.  The  gentlemen  who  took  part  in  this  informal 
and  accidental  conference  were  Mr.  John  Barry,  Mr.  Richard 
Lalor,  Mr.  O'Kelly,  Dr.  Commins,  Mr.  Biggar,  Mr.  T.  P. 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE  371 

O'Connor,  and,  strangely  enough,  Mr.  McCoan  ;  Mr.  Healy, 
who  had  not  yet  been  elected  a  member  of  Parliament,  was 
also  present. 

Mr.  Parnell  had  no  warmer  supporters  or  more  devoted 
friends  than  some  of  the  gentlemen  who  took  part  in  this  dis- 
cussion, but  even  some  of  these  were  doubtful  as  to  the 
prudence  of  the  proposal  that  he  should  be  leader.  Up  to 
that  period  Mr.  Parnell  was  supposed  to  have  given  no  sign 
of  definite  aims  or  a  broad  and  statesmanlike  capacity.  He 
had  given  abundant  proof  of  inflexible  courage  and  deter- 
mination, but  some  of  the  very  occasions  on  which  he  had 
exhibited  these  qualities  suggested  doubts  as  to  whether  he 
was  a  man  who  always  knew  where  he  was  going.  One  of 
the  shrewdest  members  of  his  party— a  gentleman  who  was 
not  present  at  this  conference— said  about  this  period  that  he 
never  could  see  in  Parnell  any  plan  beyond  that  of  *  making 
a  row  ; '  and  ability  '  to  make  a  row,'  after  all,  is  not  a  com- 
plete stock-in-trade  for  a  political  leader.  The  idea  of  some 
of  these  gentlemen  was  that  it  would  be  far  better,  under  the 
circumstances,  to  allow  Mr.  Parnell  to  remain  in  his  old  posi- 
tion as  a  guerilla  leader,  with  a  safer  and  steadier  man  as 
nominally  in  chief  command.  Curiously  enough,  the  most 
earnest  and  eager  in  the  demand  for  the  leadership  of  Mr. 
Parnell  was  Mr.  McCoan. 

At  last  there  was  an  understanding  rather  than  a  formal 
resolution  among  these  gentlemen,  that  they  would  propose 
Mr.  Parnell  as  leader.  He  himself  did  not  come  to  Dublin 
until  next  morning ;  some  gentlemen  went  to  his  hotel  and 
others  met  him  on  his  way  to  the  City  Hall.  In  his  bed- 
room and  afterwards  as  he  passed  through  the  streets 
mention  was  made  to  him  of  the  suggestion  that  had  been 
made  at  the  informal  meeting  of  the  previous  night.  He 
neither  rejected  nor  encouraged  the  idea,  but  seemed,  on 
the  whole,  rather  inclined  to  the  notion,  in  case  Mr.  Shaw 
were  displaced,  of  proposing  that  the  office  should  be  held  by 
Mr.  Justin  McCarthy.  This  was  the  state  of  things  when  the 
meeting  assembled.  No  plans  were  formed  and  nothing 
whatever  was  known  as  to  the  outcome ;  nor  was  there 
means  of  forming  such  plans  in  the  progress  of  the  meeting. 

B  H  2 


372  TE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

Mr.  Parnell  did  not  know  the  views  of  many  of  those  present. 
Most  of  them,  too,  were  strangers  to  each  other  ;  did  not 
even  know  each  other's  names,  and  had  not,  in  most  cases 
even  exchanged  a  word.  Lists  were  drawn  up  as  to  how  the 
vote  would  go,  and  in  the  list  of  Mr.  Parnell  several  gentle- 
men had  to  be  put  down  as  of  unknown  tendencies  who  at 
the  time  were  already  fierce  and  fervid  Parnellites.  When 
the  division  came,  therefore,  nobody  had  the  least  idea  as  to 
what  the  result  would  be.  The  vote  was  :  for  Mr.  Parnell, 
23  ;  for  Mr.  Shaw,  iS.1  Mr.  Shaw  apparently  received  his 
defeat  at  the  moment  with  good  humour,  but  when,  the 
next  day,  the  party  formulated  its  policy  and  declared  in 
favour  of  Peasant  Proprietary  as  the  final  solution  of  the  Land 
question,  Mr.  Shaw  already  indicated  a  certain  difference 
from  Mr.  Parnell  and  his  friends. 

When  the  party  came  over  to  London  the  first  occasion 
arose  for  the  two  sections  taking  opposite  sides.  It  was  on 
a  seemingly  trivial  question.  The  point  at  issue  was  the  part 
of  the  House  in  which  the  Irish  members  should  take  their 
seats.  In  the  view  of  Mr.  Shaw  and  his  friends,  the  existing 
Ministry  was  so  friendly  to  Ireland  that  the  Irish  party  should 
signify  their  general  adherence  by  sitting  on  the  same  side  of 
the  House.  The  supporters  of  Mr.  Parnell  maintained  that 
even  between  a  friendly  Liberal  Ministry  and  an  Irish 
National  party  there  was  irreconcilable  difference  on  the 
Irish  National  question  and  on  several  others.  They 
held  that  the  only  hope  of  a  satisfactory  solution  of  the 
Irish  question  was  that  Irish  members  should  maintain  a 
position  of  absolute  independence  of  the  English  parties, 
that  therefore  the  attitude  of  Irish  Nationalists  was  one  of 
permanent  opposition  to  all  English  administrations,  and 
that  this  political  attitude  should  be  signified  by  their  con- 
tinuing to  keep  their  seats  on  the  Opposition  side  of  the 

1  The  members  on  both  sides  were:  — For  Mr.  Parnell— Sexton,  Arthur 
O'Connor,  O'Kelly,  Byrne,  Barry,  McCarthy,  Biggar,  T.  P.  O'Connor,  Lalor, 
T.  I).  Sullivan,  Commins,  Gill,  Dawson,  Leamy,  Corbet,  McCoan,  Finigan, 
Daly,  Marum,  W.  II.  O'Sullivan,  J.  Leahy,  O'Gorman  Mahon,  and  O'Shea. 
For  Mr.  Shaw — Macfarlane,  Brooks,  Colthurst,  Synan,  Sir  P.  O'Brien,  Foley, 
Smith\\ick,  Fay,  Errington,  Gabbett,  Smyth,  R.  Power,  Blake,  McKenna, 
1'.  Martin,  Meldon,  Callan,  and  Gray. 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE  373 

House.  Subsequent  events  brought  out  more  clearly  the 
grave  issues  which  underlay  this  apparently  small  difference. 
The  friendliness  to  the  existing  Administration  which  sitting 
among  them  expressed  was  afterwards  translated  by  the 
followers  of  Mr.  Shaw  into  a  greater  regard  for  the  interests 
of  the  Ministry  than  for  the  crying  demands  of  Ireland — into 
the  subservience  of  Irish  National  to  English  Liberal  aims 
and  methods,  and,  ultimately,  into  a  readiness  on  the  part  of 
most  of  these  gentlemen  to  give  a  final  testimony  of  their 
faith  in  the  Ministry  either  by  a  search  for  or  an  acceptance 
of  paid  office. 

Meantime,  in  Ireland,  the  Land  question  was  reaching  a 
crisis.  The  increase  of  evictions,  which  had  begun  with  1877 
—the  first  year  of  the  distress — showed  still  further  signs  of 
increase  :  the  number  of  tenantry  unable  to  meet  their  rents 
was  reaching  daily  larger  proportions,  and  the  Relief  Com- 
mittee had  on  their  rolls  something  like  500,000  recipients  of 
charity.  Side  by  side  with  all  this  the  Land  League  was 
daily  advancing  with  gigantic  strides,  and  every  week  was 
receiving  a  vast  impetus  through  the  immense  subscriptions 
sent  from  America.  It  was  clear  that  the  time  had  come 
when  Ireland  must  make  a  tremendous  step  either  of  advance 
or  retrogression.  Either  distress  was  to  develop  into  famine 
and  famine  to  lead  to  wholesale  eviction,  and  another  lease 
of  landlord  power  and  oppression,  or  the  Irish  people  were  to 
throw  off  the  chains  of  centuries,  to  revolt  against  the  per- 
petuation of  their  miseries  and  of  their  servitude,  and  to  dash 
forward  in  an  effort  for  a  new  and  a  better  era. 

Such  was  the  state  of  Ireland,  and  such  the  position  of 
the  Irish  party,  when  Parliament  met  in  1880.  But  how  was 
it  with  the  Ministry  ?  The  Irish  members  had  no  means  of 
finding  an  answer  to  that  question  at  that  particular  period, 
but  we  have  since  received  abundant  evidence  upon  the  sub- 
ject, and  all  that  evidence  is  conclusive  that  the  Ministry  were 
blind  and  deaf  to  all  the  signs  of  the  times  in  Ireland.  They 
did  not  know  the  existence  of  the  distress,  they  did  not  know 
the  strength  of  the  agitation,  they  were  far  more  ignorant  of 
the  condition  of  the  island  than  of  countries  separated  by 
thousands  of  miles  on  land  or  by  sea  ;  above  all  things,  they 


374  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

had  no  idea  whatever  of  making  an  attempt  to  deal  with  the 
Land  question. 

The  first  witness  of  the  state  of  feeling  among  the  Ministry 
is  the  Duke  of  Argyll,  who,  speaking  in  1881,  said  : 

The  present  Government  was  formed  with  no  expressed  inten- 
tion of  bringing  in  another  great  Irish  Land  Bill  ...  it  formed  no 
part  of  the  programme  upon  which  the  Government  was  formed. 
Perhaps  no  Government  was  ever  formed  on  a  greater  or  wider 
programme,  if  we  are  to  take  the  speeches  of  my  right  hon.  friend 
the  Prime  Minister  in  the  course  of  the  Midlothian  campaign  as 
the  programme  of  the  Government  ;  but,  so  far  as  I  recollect  and 
am  concerned,  it  was  not  intimated  in  those  speeches  that  it  was  the 
intention  of  the  Government  to  unsettle  the  settlement  of  the  Land 
Act  of  iSyo.1 

In  the  session  of  1880  the  Marquis  of  Hartington  showed 
that  his  mind  was  not  only  not  made  up  in  favour  of  Land 
reform  in  Ireland,  but  that  he  was,  on  the  whole,  rather 
antagonistic  to  any  such  reform. 

He  was  speaking  in  reply  to  a  motion  of  Mr.  Justin 
McCarthy  that  a  tenant  farmer  should  be  added  to  the  Com- 
mission of  Inquiry  into  the  Land  question.  Several  of  the 
Irish  members  had  spoken  of  the  Land  Act  of  18/0  as  an 
absolute  failure ;  and  had  taken  it  for  granted  that  the 
Ministry  had  made  up  their  minds  that  another  and  a  larger 
Land  Act  was  required.  Thus  Lord  Hartington  rebuked 
them  : — 

The  Marquis  of  Hartington  said  he  was  not  surprised  that  the 
hon.  member  for  Tralee  (The  O'Donoghue)  objected  to  the  compo- 
sition of  the  Commission,  seeing  that  with  him  the  failure  of  the 
Land  Act  was  a  foregone  conclusion.  To  some  minds  the  conclusion 
was  not  so  absolutely  certain  that  the  Land  Act  had  failed,  or  that  it 
had  not,  and  it  was  in  solving  that  question  that  the  Commission 
was  expected  to  be  useful.  The  speeches  attacking  the  Commission 
had  all  been  pervaded  by  a  fallacious  supposition — namely,  that  the 
Government  looked  to  Baron  Dowse  and  the  other  members  of  the 
Commission  for  a  comprehensive  scheme  of  land  reform.  .  .  .  What 
they  wanted  was  farts.  In  the  last  four  years  there  had  been  almost 
continuous  debates  on  the  Irish  Land  question.  .  .  .  The  result  was 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclxii.  pp.  1754,  1755. 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE 


375 


that  neither  the  House  nor  the  Government  could  arrive  at  any 
certain  conclusion  on  the  matter.  What  could  be  more  advisable 
under  these  circumstances  than  to  ask  a  set  of  honest  and  impartial 
men  to  make  inquiry  on  the  spot,  and  to  report  the  facts  brought 
under  their  notice  ?  That  was  the  object  of  the  Commission,  and 
not,  as  the  hon.  member  for  Longford  (Mr.  Justin  McCarthy)  seemed 
to  suppose,  the  elaboration  of  a  comprehensive  scheme  of  land 
reform. l 

The  chief  and  most  significant  testimony  of  the  mind  of 
the  Ministry  at  this  period  is  that  given  by  Mr.  Gladstone  him- 
self. During  his  visit  to  Midlothian  in  the  autumn  of  1884 
he  made  one  of  those  extraordinary  confessions  which  strew 
his  career : — 

I  must  say  (he  declared  during  his  Midlothian  campaign  in  1884) 
one  word  more  upon,  I  might  say,  a  still  more  important  subject — the 
subject  of  Ireland.  It  did  not  enter  into  my  address  to  you,  for  what 
reason  I  know  riot ;  but  the  Government  that  was  then  in  power,  rather, 
I  think,  kept  back  from  Parliament,  certainly  were  not  forward  to  lay 
before  Parliament,  what  was  going  on  in  Ireland  until  the  day  of  the 
Dissolution  came,  and  the  address  of  Lord  Beaconsfield  was  published 
in  undoubtedly  very  imposing  terms.  ...  I  frankly  admit  that  I  had 
had  much  upon  my  hands  connected  with  the  doings  of  that  Govern- 
ment in  almost  every  quarter  of  the  world,  and  I  did  not  know — no 
one  knew — the  severity  of  the  crisis  that  was  already  swelling  upon 
the  horizon,  and  that  shortly  after  rushed  upon  us  like  a  flood.2 

Such,  then,  was  the  condition  of  the  problem  presented  to 
Mr.  Parnell  and  his  followers.  In  their  own  country  thousands 
of  people  face  to  face  with  starvation  ;  land  tenure  still  in 
such  a  position  that  the  tenant  had  no  protection  from  rack- 
rent  and  from  eviction,  and  therefore  from  periodic  famine  ; 
an  agitation  rising  daily  in  passion  and  in  strength  ;  the  hour 
demanding  revolutionary  land  reform  ;  and  the  mind  of  the 
Ministry  either  blank  or  hostile. 

This  contradiction  between  the  demands  of  the  Irish  ques- 
tion and  the  resolves  of  the  Government  is  a  central  fact  in 
all  that  follows.  It  will  justify  to  any  candid  man  measures 
which  at  the  time  appeared  uncalled  for  and  extreme  ;  and, 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclv.  pp.  1415  16. 

2  Times  t  September  2,  1884. 


376  tHE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

above  all  things,  it  will  explain  how  it  was  that  the  Parnellites 
were  driven  at  the  very  outset  of  the  session  of  1880  into 
an  attitude  of  hostility  to  a  Ministry  that  was  Liberal  and 
professed  to  be  friendly. 

The  Queen's  Speech  was  soon  to  give  evidence  of  the  un- 
mistakable ignorance  and  unreadiness  of  the  Government 
It  was  of  considerable  length  ;  it  dealt  with  Turkey,  and 
Afghanistan,  and  India,  and  South  Africa  ;  but  it  contained 
not  one  word  about  the  Irish  Land  question. 

Immediately  after  the  reading  of  the  Royal  Address  the 
Irish  members  retired  to  the  dingy  rooms  in  King  Street, 
Westminster,  which  were  then  their  offices.  The  recruits 
were  perfectly  unable  at  that  period  to  correctly  appreciate 
the  situation,  but  to  Mr.  Parnell  and  the  others  who  had 
stood  by  his  side  the  position  was  clear.  The  omission  of 
all  mention  of  the  Irish  Land  question  was  pointed  out  with 
indignant  surprise,  and  it  was  immediately  resolved  that  the 
moment  the  House  reassembled,  the  Irish  members  should 
take  action  by  at  once  giving  notice  of  an  amendment  to  the 
Queen's  Speech.  Neither  the  Irish  members  nor  anybody 
else  grasped  the  significance,  or  could  have  told  the  widespread 
and  momentous  consequences,  which  resulted  from  this 
amendment.  But  to  anybody,  however,  now  looking  back 
over  the  history  of  this  period,  it  will  be  perfectly  clear  that 
the  amendment  to  the  Queen's  Speech  in  1880  was  the  germ 
which  afterwards  was  transformed  into  the  Land  Act  of  1881. 

It  was  in  the  views  which  were  developed  on  the  necessity 
of  proposing  this  amendment  that  the  symptoms  were  to  be 
seen  of  the  divergence  of  opinion  which  made  the  cohesion 
of  the  then  Irish  party  an  impossibility.  The  section  led  by 
Mr.  Shaw  had  much  to  say  in  favour  of  the  difficulties  of  the 
Government,  and  could  urge  with  some  justice  that  it  was  un- 
fair to  demand  immediate  treatment  from  the  Ministry  of  a 
question  of  such  vast  importance  and  such  extraordinary 
complexity  as  the  Irish  Land  question.  Then  the  time  at 
the  disposal  of  the  Government  was  short,  and  they  had  a 
terrible  account  to  settle  in  the  legacies  left  to  them  by  their 
predecessors  before  they  could  approach  new  tasks.  The 
section  led  by  Mr.  Parnell,  on  the  other  hand,  pointed  out 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE  377 

that  the  Irish  Land  question  had  already  reached  a  stage 
when  further  delay  meant  wholesale  destruction  ;  showed  how 
long  and  patient  had  already  been  the  endurance  of  the  post- 
ponement of  the  land  settlement  by  their  constituents  ;  and, 
above  all,  urged  that  the  primary  consideration  of  a  National 
party  was  the  need  of  the  Irish  people,  and  not  the  fortunes 
of  an  English  Ministry.  If  the  Irish  demand  were  allowed 
to  occupy  a  second  and  subsidiary  place  ;  if  that  demand 
were  made  dependent  upon  the  convenience  of  the  Ministry, 
it  was  held  by  Mr.  Parnell  and  his  followers  that  the  cause 
would  be  lost.  Events  justified  to  every  impartial  mind 
the  justice  of  these  views,  and  the  peril  of  subordinating 
Irish  national  interests  to  those  of  an  English  Ministry  has 
been  emphasised  by  the  transformation  of  the  moderate 
section  of  the  Home  Rulers  one  by  one  into  office-holders  or 
office-seekers,  or  mere  drudges  to  Ministerial  demands. 

The  amendment  was  brought  forward  on  the  reassembling 
of  the  House  after  the  interval  which  follows  the  reading  of 
the  Queen's  Speech.  It  was  in  these  words  :— - 

And  to  humbly  assure  Her  Majesty  that  the  important  and  press- 
ing question  of  the  occupiers  and  cultivators  of  the  land  in  Ireland 
deserves  the  most  serious  and  immediate  attention  of  Her  Majesty's 
Government  with  a  view  to  the  introduction  of  such  legislation  as 
will  secure  to  these  classes  the  legitimate  fruits  of  their  industry. 

It  was  on  the  night  when  this  amendment  was  brought 
forward  that  Mr.  Parnell  spoke  for  the  first  time  in  Parliament 
since  he  had  reached  his  new  position.  He  rose  about  eleven 
o'clock  ;  the  House  was  crowded  and  eager  ;  and  when  the 
Speaker  called  out  the  name  of  the  member  for  Cork  there 
was  a  movement  of  keen  interest,  and  in  the  galleries  reserved 
to  strangers  almost  everybody  got  up  to  have  a  look  at  the 
new  Irish  leader.  Mr.  Parnell  spoke  briefly,  but  with  vehe- 
mence and  force.  He  drew  a  rapid  picture  of  the  state  of 
things  in  Ireland,  which  was  listened  to  with  more  curiosity 
than  sympathy,  and  the  general  result  (so  far  as  the  present 
writer  can  recollect)  of  the  incident  was  that  Mr.  Parnell  was 
estimated  as  a  very  violent  and  rather  irrational  man,  who 
represented  nothing  but  a  small  and  irresponsible  knot  of 


378  'THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

senseless  irreconcilables.  The  attitude  of  the  House  to  Mr. 
Shaw  was  very  different.  He  himself  seemed  to  challenge 
comparison  with  his  successor,  for  the  moment  Mr.  Parnell 
sat  down,  Mr.  Shaw  rose.  The  first  and  most  significant 
fact  was  that  the  two  men  spoke  from  different  parts  of 
the  House.  Mr.  Parnell  had  risen  from  a  seat  below  the 
gangway  on  the  Opposition  side.  Mr.  Shaw  spoke  from  the 
very  bosom  of  the  Radical  section,  and  when  he  rose  he  was 
rewarded  with  a  burst  of  hearty  cheers  from  all  the  Liberal 
benches.  He  spoke  in  the  style  that  is  now  so  well  known  ; 
his  speech  gave  a  great  deal  of  satisfaction,  and  the  opinion 
was  freely  expressed  by  the  English  members  that  his  remarks 
were  in  welcome  contrast  to  the  heat  and  exaggeration  of 
Mr.  Parnell.  The  contest  between  the  two  men  was  still  held 
to  be  undecided.  There  was  much  contempt  for  the  group  of 
young  men  who  formed  Mr.  Parnell's  chief  support,  and  the 
expectation  was  universal  that  Mr.  Parnell's  tenure  of  office 
would  be  brief  and  inglorious.  The  appearance  of  the  two 
men  in  the  debate  strengthened  this  conviction  in  the  English 
mind,  and  English  members  might  be  heard  to  comment 
with  cheerfulness  that  Parnell  might  be  a  dashing  guerillero^ 
but  Shaw  was  the  sagacious  statesman  and  the  real  leader. 

But  the  Ministry  and  the  House  of  Commons  were  soon  to 
find  that,  however  much  Mr.  Shaw's  methods  might  be  more 
agreeable  than  those  of  Mr.  Parnell,  it  was  with  Parnell  and 
his  colleagues  that  they  had  to  count.  Mr.  Parnell  had  de- 
clared in  his  speech  on  the  first  working  night  of  the 
session  that  he  trembled  to  think  of  what  the  consequences 
might  be  if  the  Government  gave  the  aid  of  their  soldiers  and 
their  police  to  the  landlords  who  were  determined  to  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  widespread  distress  in  Ireland  and  push  on 
evictions  at  a  disastrous  rate.  This  declaration  against  the 
employment  of  the  soldiers  and  police  for  the  purposes  of 
eviction  had  not  attracted  much  attention  on  the  part  of  the 
Government.  Confident  in  the  magnificence  of  their  recent 
victory,  in  the  still  verdant  and  unbroken  strength  of  their 
party,  and  in  the  loftiness  of  their  hopes,  they  could  not  under- 
stand their  path  being  crossed  by  the  then  insignificant  section 
of  the  House.  Between  them  and  the  Irish  party  open  war 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE  379 

had  not  been  declared,  and  its  possibility  would  not  be  even 
contemplated,  especially  by  men  who  had  given  such  repeated 
assurances  of  their  sympathy  for  Ireland  as  Mr.  Gladstone 
and  Mr.  Bright.  The  Liberal  ministers  and  the  followers  of 
Mr.  Parnell  were  at  that  stage  in  which  it  was  yet  undecided 
whether  doubting  affection  would  end  in  closer  bonds  or  in 
permanent  estrangement ;  but,  meantime,  Mr.  Parnell  and  his 
friends  contemplated  a  second  move.  The  great  object  at 
that  time  was  to  stay  the  hand  of  the  landlord,  made  omnipo- 
tent over  the  tenantry  by  the  failure  of  the  crops  ;  and  to 
meet  this  emergency  the  Irish  party  brought  in  the  Suspen- 
sion of  Evictions  Bill.  This  measure,  like  Mr.  Parnell's 
speech,  received  comparatively  little  attention,  and  was  allowed 
to  proceed  on  its  course  without  any  '  blocking '  motion.  The 
truth  was  that  the  members  of  the  new  Parliament  had  not 
yet  settled  down  to  their  work,  had  not  learned  the  arts  and 
machinery  of  parliamentary  warfare,  and  Mr.  Warton  had  not 
shown  his  portentous  shape  on  the  parliamentary  horizon. 
The  result  was  that  the  second  reading  of  the  Suspension  of 
Evictions  Bill  came  on  at  two  o'clock  one  fine  morning,  to 
the  horror  and  surprise  of  the  Treasury  bench.  There  have 
been  many  scenes  since  that  morning  in  which  the  Irish  party 
have  appeared  to  advantage,  but  the  writer  never  remembers 
an  occasion  which  has  left  a  more  lasting  and  more  agreeable 
impression  upon  his  mind  than  the  appearance  of  the  Irish 
members  at  that  sitting.  For  the  first  time  the  Irish  party 
was  in  strength  ;  nearly  forty  of  them  were  present,  and  they 
completely  filled  two  of  the  benches  below  the  gangway,  and 
anybody  who  looked  at  their  faces  could  see  that  they  had 
braced  themselves  for  a  struggle,  and  really  meant  business. 
This  certainly  was  the  impression  made  upon  Mr.  Gladstone. 
He  looked  up  from  the  paper  on  which  he  was  writing  his 
nightly  report  of  parliamentary  proceedings  to  the  Queen,  with 
a  gaze  first  of  pained  amazement  and  then  of  pathetic  appeal 
to  the  serried  and  resolute  ranks  opposite  him.  But  the  Irish- 
men, who  had  to  think  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  other  faces 
that  looked  to  their  inner  minds  with  hungry  hope  from 
cabin  and  field,  had  their  advantage,  were  determined  to  hold 
to  it,  and  declared  that  the  discussion  of  the  Bill  must  go  on. 


380  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

The  Premier  yielded  to  the  inevitable,  made  the  important 
announcement  that  the  Government  themselves  would  con- 
sider the  subject  raised  by  Mr.  Parnell's  measure,  and  so  the 
Irish  Land  question,  which  but  a  few  days  before  had  been 
scouted  out  of  court,  which  had  never  been  mentioned  at  the 
first  Cabinet  Council,  of  whose  existence  the  Queen's  Speech 
knew  absolutely  nothing,  had  already  within  a  couple  of  weeks 
after  the  meeting  of  Parliament  been  taken  up  by  the  Govern- 
ment as  one  of  the  chief  and  primary  questions  of  the  session  ; 
and  the  starving  tenants,  just  emerging  from  famine,  might 
hope  that  the  landlords  would  not  be  allowed  to  work  un- 
checked their  wicked  will.  This,  in  fact,  was  the  first  parlia- 
mentary victory  that  the  Land  League  gained. 

The  Government,  of  course,  did  their  best  to  minimise  the 
amount  of  the  concession  they  had  made,  and  it  was  for 
this  reason  that  they  adopted  the  expedient  of  making  their 
provision  for  dealing  with  impending  evictions  a  clause  in  the 
Relief  of  Distress  Bill — a  complementary  part  of  the  extra- 
ordinary statute  introduced  by  the  preceding  Government. 
But  Mr.  Chaplin  defeated  this  attempt  on  a  point  of  order, 
which  the  Speaker  held  to  be  good,  and  the  Government  had 
to  show  their  hands  and  avow  their  purposes,  and  so  the 
famous  Disturbance  Bill  was  introduced.  The  Disturbance 
Bill  of  Mr.  Forster  was  the  Suspension  of  Evictions  Bill  of 
Mr.  Parnell  under  another  name.  The  Parnellites,  so  far,  had 
gained  their  point,  but  they  were  to  reap  still  further  advan- 
tage. The  speakers  for  the  Government  had,  of  course,  to 
array  the  terrible  figures  of  eviction  increasing  with  dis- 
tress,1 to  make  strong  speeches  and  urge  powerful  reasons 
in  favour  of  a  measure  which  went  counter  to  so  many  of  the 
prejudices  of  the  House  of  Commons.  Irish  distress  thus  be- 
came the  cry  of  an  English  as  well  as  of  an  Irish  party,  and 
striking  statements  and  valuable  admissions  were  made  which 

1  If  we  look  to  the  total  numbers  we  find  that  in  1878  there  were  1,749 
evictions  ;  in  1879,  2,607  >  and  as  was  shown  by  my  right  hon.  and  learned  friend, 
1,690  in  the  five  and  a  half  months  of  this  year — showing  a  further  increase  upon 
the  enormous  increase  of  last  year,  and  showing,  in  fact,  unless  it  be  checked,  that 
15,000  individuals  will  be  ejected  from  their  homes,  without  hope,  without 
remedy,  in  the  course  of  the  present  year.  —  Mr.  GLADSTONE,  Hansard,  vol.  ccliii. 
p.  1666. 


\ 


THE   LAND     LEAGUE  381 

justified  the  whole  position  of  the  Land  League.  For  in- 
stance, it  was  during  a  debate  on  the  Disturbance  Bill  that 
Mr.  Gladstone  committed  himself  to  the  famous  doctrine 
that,  in  the  circumstances  of  distress  in  which  Ireland  then 
was,  a  sentence  of  eviction  might  be  regarded  as  equiva- 
lent to  a  sentence  of  death  ; l  and  it  was  this  and  suchlike 
expressions  of  opinion  that  long  paralysed  the  hand  of  the 
Government  against  the  Land  League  agitation.  However 
great  had  been  their  triumph,  the  Parnellites  did  not  relax 
their  vigilance,  and  when  on  one  or  two  occasions  the  Govern- 
ment yielded  to  the  Tory  opposition,  and  introduced  damag- 
ing amendments,  they  were  brought  to  such  stern  account 
that  they  hesitated  before  taking  any  such  course  again.  It 
is  not  necessary  to  trace  here  the  chequered  course  of  the 
Disturbance  Bill.  Everybody  knows  that  it  was  fiercely 
opposed  stage  after  stage  by  the  Tories  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, that  it  was  finally  carried  by  overwhelming  majorities, 
and  that,  when  it  went  to  the  House  of  Lords,  it  was  thrown 
out  with  every  circumstance  of  ignominy  and  contempt 

This  ending  to  the  business  placed  both  the  Government 
and  the  Irish  party  in  a  strange  and  difficult  position.  It  had 
been  stated  by  Mr.  Gladstone  that  a  sentence  of  eviction  was 
equivalent  to  a  sentence  of  death,  and  the  equally  significant 
and  appalling  statement  had  been  added  by  him  that,  accord- 
ing to  the  statistics  supplied  by  the  Irish  authorities,  1 5,000 
persons  were  to  receive  the  sentence  of  eviction  within  that 
single  year.  The  time  that  has  elapsed  since  1880  enables 
us  to  form  a  correct  view  of  the  state  of  things  really  existing 
in  that  year,  and  we  are  able  to  see  that  the  tendency  of  even 
popular  speakers  was  to  underrate  rather  than  exaggerate  the 
perils  of  the  situation.  Again  let  me  put  forward  the  central 

1  In  the  failure  of  the  crops,  crowned  by  the  year  1879,  the  act  of  God  had 
replaced  the  Irish  occupier  in  the  condition  in  which  he  stood  before  the  Land 
Act.  Because  what  had  he  to  contemplate  ?  He  had  to  contemplate  eviction  for 
his  non-payment  of  rent :  and  as  a  consequence  of  eviction,  starvation.  And 
...  it  is  no  exaggeration  to  say,  in  a  country  where  the  agricultural  pursuit 
is  the  only  pursuit,  and  where  the  means  of  the  payment  of  rent  are  entirely 
destroyed  for  a  time  by  the  visitation  of  Providence,  that  the  poor  occupier  may 
under  these  circumstances  regard  a  sentence  of  eviction  as  coming,  for  him,  very 
near  to  a  sentence  of  death. — Hansard,  vol.  ccliii.  p.  1663. 


382  •     THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

positions  of  the  part  of  the  Land  Leaguers,  (i)  That  there 
had  been  distress  so  widespread  and  severe  as  to  threaten 
famine  :  nobody  contests  that  position  now.  (2)  That  the 
tenants  were  in  most  cases  rack-rented  :  the  decisions  of  the 
Land  Court  have  given  the  seal  of  judicial  tribunals  to  this 
contention.  (3)  That  a  vast  number  of  the  tenants  were  so 
burdened  with  the  arrears  of  rack-rent  as  to  be  absolutely  at  * 
the  mercy  of  the  landlords  ;  and  the  Arrears  Act  is  a  fraud 
and  the  hundreds  of  landlords  who  joined  in  its  application 
are  swindlers,  if  this  statement  be  not  true.  (4)  That  the 
remedy  required  for  the  relief  of  the  Irish  tenant  was  a  radical 
and  drastic,  and  not  a  petty  and  moderate  remedy  ;  and  who 
would  describe  Mr.  Gladstone's  Land  Act  of  1881  as  petty 
and  moderate  rather  than  radical  and  drastic  ?  But  though 
every  single  position  of  the  Land  Leaguers  has  been  justified 
by  events,  and  finds  itself  imbedded  in  the  admissions  of 
English  ministers  and  the  enactments  of  the  Imperial  Parlia- 
ment, things  were  in  a  different  position  in  1880,  and  there 
was  scarcely  one  of  their  statements  that  was  not  met  with 
fierce  and  coarse  denial. 

And,  on  the  other  side,  the  situation  was  one  of  extreme 
perplexity.  Every  one  of  the  positions  taken  up  by  the 
Parnellites  the  Ministry  adopted,  as  was  shown  by  the  intro- 
duction of  the  Suspension  of  Evictions  Bill  and  by  their 
speeches  in  its  support.  The  reality  of  the  dangers  to  the 
peace  of  Ireland  Mr.  Forster  was  himself  foremost  in 
acknowledging  ;  and  were  they  then  to  allow  Ireland  to  drift 
unhelmed — or,  to  use  Mr.  Gladstone's  own  words,  '  without 
hope  and  without  remedy ' — to  the  abyss  of  wholesale  evic- 
tion, tempered  by  wholesale  assassination,  towards  which  the 
action  of  the  House  of  Lords  had  pushed  it  ?  It  is  hard  at 
this  moment  to  say  what  the  Government  could  have  done. 
They  had  just  come  from  the  country  with  a  triumphant 
majority.  Was  it  in  political  human  nature  that  they  should 
risk  this  majority  by  another  appeal  to  the  country  within 
a  few  months,  and  before  they  had  fulfilled  a  single  item  in 
the  vast  programme  they  had  set  before  them  ?  It  was  reported 
at  the  time  that  the  Earl  of  Beaconsfield  had  pointed  out  to 
his  dispirited  followers  what  he  described  as  the  unscrupulous 


THE   LAND    LEAGUE  383 

tactics  of  Mr.  Gladstone  and  of  the  Radical  wing  of  the  Liberal 
party,  and  that  these  tactics  justified  the  Opposition  in  exhaust- 
ing every  effort  to  drive  the  Ministry  from  office  at  the 
earliest  possible  moment.  The  rejection  of  the  Compensation 
for  Disturbance  Bill  had  been  the  first  blow,  and  undoubtedly 
the  blow  had  been  well  directed.  A  Ministry  and  a  Parlia- 
ment that  seemed  omnipotent  had,  at  one  stroke,  been  brought 
before  the  world  and  before  its  own  consciousness  as  ab- 
solutely impotent.  The  prestige  of  overwhelming  victory  was 
already  gone,  the  bright  hopes  of  noble  achievements  were 
already  blasted,  and  the  Parliament  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  in  the 
very  hour  of  its  robust  youth,  was  now  stricken  with  the 
palsied  spirit  of  self-distrustful  age.  It  was  quite  possible, 
under  these  circumstances,  that  if  the  Ministry  had  appealed 
to  the  country  the  response  might  have  been,  if  not  wholly, 
at  least  materially  different  from  that  of  the  General  Election 
of  a  few  months  ago.  The  Ministry  might  have  been  greatly 
weakened,  and  the  mighty  weapon  for  the  repair  of  past 
Conservative  errors  and  for  future  Liberal  conquest  might 
have  been  returned  to  the  hand  of  Mr.  Gladstone  pointless 
and  broken.  The  truth  is,  the  difficulty  of  the  situation  was 
the  permanent  and  incurable  difficulty  of  the  present  parlia- 
mentary relations  of  England  and  of  Ireland  ;  it  was  the 
difficulty  of  having  to  govern  one  country  through  the  public 
opinion  of  another.  An  Irish  minister  face  to  face  with  such 
a  crisis  could  with  confidence  have  appealed  against  a  verdict 
so  plainly  hostile  to  the  interests  of  Ireland  as  the  rejection  of 
the  Suspension  of  Evictions  Bill  with  the  full  knowledge  that 
the  public  opinion  of  his  own  people,  at  once  sympathetic  and 
informed,  would  have  redoubled  his  power  of  meeting  so 
portentous  an  emergency.  But  the  English  minister  had  to 
appeal  to  a  public  almost  entirely  ignorant  of  the  merits 
of  the  controversy,  and  fickle  in  its  sympathies  because  of 
ignorance. 

But  there  was  one  step  which  might  have  been  taken 
and  which  might  have  resulted  in  some  good.  It  appeared, 
too,  that  the  Irish  people  could  rely  upon  this  step  being 
taken.  On  August  24  Mr.  Forster  made  an  important  state- 
ment 


384  'THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

He  had  always  said  they  must  carry  out  the  law ;  but  he  must 
also  repeat  that,  if  they  found,  as  they  had  not  within  the  last  two  or 
three  weeks  found,  and  as  they  hoped  they  would  not  find,  that  the 
landlords  of  Ireland  were  to  any  great  extent  making  use  of  their 
powers  so  as  to  force  the  Government  to  support  them  in  the  exer- 
cise of  injustice,  the  Government  should  accompany  any  request  for 
special  powers  with  a  Bill  which  would  prevent  the  Government  from 
being  obliged  to  support  injustice.  He  would  go  further  and  say, 
under  any  circumstances  if  it  was  found  that  injustice  and  tyranny 
were  largely  committed — although  he  did  not  believe  that  such  would 
be  the  case — it  would  then  be  their  serious  duty  to  consider  what 
their  action  should  be,  and  he  did  not  think  that  any  man  in  the 
House  would  expect  him  to  remain  any  longer  the  instrument  of  that 
injustice.1 

Here  was  some  promise  of  a  break  in  the  run  of  disaster 
which  now  menaced  Ireland.  The  landlords  might  evict  on 
a  wholesale  scale,  and  all  their  history  down  to  that  very 
year  pointed  to  their  making  full  and  savage  use  of  every 
power  which  the  law  and  the  seasons  had  placed  in  their  hands  ; 
but  if  a  Minister  of  the  Crown,  rather  than  carry  on  this  law, 
were  to  resign  his  office,  the  public  opinion  of  the  country 
would  necessarily  be  fixed  upon  the  difficulties  and  the  horrors 
of  the  problem  ;  and  the  Ministry,  with  such  a  force  behind 
them,  would  have  been  able  to  dictate  to  the  House  of  Lords 
a  prompt  and  complete  remedy.  But  many  days  had  not 
elapsed  when  this  hope  disappeared.  A  cold  fit  had  super- 
vened with  extraordinary  rapidity  the  outburst  of  angry  and 
worthy  resolve,  and  Mr.  Forster,  catechised  by  the  Oppo- 
sition, explained  his  words  until  his  great  purpose  vanished 
into  thin  air  and  meaningless  talk.  The  final  result  of  the 
session  then  was  this  :  a  Relief  of  Distress  Bill  had  been 
passed  through  which  money  was  to  reach  distressed  tenants, 
having  first  passed  through  the  hands  of  the  landlords  ;  and 
a  Commission  of  Inquiry  had  been  added  to  the  long  and 
dreary  inquisitions  that  had  investigated  the  Land  question. 

The  three  famines  which  it  had  already  produced  since 
1 800  were  not  regarded  as  evidence  sufficient ;  the  three 
millions  whom  it  had  exiled  in  all  the  surroundings  of 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclv.  pp.  2022-3. 


THE   LAND    LEAGUE  385 

cruelty  and  horror  were  not  witnesses  enough  to  the  iniquity 
of  the  system  :  English  opinion  required  more  testimony  and 
further  witnesses.  Thus  the  memorable  recess  of  1880  began. 
The  Land  League,  in  the  meantime,  had  been  vastly  increased 
in  numbers;  Mr.  Dillon  had  made  several  strong  speeches, 
and  the  temper  of  the  country  was  daily  rising.  There  had 
unfortunately,  too,  been,  as  in  all  periods  of  disturbance  in 
Ireland  and  in  every  other  country,  a  few  cases  of  assassination. 
The  vengeance  of  the  emancipated,  after  centuries  of  serfdom, 
is  always  cruel  and  brutal  in  its  earliest  hours  of  victory. 
While  thus  the  country  was  daily  becoming  more  agitated, 
and  daily  advancing  to  larger  demands,  to  closer  organi- 
sation, and  to  a  fiercer  spirit,  the  Land  Commission  were 
slowly  taking  evidence  and  the  Government  gave  no  sign  what- 
ever. Thus  the  situation  which  Mr.  Parnell  had  to  consider 
was  one  of  extreme  difficulty.  The  composition  of  the  Land 
Commission,  the  words  of  Lord  Hartington,  and  the  silence 
of  the  other  Ministers  gave  but  too  much  reason  to  believe 
that  the  mind  of  the  Government  was  not  even  yet  made 
up  for  anything  like  a  large  measure  of  land  reform.  The 
refusal  for  so  many  years  of  any  measure  of  relief,  followed 
by  the  miserable  insufficiency  of  the  Land  Act  of  1870,  were 
too  much  calculated  to  make  Mr.  Parnell  draw  pessimist  con- 
clusions from  such  facts.  The  great  evil  he  had  to  avoid  was 
that  the  mighty  agitation  of  1880  should  not  end,  as  did  that 
of  1869-70,  in  an  abortive  and  halting  measure.  Meantime 
there  was  the  country  before  him,  organising  itself,  as  it  had 
rarely  ever  been  organised  before,  with  mightier  forces,  making 
in  the  direction  of  complete  reform,  than  had  ever,  perhaps, 
stood  behind  any  movement.  The  nature  of  Mr.  Parnell 
impels  him  to  drive  in  political  matters  the  hardest  of  hard 
bargains  within  his  power  ;  his  grip  of  a  political  advantage 
for  his  countrymen  is  as  relentless  as  the  grip  of  death.  His 
course  in  the  months  that  followed  was  dictated  mainly  by 
the  sense  that  through  no  word  or  act  of  his  should  the  chance 
of  the  people  for  a  full  and  final  settlement  of  all  their  claims 
be  jeopardised  or  diminished. 

It  is  another  essential  evil  of  the  present  relations  between 
England  and  Ireland  that  no  great  reform  can  be  carried  out— 

C  C 


386  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

especially  on  the  Land  question — without  bringing  the  people 
of  Ireland,  as  Mr.  Chamberlain  said,  to  a  state  bordering  on 
revolution  ;  and  to  a  state  bordering  upon  revolution  the  Irish 
people  were  now  fast  approaching.  With  all  the  tragic  effects 
of  the  Irish  Land  question  familiar  to  him  and  to  his  audience, 
and  their  strength  to  demand  complete  settlement,  Mr.  Parnell 
naturally  gave  no  encouragement  to  the  idea  that  the  position 
of  the  Irish  Land  question  had  not  yet  passed  beyond  the 
stage  of  inquiry. 

The  movement  in  its  new  phase  received  its  first  word  of 
real  guidance  from  Mr.  Parnell  at  a  meeting  held  in  Ennis  on 
September  19,  1880,  and  the  speech  he  then  delivered  gave  the 
keynote  of  the  situation.  First,  he  told  the  people  to  place 
no  confidence  in  the  Government  Commission  ;  and,  while  he 
did  not  positively  advise  the  farmers  against  giving  evidence, 
he  warned  them  against  the  danger  of  the  acceptance  of  any 
responsibility  for  the  proceedings  of  that  body. 

What  will  be  said  if  the  tenant-farmers  come  before  this  Com- 
mission in  any  large  numbers  ?  It  will  be  said  that  you  have 
accepted  the  Commission — it  will  be  said  that  you  will  be  bound 
by  its  report,  and  if  there  is  very  much  evidence  given,  it  will  form 
a  very  good  excuse  for  the  Government  and  for  the  English 
party  to  put  off  legislation  on  the  Land  question  next  session,  until 
they  have  time  to  read  the  evidence  and  consider  its  bearings  and 
effect.  My  opinion,  then,  decidedly  is  this,  whatever  harm  you  do 
to  your  cause  by  going  before  this  Commission,  you  certainly  will  be 
able  to  do  no  good.1 

Then  he  passed  on  to  the  declaration  which  after  events 
did  so  much  to  prove  correct — that  it  was  to  themselves 
and  their  own  organisation  the  farmers  were  mainly  to  look 
for  redress. 

Depend  upon  it  (he  said)  that  the  measure  of  the  Land  Bill  of 
next  session  will  be  the  measure  of  your  activity  and  energy  this 
winter  ;  it  will  be  the  measure  of  your  determination  not  to  pay  un- 
just rents  ;  it  will  be  the  measure  of  your  determination  to  keep  a 
firm  grip  of  your  homesteads  ;  it  will  be  the  measure  of  your  deter- 
mination not  to  bid  for  farms  from  which  others  have  been  evicted, 
and  to  use  the  strong  force  of  public  opinion  to  deter  any  unjust 

J  Freematts  Journal,  Sept.  20,  1880. 


THE   LAND    LEAGUE  387 

men  amongst  yourselves — and  there  are  many  such— from  bidding 
for  such  farms.  If  you  refuse  to  pay  unjust  rents,  if  you  refuse  to 
take  farms  from  which  others  have  been  evicted,  the  Land  question 
must  be  settled,  and  settled  in  a  way  that  will  be  satisfactory  to  you. 
It  depends,  therefore,  upon  yourselves,  and  not  upon  any  Commission 
or  any  Government.  When  you  have  made  this  question  ripe  for 
settlement,  then,  and  not  till  then,  will  it  be  settled.1 

And,  finally,  he  gave  the  advice  with  regard  to  '  boycot- 
ting '  which  was  afterwards  quoted  hundreds  of  times  against 
him. 

Now  what  are  you  to  do  (he  said)  to  a  tenant  who  bids  for  a 
farm  from  which  another  tenant  has  been  evicted  ? 

Several  voices  :  Shoot  him  ! 

Mr.  Parnell  :  I  think  I  heard  somebody  say  '  Shoot  him  ! '  I 
wish  to  point  out  to  you  a  very  much  better  way — a  more  Christian 
and  charitable  way,  which  will  give  the  lost  man  an  opportunity  of 
repenting.  When  a  man  takes  a  farm  from  which  another  has  been 
unjustly  evicted,  you  must  show  him  on  the  roadside  when  you  meet 
him  ;  you  must  show  him  in  the  streets  of  the  town  ;  you  must  show 
him  in  the  shop ;  you  must  show  him  in  the  fair-green  and  in  the 
market-place,  and  even  in  the  place  of  worship,  by  leaving  him  alone  j 
by  putting  him  into  a  moral  Coventry  ;  by  isolating  him  from  the 
rest  of  his  country  as  if  he  were  the  leper  of  old — you  must  show  him 
your  detestation  of  the  crime  he  has  committed.2 

There  have  been  few  things  that  Mr.  Parnell  has  said 
throughout  his  career  which  have  been  more  bitterly  criticised 
than  the  counsel  given  in  these  words.  Barristers  have  as- 
sailed him  in  the  House  of  Commons  who  would  have  merci- 
lessly boycotted  the  counsel  that  held  direct  intercourse  with  a 
client  without  the  mediation  of  a  solicitor  ;  doctors  who  would 
mercilessly  boycot  a  professional  brother  who  advertised  or 
compounded  medicines,  or  violated  any  other  article  of  a 
complex  professional  code  ;  politicians  who  had  mercilessly 
driven  out  of  their  organisations  the  backsliders  from  political 
principles  ;  members  of  clubs  who  had  ostracised  offenders 
against  the  laws  of  honour  or  of  conventionality ;  representa- 
tives of  working  classes  who  had  wrung  from  a  Conservative 
Ministry  the  right  of  workmen  to  boycot  avaricious  em- 
ployers. The  principles  of  boycotting  have  thus  been  applied 

1  Freeman 's  Journal,  Sept.  20,  1880,  2  Ib. 

C  C  2 


388 


THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


in  ordinary  times,  and  in  ordinary  occupations,  by  some  of 
those  who  most  loudly  denounced  it.     What  was  the  time, 
and  what  the  circumstances,  in  which  it  was  recommended 
by  Mr.  Parnell  ?     The  reader  of   the    preceding  pages  will 
not  fail  to  notice  that  one  of  the  most  fertile  sources  of  land- 
lord wrong  and  tenant  suffering  was  the  fierce  competition 
for  the  possession  of  land.     It  has  been  seen  how  that  com- 
petition has  induced  tenants  to  offer  a  rent  measured  not  by 
the  capacities  of  the  land  but  by  their  own  despair  ;  and  it  is 
perfectly  clear  that  as  long  as  eviction  produced  through  this 
unchecked  competition  an  increase  of  rent,  eviction  was    a 
temptation  and  not  a  horror  to  the  landlord.     At  this  moment 
the  Irish  tenants  were  engaged  in  a  great  effort  to  break  once 
and  for  ever  the  thraldom  of  centuries.     Against  this  effort 
were  arrayed  the  mighty  forces  of  the  empire.     By  a  strict 
combination  alone  among  themselves  could  the  Irish  tenantry 
hope  for  success  ;  and  the  boycotting  of  any  man  who  lent 
by  land-grabbing  assistance  to  the  landlord  was  essential  to 
success.     Boycotting  was  abused  ;    it  was  occasionally  used 
for  private  purposes  ;  it  sometimes  led  to  crime  ;  but  it  was 
at  least  a  far  less  savage  mode  of  warfare  than  assassination, 
which  it  largely  replaced.     Until  coercion  brought  homicidal 
frenzy  it  did  much  to  keep  down  the  number  of  outrages  ;  and, 
as  Mr.  John  Dillon  said  in  reply  to  an  attack,  it  kept  the  roof 
over  the  heads  of  many  a  thousand  men  and  women  who, 
without  it,  would  have  been  thrown  on  the  roadside  to  perish. 
The  meeting  at  Ennis  was  followed  by  several  other  de- 
monstrations, at  most  of  which  there  were  the  same  array  of 
numbers,  which  had  been  unparalleled  since  the  days  of  the 
Liberator.     At  all  of  these  meetings  Mr.  Parnell  practically 
preached  the  same  principles.     It  would  be  well  worth  while 
for  anybody  who  wishes  to  study  the  strange  career  of  this 
Irish    leader  to  read  over  again  those  speeches,  for  he  will 
find  in  them  that  foresight  and  that  grasp  of  the  central  and 
essential  facts  of  the  situation  and  the  real  necessities  of  the 
time    which   justify  Mr.    Parnell's    extraordinary  reputation. 
He  had  f.o  fight  at  this  period  not  merely  the  halting  purpose 
of  the  Ministry,  but  also  the  feeble  resolves  of  some    men 
within    the  national    ranks.     The    complete    separation    had 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE  389 

not  as  yet  taken  place  between  his  own  supporters  and  the 
followers  of  Mr.  Shaw.  Some  of  those  gentlemen  preached 
after  the  manner  of  the  feeble  and  the  flabby  in  the  presence 
of  a  great  crisis.  They  still  adhered  to  the  '  three  Fs  '  as  the 
final  settlement  of  the  question.  They  solemnly  recommended 
moderation  to  the  farmers,  v/hen  the  real  danger  was  not  in 
the  extravagance  of  the  demands  made  by  the  Irish  people, 
but  in  the  grudging  bestowal  of  minimised  concession  by  the 
House  of  Commons  and  the  House  of  Lords.  They  amused 
themselves  with  elaborate  schemes,  instead  of  leaving  the  re- 
sponsibility to  the  Ministers.  They  had  much  to  say  of  the 
difficulties  of  Mr.  Gladstone  and  of  Mr.  Forster,  and  little  of 
the  difficulties  of  the  peasants  who,  with  their  backs  to  the 
walls,  fought  a  life-and-death  struggle  with  hunger  and 
eviction.  Mr.  Parnell,  while  personally  courteous  and  tolerant 
to  a  degree  that  looks  almost  weakness,1  at  this  time,  to  these 
gentlemen  and  their  proposals,  steadily  pursued  his  own  path. 
He  reiterated  and  reiterated  again  the  doctrine  that  the 
amount  of  Ministerial  concession  would  depend  upon  the 
strength  and  determination  of  the  organisation. 

I  believe  (he  said  at  New  Ross)  I  have  always  expressed  the 
opinion  that  the  question  will  be  settled  when  it  is  perfectly  ripe  for 
settlement  throughout  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  country,  and  it 
is  far  more  important  for  us  to  make  the  question  ripe  than  to  knock 
our  heads  against  each  other,  discussing  plans  as  to  how  it  may  be 
best  settled  before  it  is  ripe.2 

The  extreme  limit  of  our  demands  (he  said  at  Longford),  when 
the  time  comes,  must  be  measured,  as  I  have  said  repeatedly  in  other 
places  already,  by  the  results  of  your  exertions  this  winter,  and  you 
may  rely  upon  it  that,  whatever  your  exertions  entitle  you  to  claim,  we 
will  press  for  with  vigour,  determination,  and  success.  The  nature 
of  the  settlement  of  the  Land  question  depends  entirely  upon  your- 
selves. The  Government  have  no  notion  yet  how  they  are  going  to 
settle  it,  and  they  won't  make  up  their  minds  until  they  see  what  you 
are  going  to  do.3 

1  Speaking,  for  instance,  of  a  colleague  who  had  proposed,  as  a  settlement  of 
the  Land  question,  the  extension  to  the  rest  of  Ireland  of  the  Ulster  custom — that 
is  to  say,  of  the  custom  which  had  made  Ulster  one  of  the  most  rack-rented  of  all 
the  provinces  of  Ireland — Mr.  Parnell  said,  '  I  wish  to  speak  in  the  most  kindly, 
forbearing,  and  friendly  manner,  recognising  the  right  of  everybody  to  differ  from 
me.' — Freeman's  Journal ',  Sept.  26,  1880. 

2  Ib.  3  /£.  Oct.  1 8,  1880. 


390  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

He  used  to  point  out  the  objection  to  the  *  three  F's '  as 
either  a  practical  or  a  final  solution  to  the  question.  One  of  the 
arguments,  it  is  true,  which  he  brought  against  this  proposal 
was  not  realised.  He  pointed  out  that  to  the  doctrine  of 
fixity  of  tenure  at  valued  rents  Mr.  Gladstone,  Mr.  Bright, 
and  Mr.  Forster  had  repeatedly  declared  their  hostility, 
and  upon  this  he  founded  the  argument  that  it  was  vain  to 
hope  for  the  concession  of  the  'three  F's'  from  a  Ministry 
which  contained  these  three  gentlemen.  He  had  not  yet 
learned  the  readiness  with  which  they  could  change  their 
often-expressed  opinions  under  the  pressure  of  a  popular 
movement  The  settlement  which  he  proposed  was  Peasant 
Proprietary. 

We  seek  as  Irish  Nationalists  (he  said  at  New  Ross  on 
September  25,  1880),  for  a  settlement  of  the  Land  question  which 
shall  be  permanent — which  shall  for  ever  put  an  end  to  the  war  of 
classes  which  unhappily  has  existed  in  this  country.  ...  a  war 
which  supplies,  in  the  words  of  the  resolution,  the  strongest  induce- 
ment to  the  Irish  landlords  to  uphold  the  system  of  English  misrule 
which  has  placed  these  landlords  in  Ireland.  And  looking  forward 
to  the  future  of  our  country,  we  wish  to  avoid  all  elements  of 
antagonism  between  classes.  I  am  willing  to  have  a  struggle 
between  classes  in  Ireland — a  struggle  that  should  be  short,  sharp, 
and  decisive — once  for  all  ;  but  I  am  not  willing  that  this  struggle 
should  be  perpetuated  at  intervals,  when  these  periodic  revaluations 
of  the  holdings  of  the  tenants  would  come  under  the  system  of 
what  is  called  'fixity  of  tenure  at  valued  rents.'  l 

It  is  well  to  add  that,  in  every  one  of  the  speeches  in 
which  he  spoke  of  peasant  proprietary,  he  definitely  laid  down 
the  doctrine  that  peasant  proprietary  was  to  be  obtained  not 
by  violence,  but  by  the  payment  of  reasonable  compensation 
to  the  landlords. 

The  real  objection  (he  said  in  his  New  Ross  speech)  is  that 
this  system  of  landlordism  would  still  remain,  and  that  the  solution 
which  has  been  obtained  in  other  countries,  and  which  has  succeeded 
in  other  countries — in  France,  in  Germany,  in  Holland,  in  Italy,  and 
even  in  Spain — would  not  be  ours,  but  that  we  should  be  left  to 
struggle  on  with  this  constant  source  of  confusion  and  disunion  still 

1  Freeman's  Journal,  Sept.  "26,  1880. 


THE    LAND   LEAGUE  391 

existing  amongst  us.  Now,  then,  is  the  time  for  the  Irish  tenantry 
to  show  their  determination — to  show  the  Government  of  England 
that  they  will  be  satisfied  with  nothing  less  than  the  ownership  of  the 
land  of  Ireland. l 

Talk  of  fixity  of  tenure  at  fair  rents  (he  went  on),  I  think  that 
the  Irish  tenants  should  be  able  to  look  forward  to  a  time  when  all 
rents  would  cease — when  they  would  have  homes  of  their  own,  with- 
out the  necessity  of  making  annual  payments  for  them.  And  I  see 
no  difficulty  in  arriving  at  such  a  solution,  and  in  arriving  at  it  in 
this  way  :  by  the  payment  of  a  fair  rent,  and  a  fair  and  fixed  rent  not 
liable  to  recurrent  and  perhaps  near  periods  of  revision,  but  by  the 
payment  of  a  fair  rent  for  the  space  of,  say,  thirty-five  years,  after 
which  time  there  would  be  nothing  further  to  pay,  and  in  the  mean- 
time the  tenant  would  have  fixity  of  tenure.2 

Let  the  arbitration  (he  said)  be  made  now,  and  you  would  find 
that  the  magic  of  property,  which  turns  sand  into  gold,  would  enable 
the  then  safe,  and  the  now  miserable  tenant  of  the  most  barren  and 
unproductive  holdings  in  Ireland  to  bring  it  into  such  a  state  of 
culture  as  to  put  him  beyond  the  reach  of  famine  after  two  or  even 
three  bad  seasons.3 

One  sentence,  finally,  from  his  speeches  of  this  period. 
Mr.  Parnell's  mode,  means,  and  end  were  curtly  described 
once  by  the  Prime  Minister  as  passing  through  rapine  to  dis- 
memberment. I  have  already  quoted  the  sentence  which 
will  effectually  dispose  of  the  charge  of  rapine,  and  now  for 
one  in  which  the  seeking  of  dismemberment  was  mainly 
founded.  Speaking  at  Galway  on  October  24,  1880,  Mr. 
Parnell  said : — 

I  expressed  my  belief  at  the  beginning  of  last  session  that  the 
present  Chief  Secretary,  who  was  then  all  smiles  and  promises, 
should  not  have  proceeded  very  far  in  the  duties  of  his  office  before 
he  would  have  found  that  he  had  undertaken  an  impossible  task  to 
govern  Ireland,  and  that  the  only  way  to  govern  Ireland  is  to  allow 
her  to  govern  herself.  .  .  .  And  if  they  prosecute  the  leaders  of  this 
movement  ...  it  is  not  because  they  wish  to  preserve  the  lives  of 
one  or  two  landlords  .  .  .  but  it  will  be  because  they  see  that  behind 
this  movement  lies  a  more  dangerous  movement  to  their  hold  over 
Ireland  ;  because  they  know  that  if  they  fail  in  upholding  landlordism 
here — and  they  will  fail—  they  have  no  chance  of  maintaining  it  over 
Ireland  ;  it  will  be  because  they  know  that  if  they  fail  in  upholding 

1  Freeman's  Journal,  Sept.  26,  1880.  2  Ib.  3  Ib* 


392  'THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

landlordism  in  Ireland,  their  power  to  misrule  Ireland  will  go  too, 
I  wish  to  see  the  tenant  farmers  prosperous  ;  but  large  and  important 
as  is  the  class  of  tenant  farmers,  constituting  as  they  do,  with  their 
wives  and  families,  the  majority  of  the  people  of  this  country,  I  would 
not  have  taken  off  my  coat  and  gone  to  this  work  if  I  had  not  known 
that  we  were  laying  the  foundation  in  this  movement  for  the  regene- 
ration of  our  legislative  independence.1 

This  sentence,  which  was  often  quoted,  as  it  will  be  seen, 
simply  demands  the  restoration  of  the  Irish  Parliament  ;  and 
that  is  not  dismemberment.  It  was  almost  enough  to  make  an 
Irishman  frenzied  to  hear  this  sentence  of  Mr.  Parnell  quoted 
over  and  over  again  as  the  sudden  revelation  of  some  new,  dia- 
bolical, unheard-of  policy.  Mr.  Parnell  announced  himself  a 
Home  Ruler.  Was  there  anything  new,  or  diabolical,  or  un- 
heard of  in  that  ?  Home  Rule  in  1880  had  always  been  the 
avowed  policy  of  an  Irish  party  numbering  the  great  majority 
of  the  Irish  representatives  since  1874.  Mr.  Butt  was  a  Home 
Ruler,  so  were  all  his  followers  ;  Mr.  Parnell  himself  had 
been  elected  as  a  Home  Ruler  five  years  before  the  Galway 
speech.  ^To  say  that  he  could  not  have  entered  into  the 
land  agitation  if  he  did  not  believe  that  it  would  help  towards 
Home  Rule,  was  to  make  the  not  very  unnatural  declaration 
that  the  reform  of  the  land  system  would  tend  towards  the 
restoration  of  an  Irish  Parliament. 

In  the  meantime,  while  thus  the  movement  in  Ireland  was 
/caching  its  springtide,  everybody  was  looking  for  a  sign  on 
the  part  of  the  Government  of  any  real  apprehension  of  the 
situation.  Mr.  Gladstone  had  not  a  syllable  to  say  on  this  great 
struggle  :  he  was  at  that  time  too  busy  with  Dulcigno,  the  diffi- 
culties of  the  Montenegrins,  and  the  humiliation  of  the  'unspeak- 
able Turk '  to  bend  his  mind  to  the  consideration  of  an  island 
sixty  miles  off  which  contained  five  millions  of  British  subjects, 
and  was  making  a  movement  more  perilous  to  British  peace 
than  any  since  the  death  of  the  Great  Liberator.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone moving  the  fleets  of  all  the  great  Powers,  and  turning 
Europe  upside  down,  to  transfer  a  few  thousand  semi- savages 
in  Eastern  Europe  from  one  barbarous  ruler  to  another,  while 
close  beside  him,  entirely  unheeded,  was  growing  up  this 

1  Frecmarfs  Journal,  October  25,  1880. 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE  393 

gigantic  Irish  crisis,  is  one  of  the  most  comic  and  most  in- 
structive pictures  in  the  government  of  Ireland  by  British 
statesmanship. 

And  how  was  it  with  the  Chief  Secretary  ?  From  this 
period  forward  Mr.  Forster  disappears  from  history  as  an 
advocate  of  reform,  and  becomes  the  chief,  the  fiercest,  and 
the  main  champion  of  coercion.  As  the  days  went  on, 
instead  of  resignation  came  symptoms  of  the  most  stringent 
resolution  to  carry  out  the  unjust  law  to  its  bitterest  end. 
Extra  police  were  drafted  into  the  counties  of  Mayo  and 
Galway,  thus  raising  the  burden  of  taxation  upon  the  two 
counties  that  had  suffered  the  most  bitterly  and  escaped  the 
most  narrowly  from  the  bitterest  horrors  of  famine.  The 
Orange  writers  in  the  North  of  Ireland  adopted  their  usual 
policy  of  representing  as  a  vast  conspiracy  against  Protestantism 
a  movement  the  unsectarian  character  of  which  was  uni- 
versally acknowledged,  and  sought  to  prevent  an  alliance  of 
Protestant  and  Catholic  farmers  against  their  common  enemy 
by  the  characteristic  effort  to  rouse  the  dying  embers  of 
religious  hate.  There  was  a  hope,  too,  not  merely  that 
union  would  be  prevented,  but  that  collisions  would  be 
provoked  which  might  swell  the  cry  for  coercion.  The  land- 
lord organs,  in  the  meantime,  began  to  cry  out  for  repression  ; 
and  the  London  papers  played  their  characteristic  part  of 
blackening  events  in  Ireland  and  of  exasperating  the  growing 
resentment  between  the  two  countries.  Every  single  outrage, 
down  to  the  very  smallest,  was  laboriously  and  fully  re- 
ported, until  in  the  end  English  public  opinion  was  excited 
to  frenzy,  and  the  comparatively  few  outrages  of  the  period — 
and  they  were  but  few — were  magnified  to  horrible  and 
gigantic  proportions. 

Towards  the  beginning  of  October  the  cry  for  coercion 
had  swollen  to  a  tempest,  but  for  a  moment  it  was  laid  by 
two  remarkable  speeches  from  Mr.  Bright  and  Mr.  Chamber- 
lain. 

I  saw  (said  Mr.  Bright)  the  statement  the  other  day  that  about 
100  of  them  (the  Irish  landlords),  equal  nearly  to  the  number  of  the 
Irish  members,  had  assembled  in  Dublin  and  discussed  the  state  of 
things,  and  they  had  nothing  but  their  old  remedy — force,  the  English 


394  'THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

Government,  armed  police,  increased  military  assistance  and  protec- 
tion, and  it  might  be  measures  of  restriction  and  coercion  which  they 
were  anxious  to  urge  upon  the  Government.  The  question  for  us  to 
ask  ourselves  is,  Is  there  any  remedy  for  this  state  of  things  ?  Force 
is  no  remedy  (loud  cheers).  There  are  times  when  it  may  be  neces- 
sary, and  when  its  employment  may  be  absolutely  unavoidable,  but 
for  my  part  I  should  rather  regard,  and  rather  discuss,  measures  of 
relief  as  measures  of  remedy,  than  measures  of  force,  whose  influence 
is  only  temporary,  and  in  the  long  run  I  believe  is  disastrous.1 

The  effect  of  these  speeches  was  good  and  immediate. 
Ministerial  organs  which,  but  a  few  days  before,  were  calling 
out  for  coercion,  now,  with  perfect  solemnity,  declared  that 
coercion  was  a  perfectly  impossible  and  impracticable  policy. 
But  time  passed,  and  the  storm  again  rose.  A  conflict  then 
arose  within  the  Cabinet  itself.  I  cannot  pretend  to  tell  the 
story  of  this  internal  struggle,  and  I  can  only  repeat  what 
was  the  gossip  of  the  period.  It  was  said  that  Mr.  Chamber- 
lain, Sir  Charles  Dilke,  and  Mr.  Bright  held  out  steadily,  and 
for  a  considerable  time,  against  the  demand  for  coercion 
made  by  Mr.  Forster.  But  Mr.  Forster  put  forward  this 
demand  with  daily  increasing  vehemence.  For  some  days, 
according  to  the  remark  of  the  time,  the  Cabinet  was  within 

o 

short  distance  of  being  broken  up.  Putting  matter  of  prin- 
ciples aside,  it  is  perhaps  hard  to  say  whether  these  three 
statesmen  would  have  better  consulted  their  future  reputation 
and  career  if  they  had  had  at  this  crisis  the  courage  of  their 
convictions.  It  were  better  for  Mr.  Bright  that  his  own 
record  of  many  years  of  friendship  to  Ireland  should  have 
remained  unstained  by  his  venomous  defence  and  heated 
advocacy  of  all  the  worst  instruments  of  coercive  policy  ;  and 
as  his  resignation  was  to  come,  it  were  better  that  it  had 
come  from  the  keenness  of  his  sympathy  with  the  struggling 
people  of  Ireland  than  for  those  of  a  foreign  and  remote  country. 
Mr.  Chamberlain  may  have  qualified  himself  to  reach  more 
quickly  the  great  goal  towards  which  he  is  supposed  to  climb, 
but  he  would  have  had  to-day  a  much  higher  reputation  for 
constant  adhesion  to  principle  if  he  had  stood  by  his  con- 
victions on  this  occasion.  And  for  all  the  Ministers  it  would 

1   Times,  November  17,  1880. 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE  395 

have  been  better  if  they  had  listened  to  their  own  forebodings 
and  steadily  resisted  the  demands  of  Mr.  Forster's  terrors  or 
ferocity,  by  refusing  to  create  in  coercion  that  monstrous 
parent  which  brought  forth  such  unholy  progeny  in  the  crimes 
of  1 88 1,  the  homicidal  fury  of  the  Dynamiters  and  the  utter 
estrangement  between  the  two  nationalities.  The  main  argu- 
ment before  which  the  hesitations  of  the  Ministry  broke  down 
was  the  enormous  increase  which  Mr.  Forster  was  able  to  show 
in  the  outrages  in  October  and  November.  And  the  increase 
which  appeared  in  the  figures  he  laid  before  his  colleagues  was 
enormous  indeed.  By-and-by  these  figures  will  be  examined, 
and  it  will  be  seen  what  the  merits  of  the  case  were  upon 
which  Mr.  Forster  based  his  demands.  For  the  present, 
suffice  it  to  say  that  Mr.  Forster  carried  his  point ;  the 
opponents  of  coercion  resolved  to  remain  in  the  Cabinet,  and 
it  was  announced  that  the  next  session  of  Parliament  would 
open  with  a  proposal  for  the  enactment  of  coercive  legislation. 
Meantime  a  blow  was  made  at  the  leaders  of  the  move- 
ment. On  November  2,  1880,  an  information  was  filed  at 
the  suit  of  the  Right  Hon.  Hugh  Law,  then  the  Attorney- 
General,  against  Mr.  Parnell  and  four  of  his  Parliamentary 
colleagues,  Mr.  T.  D.  Sullivan,  Mr.  Sexton,  Mr.  John  Dillon, 
and  Mr.  Biggar ;  and  also  against  Mr.  Patrick  Egan,  trea- 
surer, and  Mr.  Brennan,  secretary,  of  the  organisation.  In 
the  indictment  were  also  bundled  several  persons  who  held 
subordinate  places  in  the  organisation,  or  were  entirely  un- 
connected with  it. 

There  were  nineteen  counts  in  the  indictment  against  the 
traversers.  The  main  charges  were — conspiring  to  incite 
the  tenantry  not  to  pay  their  rents  ;  deterring  tenants  from 
buying  land  from  which  other  tenants  had  been  evicted  ; 
conspiring  for  the  purpose  of  injuring  the  landlords  ;  and 
forming  combinations  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  out  these 
unlawful  ends.  This,  then,  was  the  proceeding  of  the  Liberal 
Government !  There  is  scarcely  one  of  these  charges  which 
were  not  the  glory  instead  of  the  shame  of  Mr.  Parnell  and 
his  fellow-traversers.  Mr.  Parnell  had  found  the  people  face 
to  face  with  famine  and  groaning  under  the  oppression  of 
centuries.  He  had  brought  them  to  such  assertion  of  their 


396  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

rights,  to  such  a  potent  combination,  that,  instead  of  being 
swept  away,  as  in  all  previous  occurrences,  by  wholesale  hunger 
and  plague  and  eviction,  and  thereafter  reduced  to  deeper 
wretchedness  and  more  hopeless  slavery,  not  one  man  among 
them  died  from  hunger  or  from  disaster,  and  that,  rising  up 
from  their  misery  and  impotence,  they  gradually  reached  the 
position  of  practical  omnipotence  over  their  oppressors.  The 
events  and  calamities  which  seemed  to  drive  the  tenantry  back 
into  the  doom  of  hunger  and  of  servitude  had  brought  to  them 
a  new  birth  of  political  hope  and  power  ;  and  an  hour  of  appa- 
rently darkest  misery  had  been  changed  into  the  dawn  of  a  new 
and  a  better  day.  A  man  of  any  other  nationality  who  had 
accomplished  such  things— if  he  had  been  an  Italian  or  a  Pole ; 
still  more,  at  this  epoch,  if  he  had  been  a  Bulgarian  or  a  Monte- 
negrin—would have  taken  an  imperishable  place  in  the  ador- 
ation of  Englishmen  ;  and  his  reward,  being  an  Irishman,  was 
that  a  Liberal  administration  dragged  him  through  the  mire  of 
a  criminal  court.  The  trial  was  opened  by  a  startling  episode. 
With  their  usual  mistake  in  regarding  things  in  Ireland  as 
necessarily  the  same  as  in  England,  because  called  by  the  same 
names,  the  English  public  were  and  are  accustomed  to  look 
•upon  an  Irish  judge  as  raised  above  the  passions  of  political 
partisanship.  They  were  strangely  shocked  in  the  course  of 
the  preliminary  proceedings  of  the  trial  to  read  a  judgment 
of  the  Chief  Justice  of  the  Queen's  Bench  in  which  the  trial 
was  to  take  place — a  judgment  in  which  the  traversers  were 
denounced  with  vehement  passion.  The  times  had  been  so 
changed  since  the  elevation  of  a  man  like  Judge  Keoghtothe 
Bench,  that  the  Lord  Chief  Justice  found  that  even  the  English 
people  could  not  stomach  such  conduct,  and  he  retired  at  the 
opening  of  the  trial. 

The  trial  was  one  of  the  solemn  mockeries  of  the  time. 
It  was  known  by  the  Crown  that  no  impartial  jury  would 
convict  the  saviour  of  the  nation  of  treason  for  the  nation  ; 
and  after  a  trial  extending  over  twenty  days,  the  jury  were 
discharged  without  agreeing  to  a  verdict,  ten,  according  to 
universal  rumour,  being  in  favour  of  acquittal  and  two  for 
conviction.  Another  event  of  importance  occurred  during 
this  recess.  Shortly  after  his  arrival  in  America  on  his 


THE   LAND   LEAGUE  397 

memorable  mission,  Mr.  Parnell  found  the  services  of  a 
secretary  absolutely  necessary.  He  had  previously  made  the 
acquaintance  of  a  young  Irishman  who  at  that  period  was 
secretary  in  a  London  house  of  business  and  the  London 
correspondent  of  the  '  Nation  '  newspaper.  The  young  man 
had  made  a  strong  impression  upon  the  Irish  leader,  had  gained 
his  confidence,  and  had  taken  part  with  some  others  in  many 
of  the  important  consultations  at  critical  moments.  This,  as 
has  already  been  explained,  was  Mr.  T.  M.  Healy.  To  Mr. 
Healy  Mr.  Parnell's  thoughts  turned  when  he  found  himself 
immersed  in  a  hopeless  sea  of  correspondence.  He  requested 
Mr.  Healy's  presence  in  America  by  telegraph.  On  the  day 
he  received  this  telegram  Mr.  Healy  threw  up  his  situation, 
and  on  that  same  evening  he  was  on  his  way  to  the  vessel 
which  took  him  to  America. 

It  ought  to  be  a  comparatively  easy  task  to  write  a  bio- 
graphy of  Mr.  Healy,  for  English  contemporary  chronicles 
are  not  only  full  of  his  name,  but  absolutely  teem  with  par- 
ticulars of  his  life,  especially  in  its  earliest  years.  Society 
journals  have  on  various  occasions  especially  busied  them- 
selves with  the  member  for  South  Derry,  and,  according  to 
these  veracious  organs,  Mr.  Healy  began  life  in  a  rag-and- 
bone  shop,  and,  after  much  labour,  graduated  into  a  ticket- 
nipper.  In  various  other  journals  there  have  been  equally 
lively  accounts.  Mr.  Healy  has  been  described  as  ignorant 
and  impudent,  as  foolish  and  as  crafty,  as  rolling  in  ill-gotten 
wealth  and  as  buried  in  abysmal  and  disreputable  poverty. 
There  is  no  man  of  any  Parliamentary  party,  in  fact,  of  which 
so  many  portraits  have  been  painted,  and  who  has  had  to 
bear  so  many  of  these  slings  and  arrows  which  the  outrageous 
pens  of  hostile  journalism  can  fling.  A  biography  brought 
down  to  the  limits  of  fact  and  reality  will  necessarily  be  but 
tame  reading  after  history  written  in  a  style  so  striking  and 
so  lurid. 

Timothy  Michael  Healy  was  born  in  Bantry,  county  Cork, 
in  the  year  1855.  Bantry,  as  has  been  seen,  is  also  the  birth- 
place of  the  Sullivans,  and  here  Healy  had  beheld  all  the 
scenes  of  quick  decay  which  have  been  already  described.  He 
had  peculiar  opportunities  indeed  for  becoming  familiar  with 


398  •     THE  PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

the  awful  horrors  of  the  famine,  for  his  father,  at  seventeen 
years  of  age,  had  been  appointed  Clerk  of  the  Union  at 
Bantry,  and  his  occupation  brought  him  into  contact  with  all 
the  dread  realities  of  that  terrible  time.  He  has  told  his  son! 
that  for  the  three  famine  years  he  never  once  saw  a  single  smile. 
Outside  the  abbey  in  which  the  forefathers  of  Healy  and  the 
other  men  of  Bantry  are  buried  are  pits  in  which  many 
hundreds  of  the  victims  of  the  famine  found  a  coffinless 
grave  ;  and  Mr.  Healy  will  tell  you,  with  a  strange  blaze  in 
his  eyes,  that  even  to-day  the  Earl  of  Bantry,  the  lord  of 
the  soil,  will  not  allow  these  few  yards  of  land  to  be  taken 
into  the  graveyard,  preferring  that  they  should  be  trodden 
by  his  cattle.  Reared  in  scenes  like  these,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  Healy,  whose  nature  is  vehement  and  excitable,  should 
have  grown  up  with  a  burning  hatred  of  English  rule  in 
Ireland. 

He  went  to  school  to  the  Christian  Brothers  at  Fermoy  ; 
but  fortune  did  not  permit  him  to  waste  any  unnecessary 
time  in  what  are  called  the  seats  of  learning  ;  for  at  thirteen  he 
had  to  set  out  on  the  difficult  business  of  making  a  livelihood. 
It  is  characteristic  of  his  nature  that,  though  he  has  thus  had 
fewer  opportunities  than  almost  any  other  member  of  the 
House  of  Commons  of  obtaining  education — except  such  as 
his  father,  an  educated  man,  may  have  imparted  to  him  as  a 
child — he  is  really  one  of  the  very  best  informed  men  in  the 
place.  He  is  intimately  acquainted  with  not  only  English 
but  also  with  French  and  with  German  literature,  and  the 
*  rude  barbarian  '  of  the  imagination  of  English  journalists  is 
keenly  alive  to  the  most  delicate  beauties  of  Alfred  de  Musset 
or  Hemrich  Heine,  and  could  give  his  critics  lessons  in  what 
constitutes  literary  merit  and  literary  grace.  Another  of  the 
accomplishments  which  Mr.  Healy  taught  himself  was  Pit- 
man's shorthand  ;  and  shorthand  in  his  case — as  in  that  of 
Justin  McCarthy  and  several  other  of  his  colleagues — was  the 
sword  with  which  he  had  in  life's  beginning  to  open  the  oyster 
of  the  world.  At  sixteen  years  of  age  he  went  to  England 
and  obtained  a  situation  as  a  shorthand  clerk  in  the  office  of 
the  superintendent  of  the  North-Eastern  Railway  at  New- 
castle, which  is  the  foundation  for  that  '  ticket-nipper '  episode 


THE   LAND    LEAGUE 


399 


in  the  biography  of  Society  journalism.  Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
as  those  who  have  ever  visited  it  will  know,  has  a  very  large 
and  a  very  sturdy  Irish  population,  who  take  an  active  part 
in  all  political  movements  that  are  going  on,  and  when  Healy 
went  there  he  found  himself  at  once  surrounded  by  country- 
men who,  if  anything,  held  to  the  National  faith  more  sturdily 
than  their  brethren  at  home.  Probably  he  himself,  if  he  were 
to  trace  the  mental  history  of  his  political  progress,  would 
declare  that  in  his  case,  as  in  that  of  so  many  other  Irishmen, 
it  was  an  English  atmosphere  that  first  gave  form  and  inten- 
sity to  his  political  convictions.  At  all  events,  the  newcomer 
was  not  long  at  Newcastle  when  he  was  a  persistent  and  an 
active  participator  in  all  the  political  strivings  of  his  fellow- 
countrymen,  and  it  speaks  strongly  of  his  force  of  character 
and  their  discrimination  that,  though  yet  but  a  stripling,  he 
was  chosen  for  several  positions  of  authority.  Newcastle  is 
one  of  the  few  towns  in  England  that  can  boast  of  having  a 
society  exclusively  devoted  to  Irish  purposes — a  disgraceful 
confession,  it  may  be  said  in  passing,  for  an  Irishman  resident 
in  England  to  have  to  make — and  of  the  Irish  Literary  In- 
stitute Mr.  Healy  was  for  a  considerable  time  the  secretary. 
He  was  also,  as  far  back  as  1873,  secretary  to  the  local 
Home  Rule  Association.  Of  Mr.  Healy's  habits  in  New- 
castle a  characteristic  account  is  given  by  one  of  his  friends. 
He  lodged  in  the  house  of  an  excellent  Irish  family — known 
to  every  Irish  visitor  to  Newcastle — and  in  the  family  there 
was  a  Celtic  abundance  of  children.  It  will  relieve  many 
friends  of  Mr.  Healy  to  be  informed  that  this  man,  before 
whom  Ministers  tremble,  and  even  potent  officials  grow  pale, 
is  the  delight  and  the  darling  of  children,  whose  foibles, 
tastes,  and  pleasures  he  can  minister  to  with  the  unteachable 
instinct  of  genius.  The  moment  the  young  clerk  put  his  foot 
inside  his  lodgings  there  came  a  shout  of  welcome  from  the 
young  world  upstairs  ;  the  next  minute  he  was  romping  with 
them  all  ;  and,  during  the  whole  period  of  his  stay  within 
doors,  he  was  the  gayest  and  the  youngest  in  the  house.  But 
when  the  time  came  for  starting  into  the  outside  world  of 
Newcastle  and  of  Englishmen,  Healy  at  once  put  on  his  suit 
of  mail ;  his  hat  was  tightened  down  on  his  head,  his  face 


400  .  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

assumed  a  frown  of  a  most  forbidding  aspect,  and  even  his 
teeth  were  set.  And  so  he  went  out  to  encounter  the  enemy. 
We  know  but  very  little  of  each  other  after  all ;  and  pro- 
bably a  good  many  Englishmen  who  saw  only  the  outside 
presentment  of  young  Healy  in  those  days  put  him  own  as 
a  curmudgeon  ;  while,  on  the  other  hand,  keener  and  more 
sympathetic  observers  may  have  smiled  at  the  rugged  sin- 
cerity of  the  young  man's  faith, — for,  after  all,  individual 
Englishmen,  unless  they  be  fools  or  brutes,  are  rarely  un- 
kind or  even  uncivil  to  individual  Irishmen,  and  the  frenzied 
hate  that  Irishmen  have  for  England  is  a  matter  of  amused 
surprise  to  most  Englishmen.  All  the  same,  a  good,  hearty, 
and  frank  hate  of  oppression  is  a  fine  symptom  in  a  boy, 
and  was  the  most  fitting  prologue  to  the  fearless  political 
manhood  of  Mr.  Healy. 

In  March,  1878,  he  removed  to  London,  partly  for  com- 
mercial and  partly  for  journalistic  reasons.  He  is  distantly 
related  to  Mr.  John  Barry,  M.P.  for  Wexford,  and  at  that 
period  Mr.  Barry  was  associated  with  a  large  Scotch  floor- 
cloth factory.  Mr.  Healy  was  employed  as  confidential  clerk 
in  this  firm,  and  in  connection  with  this  part  of  his  career  an 
anecdote  will  not  be  uninstructive.  While  Mr.  Barry  was 
visiting  an  English  provincial  town  in  company  with  one 
of  his  then  partners,  the  conversation  turned  on  Mr.  Healy, 
who  was  taking  a  prominent  part  in  the  discussion  of  the 
Land  Bill.  The  results  of  his  vigilance  are  now  written  in 
imperishable  letters  on  the  land  legislation  of  Ireland  ;  but 
naturally  he  was  represented  to  the  English  public  as  a  mere 
mischievous  imp  who  was  interfering  with  the  beneficent 
designs  of  the  good  man,  Gladstone,  and  comments  upon 
him  were  uncomplimentary.  One  of  his  many  detractors 
asked  Mr.  Barry's  partner  whether  it  was  true  that  Mr.  Healy 
had  at  one  time  been  a  clerk  in  his  office,  and  the  reply,  '  It 
was,'  was  given  as  if  these  two  words  set  the  seal  on  all  Mr. 
Healy's  other  crimes.  '  Yes,'  said  Mr.  Barry,  taking  up  the 
conversation,  '  and  that's  about  the  only  fact  that  will  survive 
about  your  blank  blanked  office  ; '  which  is  so  far  untrue  that 
probably  not  even  the  employment  of  the  author  of  the 
Healy  Clause  will  secure  the  floor-cloth  firm  from  the  waters 
of  oblivion. 


THE   LAND   LEAGUE 


401 


The  second  reason  Mr.  Healy  had  for  emigrating  to 
London  was  that  he  was  asked  to  contribute  a  weekly  letter 
to  the  *  Nation  '  on  Parliamentary  proceedings,  which  had 
just  begun  to  get  lively.  From  this  time  forward  his  face 
accordingly  became  familiar  in  the  lobby  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  He  had  previously  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Mr.  Parnell  and  the  other  prominent  Irish  figures  of  the  last 
Parliament  at  Home  Rule  meetings  and  elsewhere,  and  his 
connection  with  the  Sullivan  family  had  made  him  more  or 
less  familiar  with  the  '  inside '  of  Irish  political  movements. 
He  at  once  threw  all  his  force  on  the  side  of  the  '  active ' 
section  of  the  old  Home  Rule  party,  and  Mr.  Parnell  has 
several  times  remarked  that  it  was  to  Mr.  Healy's  advocacy 
and  explanation  of  his  policy  in  the  columns  of  the  *  Nation  ' 
that  the  active  party  owed  much  of  its  success  in  those  early 
days,  when  its  objects  and  tactics  were  misunderstood  and 
actively  misrepresented.  The  London  correspondence  of  Mr. 
Healy  was,  indeed,  a  rare  journalistic  treat.  In  the  opinion  of 
many,  his  pen  is  even  more  effective  than  his  tongue  :  mor- 
dant, happy  illustration,  trenchant  argument —  all  these  things 
were  to  be  found  in  those  London  letters,  and  are  still 
happily  at  the  service  of  Irish  national  journalism.  The 
style  of  Mr.  Healy  is  founded  palpably  on  that  of  John 
Mitchel,  and  he  has  many  of  the  excellences,  and  a  few  also 
of  the  faults,  of  that  writer ;  but  these  very  faults  only  make 
him  the  more  readable  :  for  liveliness,  after  all,  is  the  first 
attraction  of  journalistic  prose. 

Anticipating  a  little,  Mr.  Healy  had  scarcely  taken  his  place 
in  the  House  when  he  set  to  work,  and  his  first  speech  was  in 
reply  to  the  Marquis  of  Hartington.  It  was  late  at  night 
when  the  young  member  rose ;  the  deputy-leader  of  the 
Ministerialists  had  made  an  effective  address,  and  most  of  Mr. 
Healy's  friends  felt  rather  anxious  as  to  the  result.  Mr.  Healy 
can  now  bear  to  be  told  that  there  were  very  divided  opinions 
as  to  the  merits  of  his  first  appearance.  His  speech  was 
delivered  in  a  hard,  dogged  style,  and  gave  evidence  rather  of 
fierce  conviction  than  of  debating  power.  It  was  some  time, 
indeed,  before  the  House  would  acknowledge  that  there  was 
anything  in  Mr.  Healy ;  and  there  has  scarcely  ever  been  an 

D  D 


402  THE   PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

Irish  member  who  had  in  his  early  days  to  face  the  fire  of 
such  brutal,  mean,  and  cowardly  attack.  Gentlemen  of  the 
Press  professed  to  be  shocked  at  the  intelligence  that  the 
new  member  was  poor,  that  he  actually,  like  themselves, 
wrote  for  a  living,  and  even  the  cut  of  his  clothes  afforded 
proof  of  the  ignobility  of  his  character.  But  Mr.  Healy  took 
no  notice  of  all  this  ribaldry,  except,  perhaps,  to  become 
fiercer  in  his  wrath  and  more  persistent  in  his  activity.  In 
the  nine  weeks'  struggle  against  coercion  he  was,  though 
a  novice,  one  of  the  three  or  four  men  who  did  the  largest 
amount  of  talking,  and  one  has  to  go  to  the  records  of 
Biggar's  best  days  and  Sexton's  longest  speech  to  find  any 
approach  to  the  performances  of  Healy.  When  at  last  the 
Coercion  Bills  were  done  with,  in  1881,  Mr.  Healy  found  more 
profitable  employment  in  discussing  the  details  of  the  Land 
Bill.  While  ninety-nine  out  of  every  hundred  of  the  members 
of  Parliament  were  floundering  in  the  mazes  of  that  extra- 
ordinary measure,  Mr.  Healy  had  found  the  key  of  the 
labyrinth,  and  was  perfectly  familiar  with  its  details.  He 
worked,  as  is  known,  night  and  day  at  the  Bill,  obtained 
several  concessions,  and  finally  succeeded,  under  circumstances 
to  be  presently  described,  in  having  the  Healy  clause  adopted. 
These  various  successes  at  last  made  the  House  begin  to 
change  its  opinion  of  its  latest  recruit.  It  was  observed  that 
Mr.  Gladstone  and  Mr.  Law  used  to  listen  with  the  utmost 
attention  to  anything  Mr.  Healy  had  to  say.  The  Premier 
was  even  one  night  beheld  in  pleasant  converse  with  his 
young  and  unsparing  antagonist,  and  at  once  the  servile  herd 
of  English  journalists  began  to  recognise  Mr.  Healy's  talents. 
The  saying  of  the  time  is  well  known,  that  but  three  men  in 
the  House  of  Commons  knew  the  Land  Bill — Mr.  Gladstone, 
Mr.  Law,  and  Mr.  Healy. 

A  few  words  as  to  Mr.  Healy's  general  characteristics. 
Perhaps  the  most  remarkable  of  all  his  qualities  is  his  rest- 
less industry.  From  the  moment  he  crosses  the  tessellated 
floor  of  the  lobby,  at  about  four  in  the  evening,  till  the  House 
rises,  he  is  literally  never  a  moment  at  rest— excepting  the 
half  hour  or  so  he  spends  at  dinner  in  the  restaurant  within 
the  House.  He  has  almost  as  many  correspondents  as  a 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE  403 

Minister,  and  he  tries  to  answer  nearly  every  letter  on  the 
day  of  its  receipt.  Then  he  takes  an  interest  in,  and  knows 
all  about,  everything  that  is  going  on,  great  or  small,  English, 
or  Irish,  or  Scotch.  With  eyes  ablaze,  he  comes  to  tell  you 
of  some  atrocious  job  that  is  perpetrated  under  sub-section  B 
in  the  schedule  to  a  Scotch  Bill  on  Hypothec,  or  a  Welsh 
measure  on  threshing  machines  ;  and  he  points  out  the 
advantage  to  an  Irish  Bill  for  reforming  the  grand  jury  by  a 
'  block '  he  has  put  against  a  Bill  for  increasing  the  number  ot 
Commissioners  in  Bankruptcy.  The  extent  of  his  knowledge 
of  Parliamentary  measures  is  astonishing  ;  many  bitter  oppo- 
nents in  public  policy  seek  his  aid  in  this  regard  ;  and — tell 
it  not  in  Gath ! — there  have  been  occasions  when  he  has  been 
seen  explaining  in  the  Library  the  mysteries  of  legislation  to 
Mr.  Herbert  Gladstone.  Indeed,  Healy  holds  himself  at  the 
service  of  everybody.  A  puzzled  colleague  comes  to  ask  for 
enlightenment  ;  Healy  has  put  his  ideas  in  the  shape  of  an 
amendment  before  he  has  had  time  to  give  them  full  ex- 
pression. Besides  all  this,  Healy  has  frequently  to  write 
a  column  or  two  for  a  newspaper  in  the  course  of  the  even- 
ing. And  he  is  never  absent  from  the  House  when  anything 
of  importance  is  going  forward.  He  is,  perhaps,  the  only 
man  in  the  House — except  Mr.  Gladstone— who  cannot  bear 
a  moment's  idleness ;  and,  like  the  Premier,  he  is  distinguished 
from  other  members  by  the  fact  that  even  in  the  division 
lobbies  he  is  to  be  seen  utilising  the  precious  moments  by 
writing  at  one  of  the  tables.  The  characteristics  of  his  ora- 
tory are  by  this  time  familiar.  Often,  when  he  stands  up 
first,  he  is  tame,  disjointed,  and  ineffective,  but  he  is  one  of 
the  men  who  gather  strength  and  fire  as  they  go  along  ;  and 
before  he  has  resumed  his  seat,  he  has  said  some  things  that 
have  set  all  the  House  laughing,  and  some  that  have  put  all 
the  House  into  a  rage.  It  is  curious  to  observe  the  effects  his 
speeches  sometimes  have  even  upon  enemies.  There  was  an 
occasion  when  he  was  saying  some  particularly  strong  things 
against  the  Irish  landlords  ;  and  Colonel  King-Harman— 
who  is  nearly  always  ready  to  boil  over  —  at  last  could 
stand  it  no  longer,  and  rose  in  wild  rage  to  call  Mr.  Healy  to 
order.  He  did  not  succeed  in  tripping  up  the  member  for 

D  D  2 


404  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

Monaghan,  and  sat  down  with  a  face  of  wild  discomfiture. 
But  after  a  while  the  savage  breast  of  the  poor  Colonel  was 
subdued  by  the  spell  of  Healy's  tongue,  the  heavy  frown 
lifted  itself  from  his  brows,  and  a  broad  smile  spread  over 
his  whole  face.  It  has  been  noticed  that  his  speeches  have 
begun  to  be  marked  by  a  power  that  was  wanting  to  them 
until  recently.  Finally,  Healy  has  the  defects  of  his  qualities. 
The  ardour  of  his  temperament  and  the  fierceness  of  his  con- 
victions often  tempt  him  to  exaggeration  of  language  and  of 
conduct.  Those  who  play  the  complicated  game  of  politics 
for  such  mighty  stakes  as  a  nation's  fate  and  the  destinies  of 
millions,  ought  to  keep  cool  heads  and  steady  hands.  A 
quick  temper  and  a  sharp  tongue  cause  many  pangs  to  his 
friends,  but  keener  tortures  to  Healy  himself.  He  is  be- 
trayed into  a  rude  expression,  and  then  goes  home  and 
remains  in  sleepless  contrition  throughout  the  night. 

It  was,  of  course,  inevitable  that,  when  the  agitation  broke 
out,  one  of  these  antecedents  and  of  this  temperament  should 
throw  himself  into  the  movement ;  and  to  those  who  now 
know  Mr.  Healy,  it  will  not  be  surprising  to  hear  that  he 
worked  with  fierce  energy  and  often  spoke  with  passionate 
vehemence. 

Passing  through  the  South  of  Ireland,  Mr.  Healy  became 
acquainted  with  the  circumstances  of  a  very  curious  case  — 
the  case  of  Michael  McGrath.  McGrath  had  held  for  years  a 
farm,  but,  the  rent  having  been  raised  from  487.  to  IO5/.,  had  at 
last  to  yield  in  the  struggle,  and  was  evicted.  His  land  was 
*  grabbed  '  by  another  farmer  named  Cornelius — or,  as  he 
was  called  in  the  district,  '  Curley  ' — Mangan,  and  a  decree  of 
ejectment  was  given  against  McGrath  for  the  house  which  had 
been  built  by  his  own  hands  or  by  those  of  his  father.  McGrath 
and  his  family  did  not  tamely  submit  to  the  judgment  of  the 
law.  They  stood  a  siege  for  some  days,  and,  whenever  the 
evicting  party  approached  near  enough,  threw  boiling  water 
upon  them.  The  family  were  watched  so  closely  that  they 
were  unable  even  to  go  out  to  get  a  drink  of  water,  and  at  last 
were  reduced  by  famine  to  capitulation.  But  the  struggle  was 
not  over  when  they  were  turned  out.  McGrath  went  back  to 
his  farm,  and  was  sent  to  gaol.  His  wife  took  possession,  and 


THE    LAND    LEAGUE  405 

was  sent  to  gaol.  His  sister  took  possession,  and  was  sent 
to  gaol.  As  each  member  of  the  family  was  released  he  or 
she  went  back  again,  and  again  they  were  each  in  turn  sent 
to  gaol.  At  last  they  had  to  give  up  the  struggle  for  the  house, 
and  they  then  adopted  an  expedient  which,  perhaps,  could 
only  be  resorted  to  in  Ireland,  of  all  civilised  lands.  McGrath 
got  a  boat  and  turned  it  upside  down,  and  under  this  boat 
lived  himself,  his  wife,  his  sister,  and  his  children.  The 
many  tourists  who  crowd  in  the  summer  season  to  the 
beautiful  regions  of  Glengariff  were  accustomed  to  stop  on 
the  road  between  Glengariff  and  Bantry  to  see  this  curious 
household. 

Mr.  Healy  was  much  struck  with  the  story  of  McGrath, 
and  he  and  Mr.  J.  W.  Walsh,  then  an  organiser  of  the  Land 
League,  paid  a  vist  to  Mangan  to  remonstrate  with  him  on 
the  injustice  he  had  done  to  the  tenant,  whose  property  he 
had  helped  the  landlord  to  rob. 

For  his  action  in  this  matter  Mr.  Healy  was  arrested, 
and  this  was  the  first  prominent  arrest  by  the  new  Chief 
Secretary  of  the  Liberal  Government.  Mr.  Parnell  and 
his  friends  at  once  resolved  to  make  a  return  blow,  and  the 
opportunity  soon  came.  The  lamented  death  of  Mr.  William 
Redmond  left  a  vacancy  for  the  borough  of  Wexford.  Mr. 
Healy  was  immediately  nominated  and  returned  without  even 
the  mention  of  opposition.  But  he  had  not  yet  escaped 
from  Mr.  Forster's  vengeance ;  and  the  circumstances  of  his 
trial  showed  the  length  to  which  the  Government  and  their 
creatures  on  the  Bench  were  ready  to  go.  He  was  charged 
under  one  of  the  Acts  in  the  terrible  code  known  as  the 
White-boy  Acts.  The  Acts  date  from  the  last  century,  and 
the  prisoner  convicted  under  them  is  liable  to  a  lengthened 
term  of  penal  servitude,  and  to  be  once,  twice,  or  thrice, 
publicly  or  privately  whipped,  each  year. 

The  case  came  before  Judge  Fitzgerald,  and  he  joined  the 
prosecuting  counsel  in  exhausting  every  effort  to  procure  a 
conviction.  The  two  prisoners,  Mr.  Healy  and  Mr.  Walsh, 
were,  in  the  first  place,  tried  at  the  winter  assizes,  and  this 
was  in  itself  an  unusual  and  suspicious  occurrence.  The 
winter  assizes  are  intended  for  the  relief  of  prisoners  who, 


4o6  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

being  imprisoned,  would  otherwise  have  to  wait  till  the  spring 
assizes  without  having  their  cases  decided  ;  but  Mr.  Healy 
and  Mr.  Walsh  were  not  imprisoned.  They  were  out  on  bail, 
and  this  was  perhaps  the  first  instance  in  which  bailed  pri- 
soners were  tried  at  these  assizes.  The  disadvantage  to  Mr. 
Healy  and  Mr.  Walsh  was  that  they  were  not  tried  by  a  jury 
of  county  farmers,  many  of  whom  might  be  in  their  favour, 
as  their  crime,  if  any,  had  been  committed  in  defence  of  the 
farmers'  cause.  Then  they  were  tried  as  misdemeanants, 
which  reduced  their  power  of  challenge  to  six  names  ;  and, 
throughout  the  trial,  Judge  Fitzgerald  was  a  far  more  effec- 
tive cross-examiner  on  behalf  of  the  Crown  than  the  prose- 
cuting counsel.  But  in  spite  of  all  these  efforts,  Mr.  Healy 
and  Mr.  Walsh  were  acquitted. 

It  is,  perhaps,  as  well  here  to  tell  the  fate  of  McGrath. 
He  continued  in  his  boat  for  some  years — still  pursued  by  the 
many  agencies  that  are  on  the  side  of  the  landlords  in  Ireland. 
For  instance,  he  was  charged  by  the  county  surveyor  with 
trespassing  on  the  road  on  which  this  boat-house  was  placed, 
and  he  only  escaped  through  the  inexhaustible  ingenuity  of 
Mr.  Maurice  Healy  (Mr.  Healy's  brother).  But  finally, 
through  exposure  to  the  weather,  poor  McGrath  caught 
typhus  fever,  passed  through  the  illness  under  the  boat,  died 
under  it,  and  was  there  waked.  Since  then  neighbours  have 
built  a  small  house  for  his  widow  and  children. 

The  scene  now  changed  from  the  agitation  in  Ireland  and 
from  the  State  Trials  :  and  interest  was  transferred  from  Dub- 
lin to  Westminster.  The  result  of  the  trial  of  Mr.  Parnell  was 
regarded  as  foregone,  and  excited  but  a  languid  interest.  The 
real  centre  of  attraction  was  the  House  of  Commons.  The 
Government  had  pledged  themselves  to  begin  business  ;  the 
Irish  members  at  their  annual  meeting,  held  in  the  City  Hall, 
Dublin,  had,  on  their  side,  pledged  themselves  to  exhaust 
every  effort  in  opposing  coercion.  Everyone  was  anxious  to 
see  the  opening  of  the  portentous  struggle. 


407 


CHAPTER   XL 

THE   COERCION    STRUGGLE. 

PARLIAMENT  met  on  Thursday,  January  6.  Nobody  felt 
certain  as  to  what  would  be  the  fate  of  the  coercion  proposals 
of  the  Government.  There  were  rumours  that  the  Radicals—- 
so  many  of  whom  had  obtained  entrance  to  the  House  through 
the  votes  of  Irish  electors  in  England — would  stand  firm  by 
their  principles,  and  would  resist  the  adoption  of  a  Tory 
policy  by  a  Liberal  Ministry.  The  opinion  was  still  pretty 
general  among  them  that  the  wisest  course  on  the  part  of  the 
Government  would  be  to  introduce  at  once  a  large  measure 
of  land  reform,  and  to  trust  to  its  healing  effects  to  put  down 
the  outbreak  of  crime.  The  terms  of  the  Queen's  Speech  were 
eagerly  scanned,  and  it  was  held  to  be  unsatisfactory  on  both 
the  points  on  which  the  Irish  members  and  the  Radicals 
demanded  satisfaction.  The  statements  with  regard  to  coer- 
cion were  strong,  the  allusions  to  the  coming  Land  Bill 
were  weak.  The  Queen's  Speech  began  its  demand  for 
coercion  by  a  confession  which  was  afterwards  repeated  in 
most  of  the  speeches  from  the  Treasury  bench  ;  that  con- 
fession was  that  crime  in  its  most  serious  form  had  not 
largely  increased.  *  Attempts  upon  life,'  said  the  Queen's 
Speech,  *  have  not  grown  in  the  same  proportions  as  other 
offences.'  The  burden  of  the  charge  was  that  what  was 
called  *  an  extended  system  of  terror  had  been  established  * 
which  had  'paralysed  almost  alike  the  exercise  of  private 
rights  and  the  performance  of  civil  duties.' l  In  other  words, 
the  main  offence  was  that  the  organisation  of  the  tenantry 
throughout  the  country  had  been  made  so  complete  that  the 
landlords  found  it  impossible  any  longer  to  get  the  tenants 
to  play  their  game  by  internecine  struggle  for  the  privilege 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclvii.  p.  6. 


4o8  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

of  paying  a  rack-rent  for  the  land.  If  such  a  conspiracy 
existed,  it  was  a  national  conspiracy  ;  for  membership  of  the 
Land  League  at  this  period  was  practically  coterminous  with 
the  citizenhood  of  four-fifths  of  the  country.  The  statement 
was  frequently  put  forward,  of  course,  that  the  terrorism 
which  existed  was  the  creation  of  a  few  agitators  who  were 
at  the  head  of  the  Land  League  ;  but  this  pretence  was 
gradually  dropped,  and  war  was  declared  against  the  Land 
League  as  a  body — that  was,  against  the  Irish  people  as  a 
nation.  And  the  Government  had  to  put  forward  to  different 
sets  of  opponents  a  somewhat  contradictory  line  of  defence  ; 
they  had  to  defend  themselves  for  having  been  too  early  and 
too  late  in  the  application  for  coercive  powers.  Their  reply 
was  to  appeal  to  previous  precedents,  such  as  those  of  1814, 
1833,  and  1846.  They  pointed  out  that  in  each  of  these 
cases  the  Government  had  tolerated  the  existence  of  a  state 
of  disturbance,  and  of  disturbance  far  more  violent  than  that 
of  1880,  before  they  had  applied  for  repressive  laws.  It  was 
not  till  June  1814  that  coercion  was  proposed  by  Peel.  He 
had  been  in  office  since  August  1812.  He  had  to  confess 
that  disturbance  had  existed  for  two  years.  In  1833,  when 
Lord  Grey  proposed  a  measure  of  coercion,  there  was  disturb- 
ance beside  which  that  of  1880  completely  paled  ;  it  had  existed 
for  the  two  preceding  years  of  1831  and  1832,  and  yet  Sir 
Robert  Peel  did  not  censure  but  praised  the  Government  for 
the  postponement  of  the  demand  for  coercive  measures.  Thus, 
in  the  case  of  the  first  precedent  quoted,  there  had  been  a 
delay  of  nearly  two  years,  and  in  the  second  of  upwards  of 
two  years.  In  the  present  instance  the  Government  were  able 
to  point  only  to  two  months  of  really  increasing  outrage  in 
defence  of  their  measure. 

Mr.  Gladstone,  in  trying  to  defend  the  Government  against 
the  natural  inference  to  be  drawn  from  these  arguments,  said  : 
'  Perhaps  it  may  be  said  I  am  proving  too  much,  and  I  am 
showing  that  we  are  coming  too  soon  to  make  this  demand. 
When  that  charge  is  made  we  shall  be  quite  prepared  to  meet 
it  and  to  argue  the  contrary.' l  But  that  promise  he  has  never 
been  able  to  fulfil. 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclvii.  p.  116. 


THE   COERCION    STRUGGLE  409 

The  allusions  in  the  Prime  Minister's  speech  to  the  coming 
Land  Act  were  even  more  vague  and  unsatisfactory  than 
those  of  the  Queen's  Speech.  He  still  stuck  to  the  Act  of 
1870  as  fairly  successful.1  He  almost  went  out  of  his  way  to 
pass  a  general  eulogium  upon  the  landlords  as  a  class,  and 
he  even  denied  that  there  had  been  any  general  increase  of 
the  rents.2  Probably,  for  strategical  reasons,  he  also  did  his 
best  to  minimise  the  reforms  which  he  was  about  to  propose. 
His  legislation  was  to  be  nothing  better  than  a  development 
of  the  principles  of  the  Act  of  1870.  There  were  some  faint 
promises  of  a  tribunal  for  settling  fair  rent  and  of  free  sale, 
but  he  studiously  avoided  all  mention  of  fixity  of  tenure — 
the  third  of  the  '  three  F's.' 3  This  speech  increased  the 
general  alarm ;  and  when  the  Irish  members  complained  of 
the  insufficiency  of  the  proposals  which  the  Government  had 
shadowed  forth,  they  were  received  with  cheers  from  the 
Radical  benches.4 

The  Irish  members,  as  has  been  seen,  .had  pledged  them- 
selves to  oppose  coercion  by  all  the  forms  of  the  House,  and 
the  plan  they  adopted  was  to  propose  several  amendments 
in  succession.  Mr.  Parnell  started  by  proposing  '  That 
the  peace  and  tranquillity  of  Ireland  cannot  be  promoted  by 
suspending  any  of  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  Irish 
people.'  Mr.  McCarthy  followed  with  an  amendment, '  Humbly 
to  pray  Her  Majesty  to  refrain  from  using  the  naval,  military  ? 
and  constabulary  forces  of  the  Crown  in  enforcing  ejectments 
for  non-payment  of  rent  in  Ireland,  until  the  measures  pro- 
posed to  be  submitted  to  Her  Majesty  with  regard  to  the 
ownership  of  land  in  Ireland  have  been  decided  upon  by 
Parliament.'  And  finally,  Mr.  Dawson  proposed  '  That  in  the 
opinion  of  this  House  it  is  expedient  to  submit  a  measure 
for  the  purpose  of  assimilating  the  Borough  Franchise  in  Ire- 
land to  that  in  England,  as  promised  in  Her  Majesty's  most 
gracious  speech  last  session.' 

1  '  We  are  not  at  all  prepared  to  admit  that  the  Land  Act  has  been  a  failure. ' 
— Hansard,  vol.  cclvii.  p.  119. 

2  « I  do  not  wish  at  all  to  convey  that  it  is  my  impression  that  rents  in  Ireland 
would  in  general  be  described  with  any  fairness  as  being  unfair  or  exorbitant.  '— 
Ib.  p.  1 20. 

8  Ib.  pp.  120-1.  4  Ib.  p,  222. 


410  *THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

The  instructions  to  the  Irish  members  were  that  they 
should  all  speak,  and  speak  as  long  as  they  could,  and  this 
mot  d'ordre  was  strictly  obeyed.  Exception  was  made,  of 
course,  in  the  cases  of  those  who  had  to  propose  subsequent 
amendments.  They  had  to  remain  silent,  for  if  they  spoke 
their  right  of  proposing  an  amendment  would  be  forfeited. 
The  Government  and  the  Opposition  meantime  had  passed 
their  words  of  command  also  ;  it  was  an  order  to  maintain 
absolute  silence,  and  the  order  was  observed  with  unbroken 
obedience.  The  result  was  that,  throughout  the  long  hours 
of  every  evening  and  every  night,  the  Irish  members  had  to 
go  on  addressing  empty  benches,  or  benches  that,  if  filled, 
were  noisy,  insolent,  and  provocative  ;  that  each  member  had 
to  talk  when  he  had  something  and  when  he  had  nothing  to 
say  ;  that  each  had  to  go  through  a  certain  length  of  time, 
weary  or  fresh,  in  good  spirits  or  in  bad.  These  long  days 
and  nights  seemed  for  the  time  to  make  little  impress  upon 
those  who  took  part  in  them,  for  the  conjoint  effect  of 
excitement  and  anger  kept  them  up.  Then  nearly  all  were 
young  in  parliamentary,  and  the  most  prominent  figures  in 
actual,  years  ;  but  Nature's  Nemesis,  though  slow,  is  sure,  and 
many  of  these  members  have  since  learned  that  the  parlia- 
mentary pace,  if  it  is  not  the  pace  which  kills,  is  that  which 
rapidly  ages  even  robust  physiques  and  shatters  even  stout 
nerves. 

This  brought  the  debate  on  the  Queen's  Speech  up  to 
Thursday,  January  20.  By  this  time  the  aspect  of  affairs 
had  undergone  a  considerable  change.  The  exasperation 
caused  by  this  prolonged  resistance  created  a  similar  exaspera- 
tion outside  the  House  of  Commons.  There  was  gradually 
rising  one  of  those  tempests  of  popular  passion  in  England 
which  sweep  down  party  ties.  The  Radicals  grew  fewer 
and  fainter  in  their  opposition,  the  two  English  parties 
practically  coalesced,  and  the  House  was  united  against  the 
little  Irish  phalanx.  The  latter,  on  their  part,  exhausted,  but 
still  angry  and  determined,  resolved  to  fight  on  ;  and  the)', 
too,  were  backed  by  the  rising  temper  of  their  own  country. 
The  Land  League  grew  daily  in  power  and  in  resources  ;  the 
subscriptions  from  America  rose  to  an  amount  that  a  short 


THE   COERCION    STRUGGLE  411 

time  before  would  have  been  considered  fabulous ;  and  on 
January  13  the  treasurer  was  able  to  announce  that  during 
the  week  then  past  there  had  been  received  from  various 
sources  no  less  a  sum  than  4,O5O/.  Eviction  became  daily 
more  impossible,  and,  though  all  the  forces  of  the  Crown  were 
placed  at  the  disposal  of  the  landlords,  the  decree  frequently 
had  to  remain  unfulfilled  in  the  presence  of  crowds  of  peasants 
armed  with  pitchforks,  scythes,  and  pike-heads,  and  ready 
to  perish  in  defence  of  their  homesteads.  These  various 
circumstances  were  also  aggravated  by  the  daily  con- 
tests at  question  time  between  Mr.  Forster  and  the  Irish  re- 
presentatives. Every  act  of  repression  to  which  he  resorted 
lent  fuel  to  the  flame,  and  from  this  period  forward  he 
took  up  an  ultra-Tory  attitude.  He  admitted  no  case  of 
exceptional  hardship,  defended  the  police  through  thick  and 
thin,  and,  in  fact,  adopted  the  policy  of  repression  pure  and 
simple. 

At  last,  on  the  night  of  Thursday,  January  20,  the  third 
Irish  amendment  was  disposed  of.  Immediately  afterwards  a 
new  and  unexpected  amendment  was  proposed  by  Mr.  O'Kelly, 
in  consequence  of  the  suppression  of  public  meetings  by  the 
Chief  Secretary.  This  motion  did  not  occupy  much  time.  Then 
Sir  Wilfrid  Lawson  raised  the  question  of  the  disarmament 
of  the  Basutos,  and,  this  disposed  of,  the  report  on  the  Address 
was  agreed  to  amid  the  general  cheering  of  the  House.  One 
other  event  of  importance  had  occurred  in  the  interval  between 
the  opening  of  Parliament  and  this  stage.  On  January  12 
it  was  announced  that  Mr.  Shaw  had  retired  from  the  Home 
Rule  party.  He  was  followed  by  all  the  other  Home  Rulers 
who  with  him  had  remained  seated  on  the  Liberal  side  of  the 
House ;  and  thus  the  Irish  party  found  themselves  deserted 
by  their  own  friends  in  face  of  the  enemy,  and  in  the  very 
agony  of  pitched  battle. 

On  Monday,  January  24,  Mr.  Forster  introduced  the  first 
Coercion  Bill.  The  speech  which  he  delivered  was  one  of  the 
ablest  that  he  has  ever  addressed  to  the  House.  The  matter 
was  well  arranged,  the  delivery  was  good,  the  fierce  passion 
which  he  felt  lent  effect  to  his  denunciations,  and  the  speech 
was  full  of  those  asides  and  suggestions  which  are  natural  to 


412  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

one  of  the  greatest  masters  of  adroit  suggestiveness  in  the 
House  of  Commons.  Its  effect  upon  the  House  was  very 
great,  and  the  newspapers  of  the  next  morning  proclaimed 
with  unbroken  unanimity  that  he  had  clearly  and  trium- 
phantly proved  the  case  for  coercion.  Yet  some  of  his  posi- 
tions were  startling  enough  to  excite  suspicion.  He  represented 
the  adhesion  to  the  Land  League  as  brought  about,  not  by 
sympathy  with  its  principles,  but  by  terror  of  its  crimes.  The 
tenants  were  for  the  most  part  consumed  by  the  desire  to  pay 
the  rents,  but  were  compelled  by  the  atrocious  League  to  keep 
the  money  in  their  pockets.  The  masses  of  the  population  were 
filled  with  a  love  of  the  landlords — '  the  British  garrison'  —  but 
the  Land  League  terrorism  turned  their  love  into  hate.  In 
fact,  all  Ireland,  according  to  the  picture  of  the  Chief  Secretary, 
had  consented  to  lie  prostrate  and  cowed  before  this  strange 
organisation. 

If  we  examine  the  speech  in  detail  now,  it  will  appear 
rather  the  recollection  of  a  political  nightmare  than  the  re- 
trospect of  a  real  episode  in  the  history  of  two  nations.  It 
seems  incredible  after  this  lapse  of  time  that  the  liberties 
of  a  people  should  be  taken  away  on  a  case  so  hopelessly 
bad,  and  that  an  enlightened  assembly  should  enter  on  a 
course  so  full  of  dread  perils  on  evidence  so  grossly  and  so 
grotesquely  insufficient.  The  speech  of  Mr.  Forster  himself 
is  the  best  testimony  to  the  madness  of  the  time  ;  its  equivo- 
cations and  its  admissions  alike  prove  that  men  must  have 
been  temporarily  insane  to  have  accepted  such  an  indictment 
against  a  nation  as  satisfactory.  Let  me  examine  rapidly  the 
grounds  on  which  Mr.  Forster  demanded  Coercion. 

Mr.  Forster's  first  position  was  that  the  total  of  crime  was 
enormous  and  unprecedented  ;  and  this  he  proceeded  to 
prove  by  stating  that  the  total  number  of  outrages  in  the 
year  1880  was  2,590,  and  that  this  was  the  greatest  total  of 
crime  ever  recorded  from  the  date  when  agrarian  crimes  were 
first  distinctly  tabulated — which  was  another  way  of  stating 
that  the  crime  of  1880  was  the  largest  of  any  year  on 
record. 

I  have  (he  said)  given  a  return  of  the  total  number  of  agrarian 


THE   COERCION    STRUGGLE  413 

outrages  in  1880,  which  shows  that  the  total  number  was  2,590.  We 
have  a  separation  of  the  returns  of  agrarian  from  other  crimes  in 
Ireland  since  the  year  1844,  but  not  before,  and  the  highest  year 
during  that  period  was  the  first  year  of  the  great  famine — namely, 
1845.  In  that  year  the  outrages  numbered  1,920.  Consequently 
last  year  they  were  35  per  cent,  more  than  they  have  ever  before 
been  recorded  to  be.1 

This  statement  of  the  case,  if  true,  gave  a  strong — almost 
an  unanswerable — argument  in  favour  of  Coercion.  But  the 
statement  was  entirely  untrue.  In  the  first  place  Mr.  Forster 
had  to  reduce  his  big  total  of  2,590  down  to  1,253,  f°r  trie- 
balance  of  1,337  were  threatening  letters.  If  the  House  had 
been  in  a  reasonable  temper  this  announcement  would  have 
been  so  startling  as  to  make  it  suspicious  of  the  whole  case 
of  Mr.  Forster ;  for,  of  course,  when  Mr.  Forster  spoke  to  his 
colleagues  of  the  appalling  total  of  2,590  crimes,  what  they 
would  infer  was  that  he  was  talking  of  crimes  actually  perpe- 
trated, not  of  crimes  intended  or  threatened. 

Mr.  Forster  diverted  attention  from  this  astonishing  reve- 
lation of  the  weakness  of  his  case  by  appearing  to  frankly 
admit  it  ;  and  by  still  contending  that  even  if  this  distinction 
were  made  between  actual  offences  committed  and  mere 
threatening  letters,  still  the  year  1880  stood  out  in  bold  and 
bad  relief  from  all  the  other  years  of  Irish  crime  in  the  ex- 
tent of  its  criminality. 

In  1880  (he  said),  exclusive  of  threatening  letters,  the  number  of 
agrarian  outrages  was  1,253  ;  'm  l845>  tneY  were  95° — that  is  to  say, 
that  they  were  32  per  cent,  higher  last  year  than  they  were  in  the 
largest  year  of  which  we  have  any  special  record.  Hon.  members 
are  well  aware  that  there  is  now  a  great  difference  in  the  population. 
The  population  of  Ireland  is  now  some  5,000,000,  compared  with 
8,000,000  in  1845.  Therefore,  taking  into  account  the  difference  of 
population,  the  actual  agrarian  outrages  of  last  year,  exclusive  of 
threatening  letters,  were  more  than  double  what  they  were  in  the 
worst  year  we  have  any  record  of —namely,  the  year  1845.2 

Here  again  we  have  a  statement  which  is  entirely  untrue, 
to  the  extent  that  it  gives  a  grossly — it  may  be  said,  a  gigan- 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclvii.  p.  1209.  2  Ib. 


414  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

tically — false  representation  of  the  state  of  affairs.  It  is 
entirely  untrue  to  declare  that  the  year  1880  was  more 
criminal  than  any  year  from  1844.  It  would  be  far  more 
correct  to  say  that  the  year  1880  was  a  year  startlingly  free 
from  crime  in  comparison  with  several  of  the  years  from  1 844. 
The  criminal  character  of  a  year  should  assuredly  be  tested, 
not  so  much  by  the  number  of  its  crimes,  as  by  their 
character.  A  year  that  had  a  hundred  cases  of  petty  larceny 
and  no  murder,  would  certainly  be  less  criminal  than  a  year 
that  had  fifty-two  crimes,  of  which  fifty  were  petty  larceny 
and  two  were  wilful  murder,  though  there  was  a  difference  of 
forty-eight  between  the  criminal  totals  of  the  one  year  and 
the  other.  A  test  of  the  criminality  of  these  different  years 
would  be  a  comparison  of  such  serious  crimes  as  homicides, 
whether  murder  or  manslaughter.  Let  us  apply  this  test  to 
1880  and  other  years,  and  this  is  what  we  find  :— 

HOMICIDES,   DESCRIBED  AS  AGRARIAN. 

1844  .         .     18  1850        .  .     18 

1845  .18  1851        .         .         .12 

1846  .         .16  1869        .         .         .10 

1847  •  •     l6  l879  •         •     I0 
1849        .                  .     15               1880        ...       8 

It  will  be  seen  from  this  table  that,  in  serious  agrarian 
crime,  the  year  1880  bore  a  most  favourable  contrast,  not 
merely  with  many  years  since  1844,  but  also  with  the  very 
year  which  preceded  it. 

Let  us  try  another  form  of  comparison  between  the 
criminality  of  1880  and  that  of  preceding  years.  The  distinc- 
tion made  between  agrarian  and  other  outrages  would  seem 
to  have  been  very  lax  in  the  early  years  of  the  statistical 
records.  For  instance,  in  the  year  1847  the  total  outrages  in 
Ireland  are  set  down  as  2,986,  and  of  these  but  620  are  placed 
to  the  credit  of  agrarian  outrages.  This  must,  of  course,  be  in- 
accurate ;  for  1847,  as  has  been  seen,  was  a  year  of  agrarian 
upheaval,  and,  instead  of  the  proportion  of  crime  between 
agrarian  and  non-agrarian  being  fairly  represented  by  620  on 
the  one  side,  and  the  balance  of  the  total  of  2,986  on  the 
other,  it  would  seem  far  more  likely  that  the  greater  number 


THE   COERCION    STRUGGLE 


of  the  2,986  crimes  were  agrarian  crimes — the  crimes  of 
starving  and  desperate  peasants  righting  for  their  patch  of 
land  and  their  meals  of  potatoes.  In  any  case,  let  us  now 
compare  the  total  crime  of  1880  with  that  of  other  years  : — 


Year 
1844 

1845 
1846 

1847 
1848 


Total  of 

Outrages 

Year 

6,327 

1849 

8,088 

1850 

12,374 

1851 

20,986 

1880 

14,080 

Total  of 
Outrages 

14,908 
10,639 

9^44 
5,609 


This  table  will  show  a  startling  difference  between  the 
crime  of  1880  and  that  of  several  of  the  years  by  which  it 
was  preceded. 

Finally,  let  us  compare  the  total  of  murders  of  all  kinds 
in  1880  with  those  of  preceding  years  : — 


Year 
l844 

1845 
1846 

1847 
1848 
1849 
1850 


Homicides 

Year 

146 

1851 

139 

1852 

170 

1853 

212 

1870 

171 

1871 

203 

1880 

139 

Homicides 

*57 

140 

119 

77 

7i 

69 


But  the  strongest  evidence  of  the  comparative  freedom 
from  serious  crime  of  1880  in  comparison  with  other  years  is 
found  in  the  speech  of  Mr.  Forster  himself.  It  has  already 
been  seen  that  this  immunity  from  serious  crime  was  acknow- 
ledged in  the  Queen's  Speech.  In  the  same  way,  Mr.  Forster 
not  only  admitted  it,  but  seemed  to  boast  of  it,  and,  by  some 
strange  form  of  reasoning,  to  regard  it  as  the  strongest  argu- 
ment in  favour  of  his  position,  that  the  year  1880  was 
horribly  and  exceptionally  criminal. 

'  Some  honourable  members,'  he  said,  *  have  said  that 
after  all  there  have  been  but  few  cases  of  murder,  or  attempt 
at  murder' — and  when  this  statement  was  received,  as  was 
natural,  with  cheers  from  the  Irish  members,  the  Chief 
Secretary  made  the  reply — *  but  they  were  not  necessary  ; ' * 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclvii.  p.  1213. 


4i6  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

and  this  answer  was  considered  so  satisfactory  by  the  House 
generally.,  that  the  Ministerialists  and  Conservatives  cheered 
in  accord. 

Later  on  the  Marquis  of  Hartington  made  exactly  the 
same  admission.  'I  find/  he  said,  'that  during  the  year 
1879,  when  Ireland  was  ruled  by  a  beneficent  Conservative 
Government,  there  were  ten  agrarian  homicides  or  murders, 
and  in  the  year  which  has  just  elapsed  there  were  seven.' l 

I  have  now,  from  the  words  of  the  Queen's  Speech,  from 
the  words  of  Mr.  Forster,  from  the  words  of  Lord  Hartington, 
and  from  the  figures,  proved  that  in  serious  crime  1880, 
instead  of  being  exceptionally  criminal,  was,  compared  with 
years  of  disturbances,  exceptionally  innocent  ;  and  that  dis- 
poses of  Mr.  Forster's  first  plea  for  Coercion. 

The  second  plea  for  Coercion  was  the  enormous  increase 
of  crime  in  the  latter  half  of  the  year  1880,  and  especially  in 
the  last  three  months  of  that  year. 

I  am  also  (said  Mr.  Forster)  obliged  to  tell  the  House  that 
there  has  been  a  great  increase  in  the  last  three  months  of  last 
year.  Exclusive  of  threatening  letters,  719  outrages  out  of  the  total 
of  1,253  f°r  tne  entire  year,  occurred  in  the  three  months  of  October, 
November,  and  December  ;  and,  including  threatening  letters,  1,696 
out  of  2,590.  That  is  to  say,  two-thirds  of  the  total  agrarian  outrages 
occurred  within  the  last  quarter  of  the  year,  and  58  per  cent,  of  these, 
exclusive  of  threatening  letters.  It  is  also  right  to  say  that  the 
number  which  occurred  in  the  month  of  December  was  much  more 
than  it  is  for  October  and  November  put  together.2 

1  The  whole  passage  is  worth  quoting  as  showing  how  indignant  a  Minis- 
terialist could  he  at  the  idea  that  1880 was  worse  than  1879  :— 'The  hon.  member 
went  on  to  pronounce  one  of  the  most  solemn  indictments  against  Her  Majesty's 
Government  which  it  has  ever  been  my  duty  to  listen  to.  I  cannot  follow  him 
through  the  whole  of  that  weighty  indictment ;  but  I  must  say  that,  guilty  as  I 
felt  myself  when  I  heard  his  solemn  tones,  and  when  I  learnt  from  him  that,  do 
what  we  could,  we  could  never  wash  away  from  our  guilty  hands  and  our  guilty 
souls  the  stains  of  the  innocent  bio  3d  which  had  been  shed  through  our  criminal 
negligence,  it  was  some  consolation  to  me  to  turn  from  the  solemn  eloquence 
of  the  hon.  member,  and  to  refer  to  the  prosaic  facts  which  lay  before  me.  I  find 
that,  during  the  year  1879,  when  Ireland  was  ruled  by  a  beneficent  Conservative 
Government,  there  were  ten  agrarian  homicides  or  murders,  and  that  in  the  year 
which  has  just  elapsed  there  were  seven  ;  I  cannot,  therefore,  feel  the  blood  of 
these  murdered  men  rest  so  heavily  on  my  soul  when  I  think  that  even  the  efficient 
Government  that  preceded  us  was  not  able  to  protect  life  to  so  great  an  extent 
as  it  has  been  in  our  power  to  do.'— Hansard,  vol.  cclvii.  p.  524. 

-  Ib.  cclvii.  pp.  1209-10. 


417 


»THE  COERCION  STRUGGLE 
This  was  an  argument  which  carried  great  weight  with 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  unquestionably  it  was  the  argu- 
ment that  finally  induced  Mr.  Forster's  colleagues  to  accept 
Coercion.  It  is  not  denied  that  Coercion  was  not  resolved 
upon  till  towards  the  close  of  the  year,  and  it  is  perfectly 
evident  from  the  speeches  of  Ministers  that  what  finally 
turned  their  hesitating  minds  in  favour  of  Mr.  Forster's 
demands  were  the  figures  he  was  able  to  show  of  steady  and 
gigantic  increase  of  crime.  And  the  figures  certainly  were 
sufficiently  startling.  The  total  for  September  1880  was  167  ; 
in  October  the  total  had  risen  to  268,  in  November  to  561, 
and  in  December  it  had  reached  867. 

With  this  part  of  Mr.  Forster's  case  I  will  not  deal  just 
for  the  moment.  The  outrages  for  the  year  1880  were 
published  in  Blue  Books,  giving  the  crimes  for  each  month  of 
the  year  separately.  The  first  Blue  Book  was  not  produced 
at  the  opening  of  the  Session,  nor  for  several  days  after  ;  it 
was  produced  at  a  time  when  the  case  of  Ireland  had  already 
been  decided.  The  story  of  the  Blue  Books  I  will  tell  a  few 
paragraphs  later  on  ;  and  then  it  will  be  seen  that  the  case 
for  the  increase  of  crime  in  the  latter  half  of  1880,  and  in  the 
months  of  October,  November,  and  December,  was  just  as 
much  without  real  foundation,  and  was  as  much  a  tissue  of 
misrepresentation  and  false  pretences,  as  the  representation 
that  1880  was  remarkable  for  the  depth  of  its  criminality 
above  all  years  from  1844.  With  the  year  1880  considerably 
under  the  total  of  the  previous  year's  murders,  and  immensely 
under  the  total  of  that  of  many  other  years,  by  what  means 
did  Mr.  Forster  succeed  in  fooling  a  body  of  intelligent  men 
into  the  belief  that  Ireland  was,  in  that  year,  a  perfect  pande- 
monium of  hideous  and  revolting  crime  ? 

Mr.  Forster's  chief  device  was  to  select  some  special  and 
isolated  case  of  horrible  ill-usage,  and  represent  this  as  of 
constant  occurrence,  and  typical  of  the  general  condition  of 
the  country.  For  instance,  in  one  of  his  effective  asides  he 
described  *  carding  '  : — 

I  do  not  know  (he  said)  whether  honourable  members  know 
what  carding  means,  and  perhaps  I  had  better  explain  it.  An  iron 

E  E 


4i8  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

comb  used  for  agricultural  purposes  is  applied  to  a  man's  naked 
body,  and  the  torture  must  be  very  great.1 

The  sentence  in  which  he  introduces  this  description  will 
sufficiently  prove  that  he  meant  to  indicate  that  '  carding ' 
was  an  extremely  common  occurrence. 

A  disguised  party  of  men  (he  said),  consisting  of  ten,  twenty,  or 
even  more,  come  to  a  lone  farmhouse  at  night,  drag  the  farmer  out 
of  bed,  beat  him,  and  card  him. 

And  he  then  went  on  after  his  dexterous  aside  :— 

Then  the  man  is  threatened  and  warned  against  disobeying  the 
orders  of  the  organisation  any  longer.  Shots  are  fired  over  his  head, 
and  sometimes  at  him.  Let  hon.  members  think  of  the  terrors  thus 
produced.  Imagine  a  small  farmer  in  a  desolate  situation— his 
house  on  the  side  of  some  hill,  or  near  some  bog.  There  is  no  help 
near  ;  no  police-station  is  at  hand  ;  and  the  man  himself  is  powerless 
to  resist.  Naturally,  he  submits  to  this  cruel  tyranny  and  intimida- 
tion. And  no  wonder,  when  such  things  as  these  are  taking  place, 
that  the  hon.  member  for  Tipperary  (Mr.  Dillon)  is  right,  and  that 
the  Land  League  reigns  supreme.2 

What  will  be  thought  of  the  candour  of  the  Chief  Secre- 
tary in  making  such  a  representation  when  he  said  that  in  the 
Blue  Book  containing  the  crimes  from  February,  1880,  to 
October,  1880,  there  is,  in  the  whole  total  of  1,048  crimes, 
just  one  single  instance  of '  carding  ? ' 

But  in  the  absence  of  murders,  and  with  but  one  case  of 
'  carding,'  Mr.  Forster  had  plenty  of  stories  with  regard  to  the 
mutilation  of  cattle.  The  Chief  Secretary  relied  on  the  fact 
that  the  story  of  such  offences  would  have  extraordinary 
effect  upon  an  audience  of  Englishmen.  It  was  curious  that 
these  stories  seemed  far  more  deeply  to  impress  the  House  of 
Commons  than  the  stories  of  outrages  upon  human  beings  ; 
and  that  while  Irish  members,  detailing  cases  in  which  men  and 
women  and  children  were  turned  out  of  their  homes  amidst 
every  surrounding  circumstance  of  horror  and  cruelty,  preached 
either  to  empty  benches  or  were  constantly  and  rudely  inter- 
rupted, the  story  of  the  houghing  of  one  heifer  or  the  pluck- 
ing of  hair  from  a  horse's  tail  was  listened  to  with  hushed  at- 
tention and  produced  exclamations  of  violent  horror.  There 

1  Hansard,  cclvii.  p.  1212.  2  /^ 


THE    COERCION    STRUGGLE  419 

is  no  doubt  that  a  few  outrages  upon  animals  had  almost 
as  much  influence  in  obtaining  Coercion  for  Mr.  Forster 
as  the  worst  case  of  crime  he  could  bring  against  persons. 

When  Mr.  Forster  had  exhausted  his  harrowing  descrip- 
tion of  these  outrages  upon  animals,  what  was  the  dread  total 
he  had  to  bring  of  such  cases  before  Parliament  ?  '  In  1880,' 
he  said,  '  the  number  of  cases  of  maiming  cattle  amounted 
to  IOI.M  With  similar  reasonableness  Sir  Charles  Dilke,  in 
a  speech  made  during  the  recess,  had  suggested  the  neces- 
sity of  Coercion  from  the  fact  that  in  ten  months  of  1880 
there  had  been  47  cases  of  maiming  or  killing  animals.  Forty- 
seven  outrages  on  animals  in  ten  months,  101  in  twelve — a 
small  total  to  destroy  a  nation's  liberties  !  In  1876  there  were 
in  England  2,468  convictions  for  cruelty  to  animals  ;  in  1877, 
2,726;  in  1878,  3,533.  In  the  very  month  of  November  of 
1880,  the  Society  for  the  Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals 
was  able  to  advertise  323  convictions,  or  more  than  three 
times  the  number  of  cases  in  all  Ireland  for  the  entire  year. 
If  the  liberties  of  England  were  at  the  mercy  of  an  ignorant 
and  hostile  opinion  in  Ireland,  one  can  well  imagine  how,  by 
a  judicious  manipulation  of  these  statistics,  the  habits  of  the 
English  people  might  be  falsely  illustrated  to  the  Irish  people 
as  those  of  a  nation  of  savages  and  monsters. 

There  was  one  device  finally.  It  was  the  foundation  of 
the  whole  case  of  the  Chief  Secretary  that  his  legislation  was 
directed,  not  against  the  Land  League  as  an  organisation, 
nor  against  the  masses  of  the  Irish  people.  If  he  had  put 
the  case  thus  nakedly,  the  House  might  have  paused  before 
placing  the  liberties  of  a  nation  at  the  disposal  of  the  Lord- 
Lieutenant.  His  whole  cue  was  that  the  Act  was  directed 
against  the  few  criminals  who  with  their  own  hands  perpe- 
trated these  outrages  :  the  Bills,  in  fact,  were  in  defence  of  the 
nation  generally  against  a  few  criminals  among  its  popula- 
tion. Answering  the  argument  that  they  ought  to  have  in- 
troduced Land  Reform  before  Coercion,  the  Chief  Secretary 
said  :  '  My  answer  is  that  the  Irish  people  cannot  wait  for  pro- 
tection, and  they  ought  not  to  wait  for  protection/2  The 
criminals,  on  the  other  hand,  were  'village  tyrants,'  the 

1  Hansard,  cclvii.  p.  1211.  2  Iv.  p.  1235. 

. 


420  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

'  mauvais  sujets '  of  their  neighbourhood  ;  the  '  contemptible, 
dissolute  ruffian  and  blackguard,'  who  was  '  shunned  by  every 
respectable  man.' ] 

This  miserable  minority,  too,  of  persons  who  committed 
outrages  were  well  known  to  the  police. 

It  is  not  (said  Mr.  Forster)  that  the  police  do  not  know  who  these 
village  tyrants  are.  The  police  know  perfectly  well  who  plan  and 
perpetrate  these  outrages,  and  the  perpetrators  are  perfectly  aware  of 
the  fact  that  they  are  known.2 

The  moment  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  was  suspended,  these 
men  would  either  fly  the  country,  or  be  arrested. 

The  men  who  plan  and  execute  these  outrages  desist  from  fear  of 
being  arrested.  They  are  aware  that  the  police  know  who  they  are. 
My  belief  is  that  if  you  pass  this  Act  you  will  cause  an  immense 
diminution  of  crime.3 

It  will  be  seen  later  on  in  what  shameful  difference  was  the 
application  of  the  Coercion  Act  and  the  limitation  by  the 
Chief  Secretary  of  the  persons  to  whom  it  should  apply,  and 
in  what  grotesque  and  horrible  contrast  were  his  expectations 
of  what  the  fruits  of  Coercion  would  be  and  what  the  fruits 
of  Coercion  really  were. 

On  the  night  following  the  introduction  of  the  Coercion 
Bill — Tuesday,  January  25 — was  enacted  the  first  of  the 
more  passionate  scenes  by  which  this  strange  and  fierce 
session  was  characterised.  Mr.  Gladstone  moved  that  the 
Coercion  Bill  should  have  precedence  of  all  other  business. 
This  roused  Mr.  Biggar,  who,  in  opposing  the  motion,  came 
into  collision  with  the  Chair,  and  was  named  and  suspended. 
The  Irish  members  regarded  the  action  of  the  Speaker  as 
unjust,  and  at  once  proceeded  to  offer  violent  opposition  to 
further  progress.  Mr.  Healy  immediately  moved  the  ad- 
journment of  the  debate,  but  the  Government  refused  to 
accede  to  the  motion,  and  after  some  discussion  the  Irish 
members  proceeded  once  more  to  argue  upon  Mr.  Gladstone's 
original  proposal.  This  went  quietly  until  about  half-past 
twelve,  and  then  it  was  proposed  that  the  adjournment 
should  take  place.  But  by  this  time  passion  had  become  so 

1   Hansard,  cclvii.  pp.  1226  7.  -  Ib.  p.  1226.  3  Ib.  p.  1231. 


THE    COERCION    STRUGGLE  421 

violently  excited  that  the  Prime  Minister  was  carried  away, 
and  declared  that  the  House  would  not  be  permitted  to 
adjourn  until  his  motion  of  precedence  was  carried.  This 
led  to  a  wrangle  which  was  prolonged  through  the  night. 
The  Irish  members  were  left  to  continue  the  discussion  almost 
alone.  The  Government  had  divided  their  forces  into  relays, 
and  the  long  hours  of  the  night  passed  wearily  enough,  and 
it  was  not  until  the  morning  that  a  slight  support  was  given 
by  the  arrival  of  some  of  the  members  who  had  gone  home 
to  bed.  The  sitting  was  continued  in  this  form  until 
two  o'clock  on  Wednesday,  when  the  House  adjourned  till 
Thursday. 

Meantime  a  very  important  event  had  happened.  The 
returns  on  which  Mr.  Forster  had  founded  his  claim  for 
Coercion  were  distributed  among  members  for  the  first  time 
on  the  morning  of  the  day  on  which  he  asked  leave  to  in- 
troduce his  Coercion  Bill.  On  these  returns  the  Irish  mem- 
bers at  once  fastened.  They  endeavoured  to  attract  the 
attention  of  the  Government  and  of  the  House  to  some  of 
their  startling  revelations  ;  but,  in  the  course  of  such  a  fight 
as  that  of  the  twenty-two  hours'  sitting,  allusions  to  any  such 
subject  passed  unheeded  ;  and  by  this  time  the  House  had 
generally  made  up  its  mind  to  pay  no  attention  whatever 
to  any  representations  from  the  Irish  benches.  But  when 
the  discussion  of  Mr.  Forster's  proposal  was  resumed  on 
Thursday  evening,  January  27,  the  analysis  of  the  Returns 
was  in  the  hands  of  an  able  and  skilful  assailant  in  the 
person  of  Mr.  Henry  Labouchere.  He  went  through  the 
Returns  and  exposed  astonishing  cases  of  multiplication  and 
exaggeration.  Mr.  Labouchere  picked  out  some  of  the  most 
amusing  ;  and  his  speech  was  a  great  success. 

In  truth,  the  Returns  were  so  full  of  incredible  absurdities, 
that  several  speakers  freely  resorted  to  them,  certain  that 
quotations  from  them  would  be  sure  to  enliven  the  dulness  of 
the  House.  This  is  the  very  first  outrage  that  stood  in  the 
Book  :  — 

A  portion  of  the  front  wall  of  an  old  unoccupied  thatched  cabin 
was  maliciously  thrown  down,  in  consequence  of  which  the  roof 
fell  in. 


422  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

The  8th  outrage  reported  for  the  West  Riding  of  Co. 
Cork  was  thus  described  :— 

A  wooden  gate  broken  up  with  stones,  and  half  an  iron  gate 
taken  away,  the  property  of  W.  S.  Bateman. 

Here  is  the  4th  outrage  reported  for  the  North  Riding 
of  Co.  Tipperary  :— 

A  small  wooden  gate,  the  property  of  Lord  Dunally,  was  taken 
off  its  hinges,  brought  into  a  field,  and  broken  with  large  stones. 

The  4 ist  outrage  reported  in  the  County  Cavan  is  as 
follows  : — 

Several  panes  of  glass  were  maliciously  broken  in  the  windows  of 
an  unoccupied  house. 

Here  is  the  6th  outrage  reported  for  the  County 
Derry  : — 

Three  perches  of  a  wall  maliciously  thrown  down. 

Here  is  the  zooth  outrage  in  the  West  Riding  of  Co. 
Galway  :— 

A  barrel  of  coal  tar  maliciously  spilled. 

These  discoveries  of  the  true  character  of  the  outrages 
by  which  Mr.  Forster  had  been  able  to  draw  his  lurid  picture 
of  the  state  of  Ireland  were  sufficiently  startling  ;  but  a  more 
bewildering  and  a  more  disturbing  discovery  was  the  manner 
in  which  one  offence  was  manufactured  into  several.  Some- 
times the  one  outrage  was  made  to  do  duty  for  two  or  more. 
Thus  in  page  120  of  the  Return  an  outrage  in  the  Co.  Mayo 
is  described  as  follows  :  — 

A  party  of  men  came  to  Tighe's  house  at  night,  and  warned  him 
that  they  would  kill  him  unless  he  gave  up  a  meadow  which  he 
bought. 

Same  party  before  leaving  broke  Tighe's  window. 

This  occurrence  figures  as  two  outrages.  As  *  intimida- 
tion '  it  is  outrage  No.  104;  as  injury  to  property,  it  is  out- 
rage No.  105. 

In  the  same  page  of  the  Return  there  are  these  two  sepa- 
rate records  : — 


THE    COERCION    STRUGGLE 


423 


Mr.  Walsh  was  fired  at  when  returning  from  his  lodge  Irom 
Achill  Sound,  by  one  of  four  men  whom  he  passed  on  the  road  ;  he 
was  not  injured. 

And:— 

Mr.  Walsh,  when  fired  at,  at  once  dismounted  from  his  horse, 
and,  while  doing  so,  was  struck  with  a  stick  and  knocked  down. 

This  occurrence  also  figures  as  two  outrages.  As  '  firing 
at  the  person,'  it  is  outrage  No.  no;  as  *  aggravated  assault/ 
it  is  outrage  No.  in. 

Sometimes  the  same  occurrence  is  manufactured  into  five 
crimes,  thus  : — 


No.  of 
Outrage 

Names  of  injured 
persons 

Offence  : 
Description 

Short  details 

87 

Thomas  R.  Talbot 

Taking       and 

Mr.    Talbot   took   a   farm    from 

and  caretakers. 

holding  for- 

which James  Murphy  (accused) 

cible  posses- 

was evicted,  and  placed  care- 

sion. 

takers  in  charge  of  it.     About 

88 

Ditto. 

Administering 

2  A.  M.  an  armed  party  forcibly 

unlawful  oaths. 

reinstated  Murphy  and  family, 

89 

Ditto. 

Assault  on  care- 

swore him  not  to  leave  it,  as- 

takers. 

saulted  caretakers,  set  fire  to 

90 

Ditto. 

Incendiary  fire. 

about  6o/.  worth  of  property, 

9i 

Ditto. 

Robbery  of  arms. 

and   robbed  the  caretakers  of 

their  arms  —  three  loaded  guns.  ! 

A  similar  case  is  that  of  the  Horgans,  in  page  50  of 
the  Return,  outrages  No.  137,  138,  and  139,  for  the  West 
Riding  of  the  Co.  Galway,  are  thus  given  : — 

No.  137. — A  number  of  men  entered  Coyne's  dwelling-house  by 
force. 

No.  138. — The  above  party  dragged  Coyne  out  of  bed  and 
assaulted  him. 

No.  139. — Same  time  and  place,  cautioned  Coyne  not  to  pay  his 
rent ;  they  broke  the  glass  in  a  window,  spilled  a  churn  of  milk,  and 
demanded  the  original  of  a  process  which  he  had  served  on  an 
under-tenant  for  rent,  which  was  the  motive  for  these  outrages. 

And  finally,  that  grotesque  absurdity  might  reach  its  cli- 
max, an  assault  by  a  man  is  represented  as  one  outrage,  and 
then  the  assault  on  him  by  those  whom  he  attacked  figures 
as  another.  Here  is  the  entry  :— 

1   Return,  Agrarian  Crime  (Ireland),  part  i.  p.  54- 


424 


THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


No.  of 
Outrage 

Date 

Names  of  injured 
persons 

Nature  of 
offence 

Short  details 

36 

April  3 

Margaret  Lydon 
Patt  Whalen 
Bridget  Whalen 

Aggravated 
assault. 

A  dispute  arose  about  the  pos- 
session of  a  small  plot  of 
ground.  John  Lydon  as- 
saulted the  injured  persons. 

37 

April  3 

John  Lydon 

Ditto. 

Lydon  was  assaulted  at  the 
time  of  the  above  dispute 
about  the  land.  ' 

When  the  Returns  for  November  and  December  were 
published,  a  considerable  time  afterwards,  there  were  the  same 
extraordinary  phenomena. 

In  page  1 5  of  the  Return  for  November,  the  9th  crime 
is  : — 

At  an  early  hour  four  locks  were  maliciously  broken  off  gates  at 
James  Fenton's  farm. 

In  page  39,  the  7th  crime  and  outrage  in  the  County  of 
Tipperary  is  thus  described  :— 

On  the  night  of  the  2oth  November  the  windows  of  the  injured 
man's  house  were  broken,  and  the  tops  knocked  off  two  corn  ricks. 

The  9th  outrage  on  the  same  page  is  thus  described  :— 

Four  panes  of  glass  were  broken  in  the  injured  man's  house  on 
the  night  of  the  2oth  November. 

In  the  Return  for  December,  in  page  9,  the  second  crime 
and  outrage  in  the  King's  County  is  in  these  words  : — 

The  head  of  a  large  cock  of  hay,  the  property  of  Mr.  Gaynor,  was 
knocked  off,  causing  considerable  damage  to  the  hay  ;  also  an  iron 
gate  was  carried  away  and  his  cattle  driven  into  the  road. 

In  page  43  the  83rd  agrarian  outrage  was  described  :— 
Three  beehives  and  some  shrubs  were  maliciously  injured. 

It  would  be  rash  to  say  that,  if  these  false  Returns  had  been 
presented  to  Parliament  at  an  early  period  of  the  session, 
they  would  have  largely  increased  the  number  of  opponents 
to  Coercion  ;  but  if,  at  the  time  of  the  struggle  within  the 
bosom  of  the  Cabinet  itself  for  and  against  the  adoption  of 

1  Return,  Agrarian  Crime  (Ireland),  part.  i.  p.  54. 


THE    COERCION    STRUGGLE 


425 


repressive  measures,  Mr.  Forster  had  not  confined  himself 
to  laying  before  his  colleagues  the  simple  total  of  increased 
crimes,  it  seems  hardly  open  to  doubt  that  the  opponents  of 
Coercion  would  have  been  able  to  continue  their  resistance. 
That  he  submitted  only  the  totals  to  his  colleagues  was 
clearly  manifest.  During  the  delivery  of  Mr.  Labouchere's 
speech  the  face  of  the  Prime  Minister  grew  clouded  and 
disturbed.  He  asked  for  the  Returns  just  published,  and 
was  observed  to  scan  them  eagerly  and  anxiously.  The 
time  had  passed  at  which  he  could  allow  his  mind  to  be  any 
longer  influenced  by  the  arguments  drawn  from  them  or  from 
anything  else  ;  but  the  utter  weakness  of  the  defence  of  these 
Returns,  which  he  afterwards  made,  is  sufficient  evidence  of  the 
convincing  indictment  which  he  would  have  been  able  to  have 
made  from  the  same  materials  if  Coercion  had  been  the  pro- 
posal, not  of  himself,  but  of  a  Tory  Ministry,  and  had  no  other 
evidence  than  these  Returns  been  available. 

And  yet  it  was  not  too  late  to  turn  back.  The  meeting 
of  Parliament  had  produced  an  extraordinary  change  in  Ire- 
land. Disturbance  had  greatly  diminished,  and  the  first 
weeks  of  January  were  weeks  almost  unstained  by  crime. 

The  number  of  outrages  for  December  were  867,  while  in 
January  they  had  fallen  to  448.  In  the  first  fourteen  days  of 
the  month  of  January  there  was  not  one  murder,  not  one  case 
of  manslaughter,  not  one  of  cutting  or  maiming  ;  there  were 
but  four  cases  of  attacking  houses,  two  of  firing  at  persons, 
but  one  assault  endangering  life,  and  one  aggravated  assault.1 

But  here  again,  if  the  Premier  had  been  inclined  to  retrace 
the  false  and  fatal  steps  which  he  had  already  taken,  Mr. 
Forster  was  by  his  side  with  an  argument,  loudly  applauded 
at  the  time,  but  strangely  insufficient  to  the  judgment  of  to- 
day. 

Already  we  see  signs  of  a  diminution  in  the  number  of  outrages. 
I  trust  the  House  will  not  for  a  moment  suppose  that  because  of 
the  lull  ....  this  power  should  not  be  given  to  Her  Majesty's 
Government.  They  could  not  by  any  possibility  make  a  greater 
mistake.  Hesitation  would  now  make  matters  worse  than  ever.  If 
.  .  .  after  saying  that  we  will  take  power  to  arrest  the  men  who 

1  Mr.  Labouchere  :  Hansard,  vol.  cclvii.  p.  1517. 


426  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

commit  these  crimes,  the  House  is  misled  and  gives  up  its  intention, 
we  shall  be  considered  as  having  uttered  an  empty  threat,  and  these 
criminals  will  be  more  powerful  in  Ireland  than  they  ever  have  been 
before.1 

The  debate  went  on,  but  no  attempt  whatever  was  made 
on  any  side  to  answer  the  damaging  criticism  of  the  Returns. 
Mr.  Bright  had  no  better  reply  to  make  to  Mr.  Labouchere's 
destructive  analysis  than  to  say  that  he  had  delivered  a  speech 
*  that  was  in  many  parts  interesting  and  in  some  parts  amus- 
ing ; ' a  and  the  comment  of  the  '  Daily  News '  was  that  the 
member  for  Northampton  had  given  some  '  few  but  amusing 
instances  of  the  misapplication  of  the  term  "  agrarian  out- 
rages "  from  the  Returns  presented  to  the  House.'  The  main 
contribution  of  the  member  for  Birmingham  to  the  debate 
was  that  a  Coercion  Act  '  becomes  a  tyranny  in  the  hands  of 
tyrants.'  But,  he  went  on,  '  in  the  hands  of  men  who  are 
liberal  and  just  it  may  be  a  law  of  protection  and  of  great 
mercy  to  Ireland  ; ' 3  and  when  this  strange  claim  met  with 
indignant  denials  from  the  Irish  benches  he  challenged  his 
interrupters  to  deny  that  his  colleagues,  including  Mr.  Forster, 
were  men  who  had  '  devoted  their  lives  to  the  cause  of  free- 
dom.'4 

Mr.  Gladstone  spoke  on  the  third  night  of  the  debate.  He 
made  no  real  attempt  to  justify  the  Returns.  He  even  made 
the  astonishing  confession  that  he  had  not  '  any  particular 
acquaintance  '  with  them.  This  confession  proves  clearly  that 
Mr.  Forster  had  obtained  Coercion  by  false  pretences  to  his 
colleagues  ;  it  shows  that  he  made  them  acquainted  with  the 
rough  totals  of  the  outrages  only,  and  never  even  hinted  that 
these  totals  had  been  made  up  by  the  multiplication  of  one 
offence  into  seven  ;  and  that  outrages  covered  offences  so 
heinous  as  the  removal  of  three  yards  of  a  wall  or  a  few 
pounds  of  hay.  The  hopelessness  of  the  case  for  the  Returns 
was  best  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  the  Prime  Minister  had 
to  resort  to  the  extraordinary  assertion  that  the  Blue  Book 
had  rather  understated  than  overstated  the  outrages,  because, 
there  being  twenty-one  persons  charged  out  of  a  large  crowd 

1   Hansard,  vol.  cclvii.  p.  1231.     z  Jb.  p.  1562.     8  Ib.  p.  1563.     4  Ib.  p.  1564. 


THE    COERCION    STRUGGLE  427 

who  assaulted  the  police,  the  outrages  were  put  down  as  one 
instead  of  as  twenty-one.1  But  the  most  remarkable  part  of 
Mr.  Gladstone's  speech  was  that  in  which  he  defined  the 
persons  against  whom  the  proposed  legislation  would  be  em- 
ployed. He  denied,  in  the  most  strenuous  manner,  that  the 
Bill  was  aimed  against  the  Land  League,  or  '  any  other  person 
or  body  of  persons  in  Ireland.'  '  We  aim  by  this  Bill,  and 
aim  solely,  at  the  perpetrators  and  abettors  of  outrage.' 2 

I  stand  (said  Mr.  Gladstone)  upon  the  words  of  the  legislation 
we  propose,  and  I  say  that  they  do  not  in  the  slightest  degree  justify 
the  suspicion  that  we  are  interfering  with  the  liberty  of  discussion.  I 
will  go  further.  We  are  not  attempting  to  interfere  with  the  license 
of  discussion.  There  is  no  interference  here  with  the  liberty  to  pro- 
pose the  most  subversive  and  revolutionary  changes.  There  is  no 
interference  here  with  the  right  of  associating  in  the  furtherance  of 
those  changes,  provided  the  furtherance  is  by  peaceful  means. 
There  is  no  interference  here  with  whatever  right  hon.  gentlemen  may 
think  they  possess  to  recommend,  and  to  bring  about,  not  only 
changes  of  the  law,  but  in  certain  cases  breaches  of  positive  contract.  I 
am  not  stating  these  things  as  a  matter  of  boast,  I  am  stating  them 
as  matter  of  fact.  I  must  say  it  appears  to  me  that  it  is  a  very 
liberal  state  of  law  which  permits  hon.  gentlemen  to  meet  together  to 
break  a  contract  into  which  they  have  entered? 

It  is  well  to  quote  these  words,  because  it  was  on  descrip- 
tions like  this  and  statements  like  this  that  the  consent  of 
Parliament  was  granted  to  the  enactment  of  coercive  legisla- 
tion. The  words  have,  indeed,  a  strange  sound  now,  in  face 
of  our  knowledge  of  the  purpose  to  which  the  Coercion  Act 
was  applied. 

The  speech  of  the  Prime  Minister  created  extraordinary 
enthusiasm.  It  was  interrupted  at  almost  every  point  by  the 
combined  cheers  of  Liberals  and  Conservatives.  The  news- 
papers complimented  him  upon  the  unimpaired  vigour  of 
which  it  was  the  proof.  Mr.  Parnell,  attempting  once  or  twice 
to  correct  the  allusions  to  himself,  was  swept  to  his  seat 

1  '  Twenty-one  persons  were  charged  out  of  a  large  crowd  who  assaulted  the 
police.  Their  cases  were  various,  and  were  dealt  with  variously.  Some  were 
detained  only  for  a  short  time,  some  went  before  the  magistrates,  some  to  the 
assizes.  The  whole  of  that  is  put  down  as  one  outrage.'— Hansard,  vol.  cclvii. 
p.  1685.  *  Ib.  p.  1686.  3  Ib.  1686-7. 


428  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

amid  the  thunderstorm  of  shouts  by  which  he  was  received. 
After  a  while,  the  House  had  reason  to  repent  of  its  pre- 
cipitancy. 

The  Prime  Minister  was  contending  that  Mr.  Parnell  had 
called  upon  the  people  to  boycott  any  man  who  took  a  farm 
from  which  another  had  been  evicted  ;  and  Mr.  Parnell,  over 
and  over  again,  insisted  that  he  had  qualified  the  sentiment 
by  using  the  words  '  unjustly  evicted.'  Mr.  Gladstone  per- 
sisted in  the  declaration  that  the  qualifying  word  was  not 
inserted,  and  while  the  dispute  was  going  on  the  Chief 
Secretary  placed  in  the  Prime  Minister's  hands  the  copy  of  a 
speech.  The  Premier  looked  at  the  document,  and  then  read 
out  these  words,  '  That  if  a  man  occupies  a  farm  from  which 
any  man  has  been  evicted  ' — and  then  he  added,  at  the  very 
top  of  his  voice,  and  with  every  auxiliary  of  look  and 
gesture — 'from  whatever  cause  ; '  and  the  House,  regarding 
the  member  for  Cork  as  finally  pinned,  cheered  itself  hoarse. 
'  Unjustly  evicted,'  interrupted  Mr.  Parnell.  But  Mr.  Glad- 
stone would  not  listen  to  him.  *  These  are  the  words/  he 
exclaimed,  '  sworn  to  in  court ;  they  were  not  shaken  in  court, 
and  if  there  had  been  an  attempt  to  shake  them  those  who 
attempted  to  shake  them  would  have  been  subjected  to  cross- 
examination.'  l  And  having  thus  worked  himself  into  a  still 
hotter  passion  by  his  own  language,  after  his  characteristic 
fashion,  Mr.  Gladstone  went  on  amid  the  still  increasing  cheers : 
4  These  are  the  words  which  are  so  declared  to  have  been  used, 
and  irrespective  of  the  cause,  the  circumstances,  the  character  of 
the  proceeding,  it  is  characterised  as  a  detestable  crime,  deserv- 
ing of  complete  isolation  from  all  human  kind,  for  any  man 
to  enter  upon  a  farm  from  which  another  man,  for  whatever 
reason,  has  been  evicted.'  And  then  he  went  on  to  quote 
another  passage  from  a  speech  which  he  declared  Mr.  Parnell 
had  delivered  in  Galway  :  '  Let  no  man  take  a  farm,  no  matter 
what  has  been  the  cause—  let  no  man  take  a  farm  from  which 
a  man  has  been  evicted  ;  let  him  be  looked  upon  as  a  leper 
whenever  you  meet  him  in  the  street' 2  Again  Mr.  Parnell 
endeavoured  to  interfere,  but  once  more  the  House  rose  at 
him  ;  and  the  Speaker,  making  himself  the  interpreter  of  the 

1  Hansard,  cclvii.  pp.  1^92-3.  2  //;.  pp.  1693-4. 


THE    COERCION    STRUGGLE 


429 


general  passion,  severely  called  him  to  order.  Thus  the 
Prime  Minister  was  supposed  to  have  completely  proved  his 
case  under  one  of  the  most  important  heads  of  the  indictment. 
But  a  few  days  afterwards  Mr.  Forster  had  to  write  a  letter 
of  apology  to  Mr.  Parnell,  and  was  compelled  to  acknowledge 
that  the  speech  which  he  had  put  into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Glad- 
stone as  having  been  delivered  by  Mr.  Parnell  was  in  reality 
the  speech  of  another  person  altogether.  This  is  a  fair 
specimen  of  the  intelligent  temper  in  which  the  Coercion 
debates  were  conducted. 

One  of  the  most  painful  and  even  disgusting  experiences 
of  the  Coercion  struggle  was  the  manner  in  which,  in  the  face 
of  public  passion  in  England  and  the  appeals  of  the  Ministers, 
the  Radicals  deserted  their  pledges  to  Ireland.  After  some 
days  of  hesitation  at  the  beginning  of  the  Parliament,  they 
almost  one  and  all  fled,  and  their  speeches  in  defence  of  their 
change  of  attitude  perhaps  made  their  action  the  more  dis- 
gusting, by  the  Pharisaic  declarations  of  sympathy  with 
Ireland. 

No  man  (says  Serjeant  Simon)  will  doubt  then,  I  hope,  my 
sympathy  with  the  Irish  people  and  with  their  just  claims,  or  the 
sincerity  of  my  feelings  when  I  say  that  my  position  at  this  moment 
is  one  of  the  deepest  sorrow  to  me.  But  (went  on  the  Radical 
member  for  Dewsbury),  painful  as  it  is,  I  have  a  solemn  duty  before 
me,1  and  acccordingly,  with  the  deepest  regret,  I  feel  bound  to 
support  Her  Majesty's  Government.2 

Mr.  William  Fowler  '  acknowledged  that  the  history  of 
Ireland  had  been  a  sad  and  a  gloomy  history,  mainly  owing 
to  the  cruelties  of  the  English  Parliament  in  past  centuries 
.  .  .  but  it  was  not  the  present  Parliament  that  was  to 
blame,  but  generations  long  passed  away.' 3  And  accord- 
ingly Mr.  Fowler,  '  having  entire  confidence  in  Her  Majesty's 
Government,  should  give  his  vote  in  support  of  the  motion  of 
the  right  hon.  gentleman.'4  Mr.  W.  H.  Leatham  *  could  bear 
testimony  to  the  warm  expressions  of  sympathy  which  existed 
in  South  Yorkshire  to  Ireland,  but  he  could  not  help  feel- 

1  Hansard,  cclvii.  p.  1528.  -  Ib.  p.  1536. 

3  Ib.  p.  1576.  4  Ib,   pp.  1579-1580. 


430  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

ing  that  the  Government  had  shown  the  greatest  forbearance, 
for  the  law  must  be  maintained.' l  Accordingly  Mr.  Leatham 
'  should,  however  reluctantly,  as  regarded  the  Coercion  Bill, 
support  the  Government' 2  And  finally  Mr.  Broadhurst,  the 
representative  of  those  masses  in  whose  friendship  to  Ireland 
Irishmen  were  asked  to  believe,  declared  with  regard  to 
the  opposition  to  the  Coercion  Bill,  '  There  was  hardly  a  heart 
in  that  locality  that  was  not  with  it ;  but  unfortunately,  this 
was  an  occasion  when  hearts  would  be  in  one  lobby  and 
heads  in  another.' 3  (  During  the  last  six  years,'  went  on  the 
working  man's  member,  '  no  practical  attempt  whatever  had 
been  made  to  deal  with  the  wrongs  of  the  long-suffering 
people  of  Ireland  ' 4  .  .  .  but,  nevertheless,  '  relying  upon  states- 
men who  had  never  yet  failed,  he  confidently  upon  this  occa- 
sion placed  faith  in  their  promises  of  justice,'  and,  therefore, 
'  he  should  unquestionably  support  the  measure  for  the  in- 
troduction of  which  leave  had  been  asked.' 5 

The  debate  was  resumed  on  Monday,  January  31.  The 
sitting  began  in  considerable  excitement.  The  text  of  the  Co- 
ercion Bill  had  been  by  some  accident  prematurely  published  ; 
there  was  a  rumour  of  the  letter  of  apology  that  had  been  sent 
to  Mr.  Parnell,  and  altogether  the  House  presented  an  appear- 
ance of  gathering  trouble  and  electric  expectation.  There  was, 
too,  an  expectation  that  the  Government  were  determined  to 
force  the  first  stage  of  the  Bill  through  that  night.  Mr.  Glad- 
stone had  come  down  early,  looking  at  once  fierce  and  worn. 
The  Return  of  the  outrages  for  November — which,  it  will  be  re- 
membered, was  part  of  the  material  by  which  Mr.  Forster  ought 
to  have  induced  his  colleagues  to  adopt  the  policy  of  coercion 
— was  still  unpublished,  and  Mr.  Parnell  naturally  asked 
whether  the  second  reading  of  the  Bill  would  be  taken  before 
the  House  was  put  in  possession  and  had  time  to  study  these 
new  Returns.  The  reply  of  the  Premier  was  that  they  in- 
tended to  proceed  with  the  Bill  from  day  to  day  ;  that  the 
second  reading  would  be  taken  immediately  after  the  stage 
of  introduction,  and  that  that  stage  would,  he  hoped,  be  voted 
by  the  House  in  the  course  of  that  sitting.  The  Prime 

1   Hansard,  cclvii.  p.  1672.  2  Ib.  3  Ib.  p.  1784. 

1  Ib.  1785.  3  Ib. 


THE   COERCION    STRUGGLE  43I 

Minister  made  this  announcement  with  that  pride  which  apes 
humility  ;  he  threw  the  statement  off,  as  it  were,  carelessly ; 
but  there  was  a  portentous  underswell  in  his  voice  which 
showed  the  supreme  importance  he  attached  to  it.  The 
Liberals,  of  course,  understood  the  mot  dordre  of  the  speech, 
and  loudly  cheered  ;  the  Conservatives,  equally  exasperated 
against  the  Irish,  and  equally  delighted  at  the  show  of  vigour 
by  the  Government,  shouted  their  applause,  and  the  small 
Parnellite  band,  quite  as  quick  as  anybody  else  to  see  the  dire 
significance  of  the  Premier's  announcement,  set  up  a  cry  not 
as  loud  but  quite  as  defiant  as  any  that  had  come  from  either 
of  the  other  parties. 

The  debate  resumed  its  course  with  apparent  placidity. 
The  House  was  almost  empty  during  the  whole  evening, 
and,  with  the  exception  of  Mr.  Russell,  there  was  no  speaker 
of  any  particular  importance  throughout.  It  was  not  until 
one  o'clock  that  the  contest  began.  At  that  hour  the 
usual  motion  for  adjournment  was  made.  The  reply  of  the 
Prime  Minister  was  laconic  and  emphatic.  '  I  beg  to  say,' 
he  answered,  '  on  the  part  of  the  Government,  that  we  pro- 
pose to  resist  that  motion.'  J  The  strange  calm  that  had 
reigned  over  the  House  during  the  evening  was  now  broken. 
Passion  was  let  loose,  and  active  steps  were  taken  on  both 
sides  for  hot  and  sharp  encounter.  The  Ministerialists  on 
their  side  had  begun  their  preparations  for  the  coming 
contest  at  an  early  hour.  About  half-past  ten  there  began 
to  be  a  gradual  melting  away  of  the  House,  and  there  were 
left  no  more  than  half  a  score  of  the  dullest  and  drowsiest, 
the  most  reticent  and  most  docile  members  of  the  Ministerial 
party.  Of  the  men  thus  told  off  to  remain  through  the  sit- 
ting, the  majority  left  the  House  and  were  lost  to  observation 
in  the  various  departments  of  the  building  ;  those  who  re- 
mained in  their  seats  belonged,  for  the  most  part,  to  the 
younger  members  of  the  party,  passed  the  night  in  a  merry 
mood,  cracking  jokes  of  varying  degrees  of  taste  on  the 
speeches  of  the  Irish  members,  and  occasionally  paying  a 
visit  either  to  the  dining-rooms  or  the  bars  to  recruit  the 
nature  which,  in  persons  of  their  age  and  type,  becomes  so 

1   Hansard,  cclvii.  p.  1809. 


432  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

frequently  exhausted.  The  Irish  members  now  found  that 
they  had  a  task  of  considerable  difficulty,  for  their  numbers 
were  so  small  that  they  could  not  resort  to  the  system  of 
relays  which  had  been  employed  by  the  Government.  But 
they  settled  down  steadily  to  their  work,  and  followed  each 
other  in  the  empty  House  in  monotonous  succession.  During 
the  first  night  the  proceedings  were  not  ill-humoured  on  either 
side.  Mr.  Biggar  was  grotesquely  humorous  after  his  fashion, 
and  the  few  English  members  in  the  House  sympathised  with 
his  mood.  When  he  declared  that  the  Irish  members  were 
accused  of  wasting  time,  there  came  from  English  members 
a  deprecatory  '  No,  no,'  whereupon  the  member  for  Cavan 
beamed  on  the  House  and  the  House  beamed  back  upon  the 
member  for  Cavan. 

The  struggle  continued  all  through  Tuesday,  Dr.  Lyon 
Playfair  taking  the  place  of  the  Speaker  when  the  latter  be- 
came exhausted.  The  Irish  members  were  constantly  called 
to  order,  and  the  one  voice  raised  during  this  sitting  in  their 
favour  was  that  of  Mr.  T.  C.  Thompson,  who  declared  that 
Parliament  was  not  ruled  by  physical  force,  and  that  the 
band  of  members  on  the  other  side  were  justified  in  contend- 
ing as  they  had  done  for  the  liberties  of  their  country. 
Throughout  the  discussion  there  were  constant  allusions  to  the 
new  volume  of  Returns  that  had  just  been  produced  by  Mr. 
Forster,  these  being  found  to  contain  the  same  extraordinary 
multiplication  of  offences  as  the  October  volume.  But  by 
this  time  Returns  and  everything  were  forgotten,  and  the  Irish 
members  were  allowed  to  carry  on  the  debate  unassisted  by 
a  single  speech  in  reply. 

About  eleven  o'clock  on  Tuesday  night  an  appeal  was 
made  by  Sir  Richard  Cross,  on  the  part  of  the  Conservatives, 
to  the  Speaker  to  put  in  use  the  rule  against  wilful  obstruc- 
tion. The  Speaker  did  not  think  the  time  had  come  for 
putting  this  rule  into  operation,  but  at  the  same  time  hinted 
very  plainly  that  in  his  view  there  was  very  strong  evidence 
of '  combination  for  the  purpose  of  wilful  and  persistent  ob- 
struction.' This  was  a  new  reading  of  the  rule  passed  against 
obstruction.  That  rule,  as  hitherto  understood,  was  intended 
for  application  against  an  individual  member  alone  ;  but  the 


THE   COERCION    STRUGGLE  433 

statement  of  the  Speaker  suggested  that  it  might  be  employed 
against  several  members  at  a  time.  After  giving  this  ruling, 
Mr.  Brand  retired  from  the  Chair,  and  Dr.  Lyon  Playfair 
again  took  his  place.  For  a  while  the  point  as  to  '  obstruc- 
tion '  was  dropped,  but  soon  Sir  Stafford  Northcote  came 
forward,  and  again  urged  the  Chair  to  deal  summarily  with 
the  Irish  members.  Mr.  Childers  accepted  the  view  of  Sir 
Stafford  Northcote,  and  declared  that  if  the  Deputy- Speaker 
should  take  action  against  the  offenders  he  would  have  the 
hearty  support  of  the  Government.  But  Dr.  Playfair  still 
refused  to  take  action  ;  and  when,  finally,  an  appeal  was  made 
to  him  by  Sir  Stafford  Northcote  to  name  Mr.  Parnell,  and  he 
still  refused  to  act,  Sir  Stafford  and  the  Conservative  party 
left  the  House  in  a  body.  The  night  was  marked  by  some 
scenes  of  passion.  Between  Mr.  Milbank  and  Mr.  Biggar 
there  was  a  fierce  exchange  of  personalities.  Mr.  Biggar 
was  accused  by  Mr.  Milbank — but  it  appeared  afterwards 
unjustly — of  describing  him  as  a  fool  ;  and  Mr.  Milbank  had 
to  confess  to  applying  the  epithet  '  damned  scoundrel '  to 
the  member  for  Cavan. 

The  Irish  members  now  changed  their  course,  and,  aban- 
doning any  further  motions  for  adjournment,  proceeded  to 
debate  the  main  question — which  was  an  amendment  on  the 
part  of  Dr.  Lyons  in  opposition  to  Mr.  Forster's  demand  for 
leave  to  introduce  the  Coercion  Bill.  Each  member  spoke  at 
the  greatest  length  that  either  his  physical  or  his  mental  re- 
sources would  permit.  Under  this  change  the  House  became 
transformed  ;  the  heat  and  excitement  of  a  crowded  Chamber 
gave  place  to  the  languor,  silence,  and  calm  consistent  with  a 
House  of  but  eight  or  nine  members,  most  of  them  either 
fast  asleep  or  in  broken  slumber.  The  visitors,  whose  at- 
tendance throughout  the  scene  had  been  marvellously 
regular,  broke  down  under  disappointment  of  the  hope  of 
further  excitement ;  the  Ladies'  Gallery  became  absolutely 
deserted,  there  were  vacancies  even  in  the  Strangers'  Gallery, 
which  had  up  to  this  remained  crowded,  and  but  one  or 
two  persons  remained  in  the  gallery  for  distinguished  stran- 
gers. The  mournful  silence  of  the  Chamber  was  broken 
only  by  the  voice  of  the  Irish  member  and  the  snore  of  a 

F  F 


434  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

sleepy  member.  It  was  something  of  a  relief  to  the  dread 
quiet  when  Sir  William  Harcourt  now  and  then  carried  on  a 
low  but  audible  conversation  with  some  of  his  colleagues.  It 
was  on  this  morning  that  Mr.  Sexton  delivered  the  second  of 
the  remarkable  speeches  by  which  he  was  at  last  forcing  him- 
self into  the  position  of  one  of  the  most  adroit  and  most 
eloquent  orators  of  the  House.  He  spoke  from  a  quarter  to 
five  until  twenty  minutes  to  eight.  This  speech,  delivered  to 
an  audience  of  seven  or  eight  people,  nearly  every  one  of  them 
in  a  state  of  complete  or  partial  slumber,  was  complete  in 
every  one  of  its  sentences,  had  every  idea  well  worked  out, 
every  word  happily  chosen.  Mr.  Shaw-Lefevre,  one  of  the 
few  representatives  of  the  Ministry  who  remained  on  the 
Treasury  Bench  throughout  the  night,  afterwards  declared 
that  he  had  listened  to  every  word  that  Mr.  Sexton  had 
uttered,  and  that  there  was  not  throughout  it  all  a  superfluous 
syllable. 

Meantime  other  Irish  members  were  preparing  to  follow, 
and  to  continue  the  struggle  as  long  as  their  physical  strength 
would  hold  out  Some  of  them  had  taken  broken  snatches 
of  sleep  while  one  of  their  comrades  was  speaking,  and  at  this 
time  were  sluicing  off  in  the  lavatories  around  the  House 
the  fatigues  of  the  night  Inside  and  outside  the  House  a 
state  of  electrical  excitement  prevailed  that  can  only  be 
appreciated  by  those  who  passed  through  these  scenes. 
There  were  affrighting  whispers  of  what  might  be  done  by 
savage  mobs  of  Englishmen  on  the  one  side,  by  Irish  des- 
peradoes on  the  other.  Some  of  the  Irish  members  had  been 
subjected  to  a  certain  amount  of  inconvenience  as  they  walked 
home  in  the  early  hours  of  the  morning.  No  one,  in  fact, 
knew  what  was  going  to  happen,  but  everybody  had  a  vague 
feeling  that  something  was  about  to  occur,  and  something  of 
a  startling  character.  Inside  the  House  there  was  a  vague 
suspicion  of  an  impending  catastrophe.  An  English  member 
informed  Mr.  Sexton,  when  the  member  for  Sligo,  after  his 
speech,  dragged  himself  down  to  the  smoking-room,  that 
'something'  would  take  place  at  nine  o'clock. 

Mr.  Leamy  followed  Mr.  Sexton,  and  about  a  quarter  to 
nine  Mr.  Biggar  stood  up.     Meantime  there  were  many  signs 


THE   COERCION    STRUGGLE  435 

that  the  dreaded  *  something  '  was  about  to  take  place.     As 
if  by  some  mysterious  and  occult  influence,  the  House  filled 
with  extraordinary  rapidity.     As  the  clock  approached  the 
hour  of  nine,  Dr.  (now  Sir  Lyon)  Playfair  began  to  look  very 
anxious   and   expectant.     Mr.    Gladstone   and    Sir   Stafford 
Northcote  had   come  in,  and    at  nine    o'clock   the  Speaker 
made   his    appearance.      He   was    received  with   a   burst  of 
enthusiastic  cheers,  and  it  was  evident  from  the  benches  on 
both  sides,  which  were  now  almost  crowded,  that  both  the 
English  parties  had  been  told  of  what  was  about  to  come. 
Mr.  Biggar  had  resumed  his  seat  when  the  Speaker  came  in, 
and  now  rose  to  continue  his  speech,  but  the  Speaker,  who 
had  entered  with  an  air  of  strange  determination,  and  with 
an  ominous  roll  of  paper  in  his  hand,  remained  standing  and 
refused  to   see  the   member  for  Cavan.     He  then  read  the 
historic  declaration  that  he  would  now  close  the  discussion. 
Each  sentence  of  his  speech  was  received  with  boisterous  ap- 
plause   from  both    Liberals   and    Conservatives.     It   is    still 
painful  to  recall  the  looks  of  furious  hate  with   which  the 
English  members  looked  towards  the  Irish  benches.     Mean- 
time, the  latter  were  without  the  assistance  of  their  leader, 
.  for  Mr.  Parnell  had  gone  to  snatch  a  few  hours'  sleep  at  the 
Westminster  Palace  Hotel  close  by.     Their  hasty  consultation 
was  not  concluded  when  the  Speaker  had  put  the  question 
whether  Mr.  Forster's  motion  or  Dr.  Lyons'  amendment  should 
be  accepted.     In  the  midst  of  this  uncertainty  the  precious 
seconds  passed  away.     At  last  the  doors  of  the  House  were 
closed,  and  nothing  remained  but  to  take  part  in  the  division. 
In  sullenness  and  silence  on  both  sides  the  division  was  taken. 
It  was  noticeable  that,  as  the  members  passed  each  other  to 
go  into  the  different  lobbies,  there  was  not  even  a  single  ex- 
change of  the  passing  word  between   men   of  the  opposite 
camps  which  usually  relieves  in  an  agreeable  manner  the  con- 
flict of  parties.     The  Speaker  then  announced  the  numbers  : 
For  the    original   question,   164;    against,    19;  majority   for 
the  Government,  145. 

The  Speaker  immediately  afterwards  proposed  to  put  the 
original  question,  that  leave  be  given  to  bring  in  the  Bill. 
Mr.  Justin  McCarthy,  as  deputy-chairman  of  the  party,  rose 


F  F  2 


436  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

to  protest.  The  Speaker  took  no  notice,  and  the  member  for 
Longford  and  he  were  standing  and  speaking  at  the  same 
time,  but  not  a  word  of  either  could  be  heard.  The  Irish 
representative  was  met  with  a  storm  of  interruption  which 
was  almost  deafening.  Mr.  McCarthy,  with  a  tranquil  and 
resolute  smile,  still  held  his  ground.  By  a  happy  inspiration 
the  Irish  members  determined  not  to  go  through  the  farce  of 
a  second  division.  Plrst  two,  then  two  or  three  more,  and 
finally  all  of  them  jumped  to  their  feet,  raised  their  hands— 
in  most  cases  clenched  in  passion — and  shouted  'Privilege! 
privilege  ! '  for  several  seconds,  many  shaking  their  clenched 
fists  with  desperate  anger,  and  moving  their  lips  as  if  they 
were  accompanying  these  menacing  gestures  with  words  of 
violence.  The  members  of  the  Government  looked  a  little 
startled  for  the  moment,  Mr.  Gladstone  being  notably  pale 
and  disturbed.  The  Speaker  still  remained  standing,  saying 
nothing,  and  the  House  became  somewhat  less  vehement. 
At  last  the  Irish  members  brought  the  painful  incident  to  a 
conclusion  by  walking  out  of  the  House  in  single  file,  Mr. 
McCarthy  leading  the  way,  and  bowing  to  the  Speaker  as 
they  left.  Some  of  the  younger  members  of  the  House 
slightly  cheered,  but  the  Assembly  generally  remained  silent. 
Then  the  original  question  was  put,  and  it  was  carried  with- 
out dissent.  Immediately  afterwards  enthusiasm  and  excite- 
ment once  more  broke  forth,  and  the  cheering  became  still 
louder  when  Mr.  Forster,  in  the  usual  manner,  walked  up  the 
floor  of  the  House  from  the  bar  with  his  Bill  in  his  hand. 
Then  there  was  a  renewal  of  cheers  when  the  measure  passed 
its  first  reading  without  any  dissent,  and  the  sitting,  after  its 
forty-one  hours'  duration,  ended  with  a  notice  of  motion  by 
Mr.  Gladstone  of  his  intention  to  propose  the  new  rules  of 
urgency. 

The  Irish  members  retired  from  the  House  to  the  con- 
ference-room, to  consider  their  course  of  action.  They  had 
scarcely  arrived  there  when  Mr.  Parncll,  to  whom  Mr.  Healy 
had  conveyed  the  news  of  these  stirring  events,  entered.  He 
wore  his  usual  placid  smile  ;  but  his  followers,  hot  from  their 
wild  encounter,  under  the  influence  of  one  of  those  crises 
which  draw  tight  the  tics  between  leader  and  followers,  burst 


THE    COERCION    STRUGGLE  437 

into  spontaneous  cheers.  The  Irish  party  was  young  in  those 
days,  and  this  fact  will  account  for  their  gravely  discussing 
one  of  the  most  foolish  propositions  ever  submitted  to  a  body 
of  politicians.  Mr.  O'Connor  Power  proposed  the  following 
resolution  : — 

That  the  irregular  and  unprecedented  course  adopted  by  Mr. 
Speaker  in  summarily  closing  the  debate  on  the  Coercion  Bill,  by 
which  the  Irish  members  have  been  deprived  of  the  opportunity  of 
protesting  against  the  suspension  of  constitutional  liberty  in  Ireland, 
requires  to  be  taken  notice  of ;  and  that  a  protest,  signed  by  Irish 
members,  be  forwarded  to  Mr.  Speaker  and  circulated  in  the  public 
press  ;  and  that  we,  the  Irish  members,  retire  from  the  House  pend- 
ing the  result  of  a  consultation  with  our  constituents.1 

The  debate  was  most  interesting  and  most  able.  All  the 
speakers  who  took  part  in  it  put  their  cases  with  vigour,  and, 
indeed,  in  most  cases  with  vehemence.  The  long  vigils  of  so 
many  days  and  nights  had  begun  to  tell  on  the  nerves  of 
most  of  them,  and  there  was  a  certain  shrillness  in  the  voices, 
a  certain  feverishness  in  the  language  and  gestures  of  the 
debaters,  that  told  of  systems  which  had  been  subjected  to 
too  severe  and  too  prolonged  a  strain.  But  these  were  the 
very  things  which  lent  passion  and  force  to  the  debate,  and 
therefore  it  is,  probably,  that  it  remains  so  distinctly  in  the 
memories  of  all  who  were  present.  After  a  lengthy  discus- 
sion, it  was  decided  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  Irish  members 
to  remain  in  their  places  in  Parliament  and  to  go  on  with  the 
struggle.  Nobody  can  fail  to  see  that  this  was  the  only  wise 
decision  that  could  be  come  to.  An  American  politician  is 
credited  with  the  mot,  '  Never  resign.'  Mr.  Biggar  has  con- 
tributed to  the  Parliamentary  catechism  the  apothegm, 
'  Never  withdraw,'  and  probably  Mr.  Biggar's  policy  is  the 
soundest.  Parliament,,  after  all,  is  the  one  weak  point  in  the 
armour  of  the  dominant  nation,  and  to  abandon  the  vantage- 
ground  where  that  point  can  be  most  effectually  hit  is  to 
gratify  and  to  help  the  opponents  of  the  Irish  cause. 

The  coup  d'etat  of  the  Speaker  was  followed  almost  im- 
mediately by  a  scene  of  greater  violence  and  more  intense, 

1  Freemaris  Journal ',  Feb.  3,  1881. 


438  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

passion.  The  Wednesday  immediately  following  the  close  of 
the  forty-one  hours'  sitting  was  again  wasted  in  motions  for 
adjournment.  Just  before  the  sitting  on  Thursday  there  came 
the  stunning  report  that  Mr.  Davitt  had  been  arrested.  Mr. 
Davitt  had  now  been  more  than  three  years  out  of  prison.  He 
had  already,  as  the  reader  knows,  passed  through  the  hideous 
tortures  of  seven  years'  confinement.  The  Coercion  Bill  was 
passed  soon  after  this,  and  though  the  expectation  was 
general  that  he  might  be  placed  under  restraint  under  the 
new  legislation,  nobody  suspected  that  the  Government 
would  have  proceeded  to  lengths  so  great  and  so  shameful 
as  to  send  back  to  penal  servitude  one  of  the  leaders  of  the 
agitation.  The  news  deeply  affected  Mr.  Parnell  and  the 
other  Irish  members.  When  the  House  met,  however,  there 
was  no  indication  of  the  coming  storm.  Mr.  Gladstone  was 
asked  for  a  day  to  discuss  a  motion  condemnatory  of  the 
action  of  the  Speaker,  but  his  refusal  to  do  so  did  not  appear 
to  excite  any  very  strong  emotion.  Nor  was  there  any  re- 
sentment even  at  the  announcement  that  he  was  still  deter- 
mined not  to  make  known  the  character  of  the  Land  Bill. 
Mr.  Parnell  rose  from  his  seat  in  his  usual  tranquil  fashion, 
and  asked,  in  a  tone  of  apparently  no  great  concern,  whether 
it  was  true  that  Mr.  Davitt  had  been  arrested.  'Yes,  Sir ! ' l  was 
the  curt  reply  of  Sir  William  Harcourt,  delivered  with  much 
emphasis  and  pomp.  Before  he  could  utter  another  word 
there  burst  from  the  Liberal  benches,  and  from  the  benches 
occupied  by  the  Radicals  more  vehemently  than  from  any 
other,  a  tempest  of  cheers  that  would  have  formed  a  fitting 
welcome  to  a  mighty  victor  in  the  field  or  the  accomplish- 
ment of  a  momentous  popular  reform.  The  Conservatives 
joined  in  the  cheer  to  some  extent,  but  their  tone  was  com- 
paratively mild.  The  Home  Secretary  then  said  that  the 
conduct  of  Mr.  Davitt  was  not  such  as  to  justify  his  retention 
of  his  ticket-of-leave.  Again  the  House  rang  with  vociferous 
cheering.  Mr.  Parnell,  with  an  appearance  of  great  calmness, 
asked  what  conditions  of  his  ticket-of-leave  Mr.  Davitt  had 
contravened.  Sir  William  Harcourt  sat  still,  and  made  no 
attempt  to  answer  the  question.  The  Irish  party  burst  into 

1  Hansard,    vol.    cclviii.  p.  68. 


THE   COERCION    STRUGGLE  439 

exclamations  of  intense  anger,  but  the  Home  Secretary,  fold- 
ing his  arms  across  his  breast  after  his  usual  fashion,  remained 
silent.  The  Speaker,  apparently  with  a  desire  to  put  an  end 
to  the  incident,  called  upon  Mr.  Gladstone  to  rise  and  propose 
the  urgency  resolutions. 

But  the  scene  was  not  thus  to  terminate.  The  Prime 
Minister  had  hardly  uttered  a  word  when  Mr.  Dillon  rose. 
The  Speaker  called  upon  Mr.  Dillon  to  sit  down,  and  that 
gentleman  shouted  above  the  tumult  of  *  Order  !  order  ! '  and 
'  Name  !  name  ! '  the  words,  '  I  rise  to  a  point  of  order/ l  It  is 
an  invariable  rule  of  every  deliberative  assembly  in  the  world 
that  a  member  has  a  right  to  rise  at  any  moment  to  a  point 
of  order  ;  but  the  House  of  Commons  had  long  passed  the 
time  when  such  distinctions  would  be  observed,  and  the 
Speaker  resolutely  refused  to  allow  Mr.  Dillon  to  proceed. 
Mr.  Dillon  thereupon  folded  his  arms,  and  he  and  the  Speaker 
remained  standing  for  some  minutes  at  the  same  time.  At 
last  the  Speaker  was  understood  to  name  Mr.  Dillon,  though 
the  decree  could  not  be  heard  above  the  wild  din.  Mr. 
Gladstone  immediately  proposed  the  suspension  of  Mr,  Dillon. 
The  late  Mr.  A.  M.  Sullivan  endeavoured  to  raise  a  point  of 
order,  but  was  not  listened  to,  and  the  House  divided  :  Ayes, 
395  ;  Noes,  33.  Mr.  Dillon  was  then  called  upon  to  withdraw, 
but  he  refused  to  do  so,  and  a  noisy  scene  took  place.  Then 
the  Sergeant-at-Arms  invited  Mr.  Dillon  to  withdraw,  and 
when  the  latter  still  refused,  the  Sergeant  again  advanced 
with  the  principal  doorkeeper  and  a  number  of  messengers, 
placed  his  hand  on  Mr.  Dillon's  shoulder,  and  requested  him 
to  obey  the  order  of  the  Speaker.  '  If  you  employ  force 
I  must  yield/  2  said  Mr.  Dillon,  and  then  withdrew. 

Mr.  Sullivan  then  attempted  to  raise  the  question  whether 
the  Speaker  had  acted  legally  or  not.  He  pointed  out  the 
right  of  every  member  to  rise  to  a  point  of  order,  and  then 
suggested  the  contrast  between  the  treatment  given  to  Mr. 
Bradlaugh  when  he  refused  to  withdraw,  and  that  meted  out 
to  Mr.  Dillon.  Mr.  Sullivan  found  the  greatest  difficulty  in 
proceeding  with  his  speech,  for  he  was  interrupted  at  every 
point.  Finally,  however,  he  succeeded  in  putting  his  case. 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclviii.  p.  69.  2  Ib*  p.  7°* 


440  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

The  Speaker  then  surprised  the  Irish  members  by  giving  a 
wholly  different  reason  to  that  which  was  generally  accepted 
for  the  suspension  of  Mr.  Dillon.  He  adroitly  slurred  over 
Mr.  Dillon's  right  to  rise  to  a  point  of  order,  and  based  the 
suspension  on  the  fact  that  Mr.  Dillon  had  remained  standing 
at  the  same  time  as  himself.  This,  of  course,  added  fuel  to  the 
flame  ;  and  the  Irish  members,  now  convinced  that  there  was 
no  chance  of  any  justice  being  given  to  them,  determined  to 
mark  the  occasion  by  an  incident  that  could  not  be  for- 
gotten. The  Prime  Minister  had  scarcely  again  risen  when 
Mr.  Parnell  stood  up  at  the  same  time,  and  made  the  motion 
which  the  Prime  Minister  himself  had  made  not  many  months 
before  in  regard  to  Mr.  O'Donnell— namely,  that  the  right 
honourable  gentleman  be  no  longer  heard.  The  Speaker, 
however,  refused  to  accept  the  motion,  and  threatened  Mr. 
Parnell  with  suspension  in  case  he  continued.  Again  Mr. 
Gladstone  got  up,  and  resumed  the  sentence  which  had  so 
frequently  been  interrupted.  Mr.  Parnell  again  rose.  The 
Speaker  declared  that  the  conduct  of  the  member  for  Cork 
was  wilful  and  deliberate  obstruction,  and  named  him.  When 
the  division  took  place  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Dillon,  the  Irish 
members  had  not  yet  made  up  their  minds  as  to  what  was 
the  proper  course  to  adopt  ;  but  by  the  time  that  Mr.  Parnell 
was  named,  their  tactics  had  been  resolved  upon.  When  the 
division  upon  Mr.  Parnell's  suspension  was  called,  they  refused 
to  quit  their  seats.  The  division  went  on  without  them,  and 
the  House  presented  a  curious  spectacle  with  the  Speaker 
left  alone  with  the  Irish  party.  The  deserted  and  tranquil 
appearance  of  the  House  might  have  encouraged  the  illusion 
that  the  storm  of  passion  had  subsided  and  given  place  to 
perfect  quiet.  The  Speaker  warned  the  Irish  members  of  the 
consequences  that  might  result  upon  what  they  were  doing  ; 
Mr.  Sullivan  declared  that  they  contested  the  legality  of  the 
proceeding.  This  exchange  of  language  between  the  Speaker 
and  the  Parnellites  was  mild  and  courteous.  The  division 
over,  Mr.  Parnell  was  ordered  to  withdraw  ;  but  he  refused 
to  go  unless  compelled  by  force,  and  again  the  Sergeant-at- 
Arms  and  the  messengers  came  forward  and  touched  his 
shoulder  The  Irish  leader  slowly  descended  the  gangway, 


THE   COERCION    STRUGGLE  441 

bowed  to  the  Speaker,  and  walked  out  of  the  House  with 
head  erect  and  amid  the  ringing  cheers  of  his  supporters. 
Once  more  Mr.  Gladstone  resumed  the  unfortunate  sentence, 
that,  as  he  himself  said,  had  been  bisected  and  trisected  already  ; 
but  again  he  was  not  allowed  to  proceed,  for  Mr.  Finigan 
rose  and  proposed  the  same  motion  that  Mr.  Parnell  had  pro- 
posed, that  the  Prime  Minister  be  no  longer  heard.  Once 
more  a  division  was  taken,  and  once  more  the  Irish  members 
refused  to  leave  their  places.  The  tellers  and  clerks  took 
down  the  names  of  the  contumacious  members,  and  after  the 
withdrawal  of  Mr.  Finigan  the  Speaker  read  out  their  names 
and  suspended  them  all.  The  names  were — Messrs.  Barry, 
Biggar,  Byrne,  Corbet,  Daly,  Dawson,  Gill,  Gray,  Healy, 
Lalor,  Leamy,  Leahy,  Justin  McCarthy,  McCoan,  Marum, 
Metge,  Nelson,  Arthur  O'Connor,  T.  P.  O'Connor,  The 
O'Donoghue,  The  O'Gorman  Mahon,  W.  H.  O'Sullivan, 
O'Connor  Power,  Redmond,  Sexton,  Smithwick,  A.  M.  Sul- 
livan, and  T.  D.  Sullivan. 

By  this  time  the  passion  of  the  House  was  to  some  extent 
exhausted,  and  there  was  even  some  return  of  good  humour ; 
but  Mr.  Gladstone  remained  grave,  and  proposed  the  sus- 
pension of  the  twenty-eight  members  with  an  air  of  painful 
preoccupation.  Then  the  division  was  taken,  and  once  more 
the  Irish  members  refused  to  leave  their  places.  The  Speaker 
then  called  upon  the  different  members  in  their  turns  to 
withdraw,  and  each  in  turn,  and  in  practically  identical 
language,  refused  to  do  so  unless  compelled  by  force,  and 
protested  against  the  legality  of  the  whole  proceedings.  But 
even  in  this  somewhat  monotonous  proceeding  there  was 
room  left  for  a  variety  of  incident.  Some  of  the  members 
were  content  with  being  touched  on  the  shoulder  by  the 
Sergeant-at-Arms  ;  while  others,  more  obstinate,  insisted  on 
a  show  of  considerable  force.  The  most  prominent  among 
the  latter  was  Mr.  Metge,  a  young  Protestant  landlord  like 
Mr.  Parnell,  who  evidently  shared  his  leader's  intensity  of 
political  feeling.  He  stubbornly  remained  in  his  seat  until 
Captain  Gosset  had  called  four  of  the  attendants  of  the  House 
to  his  aid.  There  was,  naturally  enough,  a  laugh  when  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Nelson,  a  gentleman  with  white  hair  and  of  seventy 


442  *  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

winters,  confronted  the  Sergeant,  who  looked  about  the  same 
age,  and  the  spectacle  of  the  one  old  gentleman  attempting 
to  resist  the  other  was  certainly  somewhat  ludicrous.  Force 
in  the  shape  of  the  Sergeant,  was  a  much  more  benign-looking 
individual,  than  meek  submission  as  personified  by  the  belli- 
gerent pastor.  The  appearance  of  the  attendants  who  came 
into  the  House  in  Indian  file  to  assist  in  the  work  of  expul- 
sion was  not  impressive,  being  irresistibly  suggestive  of  the 
depressed  and  perfunctory  air  of  the  theatrical  *  super.'  The 
protests  of  the  expelled  members  varied  slightly,  and  there 
was  also  a  difference  in  the  manner  of  their  exit.  Some 
hurried  away,  while  others,  following  the  example  of  Mr. 
Parnell,  bowed  with  gravity  and  solemnity  to  the  Chair.  The 
demeanour  of  the  House  varied  from  moment  to  moment — 
sometimes  it  laughed,  sometimes  it  cheered  ;  finally,  it  settled 
down  into  allowing  the  incident  to  pass  off  in  grave  silence. 
Another  amusing  incident  that  momentarily  lit  up  the  dolo- 
rous scene  occurred  when  the  Sergeant-at-Arms  approached 
The  O'Gorman  Mahon.  It  was  notorious  that  the  two  veterans 
had  spent  many  a  day  of  their  hot  youth  together,  and  it  was 
indeed  a  curious  sight,  the  one  aged  man  having  to  superintend 
the  expulsion  of  the  other. 

The  absence  of  the  Irish  members  allowed  the  Prime 
Minister  to  pass  his  new  urgency  rules  without  any  difficulty, 
and  thus,  whatever  indignities  they  had  received  were  avenged 
by  the  sight  of  the  oldest  and  formerly  the  freest  assembly 
in  the  world  absolutely  surrendering  the  whole  course  of  its 
proceedings  into  the  hands  of  the  Speaker. 

The  debates  dragged  on,  and  the  third  reading  of  the 
Coercion  Bill  at  last  took  place  on  February  25,  1881.  At 
this  stage  Mr.  Forster  indulged  in  triumphant  phrases  that 
sound  somewhat  strangely  at  this  time.  As  through  the 
whole  debate,  he  made  the  claim  that  he  was  acting  for  the 
interests  and  speaking  the  voice  of  the  majority  of  the  Irish 
people.  '  We  have,'  he  said,  '  been  delivering  Ireland,  or 
trying  our  best  to  deliver  Ireland,  from  a  great  grievance,  and 
we  have  been  saving  her,  or  believing  we  are  saving  her,  from 
a  still  greater  peril.'  l  And  then  he  said,  looking  at  the  Irish 

1  Hansard,  voi.  cclviii.  p.  1820. 


THE   COERCION    STRUGGLE  443 

members,  and  in  final  victory  over  their  efforts  to  arrest 
Coercion  :  '  They  have  tried  to  prevent  it,  and  they  have  failed.' 
Even  some  of  the  English  papers  thought  this  boastful 
harangue  over  the  destruction  of  the  liberties  of  Ireland  a 
little  too  strong.  '  We  do  not  see  much  ground/  says  the 
'  Pall  Mall  Gazette/  '  for  Mr.  Forster's  rather  uncouth  exulta- 
tion. It  is  true  that  the  Irish  members  have  failed  to  stop 
the  Bill,  but  we  do  not  know  that  it  is  a  good  reason  why 
a  Liberal  minister  should  feel  particularly  triumphant  be- 
cause he  has  passed  a  measure  over  the  heads  of  all  the 
Liberal  representatives  of  the  country  concerned.' 

Almost  immediately  afterwards  a  second  Coercion  Bill, 
in  the  shape  of  the  Arms  Bill — Peace  Preservation  (Ireland) 
Bill — was  proposed.  This  also  was  steadily  resisted  ;  but 
the  new  rules  of  urgency  were  so  stringently  employed,  that 
the  day  and  the  very  hour  at  which  certain  stages  of  the  Bill 
were  to  be  concluded  were  passed  by  resolution  of  the 
House.  Notwithstanding  all  this,  it  was  March  1 1  when  the 
third  reading  was  carried.  Again  Mr.  Forster  took  up  the 
theme  that  he  was  acting  in  accordance  with  the  wishes  of  the 
majority  of  the  Irish  people.  *  He  should  not  object/  he 
said.  ...  'to  appeal  from  hon.  gentlemen  opposite  to  the 
people  of  Ireland.  .  .  .  He  was  sure  that  he  could  venture 
to  appeal  with  confidence  from  hon.  members  below  the 
gangway  opposite  to  their  constituents.'  l 

These  sentences  are  quoted  to  illustrate  the  length  to 
which  Mr.  Forster  was  prepared  to  go.  While  he  was  thus 
claiming  to  represent  the  majority  of  the  Irish  people,  he 
must,  have  known  that  he  was  laying  up  for  himself  stores 
of  hatred  in  their  hearts  that  no  length  of  time  will  ever 
exhaust.  While  he  claimed  to  represent  the  constituencies  of 
his  Irish  opponents  better  than  they  did  themselves,  he  must 
have  seen  that  every  member  of  the  Irish  party  became  more 
popular  in  exact  proportion  to  the  amount  of  resistance  he 
offered  to  Mr.  Forster's  proposals.  The  quotations  have 
an  additional  interest  to-day  as  guides  to  the  statesmanship 
of  Mr.  Forster. 

By  this  time  exhaustion  had  completely  set  in  on  both 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclix.  p.  863. 


444  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

sides,  and  the  House  was  more  concerned  at  the  time  with 
the  decision  of  one  of  his  many  law  cases  against  Mr.  Brad- 
laugh,  and  the  report  that  the  Government  were  going  to  ask 
urgency  for  Supply.  There  were  three  divisions — thin,  heart- 
less, and  shadowy  things  in  a  poorly  attended  House  ;  and  the 
announcement  that  the  Arms  Bill  had  passed,  and  that  thus  the 
long,  chequered,  and  passionate  battle  between  coercion  and 
obstruction  was  at  an  end,  was  received  in  an  unbroken 
silence  that  was  evidently  intentional,  and  that  marked  a 
praiseworthy  desire  on  all  sides  to  escape  from  the  bad  and 
bitter  passions  of  the  struggle. 

Thus,  after  nine  weeks,  the  great  fight  came  to  an  end. 
The  merits  of  the  struggle  can  now  be  surveyed  with  the  calm- 
ness of  an  historical  retrospect.  Many  critics,  then  and  since, 
have  blamed  the  Irish  party  for  the  violence  and  the  vehemence 
of  their  action,  and  for  their  prolongation  of  the  struggle.  It 
has  been  said  that  their  attitude  helped  Mr.  Forster  more  than 
his  cooked  statistics,  and  it  was  also  said  at  the  time  that 
their  expulsion  wholesale,  through  their  refusing  to  leave  their 
seats,  enabled  Mr.  Gladstone  to  carry  the  rules  of  urgency 
after  a  single  night's  debate.  And  it  has  been  observed  that, 
ever  since  Coercion,  additional  innovations  have  yearly  been 
made  upon  the  liberties  of  the  House  of  Commons — which  is 
another  way  of  saying  upon  the  liberties  of  the  Irish  members, 
for  they  alone  have  ever  been,  or  probably  ever  will  be, 
interfered  with  under  penal  Parliamentary  orders.  But  if 
all  these  objections  and  a  great  many  more  were  true,  sub- 
sequent events  have  justified  the  wisdom  of  the  tactics  that 
were  adopted.  The  nine  weeks'  Coercion  struggle  made 
the  Irish  party,  and  thereby  gave  unity,  cohesion,  and  re- 
sistless strength  to  the  great  movement  for  the  restoration 
of  national  rights.  The  first  necessity  at  that  period  was 
to  kindle  into  flames  of  enthusiasm  the  faith  of  the  Irish 
people  in  themselves,  in  their  representatives,  and  in  the 
results  that  might  be  achieved  by  Parliamentary  warfare. 
The  struggle  that  was  going  on  at  the  time,  too,  in  Ireland 
for  the  possession  of  the  land  was  one  which  required  all  the 
strength  of  revolutionary  enthusiasm  to  carry  it  to  anything 
like  a  successful  issue.  With  all  the  mighty  forces  that  were 


THE   COERCION    STRUGGLE 


445 


arrayed  against  the  cause  of  the  tenant,  the  tenant  could  win 
by  determination  and  by  passion  alone.  Every  scene  of  violence 
in  the  House  of  Commons  roused  still  higher  the  temper  of 
the  Irish  people,  and  if  that  temper  had  not  reached  fever 
heat,  the  Land  Bill  of  1881  would  have  gone  to  the  same 
bourne  of  rejected  proposals  as  the  Compensation  for  Disturb- 
ance Bill  and  the  thousand  and  one  other  proposals  for  the 
reform  of  the  land  tenure  in  Ireland  had  gone  before.  The 
power,  too,  which  the  Coercion  Act  placed  in  the  hands  of 
Mr.  Forster,  and  the  use  which  Mr.  Forster  made  of  this 
power,  must  always  be  considered  as  among  the  greatest 
forces  in  bringing  the  Irish  cause  to  its  present  position. 
At  the  moment  when  an  Irish  party  is  rapidly  advancing  to 
omnipotence  in  the  affairs  of  the  empire,  Mr.  Forster  deserves 
to  be  remembered  as  perhaps  best  entitled  to  claim  credit 
for  its  paternity. 

A  word  should  be  said  as  to  the  effect  of  this  prolonged 
and  unparalleled  struggle  upon  the  Irish  party  and  upon  the 
House  generally.  To  the  leading  followers  of  Mr.  Parnell  it 
gave  readiness,  coolness,  judgment,  and  others  of  the  most 
useful  Parliamentary  qualities.  When  that  struggle  began  the 
majority  of  them  were  the  rawest  of  recruits,  had  the  vague 
terror  of  a  public  assembly  which  is  one  of  the  chief  diffi- 
culties of  unpractised  speakers,  and  had  not  wholly  eman- 
cipated themselves  from  a  slight  awe  of  the  House.  But  the 
nine  weeks'  fight  destroyed  all  these  obstacles  to  Parliamentary 
aplomb,  and  ever  afterwards  it  was  seen  that  none  of  Mr. 
Parnell's  lieutenants  was  ever  taken  by  surprise  or  ever  un- 
equal to  a  Parliamentary  emergency.  And  the  House  of 
Commons  recognised  and  even  submitted  to  this  fact,  hateful 
and  detestable  as  it  was.  When  the  fight  opened  nothing 
was  more  common  than  to  see  attempts  to  put  the  Irish 
members  down.  There  were  shouts  and  laughter,  desponding 
'  Ahs  ! '  and  mocking  '  Ohs  ! '  but  after  a  time  all  this  was  aban- 
doned, and  whenever  an  Irish  member  arose  there  might 
be  just  one  little  groan,  but  then  came  silence  and  toleration. 
But  while  the  Coercion  struggle  thus  gave  confidence  and 
strength  to  the  Irish  members,  it  had  the  very  opposite  effect 
upon  the  English.  The  dulness,  the  lethargy,  the  stolid 


446  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

melancholy  which  fell  upon  the  assembly  when  this  fight 
was  concluded  was  the  subject  of  universal  remark.  It 
seemed  to  be  almost  impossible  to  collect  a  House,  and  even 
when  the  fight  seemed  fiercest  on  the  Land  Bill  no  enthu- 
siasm could  apparently  be  pumped  up.  The  House,  in  fact, 
seemed  to  have  fallen  into  the  abject  despondency  of 
premature  age.  To  anybody  who  had  been  present  in  the 
earliest  days  of  the  Parliament  of  1880  this  contrast  was 
indeed  striking  and  melancholy.  In  those  days  the  sight  of 
the  Liberal  benches  did  any  man  good  who  believed  in  the 
blessings  which  wise  legislation  and  earnest  men  can  confer 
upon  a  community.  The  Ministerial  seats  were  so  crowded 
with  the  swelling  majority  that  members  had  to  flow  over 
into  all  sorts  of  places  of  refuge,  and  Mr.  Mitchell  Henry  on 
one  occasion  startled  the  House  by  asking  a  question  from 
one  of  the  side  galleries,  which  at  this  period  used  always  to 
be  crowded.  Then  the  look  that  was  on  the  faces  of  these 
Liberals — so  fresh,  so  exultant,  so  hopeful — they  almost 
appeared  already  to  weep,  like  Alexander,  that  there  were 
no  new  worlds  of  wrongs  to  redress,  of  evils  to  reform  !  And 
just  twelve  months  after  this  period  of  young  and  defiant 
hope  the  House  was  sick  of  itself,  and  had  ceased  to  believe 
in  its  power  to  do  good  to  anybody.  Parliament  had  de- 
stroyed the  liberties  of  Ireland,  and  Ireland  had  killed  the 
vigour  of  Parliament. 

The  Land  Bill  was  introduced  on  April  7.  The  first 
impression  produced  upon  the  Irish  members  was  one  of 
pleased  surprise.  The  vague  indications  given  of  the  pro- 
visions of  the  Bill  by  Mr.  Gladstone  on  the  first  night  of  the 
Session,  and  his  obstinate  refusal  to  say  anything  as  to  its 
contents  on  so  many  occasions  afterwards,  had  led  to  the 
almost  universal  impression  that  the  Bill  would  be  of  a 
tinkering  character.  It  was  soon  seen  that  the  proposals 
were  bold  and  sweeping.  The  Easter  recess  came  imme- 
diately after  Mr.  Gladstone's  introduction  of  the  measure, 
and  accordingly  there  was  no  immediate  opportunity  of  dis- 
cussing its  details  in  Parliament.  During  the  recess  the  Irish 
members  proceeded  to  Dublin  to  consult  with  the  country. 
A  convention  of  the  branches  of  the  Land  League  was  called, 


THE   COERCION    STRUGGLE  447 

and  was  held  in  Dublin  during  two  days.  It  very  soon 
became  evident  that  the  two  parties  which  existed  in  the 
Land  League,  as  in  every  organisation,  were  inclined  to  take 
up  different  attitudes  upon  the  Bill.  The  majority  of  the 
Parliamentary  party  were  strongly  in  favour  of  accepting  the 
Bill  and  of  making  it  the  starting-point  of  a  new  movement. 
Another  section — resolute,  bold,  vehement — held  as  its  funda- 
mental belief  that  the  Land  struggle  should  now  be  pushed 
on  to  the  bitter  end  until  it  was  closed  for  ever,  and  that  it 
was  in  the  power  of  the  Irish  people,  by  the  maintenance  of 
a  determined  and  united  front,  to  bring  matters  to  that 
triumphant  issue.  The  weapon  which  this  section  had  in 
view,  probably  from  the  beginning,  was  a  universal  refusal  to 
pay  rent.  The  success  which  had  attended  a  similar  move- 
ment against  the  tithes  was  the  precedent  chiefly  relied  upon. 
It  would  be  a  waste  of  time  to  renew  the  controversy  as  to 
which  of  these  two  sections  was  justified  in  its  policy.  Suffice 
it  to  say  that  after  some  days'  hesitation  Mr.  John  Dillon 
was  found  among  the  more  extreme  party.  To  this  section 
the  Land  Bill,  as  affording  a  compromise  and  a  truce,  was 
danger  and  not  safety,  and  many  of  the  objections  brought 
against  the  measure  certainly  proved  afterwards  to  be  correct. 
The  discussion  occupied  two  days,  and  for  some  time  the 
result  seemed  doubtful.  Finally,  a  resolution  was  passed 
which  left  Irish  members  freedom  either  to  oppose  or  support 
the  second  reading  of  the  measure. 

This  was  the  instruction  from  the  National  Convention 
with  which  Mr.  Parnell  and  his  colleagues  returned  to  Parlia- 
ment ;  but  meantime  events  had  been  happening  which  had 
been  doing  a  great  deal  to  force  the  hands  of  the  Irish  leader. 
When  the  Coercion  Act  was  passed,  the  state  of  Ireland  was 
one  of  almost  complete  tranquillity.  The  improvement  in  its 
condition  had  been  further  helped  by  the  character  of  the 
Land  Bill.  At  the  very  moment  when  Mr.  Forster  was 
speaking  with  triumph  of  the  passage  of  the  third  reading  of 
the  Coercion  Bill,  he  had  himself  to  acknowledge  that  Ireland 
was  in  a  state  of  tranquillity. 

Since  Parliament  has  been  called  together  (he  said,  speaking  in 
February)  those  outrages  have  diminished,  and  they  are  diminishing. 


448  'THE  PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

They  are  still  very  great ;  they  are  still  far  beyond  the  usual 
number.  The  month  of  January  was  worse  than  any  month  since 
1844,  with  the  exception  of  the  months  of  November  and  December 
last  year.  This  month,  although  better,  is  still  bad.  And  why  are 
things  getting  better  ?  Because  this  House  has  determined  to  inter- 
fere, and  has  shown  that  it  will  make  it  difficult  for  these  outrages 
to  continue.1 

But  the  Chief  Secretary  was  soon  to  bring  disturbance  out 
of  tranquillity,  for  he  and  the  Irish  officials  throughout  the 
country  began  to  take  steps  which  were  calculated  to  drive 
even  a  less  excited  people  into  frenzy. 

He  began  to  put  the  powers  of  the  Coercion  Act  into 
operation  ;  and  he  displayed  a  sinister  ingenuity  in  discover- 
ing the  men  who  were  least  fitted  to  be  entrusted  with  the  large 
and  arbitrary  powers  of  such  an  Act.  The  most  prominent 
of  these  officials  were  men  who  had  already  given  abundant 
testimony  of  their  unfitness  for  delicate  duties  and  large 
authority.  Major  Bond  had  been  dismissed  from  the  police 
force  of  Birmingham  ;  Major  Traill  was  an  officer  who  had 
been  publicly  reprimanded  by  the  Commander-in-Chief ;  and 
his  removal  from  his  regiment  had  been  requested  by  his 
commanding  officer.2  The  character  of  Mr.  Clifford  Lloyd  is 
now  so  notorious  that  it  would  be  a  waste  of  words  to  argue 
the  gross  blunder  and  even  shameful  outrage  of  sending  such 
a  man  to  administer  a  Coercion  Act.  Since  his  career  in 
Ireland  he  has  been  tested  in  Egypt,  and,  as  everybody 
knows,  was  found  to  be  a  person  with  whom  no  other  col- 
league could  work  in  harmony,  and  had  to  leave  the  country 
and  his  office.  But  before  he  was  taken  up  as  a  special 
protege  by  Mr.  Forster,  he  had  already  given  indications  of 
the  kind  of  man  he  was.  On  January  I,  iSSi,  he  bore  down 
upon  a  meeting  in  Drogheda  with  a  large  body  of  police 
with  fixed  bayonets  and  dispersed  the  meeting  forcibly ; 
and  even  after  he  had  thus  succeeded  in  accomplishing 
his  purpose,  shouted  to  the  people  :  '  If  you  do  not  be  off 
at  once  I  will  have  you  shot  clown.'  3  For  his  conduct  on 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclviii.  p.   1821. 

2  Mr.  Forster,  ib.  pp.  1667-8. 

;i  Mr.  Healy,  ib.  vol.  cclxiii.  p.  1255. 


THE   COERCION    STRUGGLE  449 

this  occasion  he  was  denounced  by  Mr.  Whitworth,  brother 
of  the  then  member  for  Drogheda,  as  a  '  firebrand  '  ;  '  and 
the  member  for  Drogheda  himself — and  no  man  was  a  more 
bitter  opponent  of  the  Irish  party  and  the  popular  movement 
—declared  in  a  debate  his  great  surprise  that  the  Government 
had  employed  Mr.  Lloyd.  '  A  more  dangerous  man/  said 
Mr.  Whitworth,  '  they  could  not  send  to  the  South  of  Ireland. 
His  (Mr.  Whitworth's)  brother,  who  was  a  magistrate  in 
Drogheda,  told  him  that  if  this  man  were  sent  to  disturbed 
districts,  there  would  be  bloodshed.' 2 

Major  Bond,  in  spite  of  his  antecedents,  seems  to  have 
conducted  himself  with  more  discretion  than  might  have 
been  anticipated  ;  but  Major  Traill  and  Mr.  Clifford  Lloyd 
raged  through  the  population  with  a  perfect  frenzy  for  insult, 
lawlessness,  and  cruelty.  One  of  Major  Traill's  exploits  was 
to  go  to  a  police  barrack  on  a  Sunday,  where  some  men  were 
in  custody,  to  hold  a  court  there  and  then,  with  himself  as 
sole  magistrate,  and  to  impose  on  the  men  sentences  varying 
from  eight  days  to  one  month  with  hard  labour.  Of  course, 
when  the  case  was  brought  before  the  Superior  Courts,  the 
action  of  Major  Traill  was  overruled.  Baron  Fitzgerald,  the 
presiding  judge — a  strong  Conservative — declared  'that  he 
(Major  Traill)  had  sentenced  three  several  men  to  imprison- 
ment illegally  ; '  and  the  defence  made  by  Major  Traill's  coun- 
sel was,  that,  being  only  a  Major  in  the  army,  *  he  could  not  be 
expected  to  know  the  law  accurately,  as  he  was  not  a  lawyer.' 
But  meantime,  the  persons  who  had  thus  been  illegally  con- 
victed had  served  the  whole  term  of  their  imprisonment,  and 
had  taken  their  sleep  upon  plank  beds.  Mr.  Forster  thought, 
when  the  matter  was  brought  before  him,  that  Major  Traill 
'  had  been  sufficiently  penalised  for  the  error  he  made,  by 
becoming  the  defendant  in  three  actions.' 3 

But  the  exploits  of  Mr.  Clifford  Lloyd  in  Kilmallock  and 
the  other  places  to  which  he  was  sent  leave  in  the  shade 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclxiii.  p.  639.  Mr.  Clifford  Lloyd  wrote  to  the  papers  after- 
wards to  deny  that  he  ever  used  this  expression;  but  Mr.  Healy  and  several 
Catholic  clergymen  who  were  present  declared  that  they  heard  it.  In  nearly  all 
such  cases  in  which  Mr.  Clifford  Lloyd  was  arraigned,  he  gave  a  version  different 
from  that  of  the  persons  who  made  the  complaint. 

-  Ib.  vol.  cclxi.  pp.  998-9.  3  Ib.  pp.  11-12. 

G  G 


450  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

everything  done  by  his  colleagues.  On  the  first  day  on  which 
he  made  his  appearance  in  the  town  of  Kilmallock,  he 
ordered  the  people  who  were  talking  in  groups  around  the 
town  to  disperse  to  their  homes,  and  when  they  did  not 
immediately  obey,  struck  them  furiously  with  his  cane. 
Shortly  afterwards  a  band,  which  was  playing  as  it  passed 
through  the  streets,  was  attacked  by  the  police  under  the 
direction  of  Mr.  Lloyd,  and  the  people  were  clubbed  with  the 
ends  of  the  rifles.1  Mr.  Lloyd  next  attacked  the  women  of 
Kilmallock.  One  evening  a  number  of  young  ladies  were 
standing  in  the  street.  The  police  ordered  them  to  disperse 
on  the  ground  that  they  were  obstructing  the  highway,  a  charge 
of  strange  absurdity  in  the  ghastly  loneliness  of  a  small  Irish 
town.  They  were  brought  up  before  Mr.  Lloyd  and  several 
other  magistrates,  and  the  police  constable  who  acted  under  Mr. 
Lloyd's  orders  accused  the  ladies  of  using  insulting  language,  as 
well  as  of  obstructing  the  highway.  When  the  constable  was 
examined,  his  complaint  was  found  to  be  that  he  had  been 
called  '  Clifford  Lloyd's  pet.'  Both  the  charge  and  the  police 
constable,  as  well  as  Mr.  Clifford  Lloyd,  were  laughed  at, 
and  the  young  ladies  had  to  be  discharged.  Mr.  Lloyd  was 
more  successful  in  his  operations  under  the  Coercion  Act. 
He  had  inflicted  fines  upon  two  men  and  a  married  woman, 
and  public  sympathy  went  so  strongly  with  these  people  that 
a  subscription  was  raised  to  pay  the  fine,  rather  than  allow 
them  to  go  to  prison.  Andrew  Mortel  and  Edmund  O'Neill 
were  the  two  men  who  carried  around  the  subscription  list. 
They  were  arrested  and  placed  in  prison  under  the  Coer- 
cion Act  on  the  ground  of  intimidation.  Mr.  O'Sullivan, 
then  member  for  the  County  of  Limerick  and  a  resident 
in  Kilmallock,  got  a  declaration  from  all  the  persons 
who  gave  subscriptions  that  they  had  given  the  money 
voluntarily.  Mr.  Mortel  and  Mr.  O'Neill,  however,  remained 
in  prison.2 

Finally  Mr.  Lloyd  obtained  the  arrest  of  Father  Sheehy,  and 
this  arrest  of  a  priest,  eminent  for  his  abilities  and  for  his  cha- 
racter, and  with  a  strong  hold  upon  the  affections  of  the  masses 

1   Hansard,  vol.  cclxi.  p.  994.     Letter  of  Father  Sheehy  to  Mr.  Parnell. 
-  Il>.  vol.  cclxiii.  pp.  looo-i. 


THE  COERCION  STRUGGLE  45i 

by  his  fearless  spirit,  added  enormously  to  the  exasperation 
of  the  country.  It  will  be  seen  by-and-by  that  though  at 
this  period  Mr.  Lloyd  had  not  succeeded  in  his  crusade  against 
women,  he  was  more  successful  when  the  regime  of  Coercion 
was  entirely  unchecked,  and  Mr.  Forster  set  himself  without 
shame  or  scruple  to  the  dragooning  of  Ireland. 

And  these  offences  were  aggravated  by  the  fact  that  every 
single  act  of  police  tyranny,  petty  or  large,  found  a  staunch  ad- 
vocate in  the  House  of  Commons  in  Mr.  Forster.  The  landlords 
at  the  same  time,  too,  proceeded  to  justify  the  worst  anticipa- 
tions of  the  Land  Leaguers.  It  had  been  over  and  over  again 
pointed  out  that  the  effect  of  the  Coercion  Act,  coming  as  it  did 
on  the  threshold  of  the  Land  Bill,  would  be  to  inspire  the  land 
lords  with  the  idea  that  the  tenants,  once  more  terrorised  and 
broken,  could  be  treated  with  the  cruelty  of  the  old  times. 
Large  numbers  of  the  tenants  had  not  yet  recovered  from  the 
reeling  shock  of  1879,  had  not  paid  their  rent,  and  could  not 
pay  it  ;  and  even  in  the  Land  Bill  that  was  coming  there 
was  no  provision  for  them.  The  result  was  that  evictions, 
which  had  been  brought  down  when  the  Land  League  was 
completely  triumphant,  now  made  a  sudden  bound  upwards. 

In  the  quarter  of  1880  ending  March  31,  2,748  persons 
had  been  evicted  ;  in  the  second  quarter,  ending  June  30, 
3,508  persons  ;  in  the  third  quarter,  ending  September  30, 
3,447  persons  ;  and  in  the  fourth  quarter,  ending  December  31, 
when  the  strong  arm  of  the  Land  League  stood  between  the 
landlord  and  the  tenant,  the  number  of  persons  evicted  had 
fallen  to  954. *  The  first  quarter  of  1881  showed  the  effect 
upon  landlords  of  the  promise  of  Coercion,  and  the  number 
of  persons  evicted  rose  to  1,732.  When  the  Coercion  Act 
began  to  be  applied,  and  the  various  local  defenders  of  the 
tenants  began  to  be  imprisoned  by  the  Clifford  Lloyds  and 
the  Traills,  the  evictions  gave  a  sudden  rise  from  1,732  to 
5,262. 

So  strongly  was  public  opinion,  even  in  Parliament,  im- 
pressed with  these  facts  that  Mr.  Labouchere  proposed  a 

1  A  considerable  number  of  those  persons  were  afterwards  admitted  as  care- 
takers, but  as  everybody  knows  this  deprived  them  of  their  status  as  tenants,  and 
left  them  at  the  mercy  of  the  landlords. 

G  G  2 


452  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

clause  in  the  Coercion  Act  suspending  evictions ;  but,  of  course, 
it  was  rejected.  Mr.  Forster  himself,  lapsing  into,  or  affect- 
ing a  moment  of  sympathy  with  the  oppressed,  as  in  the 
session  of  1880,  when  he  declared  that  he  would  resign  rather 
than  carry  out  cruel  evictions,  confessed  that  many  of  the 
persons  about  to  be  evicted  were  unable  to  pay  their  rents. 
At  the  same  time  he  stated  that  many  who  were  able  to 
pay  their  rents  were  ordered  by  the  Land  League  leaders  to 
withhold  them.  Mr.  Parriell  at  once  accepted  the  implied  sug- 
gestion, and  for  two  hours  the  question  was  discussed  in 
Parliament  whether  the  Government  would  refuse  to  lend  the 
aid  of  military  and  police  in  throwing  out  the  distressed  on 
the  roadside  if  the  Land  League  leaders  would  respond  by 
advising  the  payment  of  rent  in  cases  where  it  could  be  paid. 
But  the  proposed  compromise  came  to  nothing.  Evictions, 
accordingly,  proceeded  apace  ;  and  the  suffering  of  eviction 
was  aggravated  by  the  gradually  increasing  severity  of  the 
police  regime.  Finally  matters  reached  a  climax  when  the 
city  of  Dublin  was  proclaimed  under  the  new  Act,  although 
up  to  this  time  not  a  single  political  crime  had  been  committed 
by  any  one  of  its  three  hundred  thousand  inhabitants.  Mr. 
Forster  had  to  confess  that  the  sole  object  of  proclaiming  the 
city  was  to  bring  the  meetings  of  the  Land  League  held  there 
within  the  provisions  of  the  Coercion  Act.  A  short  time 
afterwards  Mr.  John  Dillon  was  arrested,  and  so  the  work  of 
driving  the  country  into  madness  went  on. 

The  first  effect  was  upon  the  Parliamentary  party.  The 
arrest  of  Mr.  Dillon  was  announced  immediately  before  the 
second  reading  of  the  Land  Bill.  The  Irish  party  were  called 
together  to  decide  upon  their  plan  of  action.  Again  in  the 
conference- room  thirty  of  them  met  under  the  presidency  of 
Mr.  Parnell.  A  discussion,  the  full  gravity  of  which  was  felt 
by  all,  occupied  the  party  during  three  hours.  Mr.  Parnell 
himself  proposed  from  the  chair  a  resolution  in  favour  of  ab- 
stention, and  this  resolution  was  carried  by  17  votes  against  12. 

This  decision  produced  a  feeling  of  dismay  in  many  sec- 
tions in  Ireland,  was  bitterly  criticised,  and  was  openly  dis- 
obeyed by  some  members  of  the  party.  In  fact,  it  may  now 
be  admitted  that  this  was  one  of  the  very  darkest  hours 


THE    COERCION    STRUGGLE  453 

through  which  the  Irish  party  had  passed  ;  yet  there  will  be 
few  to  deny  now  that  the  decision  to  abstain  was  the  only 
expedient  and  consistent  course  which  the  Irish  party  could 
have  adopted.  That  course  left  the  party  complete  freedom 
of  action  in  the  future  ;  it  expressed  in  the  most  emphatic 
manner  the  conviction  that  the  Land  Bill  was  not  the  final 
settlement  of  the  land  question  ;  and,  above  all,  it  helped  the 
chances  of  the  measure  with  the  House  of  Lords  by  raising 
in  the  background  the  spectre  of  a  '  No-Rent  '  manifesto. 

This  will  appear  more  clearly  by-and-by.  For  the  pre- 
sent it  will  suffice  to  say  here  that  the  Land  Bill  was  objected 
to  on  the  following  grounds  :  First,  that  it  would  establish 
an  impracticable  and  inconvenient  state  of  relations  between 


^ 

Trie  only  "solution  which  would  HP  jnstj  Complete,  and  final 
would  beThe~solution  proposed  by  the  Land  League  —  the 
)rmation  of  rent-paying  tenants  into  peasant  proprie- 
tors ;  secondly,  that  the  land  courts  would  not  make  such 
reductions  in  the  rents  as  were  required  by  the  circumstances 
of  the  case  ;  thirdly,  that,  as  a  large  number  of  tenants  were, 
owing  to  bad  seasons  and  by  the  legacy  of  the  '  hanging  gale  ' 
and  other  arrears  from  the  period  of  the  great  famine,  entirely 
unable  to  pay  their  rent,  the  new  legislation  could  do  them 
no  good,  and  that  they  would  be  just  as  much  at  the  mercy 
of  the  landlords  as  if  no  legislation  at  all  were  passed  ; 
fourthly,  that  the  leaseholders  were  excluded  ;  fifthly,  that 
due  provision  was  not  made  for  saving  the  improvements 
effected  by  the  tenant  from  confiscation  in  the  shape  of  rent  ; 
sixthly,  the  clause  in  favour  of  emigration  ;  and  seventhly, 
the  absence  of  provision  for  the  labourers. 

These  objections  were  met  in  the  same  spirit  as  the  ob- 
jections made  by  the  Irish  Parliamentary  party  to  the  Land 
Bill  of  1870  ;  and  subsequent  events  have,  in  the  case  of  the 
Bill  of  1881  as  in  that  of  1870,  proved  the  unwisdom  of 
English  statesmen  and  the  wisdom  of  the  Irish  representa- 
tives. There  is  not  one  of  these  objections  which  has  not 
been  proved  sound,  arid  most  of  them  will  reappear  shortly 
when  they  pass  from  the  mouths  of  Irish  representatives  into 


454  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

measures  passed  by  both  Houses  of  Parliament.  The  Irish 
members  endeavoured  in  vain,  in  the  course  of  the  proceed- 
ings in  Parliament,  to  introduce  amendments  which  would  have 
the  effect  of  making  the  Bill  a  better  settlement ;  but  these 
amendments  were  almost  invariably  rejected.  One  amend- 
ment, however,  was  carried  which  was  destined  to  play  a 
most  important  part  in  the  entire  future  of  the  land  question. 

Mr.  Healy  stuck  to  his  place  throughout  the  discussion  of 
the  Bill,  and  the  debates  were  often  wholly  carried  on  by 
him,  Mr.  Law,  and  Mr.  Gibson.  The  present  writer  was  sit- 
ting next  to  Mr.  Healy  on  the  night  when  the  famous  Healy 
clause,  declaring  that  in  future  no  rent  should  be  chargeable  on 
the  tenants'  improvements,  was  carried.  Mr.  Healy  made  his 
proposal  in  mild  and  almost  careless  terms,  and  Mr.  Law  got 
up  and  accepted  the  principle  with  scarcely  the  appearance 
even  of  demur.  But  there  was  a  little  confusion  about  the 
exact  wording,  and,  in  order  to  give  time  for  collecting  thought, 
Dr.  Playfair  remembered  that  he  wanted  his  tea,  and  adjourned 
the  House  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  The  clause  was  drafted 
meantime,  and  was  added  to  the  Bill.  Apparently  nothing  very 
particular  had  occurred,  the  whole  business  had  passed  off  in 
unbroken  tranquillity  and  overflowing  amicability  ;  but  the 
prime  mover  in  the  business  knew  well  what  he  had  done. 
With  a  face  of  sphinx-like  severity  Mr.  Healy  whispered  to 
the  friend  by  his  side  :  *  These  words  will  put  millions  in  the 
pockets  of  the  tenants.' 

The  Land  Bill  received  the  royal  assent  on  August  22. 
The  Irish  leaders  were  now  face  to  face  with  the  gravest  pro- 
blem they  had  yet  to  encounter.  This  was  in  regard  to  the 
attitude  they  should  assume  towards  the  new  Act.  There 
were  many  things  in  the  state  of  Ireland  at  that  period  to 
tempt  to  extreme  resolves.  The  Land  League  had  gone  on 
daily  increasing  in  power  ;  Coercion,  instead  of  diminishing, 
seemed  to  add  to  its  influence  and  its  prestige.  Though 
Parliament  was  engaged  in  the  passage  of  a  measure  in  many 
respects  as  stupendous  as  the  Land  Act  of  1881,  the  centre 
of  political  gravity  and  political  interest  was  in  the  operations 
of  the  Land  League  in  Ireland  rather  than  in  the  debates 
and  proceedings  at  St.  Stephen's.  The  Irish  farmer  could 


THE    COERCION    STRUGGLE 


455 


not  be  blamed  if  he  observed  with  exultation  the  absolutely 
revolutionary  change  which  had  come  over  his  prospects.     In 
this  hour  he  recalled  with  bitter  satisfaction  that  long  list  of 
modest  proposals  for  his  relief  which  the  Imperial  Parliament 
had  ever  rejected,  and  the  gloom,  unbroken  by  one  word  of 
sympathy   or  one  statesmanlike  proposal,  from  the  passage 
of  the  Union    till  the  Land  Bill  of   1870.     The  reader  has 
had  set  forth  in  previous  pages  the  history  of  all  these  futile 
appeals  to  the  Legislature  for  relief,  and  also  a  picture  of  the 
awful  evils  for  which  relief  was  sought.     He  will   not  have 
forgotten   the  dread  regime  of  famine  and   fever,  the  whole- 
sale clearances,  the  merciless  rack-renting,  the  tyranny  omni- 
potent, mean,  and  ubiquitous,  the  wholesale  emigration,  which 
formed  the  one  side  of  the  picture,  and  the  ignorance,  the 
insolence,  the  light-hearted  neglect,  or  the  mocking  insult  of 
English   Ministers  and  Parliaments,  which  formed  the  other 
side  of  the  picture  ;  and  is  the  hope  vain  that,  whatever  be 
his  nationality,  he  will  feel  some  sympathy  with  the  reversal 
of  the  two  parts  at  this  moment :  the  Legislature  eager  with 
gifts,  the  farmer  turning  away  in  the  scorn  of  self-dependence  ? 
In  any  case,  the  Irish  farmers  understood  the  change.     They 
saw  that  the  success  of  a  bill  proposing  changes  against  which 
all  the  statesmen,  the  whole  press,  and  the  entire  landlord  party 
of  England  and  Ireland  would  have  risen  in  revolt  a  few  years 
before,  was  longed  for  with  far  greater  eagerness  by  their  here- 
ditary and  hitherto  omnipotent  oppressors  than  it  was  by  them- 
selves. In  short,  the  slave  had  become  the  master ;  the  suppliant 
was  transformed  into  the  victor  dictating  terms.     It  was  no 
wonder   that   the   peasant    should    bless    the    men    and    the 
organisation  by  whom  a  transformation  so  glorious  and   so 
complete  had  been  worked  in  his  terrible  lot.     On  the  other 
hand,  Mr.  Parnell  had  placed  before  himself,  as  a  central  point 
of  policy,  by  no   word  or    act   of  his    to    abate    one   jot   of 
the  victory  which  the  people  might  be  able  to  wring  from 
their  enemies.     As  has  been  already  said,  he  is,  in  political 
matters  above  all  other  things,  a  man  who  drives  the  very 
hardest  bargain  that  circumstances  will  permit.     This  is  an 
outcome  of  a  mind  which  has  a  perfectly  clear  idea  of  what  it 
wants,  a  full  sense  of  its  own  rights,  and  a  grip,  consequently, 


456  THE    PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

that  never  loosens.  And,  again,  it  is  well  to  recall  the  moral 
which  every  politician  of  thought  has  drawn  from  the  two 
most  disastrous  pages  of  O'Connell's  history — the  surrender 
of  democratic  political  forces  by  his  consent  to  the  abolition 
of  the  forty-shilling  freeholders,  and  his  consent,  after  the 
great  sacrifices  and  complete  victory  of  the  anti-tithe  cam- 
paign, to  allow  these  vile  imposts  to  be  reimposed  under  the 
new  name  of  an  addition  to  the  rack-rent. 

At  this  moment  the  situation,  as  it  presented  itself  to  Mr. 
Parnell's  mind,  was  this  :  the  land  courts  had  practically  the 
entire  settlement  of  the  rental  of  Ireland  in  their  hands  ;  the 
changes  required  in  that  rental,  according  to  the  views  of  Mr. 
Parnell,  were  not  small,  nor  narrow,  nor  sporadic,  but  revo- 
lutionary, wholesale,  and  thorough.  I  will  not  now  attempt 
to  argue  at  any  length  the  question  whether  this  was  or  was 
not  a  correct  view  of  the  change  required  in  Irish  rents.  To 
an  Irishman  I  have  only  to  present  the  question  in  this 
fashion  —What  is  the  margin  between  the  present  position  of 
the  Irish  farmer  in  regard  to  clothes,  to  housing,  to  food,  and 
in  resources  generally,  and  that  of  the  farmer  in  other 
civilised  countries  ?  •  Every  thoughtful  Irish  reader  will 
agree  that  the  difference  is  not  a  chink,  but  a  chasm.  The 
disproportion  that  exists  between  the  position  of  the  tenant, 
as  it  is  and  as  it  should  be,  represents  the  disproportion  in 
the  rent  as  it  was  and  as  it  should  be  ;  and  therefore  the 
changes  in  the  rent  should  be  sweeping  and  revolutionary, 
not  small  and  halting.  To  the  English  reader  I  have  only 
to  point  to  the  almost  universal  reduction  of  rents  which 
the  landlords  of  England  have  voluntarily  made  during  the 
last  three  or  four  years,  to  that  depression  of  agriculture 
which  has  passed  from  the  region  of  controversy  to  that  of 
admitted  fact,  and,  above  all,  to  the  thousands  of  acres  lying 
unoccupied  and  untilled,  as  proof  that  in  England  rents  must 
be  subjected  to  revolutionary  reduction  ;  and  if  this  be  true 
of  England,  with  its  splendid  markets,  its  large  manufacturing 
industries,  its  unsurpassed  railway  communication,  a  fortiori 
it  is  true  of  a  country  like  Ireland — poor,  with  no  large  towns, 
without  any  manufactures,  and  with  communication  still 
most  imperfectly  developed. 


THE    COERCION   STRUGGLE  457 

But  what  were  the  chances  of  a  revolutionary  reduction 
of  rents  ?  The  whole  character  of  the  land  court  forbade 
any  such  expectation.  Judge  O'Hagan,  the  chief  of  the  court, 
was  well  known  to  be  a  man  of  pliant  and  timid  character.  Of 
his  two  colleagues,  Mr.  Litton  was  a  lawyer  who  had  never  got 
beyond  the  peddling  proposals  of  Ulster  tenant  leagues,  and 
a  man  utterly  devoid  of  any  boldness  or  initiative  ;  while  Mr. 
Vernon,  the  third  member  of  the  commission,  was  agent  for 
several  large  landed  proprietors,  was  himself  a  landed  proprie- 
tor, and  had  besides  the  reputation  of  being  much  stronger 
willed  than  either  of  his  colleagues.  Apart  from  their  own  weak- 
ness of  character,  the  two  legal  members  of  the  chief  commission 
were  men  who  had  grown  old  in  all  the  ideas  and  traditions  of 
the  ancient  laws  with  regard  to  the  tenure  of  land  in  Ireland. 
The  whole  bent  of  these  laws  was  towards  the  rights  of  the 
landlords.  The  recognition  of  the  right  of  the  tenant,  in 
fact,  marked  nothing  less  than  a  new  birth  in  political  and 
legal  ideas.  To  a  generation  that  has  lived  to  see  the  Land 
Acts  of  1870  and  1881,  the  theory  of  a  proprietary  right  by 
the  tenant  in  the  land  may  appear  an  axiomatic  truth,  to 
which  law  gave  simply  the  stamp  of  traditional  common 
sense.  To  the  generation  to  which  the  youth  of  Mr.  Justice 
O'Hagan  and  Mr.  Litton  belonged,  the  proprietorship  of  the 
tenant  in  the  soil  was  the  code  only  of  the  Ribbon  Lodge, 
and  had  its  only  statutable  sanction  in  the  blunderbuss. 

Again,  when  Mr  Parnell  and  the  other  leaders  of  the  Land 
League  sought  for  the  probable  effects  of  the  rent-fixing 
clauses  of  the  Land  Act,  they  naturally  turned  to  the  prophe- 
cies of  the  men  by  whom  the  Land  Act  had  been  framed 
and  had  been  carried  through  both  Houses  of  Parliament. 

Mr.  Gladstone  had  declared,  as  has  been  seen,  at  the  very 
start  of  the  Session,  that  the  rents  of  Ireland  on  the  whole, 
were  fair  ;  and  in  proposing  the  first  reading  of  the  Land 
Bill,  he  had  made  the  more  emphatic  declaration  that  in  the 
Bessborough  Commission  of  Inquiry  the  landlords  had  been 
tested  and  had  stood  the  test.1  In  the  House  of  Lords — 
where  the  Land  Bill  had  to  be  gilded  with  even  more  attrac- 
tive coating — the  declarations  had  been  still  more  encouraging 
to  the  landlords. 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclx.  p.  892. 


458  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

If  (said  Lord  Selborne)  you  compare  the  state  of  things  under  the 
Bill  with  that  which  would  exist  if  nothing  of  the  kind  were  done,  the 
Bill  may  be  expected  to  restore,  and  moreover  not  diminish,  the 
value  of  the  landlords'  property. l 

I  deny  (he  said  again)  that  it  will  diminish,  in  any  degree 
whatever,  the  rights  of  the  landlord  or  the  value  of  the  interest  he 
possesses.2 

Lord  Carlingford  was  still  more  explicit : — 

My  lords  (he  said),  I  maintain  that  the  provisions  of  this  Bill  will 
cause  the  landlords  no  money  loss  whatever.3 

These  prophecies  have  frequently  been  thrown  in  the 
faces  of  the  Liberal  leaders  by  Lord  Salisbury,  and  effective 
contrast  has  been  drawn  between  them  and  the  actual  results 
of  the  establishment  of  the  land  courts.  But  this  was  the 
wisdom  that  came  after  the  event.  Lord  Salisbury  was 
justified  in  declaring  that  it  was  prophecies  like  these  which 
induced  the  House  of  Lords  to  pass  the  Land  Bill.  It  is 
probable  that  these  gentlemen,  when  they  made  these  state- 
ments, were  perfectly  sincere.  Mr.  Parnell  and  his  colleagues 
were  certainly  bound  to  take  them  as  being  sincere,  and 
their  prophecies  as  to  the  results  of  their  own  legislation  were 
that  the  reduction  of  rents  in  Ireland  would  be  infinitesimal, 
while  the  conviction  of  the  Irish  leaders  was  that  the  reduction 
should  be  revolutionary.  Furthermore,  every  care  had  been 
taken  that  the  decisions  of  the  land  courts  should  be  subject 
to  Parliamentary  criticism.  The  courts  were  bound  to  present 
to  Parliament  almost  every  detail  of  every  single  one  of  the 
cases  brought  before  them.  A  considerable  number  of  the 
sub-commissioners  held  but  temporary  appointments,  and,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  some  were  removed  under  a  continual  hailstorm 
of  Parliamentary  criticism  ;  and  the  Parliamentary  criticism 
that  they  had  to  dread  was  not  that  of  the  small  minority 
who  defended  the  interests  of  the  tenant  in  Parliament,  but 
that  of  the  overwhelming  majority  of  the  two  parties  in  both 
Houses  of  the  Legislature — the  majority  which  represented 
the  interests  of  the  landlords. 

1   Hansard,  vol.  cclxiv.  p.  534. 

3  Ib.  p.  252. 


THE   COERCION    STRUGGLE  459 

Here,  then,  was  the  situation.  A  nation  requiring  whole- 
sale reform,  and  the  instruments  wherewith  to  carry  out  that 
reform  a  body  of  men,  weak,  timid,  and  for  the  most  part 
removable,  and  nearly  all  the  legislative  forces  of  the  country 
impelling  the  court  towards  minimising  the  rights  of  the 
tenant  and  exaggerating  those  of  the  landlord.  Under  such 
circumstances  but  one  decision  was  possible — to  oppose  to  all 
these  mighty  forces  some  resistance  that  might  hope  to  be  as 
effective.  If  the  land  court  were  subject  to  the  pressure  of 
the  landlords  of  the  House  of  Commons  and  of  the  House  of 
Lords,  and  bound  by  the  declarations  of  the  Ministers  on  the 
one  side,  it  was  necessary  to  procure  counterbalancing  pressure 
on  the  side  of  the  tenants  ;  in  other  words,  to  make  the  court 
fair  to  the  tenants  by  making  the  tenants  to  some  extent 
independent  of  the  court.  These  were  the  steps  of  reasoning 
by  which  the  Irish  leaders  arrived  at  the  conviction  that  by 
organisation  and  unity  alone  could  the  farmer  maintain  the 
ground  he  had  gained  ;  that  without  this  organisation  and 
unity  the  land  courts  would  become  but  a  new  machinery  for 
perpetuating  the  yoke  of  impossible  rents,  and  the  Land  Act 
turn  out,  like  so  many  other  previous  statutes,  but  Dead-sea 
fruit  that  turned  to  ashes  at  the  touch. 

At  the  same  time  there  were  the  land  courts  with  their 
doors  open.  The  extreme  section  of  the  Land  Leaguers  were 
so  convinced  of  the  omnipotence  of  the  League,  and  of  the 
futility  and  treachery  of  the  Land  Act,  that  they  strongly 
urged  the  policy  of  keeping  the  tenants  out  of  the  courts 
altogether.  But  it  was  perceived  by  Mr.  Parnell  that  such  a 
policy  was  impracticable.  The  fact  was  bound  to  be  faced 
that,  whatever  was  said  or  done,  a  large  number  of  the  tenants 
would  try  their  chances  in  the  land  courts  ;  and,  therefore, 
the  policy  of  Mr.  Parnell  was  not  to  prevent,  but  to  regulate 
the  appeal  to  these  courts.  To  him  the  best  plan  of  doing 
this  appeared  to  be  to  place  in  the  courts  a  certain  number 
of  typical  cases.  The  cases  were  not  to  be  those  which 
exhibited  the  most  flagrant  instances  of  rack-renting.  This 
proviso  in  the  selection  of  cases  was  that  which  afterwards 
most  deeply  moved  the  wrath  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  was 
denounced  by  him  in  that  passionate  rhetoric  which  he  has 


460  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

always  been  able  to  command  when  dealing  with  his  poli- 
tical opponents.  But  the  justice  of  the  proviso  requires  very 
little  defence.  The  conviction  of  Mr.  Parnell  and  of  every- 
body in  Ireland  was,  that  the  scale  of  rent  was  too  high 
generally  and  not  sporadically  ;  that  the  scale,  therefore, 
required  almost  universal  reduction.  Obviously  an  extrava- 
gantly rack-rented  property  would  not  supply  to  the  court  a 
fair  and  average  case.  A  large  reduction  might  be  made  in 
such  a  case,  and  at  the  same  time  the  general  scale  of  rent  in 
Ireland  might  remain  too  high.  There  was  the  danger  of  the 
tenants  being  deceived,  by  the  reduction  in  such  a  case,  into 
a  false  estimate  of  what  the  general  attitude  of  the  land  courts 
would  be.  A  reduction  of  fifty  per  cent,  on  a  hopelessly  rack- 
rented  estate  might  well  dazzle  the  farmers  into  the  belief 
that  a  reduction  of  fifty  per  cent,  would  be  made  all  round. 
They  would,  of  course,  have  discovered  their  mistake  in  time, 
but  they  would  not  have  discovered  it  until,  by  their  appeal 
to  the  land  court,  they  had  disintegrated  the  organisation 
which  ought  still  to  remain  their  main  safeguard  and  buttress. 
In  this  way  what  was  known  as  the  '  Test-Case  '  policy  came 
to  be  adopted. 

A  second  great  convention  was  held  in  the  Rotunda  on 
September  15  and  the  two  following  days.  It  was  one  of  the 
most  imposing  meetings  that  had  ever  assembled  in  Ireland. 
Upwards  of  a  thousand  branches  were  represented,  the  tone  of 
the  speeches  was  triumphant,  and  the  whole  assembly  breathed 
a  spirit  of  exultation.  The  members  of  the  extreme  section 
formed  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  the  delegates.  To  this 
section  enormous  strength  had  been  added  by  the  use  to  which 
Mr.  Forster  had  put  his  Coercion  Acts.  By  this  time  a  large 
number  of  the  men  who  had  been  most  active  in  building  up  the 
mighty  organisation  were  in  gaol.  From  their  cells  these  men 
appealed  to  their  colleagues  not  to  give  up  the  fruits  of  the 
victory  for  which  they  had  consented  to  brave  and  to  suffer, 
and  the  advocates  of  extreme  courses  found  the  most  telling 
argument  in  favour  of  their  policy  in  the  sufferings  of  Mr. 
Davitt  and  Father  Sheeny.  The  proposal  of  this  section 
was,  that  the  tenantry  should  have  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  the  Act  ;  that  they  should  continue  the  organisation  and 


THE   COERCION    STRUGGLE 


461 


the  agitation,  and  go  on  to  the  bitter  end,  until  landlordism 
was  completely  crushed,  and  the  Government  could  have  no 
choice  but  to  accept  the  programme  of  the  Land  League  and 
purchase  peace  by  the  expropriation  of  the  landlords  and  the 
creation  of  a  peasant  proprietary.  The  weapon  which  this 
section  held  to  be  the  means  of  bringing  about  this  final  con- 
summation was  a  *  No-Rent '  manifesto  ;  but  to  this  course 
Mr.  Parnell  and  the  greater  number  of  his  colleagues  were  at 
this  moment  opposed.  They  were  in  favour  of  the  middle 
course  which  I  have  described.  They  thought  it  possible  at 
the  same  time  to  maintain  the  organisation  and  to  test  the 
land  court.  Their  policy  was  well  summed  up  by  Mr.  Parnell 
himself,  as  that  of  '  testing  and  not  using  the  Land  Act.' 
The  influence  of  Mr.  Parnell  and  his  colleagues  prevailed, 
and  the  '  Test-Case '  policy  was  sanctioned  by  the  con- 
vention. 

It  was  often  suggested,  immediately  afterwards,  that  this 
policy  was  never  really  believed  in  by  Mr.  Parnell.  I  can  bear 
personal  testimony  to  the  fact  that  he  proceeded  at  once  to 
take  the  means  necessary  for  carrying  the  policy  into  prac- 
tical effect.  I  sat  by  his  side  for  nights  in  succession,  as  he 
extracted  from  the  books  of  the  Land  League  cases  which 
appeared  to  him  to  be  such  as  would  fairly  test  the  disposi- 
tion of  the  court,  and  Mr.  Healy  went  down  to  the  South 
of  Ireland  to  visit  the  homes  and  to  investigate  the  farms  of 
some  whose  cases  had  thus  been  selected.  On  the  day  on 
which  the  forms  for  application  to  the  new  land  court  were 
issued,  Mr.  Parnell  was  so  eager  to  be  among  the  first  appli- 
cants that  he  visited  the  house  of  the  Land  Commission  no 
less  than  three  times.  In  fact,  he  had  resolved  to  give  the 
fair  '  Test-Case  '  policy  a  bond-fide  trial. 

But  this  was  not  to  be.  The  Ministry,  having  passed  the 
Land  Act,  found  that  their  political  credit  required  the  Act  to 
appear  successful.  If  after  all  the  time  they  had  consumed  in 
Parliament,  all  the  prophecies  they  had  uttered,  all  the  pressure 
they  had  exercised  on  their  unwilling  supporters  to  have  the 
Bill  swallowed,  it  turned  out  a  failure  ;  if  it  were  proved  to 
be,  after  all  the  pains  spent  upon  it,  not  the  great  and  magni- 
ficent creation  of  a  Minister  of  genius  but  a  rickety  child 


462  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

dead  almost  as  soon  as  born,  then  came  chaos  and  political 
bankruptcy.  Mr.  Gladstone  and  his  colleagues  resolved  to 
act  with  the  reckless  unscrupulousness  of  men  confronted  by 
irretrievable  ruin.  If  the  Land  Act  were  not  a  final  settlement 
of  the  question,  at  least  it  should  appear  to  be  so ;  if  Ireland 
were  not  tranquil,  at  least  she  should  be  made  to  seem  tranquil  ; 
if  disaffection  could  not  be  destroyed,  at  least  the  sound  of  its 
voice  could  be  stifled. 

Mr.  Gladstone  spoke  at  Leeds  on  October  7.  In  his 
speech  he  made  a  violent  and  evidently  premeditated  attack 
on  the  Irish  Leader.  Mr.  Parnell  and  his  followers  were  spoken 
of  as  '  a  handful  of  men,  and  nothing  but  a  handful  of  men,  in 
Parliament  whom  I  will  not  call  a  party,  for  they  are  not 
entitled  to  it.'  '  A  contrast  was  drawn  between  the  action  of 
Mr.  Parnell  and  Mr.  Dillon,  full  of  compliment  to  Mr.  Dillon. 
(Mr.  Dillon,  by  the  way,  replied  a  few  days  afterwards  show- 
ing how  utterly  the  Prime  Minister  had  misrepresented  his 
attitude,  and  repudiated  the  compliments  paid  to  him  at 
the  expense  of  his  leader.)  Then  Mr.  Parnell  was  described 
in  an  attitude  the  grotesqueness  of  which  even  sophistry 
and  political  necessities  might  recoil  from.  As  I  have 
shown,  the  object  of  the  Irish  leader  was  to  save  the  tenants 
from  the  chicanery  and  spoliation  of  the  courts  ;  and  the 
impression  Mr.  Gladstone  sought  to  convey,  and  probably 
did  convey,  was  that  Mr.  Parnell's  object  was  to  deprive  the 
Irish  farmers  of  the  benefit  of  the  Land  Act.  '  Now,'  said 
Mr.  Gladstone,  '  that  the  Land  Act  is  passed,  and  now  that  he 
is  afraid  lest  the  people  of  England  should  win  the  hearts  of 
the  whole  of  the  Irish  nation,  he  has  a  new  and  enlarged 
gospel  of  plunder  to  proclaim.' 

It  was  part  of  the  case  of  Mr.  Gladstone  that  Mr.  Parnell 
and  the  people  were  entirely  at  issue.  Mr.  Parnell  was  not  a 
beloved  leader  of  the  people,  but  a  detested  tyrant. 

The  people  of  Ireland,  we  believe  (said  Mr.  Gladstone),  desire,  in 
conformity  with  the  advice  of  the  old  patriots,  and  their  bishops  and 
their  best  friends  ....  to  make  a  full  trial  of  the  Land  Act;  and  if 
they  do  make  a  full  trial  of  that  Act,  you  may  rely  upon  it,  it  is  as 
certain  as  human  contingencies  can  be  to  give  peace  to  the  country. 
1  Freeman'' s  "Journal,  October  10,  1881. 


THE    COERCION    STRUGGLE 


463 


We  shall  rely  on  the  good  sense  of  the  people,  because  we  are  de- 
termined that  no  force,  or  fear  of  ruin  through  force,  shall  as  far  as 
we  are  concerned,  and  as  it  is  in  our  power  to  decide  the  question, 
prevent  the  Irish  people  having  the  full  and  free  benefit  of  the  Land 
Act.1 

Mr.  Gladstone's  interpretation  of  '  relying  on  the  good 
sense  of  the  people '  took,  as  will  presently  be  seen,  a  comic 
form  a  few  days  afterwards.  Then  the  '  Test- Case '  policy  was 
denounced  in  the  most  violent  language,  and  finally  came  this 
ominous  passage  : — 

When  we  have  that  short,  further  experience  to  which  I  have  re- 
ferred, if  it  should  then  appear  that  there  is  still  to  be  fought  a  final 
conflict  in  Ireland  between  law  on  the  one  side  and  sheer  lawlessness 
on  the  other — if  the  law,  still  purged  from  defects,  is  still  to  be  re- 
jected and  refused,  the  first  condition  of  political  society  remains 
unfulfilled,  and  then,  I  say  without  hesitation,  the  resources  of  civili- 
sation against  its  enemies  are  not  yet  exhausted.2 

To  that  speech  on  Sunday,  October  9,  Mr.  Parnell  replied 
at  Wexford. 

The  reception  given  to  Mr.  Parnell  at  this  Wexford  meet- 
ing is  described  by  those  who  saw  it  as  perhaps  the  most 
enthusiastic  of  the  many  receptions  of  almost  frenzied  enthu- 
siasm which  he  received  during  this  momentous  year.  The 
man  denounced  by  Mr.  Gladstone  as  a  tyrant,  issuing  man- 
dates to  trembling  slaves,  was  received  with  expressions  of 
love  that  might  have  made  the  heart  of  even  an  emperor 
beat  fast.  Triumphal  arches  spanned  the  streets,  evergreens 
and  flowers  covered  the  windows  and  doorways  and  lamp  -posts. 
Bands  came  from  several  parts  of  the  country,  and  special 
trains  brought  thousands  from  the  surrounding  districts.  The 
speech  of  Mr.  Parnell  was  in  the  same  passionate  tones  as 
that  to  which  it  was  a  reply.  Mr.  Gladstone,  in  the  course  of 
his  speech,  had  complained  of  the  want  of  all  support  to  the 
efforts  of  Government  by  the  landlords  and  other  classes 
threatened,  and  then  had  dropped  into  the  astonishing  con- 
fession that '  Government  is  expected  to  keep  the  peace  with 
no  moral  force  behind  them.' 

1  Freeman's  Journal,  October  10,  1881. 


464  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

The  Government  (said  Mr.  Parnell,  taking  up  this  point)  has  no 
moral  force  behind  it  in  Ireland.  The  whole  Irish  people  are  against 
them.  They  have  to  depend  for  their  support  upon  the  interest  of  a 
very  small  minority  of  the  people  of  this  country,  and,  therefore,  they 
have  no  moral  force  behind  them,  and  Mr.  Gladstone,  in  these  few 
short  words,  admits  that  English  government  has  failed  in  Ireland 
.  .  .  and  he  wound  up  with  a  threat — this  man  who  has  no  moral 
force  behind  him— he  wound  up  with  a  threat,  '  No  fear  of  force  shall 
so  far  as  we  are  concerned,  and  as  it  is  in  our  power  ' — I  say  it  is  not 
in  his  power  to  trample  on  the  aspirations  and  the  rights  of  the  Irish 
nation  with  no  moral  force  behind  him.  These  are  very  brave 
words  that  he  uses,  but  it  strikes  me  they  have  a  ring  about  them 
like  the  whistle  of  a  schoolboy  on  his  way  through  a  churchyard  at 
night  to  keep  up  his  courage.  ...  I  trust,  as  the  result  of  this  great 
movement,  that  just  as  Gladstone,  by  the  Act  of  1881,  has  eaten 
all  his  old  words,  has  departed  from  all  his  formerly  declared  prin- 
ciples, now  we  shall  see  that  these  brave  words  of  this  English 
Prime  Minister  will  be  scattered  as  chaff  before  the  united  and 
advancing  determination  of  the  Irish  people,  to  regain  for  themselves 
their  lost  land  and  their  lost  legislative  independence. 

On  the  Monday  following  his  speech,  Mr.  Parnell  was 
entertained  at  a  banquet,  and  in  his  speech  he  used  some 
words  which  showed  he  had  some  presentiment  of  what  was 
coming. 

I  am  frequently  disposed  to  think  (he  said)  that  Ireland  has  not 
yet  got  through  the  troubled  waters  of  affliction  to  be  crossed  before 
we  reach  the  promised  land  of  prosperity  to  Ireland.  .  .  .  There  may 
be,  probably  there  will  be,  more  stringent  Coercion  before  us  than  we 
have  yet  experienced. 

The  next  day  he  went  to  his  home  in  Avondale,  and  he 
reached  Dublin  by  the  last  train  on  Wednesday  night,  having 
promised  to  attend  the  Kildare  County  Convention,  which 
was  to  be  held  at  Naas  on  the  following  day.  He  was  to  have 
left  Kingsbridge  Station  by  the  10.15  A.M.  train.  On  that 
same  Wednesday  a  Cabinet  Council  had  been  held  in  Eng- 
land, and  in  the  evening  Mr.  Forster  had  crossed  over,  author- 
ised to  arrest  his  chief  opponent.  Here  is  Mr.  Parnell's  own 
account  of  what  actually  occurred  :— 

Intending  to  proceed  to  Naas  this  morning,  I  ordered,  before 
retiring  to  bed  on  Wednesday  night,  that  I  should  be  called  at  half- 


THE   COERCION    STRUGGLE 


465 


past  eight  o'clock.  When  the  man  came  to  my  bedroom  to  awaken 
me,  he  told  me  that  two  gentlemen  were  waiting  below  who  wanted 
to  see  me.  I  told  him  to  ask  their  names  and  business.  Having 
gone  out,  he  came  back  in  a  few  moments,  and  said  that  one  was  the 
superintendent  of  police  and  the  other  was  a  policeman.  I  told  him 
to  say  that  I  would  be  dressed  in  half  an  hour,  and  would  see  them 
then.  He  went  away,  but  came  back  again  to  tell  me  that  he  had 
been  downstairs  to  see  the  gentlemen,  and  had  told  them  I  was  not 
stopping  at  that  hotel.  He  then  said  that  I  should  get  out  through  the 
back  part  of  the  house,  and  not  allow  them  to  catch  me.  I  told  him 
that  I  would  not  do  that,  even  if  it  were  possible,  because  the  police 
authorities  would  be  sure  to  have  every  way  most  closely  watched. 
He  again  went  down,  and  this  time  showed  the  detectives  up  to  my 
bedroom. 

The  '  Freeman's  Journal,' l  from  which  this  is  quoted,  con- 
tinues :— 

In  Foster  Place  there  was  a  force  of  one  hundred  policemen  held 
in  readiness  in  case  of  any  emergency.  Mr.  Mallon,  when  he  entered 
the  bedroom,  found  Mr.  C.  S.  Parnell  in  the  act  of  dressing,  and 
immediately  presented  him  with  two  warrants.  He  did  not  state 
their  purport,  but  Mr.  Parnell  understood  the  situation  without  any 
intimation.  It  is  not  true  to  state  that  he  exhibited  surprise  or  that 
he  looked  puzzled.  The  documents  were  presented  to  him  with 
gentlemanly  courtesy  by  Mr.  Mallon,  and  the  hon.  gentleman  who 
was  about  to  be  arrested  received  them  with  perfect  calmness  and 
deliberation.  He  had  had  private  advices  from  England  regarding 
the  Cabinet  Council,  and  was  well  aware  that  the  Government 
meditated  some  coup  d'etat. 

Two  copies  of  the  warrants  had  also  been  sent  to  the  Kingsbridge 
Terminus,  to  be  served  on  Mr.  Parnell  in  case  he  should  go  to 
Sallins  by  an  early  train.  Superintendent  Mallon  expressed  some 
anxiety  lest  a  crowd  should  collect  and  interfere  with  the  arrest,  and 
he  requested  Mr.  Parnell  to  come  away  as  quickly  as  possible.  Mr. 
Parnell  responded  to  his  anxiety.  A  cab  was  called,  and  the  two 
detectives  with  the  honourable  prisoner  drove  away.  When  the 
party  reached  the  Bank  of  Ireland,  at  which  but  a  fortnight  previously 
Mr.  Parnell  had  directed  the  attention  of  many  thousands  to  its 
former  memories  and  future  prospects,  five  or  six  metropolitan  police, 
evidently  by  preconcerted  arrangement,  jumped  upon  two  outside 
cars  and  drove  in  front  of  the  party.  On  reaching  the  quays  at 
the  foot  of  Parliament  Street,  a  number  of  horse  police  joined  the 
1  October  14,  1881. 

H  H 


466  THE  PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

procession  at  the  rear.  In  this  order  the  four  vehicles  drove  to  Kil- 
mainham.  This  strange  procession  passed  along  the  thoroughfares 
without  creating  any  remarkable  notice.  A  few  people  did  stop  to 
look  at  it  on  part  of  the  route,  and  then  pursued  the  vehicles.  But 
their  curiosity  was  probably  aroused  by  the  presence  of  '  the  force  ' 
rather  than  by  any  knowledge  that  after  a  short  lull  the  Coercion  Act 
was  again  being  applied  to  the  elite  of  the  League.  They  stopped 
their  chase  after  going  a  few  perches,  and  at  half-past  nine  o'clock 
Mr.  Parnell  appeared  in  front  of  the  dark  portals  of  Kilmainham. 

A  few  hours  afterwards  he  was  interviewed  by  a  reporter 
of  the  '  Freeman's  Journal.'  The  interview  closed  with  one 
of  those  mots  by  which  Mr.  Parnell  has  marked  important 
epochs  in  his  career.  *  As  I  rose  to  leave/  says  the  reporter, 
Mr.  Parnell  stated,  '  I  shall  take  it  as  an  evidence  that  the 
people  did  not  do  their  duty  if  I  am  speedily  released.' 

It  was  on  the  morning  of  Thursday,  October  13,  that  Mr. 
Parnell  was  arrested  ;  on  this  same  day  the  Prime  Minister 
was  otherwise  employed.  It  was  the  day  fixed  for  presenting 
him  with  the  freedom  of  the  city  at  the  Guildhall.  The  formal 
announcement  of  the  arrest  of  Mr.  Parnell  was,  says  the  Lon- 
don correspondent  of  the  (  Freeman's  Journal,' *  '  accompanied 
by  a  good  deal  of  theatrical  display,  which  would  have  been 
less  expected  from  the  present  Prime  Minister  than  at  the 
initiation  of  the  late  Lord  Beaconsfield.' 

Before  Mr.  Gladstone  (continues  the  writer)  had  been  presented 
with  the  address,  everyone  in  the  room  had  been  made  aware  of  the 
contents  of  a  telegram  dealing  with  Mr.  Parnell's  arrival  at  Kilmain- 
ham ;  but  before  the  right  hon.  member  rose  to  reply  a  messenger 
most  consequentially  advanced  and  presented  him  with  the  Treasury 
despatch  formally  stating  the  fact.  The  Premier  must  have  given 
official  sanction  to  the  arrest  eighteen  hours  previously,  and  could 
very  well  have  made  his  speech  without  such  stage-like  surroundings. 

Mr.  Gladstone,  after  a  few  platitudes  in  reply  to  the  address 
of  the  Corporation,  went  on  to  use  these  words  :— 

Within  these  few  moments  I  have  been  informed  that  towards  the 
vindication  of  the  law,  of  order,   of  the  rights   of  property,  of  the 
freedom  of  the  land,  of  the  first  elements  of  political  life  and  civilisa- 
tion, the  first  step  has  been  taken  in  the  arrest  of  the  man — 
1  October  14,  1 88 1. 


THE    COERCION    STRUGGLE  467 

but  Mr.  Gladstone  was  not  allowed  immediately  to  conclude 
the  sentence,  for,  as  the  report  says  : — 

At  this  moment  the  whole  of  the  vast  audience  rose  to  their  feet, 
and  stood  wildly  cheering  for  several  minutes. 

When  at  last  he  could  resume,  Mr.  Gladstone  thus  finished 
the  sentence  : — 

— who  has  made  himself  beyond  all  others  prominent  in  the  attempt 
to  destroy  the  authority  of  the  law  and  to  substitute  what  would  end 
in  being  nothing  more  nor  less  than  anarchical  oppression  exercised 
upon  the  people  of  Ireland. 

It  is  well  to  take  note  of  some  phenomena  which  followed 
this  arrest.  It  will  show  how  extremely  well  the  two  nations 
have  been  made  to  understand  each  other  by  the  legislative 
bond  that  has  united  them  for  eighty-five  years.  In  England 
and  in  Ireland  the  arrest  was  received  with  feelings  as  dia- 
metrically opposed,  and  as  bitterly  hostile,  as  can  possibly 
exist  between  two  nations. 

The  loud  and  prolonged  cheering  (said  the  *  Pall  Mall  Gazette ') 
which  yesterday  at  the  Guildhall  hailed  the  arrest  of  Mr.  Parnell,  is 
echoed  this  morning  through  the  length  and  breadth  of  Great  Britain. 
With  hardly  a  dissentient  voice  the  English  and  Scotch  press  com- 
mends the  imprisonment  of  the  President  of  the  Land  League.  The 
divisions  of  party  politics  are  fused  by  the  intensity  of  race  antagonism 
and  the  passionate  impatience  of  Englishmen  when  they  are  con- 
fronted by  what  they  regard  as  unreasonable  and  irritating  opposition. 

A  glance  at  the  papers  of  the  period  fully  confirms  this. 
Liberal  and  Tory  alike  speak.  *  It  is  an  unhappy  necessity,' 
says  the  *  Daily  News.'  '  The  country  will  welcome  the 
arrest  of  Mr.  Parnell,'  writes  the  '  Standard.'  '  Mr.  Parnell's 
arrest,'  declares  the  *  Edinburgh  Courant,'  '  is  by  far  the  most 
popular  step  which  the  Government  has  taken.'  *  We  believe,' 
exclaims  the  '  Glasgow  Daily  Mail,'  '  that  the  tenant-farmers 
of  Ireland  will  rejoice  at  their  deliverance  from  the  yoke 
of  the  League,  and  that  the  semi-seditious  body — if  there 
be  any  need  for  the  qualification — will  speedily  fall  to  pieces 
of  its  own  accord.'  '  The  arrest  of  the  leader  of  the  Land 
League,'  says  the  '  Manchester  Examiner,'  *  is  a  painful  and 

H  H  2 


468  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

an  odious  step.'  It  consoles  itself,  however :  '  We  must/  it 
says,  '  bend  our  back  to  the  burden,  and,  satisfied  of  the  recti- 
tude and  honesty  of  the  Government,  must  give  them  our 
entire  support  in  endeavouring  to  cope  with  a  crisis  for  which 
they  at  any  rate  are  not  responsible.'  '  The  arrest  of  Mr. 
Parnell,'  says  the  '  Dundee  Advertiser,'  '  will  be  received 
throughout  Scotland  with  something  of  savage  satisfac- 
tion.' l 

The  voice  of  the  politicians  was  equally  unanimous.  Sir 
Stafford  Northcote  endorsed  the  arrest ;  so  did  Mr.  Ashton 
Dilke  ;  so  did  the  working-men  members,  Mr.  Burt  and  Mr. 
Broadhurst.  Mr.  Broadhurst  said  he  was  '  ready  to  arrest  a 
thousand  Parnells  rather  than  the  starving  Irish  people  should 
have  withheld  from  them  the  blessings  which  the  Legislature 
has  conferred  :  no  greater  or  more  beneficent  boon  having  ever 
been  bestowed  by  any  Legislature  in  any  age  than  the  Irish 
Land  Act.'  * 

I  need  scarcely  point  out  that  Mr.  Broadhurst  entirely 
misrepresented  the  purpose  of  Mr.  Parnell's  policy.  That 
policy  could  not  be  better  described  than  in  the  language  of 
a  bitter  opponent  of  Mr.  Parnell,  the  Duke  of  Marlborough. 
'  I  have  no  doubt  myself,'  said  his  Grace,  *  that  if  the  Land 
League  were  permitted  to  continue,  in  any  case  they  would 
by  their  powerful  organisation  work  the  Land  Act  in  a 
manner  which  might  be  highly  dangerous  to  the  property  of 
the  landlords.' 3 

Meanwhile  in  Ireland  the  arrest  of  Mr.  Parnell  was 
mourned  throughout  the  country  as  a  national  calamity.  In- 
dignation meetings  were  held,  unless  they  were  dispersed  by 
the  police  or  the  soldiery,  in  every  town  and  village  in  the 
country,  and  in  most  cases  the  shutters  were  put  on  the  win- 
dows as  in  times  of  death  and  funerals.  The  country  was 
swept  by  a  passion  of  anger  and  grief,  the  more  bitter  be- 
cause it  had  to  be  suppressed.  Troops  were  poured  into  the 

1  These  extracts  are  quoted  from  the  rail  Mall  Gazette  of  Friday,  October  14, 
1881. 

-  Quoted  by  Mr.  J.  Morrison  Davidson,  in  a  letter  to  the  Echo  (Freeman's 
Journal,  October  22,  iSSi). 

3  Freemarfs  Journal^  October  25,  iSSi. 


THE    COERCION    STRUGGLE  469 

country,  and,  by  way  of  striking  wholesome  terror,  Dublin  was 
given  over  for  two  days  to  the  police  ;  and  then  occurred 
scenes  of  brutality  the  records  of  which  it  is  not  possible 
to  read  even  at  this  distance  without  bitter  anger.  Under 
the  pretext  that  there  was  danger  of  a  riot  in  O'Connell — 
then  Sackville — Street,  it  was  taken  possession  of  by  large 
bodies  of  police,  and  when  a  crowd  of  boys,  attracted  by  this 
curious  spectacle,  began  to  jeer  and  groan,  the  police  made 
charges,  struck  the  people  with  their  M tans  and  clenched  fists, 
and  kicked  those  whom  they  felled. 

Their  conduct  (writes  the  '  Weekly  Irish  Times/  ]  a  Conservative 
organ  in  Dublin)  was  such  as  to  appear  almost  incredible  to  all  who 
had  not  been  to  witness  it.  ...  After  every  charge  they  made,  men, 
amongst  them  respectable  citizens,  were  left  lying  in  the  streets,  blood 
pouring  from  the  wounds  they  received  on  the  head  from  the  batons 
of  the  police,  while  others  were  covered  with  severe  bruises  from  the 
kicks  and  blows  of  clenched  fists,  delivered  with  all  the  strength 
that  powerful  men  could  exert. 

This  was  before  10  o'clock  ;  later  on,  another  and  perhaps 
even  worse  scene  was  enacted  : — 

The  police  drew  their  batons,  and  the  scene  which  followed 
beggars  description.  Charging  headlong  into  the  people,  the  con- 
stables struck  right  and  left,  and  men  and  women  fell  under  their 
blows.  No  quarter  was  given.  The  roadway  was  strewn  with  the 
bodies  of  the  people.  From  the  Ballast  Office  to  the  Bridge,  and 
from  the  Bridge  to  Sackville  Street,  the  charge  was  continued  with 
fury.  Women  fled  shrieking,  and  their  cries  rendered  even  more 
painful  the  scene  of  barbarity  which  was  being  enacted.  All  was  con- 
fusion, and  nought  could  be  seen  but  the  police  mercilessly  batoning 
the  people.  Some  few  of  the  people  threw  stones,  of  which  fact  the 
broken  gas-lamps  bear  testimony  ;  but,  with  this  exception,  no  resist- 
ance was  offered.  Gentlemen  and  respectable  working  men,  return- 
ing homewards  from  theatres  or  the  houses  of  friends,  fell  victims  to 
the  attack,  and  as  an  incident  of  the  conduct  of  the  police  it  may  be 
mentioned  that,  besides  numerous  others,  more  than  a  dozen  students 
of  Trinity  College  and  a  militia  officer — unoffending  passers-by — 
were  knocked  down  and  kicked,  and  two  postal  telegraph  messengers 
engaged  in  carrying  telegrams,  were  barbarously  assailed.  When 

1  October  22,  1881. 


470  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

the  people  were  felled  they  were  kicked  on  the  ground,  and  when 
they  again  rose,  they  were  again  knocked  down  by  any  constable 
who  met  them.1 

Nor  is  it  on  newspaper  accounts  only  that  we  have  to  rely 
for  a  record  of  the  brutality  of  the  police  on  this  occasion.  '  I 
have  seen,'  said  Mr.  Dwyer  Gray,  M.P.,  at  a  meeting  of  the 
Dublin  Corporation,  at  which  the  question  was  discussed  ;  *  I 
have  seen  the  conduct  of  the  police.  ...  I  saw  them  beating 
children  and  acting  in  the  most  wanton  and  shameful  way : 
attacking  respectable  men,  beating  them,  striking  them  on 
the  face,  when  going  on  their  way  quietly  and  peaceably  as 
they  had  a  perfect  right  to  do.' 2  '  I  can  speak  from  personal 
observation,' declared  Alderman  Harris,  .  .  .  ' as  to  the  gravity 
of  the  result  produced  by  whoever  had  the  command  of  the 
police  making  that  immense  display  of  force  last  Saturday. 
.  .  .  The  police  were  running  after  and  beating  respectable 
men.' 3  When  these  facts  were  brought  before  the  Chief 
Secretary  by  a  deputation  from  the  Corporation  of  Dublin, 
his  calm  reply  was,  '  It  cannot  be  altogether  a  milk-and-water 
business  clearing  streets.' 4  Is  it  possible  that  Joe  Brady  or 
some  other  of  the  *  Invincibles '  was  in  the  crowd,  and  thus 
saw  the  Metropolis  of  Ireland  given  over  to  this  savagery  ? 

It  was  assuredly  a  strange  proof  of  Mr.  Gladstone's  pro- 
position, that  the  Irish  longed  to  be  liberated  from  the  tyranny 
of  Mr.  Parnell,  that  the  population  had  to  be  dragooned  by 
overwhelming  military  and  police  forces  into  the  tame  accept- 
ance of  Mr.  Parnell's  imprisonment.  The  two  nations,  in 
fact,  stood  opposite  each  other — both  unanimous.  Not  a 
voice  in  England  was  raised  in  defence  of  Mr.  Parnell  ;  not 
a  voice  in  Ireland  was  raised  in  favour  of  Mr.  Gladstone. 
Ireland  and  England  confronted  one  another  in  universal  and 
undisguised  hatred.  This  was  a  strange  pass  to  which  Mr. 
Forster's  statesmanship  had  brought  the  two  countries,  and 
yet  Mr.  Gladstone  was  able  calmly  to  declare  within  a  few 
days  of  those  dreadful  scenes  in  Dublin  City  and  in  the 
universal  outburst  of  grief  and  anger  from  every  part  of 
Ireland  :  '  Our  opponents  are  not  the  people  of  Ireland,  we 

1    Weekly  Irish  Times,  October  22,  1881. 
8  J-reeman'5  Journal,  October  18,  1881.  3  2b.  *  Ib. 


THE    COERCION    STRUGGLE  471 

are  endeavouring  to  relieve  the  people  of  Ireland  from  the 
weight  of  a  tyrannical  yoke,' '  And,  said  a  paper  so  able  and 
representative  as  the  '  Scotsman  ' : — 

Mr.  Parnell  is  not  entitled  to  speak  for  more  than  a  numerically 
insignificant,  though  noisy  and  unscrupulous,  minority  of  the  Irish 
people.  This  truth  justifies  the  confident  hope  the  Premier  expressed 
in  his  Friday's  speech  as  to  the  future  of  Ireland.2 

The  arrest  of  Mr.  Parnell  was  followed  by  that  of  Mr. 
Dillon  and  Mr.  O'Kelly.  Mr.  Sexton  was  lying  ill  in  bed 
when  the  warrant  came  for  his  arrest  also,  and  he  rose  imme- 
diately and  accompanied  the  police  to  Kilmainham.  War- 
rants were  also  issued  for  the  arrests  of  Mr.  Healy,  Mr.  Arthur 
O'Connor,  and  Mr.  Biggar.  Mr.  Healy  was  on  his  way  to 
Ireland  to  give  himself  up,  when  he  was  met  at  Holyhead  by 
an  official  of  the  League  and  ordered  to  remain  in  England. 
Mr.  Arthur  O'Connor  was  also  ordered  by  Mr.  Parnell  to 
escape  arrest  if  he  could,  and  so  was  Mr.  Biggar.  The 
realistic  leader  of  the  Irish  movement  was  anxious  that  as 
many  of  his  followers  as  possible  should  remain  outside  the 
gaols,  so  as  to  carry  on  the  war  against  the  enemy  ;  and  his 
followers,  though  reluctantly,  accepted  his  mandate.  In 
Dublin  and  throughout  the  country  every  person  in  any  way 
connected  with  the  League  was  arrested.  It  was  evidently 
the  resolve  of  the  Government  to  destroy  the  organisation  by 
the  removal  of  its  most  active  members.  Finally,  the  Land 
League  was  suppressed. 

At  last  the  extremists,  whom  Mr.  Parnell  had  successfully 
opposed,  were  victorious.  When  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Mr.  Forster 
became  their  allies  they  were  for  the  first  time  irresistible. 
The  Land  League  leaders,  now  inside  gaol,  were  brought  face 
to  face  with  a  situation  in  which  moderation  was  no  longer 
possible.  Resort  was  had  to  the  final  weapon,  and,  after 
various  consultations,  the  '  No-Rent '  manifesto  was  issued. 

1  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  Oct.  29,  1881. 

2  Quoted  in  Pall  Mall  Gazette. 


472  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


CHAPTER    XII. 

THE    IRISH    NEMESIS. 

To  appreciate  properly  the  effect  of  the  Coercion  regime 
which  now  followed,  it  is  necessary  to  recall  to  the  reader 
the  state  of  Ireland  as  it  was  when  Parliament  met  in 
January  1881  with  Ireland  as  it  became  during  the  six 
months  that  followed  the  arrest  of  Mr.  Parnell.  It  will  be 
remembered  that  Mr.  Forster  himself  had  to  acknowledge 
that  the  country  at  that  period  was  comparatively  quiet ;  that 
the  Returns,  when  dissected,  proved  that  the  real  amount  of 
crime  was  much  less  than  the  gross  total  led  one  to  believe  ; 
and  that  it  was  repeated  so  often,  and  by  so  many  different 
speakers,  as  to  become  a  platitude  of  debate,  that  the  number 
of  murders,  instead  of  having  increased,  had  actually  been  less 
during  the  days  of  the  Land  League  supremacy  than  at  any 
previous  period  of  great  political  excitement  and  impending 
social  changes.  The  time  had  come  when  the  Government 
resolved  to  apply  Coercion  in  earnest,  when  every  restraint  of 
decency  or  prudence  was  cast  aside,  and  Ireland  was  ruled 
with  a  rod  of  iron  indeed.  It  is  hard  even  now  to  write  of  the 
acts  perpetrated  at  this  period  under  the  direction  of  Mr. 
Forster  without  some  display  of  temper  or  some  heat  of  lan- 
guage. The  pretences  on  which  the  Coercion  Acts  had  been 
originally  obtained  from  Parliament  were  completely  forgot- 
ten. The  Acts,  as  I  have  shown  by  extract  after  extract  from 
the  Ministerial  speeches,  were  obtained  for  the  purpose  of 
putting  down  crime  or  the  incitement  to  crime,  and  for  that 
alone.  They  were  employed — openly  and  avowedly  employed 
—  for  the  purpose  of  compelling  the  payment  of  rent.  The 
warrants  of  arrest  contained  the  confession  of  this  entire 
change  of  purpose  and  breach  of  faith. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  473 

Thus  in  one  of  the  warrants  against  Mr.  Parnell,  the 
charge  was  that  he  had  intimidated  divers  persons  to  compel 
them  to  abstain  from  doing  what  they  had  a  legal  right  to  do 
— namely,  to  pay  rents  lawfully  due  by  them.  The  non- 
payment of  rent  may  be  a  moral  offence,  but  assuredly  it  was 
not  the  kind  of  crime  and  outrage  for  the  perpetration  or 
abetting  of  which  Mr.  Gladstone  declared  the  Coercion  Act 
was  required. 

Mr.  Forster  had  declared  that  the  Acts  were  required  not 
against  any  large  section  of  the  population  but  against  the 
mauvais  sujets,  the  village  tyrants,  and  a  few  scattered  mis- 
creants throughout  the  country  ;  and  writs  were  issued  against 
men  in  almost  every  class  of  society  !  Mr.  Gladstone  declared 
that  the  Act  would  not  be  used  against  any  body  of  men  for 
any  form  of  debate  or  proposal,  but  against  the  perpetrators 
and  the  abettors  of  outrage  ;  and  the  chief  purpose  to  which 
the  Act  was  soon  applied  was  to  suppress  the  Land  League 
and  all  Land  League  meetings  and  all  Land  League  speeches. 

The  proceedings  taken  against  women  did  perhaps  more 
than  anything  else  to  expose  the  savage  character  of  the 
regime  it  now  established,  and  to  create  the  fiercest  popular 
passion.  A  number  of  ladies  had  taken  up  the  work  of  the 
organisation  as  it  fell  from  the  hands  of  the  men  whom  Mr. 
Forster  had  sent  to  gaol.  What  that  work  was  will  presently 
appear.  Against  several  of  these  ladies  the  Chief  Secretary 
ordered  legal  proceedings.  The  method  of  these  proceedings 
was  characteristic  of  a  nature  at  once  coarse,  clumsy,  and 
savage.  In  the  reign  of  Edward  III.  a  statute  was  passed 
against  prostitutes  and  tramps.  It  was  under  a  statute  like 
this  that  young  ladies,  brought  up  tenderly  and  delicately, 
were  tried,  and  such  of  them  as  were  convicted  were  con- 
demned in  sentences  which  cannot  be  described  as  lenient. 

Mr.  Clifford  Lloyd  was  now  able  to  enjoy  himself  to  the 
top  of  his  bent.  He  pranced  around  the  country  with  as 
large  an  escort  as  could  have  been  required  by  the  Czar 
passing  through  a  Polish  city  ;  he  arrested  wholesale  ;  he 
trampled  on  the  laws  of  the  country,  and  carried  out  laws  of 
his  own  suiting ;  he  employed  boldly  and  shamelessly  every 
weapon  of  Coercion  for  the  purpose  of  extracting  the  rent. 


474  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

Thus  the  Coercion  Act  became  simply  one  of  the  additional 
agencies  of  the  rent  office  ;  and  the  non-payment  of  rent  was 
raised  to  the  dignity  of  a  criminal  offence.  One  well-authen- 
ticated case  of  this  kind  will  sufficiently  exemplify  the  state 
of  things  that  existed  in  Ireland  at  this  horrible  period.  A 
Mrs.  Moroney  was  engaged  in  a  fierce  struggle  with  her 
tenantry  in  Miltown-Malbay,  County  Clare.  One  of  her 
tenants  was  summoned  by  Mr.  Clifford  Lloyd  and  was  told 
that  unless  he  paid  his  rent  he  would  be  put  in  gaol.  He 
refused  to  pay  his  rent  ;  Mr.  Lloyd  kept  his  word  :  the  man 
was  arrested  at  daybreak  on  the  following  day  under  one  of 
Mr.  Forster's  warrants  ;  he  was  sent  to  a  prison  in  Ulster,  as 
far  removed  as  possible  from  his  business  and  his  family  ;  and 
while  he  was  away  his  wife  died,  and  it  was  to  a  desolate 
home  he  returned  after  his  release. 

Huts  were  erected  by  the  Ladies'  Land  League  for  the 
purpose  of  sheltering  the  evicted,  who,  as  will  be  presently 
seen,  were  reaching  at  this  point  numbers  that  startled  and 
shocked  and  terrified  the  whole  country.  Mr.  Lloyd  insisted 
that  the  huts  were  for  the  purpose  of  intimidation  and  not 
for  shelter,  and  arrested  and  sent  every  person  to  gaol  who 
was  engaged  in  their  erection.  Against  women  he  was  at  last 
allowed  to  have  plenary  powers.  He  sent  Miss  McCormack 
to  gaol  for  six  months  ;  he  sent  Miss  Reynolds  to  gaol  for 
six  months  ;  he  sent  Miss  Kirk  to  gaol  for  three  months.  Of 
course  he  always  denied  that  he  imprisoned  these  women  at 
all.  All  he  did  was  to  ask  them  to  promise  to  keep  the 
peace ;  and  he  sent  them  to  gaol  in  consequence  of  the 
refusal.  But  he  knew,  and  everybody  knew,  that  no  man  or 
woman  could,  with  a  particle  of  self-respect,  or  with  any  hope 
of  retaining  the  respect  of  any  of  his  or  her  people,  submit 
to  any  compromise  with  the  brutal  tyranny  that  was  then 
desolating  their  country. 

Other  magistrates,  fired  with  noble  envy  of  Mr.  Lloyd's 
exploits,  also  made  war  upon  women.  Mrs.  Moore  was  sent 
to  gaol  for  six  months  ;  and  Mr.  Becket  sentenced  Miss  Mary 
O'Connor  to  six  months'  imprisonment. 

Two  extracts  from  the  reports  of  Hansard  will  complete 
this  part  of  the  picture.  When  Mr.  Forster's  attention  was 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  475 

called  to  any  of  the  brutalities  of  Mr.  Clifford  Lloyd,  this  was 
how  he  answered  :  — 

When  an  action  is  taken  up  by  a  magistrate,  it  is  done  on  his  own 
responsibility,  and  it  would  be  a  most  serious  matter  to  suppose  that 
I,  as  representing  the  Executive,  have  power  to  interfere  with  the 
action  of  the  magistrates. 1 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  remind  the  historical  student 
that  this  answer  of  Mr.  Forster  is  the  repetition  of  a  trick 
venerable  in  the  history  of  despotisms.  The  magistrate  who 
is  the  tool  and  the  creature  of  the  Government,  who  carries 
out  its  wishes  and  behests,  is  represented  as  a  perfectly 
independent  judicial  functionary,  with  whom  the  Executive 
would  not,  and  even  dare  not,  interfere.  Mr.  Clifford  Lloyd 
and  the  other  magistrates  who  were  carrying  out  this  work 
throughout  Ireland,  were  as  much  the  servants  and  creatures 
of  Mr.  Forster  as  the  smallest  messenger  in  his  office  or  the 
chambermaid  in  his  house.  They  were  appointed  by  the 
Lord-Lieutenant ;  they  could  be  dismissed  by  the  Lord- 
Lieutenant.  Most  of  them  held  appointments  that  were  dis- 
tinctly temporary  and  renewable  at  short  periods — from 
quarter  to  quarter — and  with  large  emoluments  dependent  on 
the  continuance  of  the  agitation,  of  which  they  were  among 
the  most  unholy  brood.  And  these  were  the  gentlemen  from 
interference  with  whom  Mr.  Forster  shrank  with  the  delicate 
respect  for  constitutional  forms  which  he  was  displaying  in 
so  many  ways  at  that  moment.  Later  on  Lord  Spencer  and 
Mr.  Trevelyan  adopted  the  same  expedient  of  representing 
as  independent  judicial  authorities  a  number  of  magistrates 
whom  they  employed  on  task  work,  and  who  were  as  de- 
pendent on  them  as  the  supernumerary  writers  on  the  chief 
of  a  Civil  Service  Department. 

A  second  extract  from  Hansard  will  describe  the  treat- 
ment to  which  the  ladies  were  subjected  who  were  sentenced 
to  be  imprisoned  by  Mr.  Clifford  Lloyd  and  the  other 
magistrates. 

Mr.  Labouchere  asked  the  Chief  Secretary  to  the  Lord- Lieutenant 
of  Ireland  whether  it  is  true  that  Mrs.  Moore,  Miss  Kirk,  and  Miss 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclxxviii.  p.  1671. 


476 


THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


O'Connor,  who  have  been  sentenced  to  various  terms  of  imprison- 
ment under  an  ancient  Act  for  alleged  intimidation,  by  different 
stipendiary  magistrates,  are  kept  in  solitude  for  about  twenty-three 
hours  out  of  twenty-four  ;  and  whether  the  time  has  arrived  when, 
in  the  interests  of  the  peace  and  tranquillity  of  Ireland,  these  ladies 
should  be  restored  to  their  friends  ? 

Mr.  TREVELYAN  :  Sir,  the  ladies  named  in  this  question  have 
been  committed  to  prison  in  default  of  finding  bail,  and  are  treated 
in  exact  conformity  with  the  prison  rules;  and,  according  to  the  rules 
for  '  bailed  prisoners,'  they  are  allowed  two  hours  for  exercise  daily, 
and  are  therefore  in  their  cells  for  twenty-two  out  of  twenty-four 
hours.  They  can  at  once  return  to  their  friends  on  tendering  the 
requisite  sureties.1 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  these  women  were  suffering  far 
more  severely  than  the  men  arrested  under  the  Coercion  Act. 
The  prisoners  under  the  Coercion  Act  were  allowed  to  have 
communication  with  each  other  for  six  hours  out  of  every 
day.  The  young  ladies  sentenced  by  Mr.  Clifford  Lloyd 
were  in  solitude  throughout  the  entire  day.  In  the  prisons 
in  which  they  were  placed  there  were  none  but  the  degraded 
of  their  own  sex  ;  and  sometimes  the  young  ladies  attended 
their  devotions  in  close  proximity  to  the  prostitutes  and 
thieves  of  their  district. 

Up  and  down  the  country,  meantime,  the  police  authori- 
ties were  pursuing  the  other  methods  which  are  associated 
with  unchecked  authority  and  the  efforts  to  override  a 
people.  The  same  war  was  made  on  lads  and  boys  as  on 
women.  A  lad  named  Lee  was  brought  before  the  magis- 
trates for  whistling.2  Thomas  Wall,  another  lad,  was  accused 
by  another  constable  for  the  same  offence,  and  in  addition  was 
charged  with  abusive  language.  The  abusive  language  was 
whistling  'Harvey  Duff' — a  song  which  spoke  in  satirical 
terms  of  the  police.  '  Do  you  consider,'  the  accusing  con- 
stable was  asked,  'that  whistling  "Harvey  Duff"  is  using 
abusive  language  ? '  '  Yes,'  answered  the  friend  of  Mr. 
Forster,  '  I  do;  and  I  swear  it  is.'3  On  April  16,  1882,  a 
policeman  in  Waterford  rushed  into  a  shop  where  a  woman 
was  engaged  in  reading  '  United  Ireland/  threw  her  down, 

1   Hansard,  vol.  cclxix.  p.  1404.  -  Ib.  vol.  cclviii.  p.  888. 

3  Ib.  vol.  cclxv.  p.  184. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  477 

and,  kneeling  on  her  stomach,  searched  her  in  an  indecent 
manner.1  In  Cappamore,  County  Limerick,  a  sub-constable 
attacked  a-  girl  named  Burke,  twelve  years  of  age,  because 
she  was  singing  '  Harvey  Duff' ;  he  drew  his  bayonet  and 
inflicted  a  wound.2 

Was  it  true,  asked  Mr.  Healy  with  his  characteristically 
grim  humour,  that  Daniel  O'Sullivan,  aged  nine  or  ten  years, 
'  who  appeared  before  the  magistrates  crying,'  had  been  prose- 
cuted by  the  magistrates,  under  the  Whiteboy  Act,  for  having, 
at  two  o'clock  in  the  day,  by  carrying  a  lighted  torch  in  the 
public  streets  at  Millstreet,  promoted  a  certain  unlawful  meet- 
ing contrary  to  the  Statute  made  and  provided,  and  against 
the  peace  of  our  Sovereign  Lady  the  Queen,  her  crown  and 
dignity  ?  Was  it  not  true  that  the  child's  offence  really  con- 
sisted in  heading  a  procession  of  young  fellows  who  were 
after  tilling  the  farm  of  a  woman  whose  husband  had  died  ? 

Mr.  Forster  found  fault  with  the  levity  of  the  question, 
and  then  proceeded  to  state  the  serious  facts  of  the  case. 
The  youth  Daniel  O'Sullivan  was  the  leader  of  a  party  of 
boys  from  twelve  to  seventeen  years  of  age  ;  O'Sullivan  him- 
self was  about  twelve.  When  their  procession  was  stopped 
the  boys  dispersed,  but  they  reassembled  at  the  instigation  of 
grown-up  persons.3 

The  police  made  domiciliary  visits  by  day  and  by  night 
into  the  rooms  alike  of  women  and  of  men.  They  broke  into 
meetings  ;  they  stood  outside  doors  and  took  the  names  of 
all  persons  entering  into  even  the  house  of  a  priest  to  take 
steps  for  relieving  the  tenantry.4  They  tore  down  a  placard 
in  Tipperary  calling  upon  the  people  to  vote  for  the  popular 
candidates  for  poor-law  guardians  ; 5  and  at  a  meeting  of  the 
Drogheda  Corporation,  the  sub-inspector  of  police  interposed 
in  the  proceedings  with  the  declaration  that  he  would  not 
allow  the  word  Coercion  to  be  used.6 

Meantime  the  Government  exhausted  the  resources  of 
civil  power  in  helping  on  the  now  unchecked  savagery  of  the 
alien  oligarchy  against  the  nation.  Troops  were  supplied  in 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclxviii.  pp.  993,  1266.  2  Ib.  vol.  cclxvii.  p.  25. 

3  Ib.  cclx.  p.  1543.  «  Ib.  vol.  cckvii.  p.  1277. 

5  Ib.  vol.  cclxviii.  p.  12.  6  Ib.  vol.  cclxvii.  p.  1285. 


478  "THE  PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

abundance  ;  horse,  foot,  and  artillery,  took  part  in  the  work  of 
eviction  ;  and  sometimes  the  blue-jacket  and  the  war-vessel 
were  employed  in  the  unholy  task  of  turning  out  the  starving 
to  die.  To  make  the  grotesqueness  and  horror  of  the  situation 
complete,  it  sometimes  happened  that  the  vessel  which  had 
come  to  help  in  evicting,  had  but  twelve  months  before  visited 
the  same  shore  and  the  same  people  to  distribute  among  them 
the  food  which  English  charity  had  bestowed  to  save  them  from 
starvation.  It  is  perhaps  only  in  a  system  so  absurd  and  un- 
natural as  the  legislative  union  between  England  and  Ireland 
that  a  contradiction  so  glaring  as  generosity  in  one  year  and 
starvation  in  the  next  is  possible. 

The  Ministry,  consisting  of  men,  as  Mr.  Bright  proudly* 
declared  when  he  was  passing  a  Coercion  Act,  who  had  de- 
voted their  lives  to  the  cause  of  freedom,  did  everything  it 
could  to  urge  and  hound  on  the  landlords  in  the  crusade  of 
extermination.  To  crush  the  tenantry  became  a  necessity  to 
the  life  of  the  Ministry,  and  at  every  means  that  promised 
this  fatal  victory  they  grasped  with  the  cruelty  of  the  dying. 

Under  the  influence  of  teaching  like  this — with  the  Govern- 
ment making  their  cause  their  own  ;  with  all  the  resources  of 
the  British  Exchequer  and  the  British  naval  and  military 
forces  at  their  back  ;  with  Mr.  Forster  to  imprison  every  popu- 
lar journalist  and  every  popular  orator  ;  with  Mr.  Clifford  Lloyd 
to  make  non-payment  of  rent  a  crime,  and  the  erection  of  huts 
for  the  outcast  and  the  dying  an  act  of  intimidation — the 
landlords  acted  as  they  have  always  done  at  every  period 
when  Fate  and  the  British  Government  have  together  delivered 
the  Irish  tenantry  helpless  into  their  hands.  They  were, 
too,  in  the  mood  to  take  full  advantage  of  all  these  things. 
For  the  first  time  in  all  their  annals  of  power  they  had 
been  confronted,  defied,  and  beaten.  Under  the  regime  o>t  \h& 
Land  League  they  had  been  compelled  to  surrender  rights  of 
immemorial  elate—  to  lower  their  rack-rents,  to  stay  eviction, 
to  treat  their  tenants  as  fellow-beings,  and  not  as  so  many 
ciphers  or  serfs.  The  mighty  organisation  which  had  made 
this  revolutionary  change  was  beaten  and  dead  ;  they  had  not 
only  rights  to  reconquer  but  passion  to  slake,  not  only  rents 
to  exact  but  vengeance  to  feed. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  479 

They  went  to  work  with  a  will  that  recalled  the  spirit  of 
the  glorious  days  which  followed  the  Great  Famine. 

The  evictions  for  the  first  quarter  of  1881  were  1,732 
persons  ;  for  the  second  quarter  ending  June  30,  they  had 
increased  to  5,562  persons  ;  for  the  quarter  ending  Septem- 
ber 30,  the  evictions  were  6,496  ;  and  for  the  quarter  ending 
December  31,  they  were  3,851.  During  the  entire  year  of 
1 88 1,  17,341  persons  had  thus  been  deprived  of  their  rights 
as  tenants,  and  the  greater  proportion  of  them  had  been 
absolutely  thrown  on  the  roadside.  It  will  be  seen  that 
eviction  was  proceeding  for  at  least  six  months  of  the  year 
in  geometrical  progression,  and  that  the  year  1881,  under  the 
influence  of  Mr.  Forster's  regime,  was  reaching  a  total  of 
evictions  for  any  approach  to  which  we  must  go  back  to  the 
dread  years  of  the  Famine.^ 

Mr.  Gladstone,  it  will  be  recalled,  had,  but  a  little  more 
than  twelve  months  before,  demanded  the  Disturbance  Bill, 
on  the  ground  that  the  eviction  of  15,000  people  was  an  event 
so  horrible  as  to  shame  the  humanity  of  every  man,  and  to 
demand  the  prompt  intervention  of  Parliament ;  and  now  a 
year  was  passing  away  with  not  15,000  but  17,341  victims. 
Nor,  of  course,  did  those  evictions  take  place  without  scenes 
of  heartrending  cruelty  or  desperate  encounter.  In  County 
Clare  a  man  was  killed  by  a  body  of  police  who  were  pro- 
tecting a  process-server;  in  April  a  policeman  and  two 
farmers  were  killed  ;  in  June  a  police-charge  killed  a  man  ; 
in  October  a  man  was  killed  at  a  Land  League  meeting  by  a 
bayonet-thrust  from  a  policeman  ;  and  later  on  in  that  month, 
an  event  occurred  which  produced  v/idespread  and  bitter  in- 
dignation. A  body  of  police  were  sent  to  collect  poor-rates 
due  by  a  number  of  miserable  tenants  on  the  estate  of  a  Mr. 
Blake.  Disputes  have  arisen  as  to  how  the  struggle  between 
the  police  and  the  people  began,  but  the  police  fired  into 
the  people,  several  were  wounded,  and  two  women,  Ellen 
McDonough,  a  young  girl,  and  Mrs.  Deare — a  feeble  old 
woman  of  sixty-five  years  of  age— were  wounded  and  subse- 
quently died.  A  verdict  of  '  Wilful  Murder  '  was  given  in 
both  cases  against  the  police. 

The  reader  has  now  the  causes  which  produced  the  fit  of 


480 


THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


absolute  frenzy  which  passed  over  Ireland  during  the  winter  of 
1 88 1  and  the  spring  of  1882.  The  country  stood  at  bay,  and 
driven  from  constitutional  and  open  movement,  with  speech 
and  writing  and  organisation  suppressed,  with  every  day 
adding  a  new  wrong  and  a  new  insult,  with  wholesale  eviction, 
exile,  and  starvation  once  more  confronting  the  nation  as  in 
the  dread  past,  the  population  resorted  to  the  secret  organisa- 
tion and  the  revolting  crimes  which  have  been  the  inevitable 
and  the  hideous  brood  of  despotic  regimes.  A  wild  and 
horrible  wave  of  crime  passed  over  the  country  ;  the  days 
of  1880  might  well  have  been  looked  back  to  as  extraordi- 
narily peaceful  in  comparison  with  the  period  which  had  now 
set  in,  and  neither  the  Queen's  Speech  nor  the  Marquis  of 
Hartington  could  any  longer  declare  that  there  were  but  com- 
paratively few  murders. 

In  the  year  1880,  the  number  of  murders  was  eight,  there 
was  no  homicide,  and  there  were  twenty-five  cases  of  firing  at 
the  person.  In  iSSi,  there  were  seventeen  cases  of  murder, 
there  were  five  homicides,  and  sixty-six  cases  of  firing  at  the 
person  ;  and  in  the  first  six  months  of  1882,  there  were  fifteen 
murders,  and  forty  cases  of  firing  at  the  person.  All  these 
crimes,  of  course,  are  crimes  of  an  agrarian  character.  The 
increase  of  crime  was  brought  over  and  over  again  before 
Parliament.  '  The  present  measures  of  Coercion,'  said  Mr. 
Gorst,  on  March  28,  1882, 'have  entirely  failed  to  restore 
order  in  Ireland.  The  assizes  just  concluded  show  that  the 
amount  of  crime  now  was  more  than  double  what  it  was  in 
all  the  various  districts  last  year  ;  in  almost  every  case  the 
juries  failed  to  convict,  and  therefore  there  must  be  some 
new  departure  on  the  part  of  the  Government' l 

And  on  another  occasion  Mr.  Gorst  gave  from  the  charges 
of  the  judges  a  proof  of  his  statement,  and  the  proof  was 
startlingly  damning. 

At  the  Longford  Assizes,  there  were  98  cases  of  agrarian 
outrages  against  75  for  the  preceding  year  ;  in  the  County 
Clare  there  were  356  cases,  as  against  254  in  the  preceding 
year  ;  in  County  Sligo  138  cases  against  97  in  the  preceding 
year  ;  in  Queen's  County  62  cases  against  21  in  the  preceding 

1   Hansard,  vol.  cclxviii.  p.  210. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  481 

year  ;  in  County  Donegal  4,105  cases  against  645  ;  in  County 
Tipperary  159  crimes  against  75  in  the  preceding  year,  and 
so  on.1 

Curiously  enough,  crime  was  most  abundant  in  some  of 
the  districts  in  which  Coercion  had  raged  in  its  most  active 
and  its  most  outrageous  form.  Judge  Barry  stated  at  the 
assizes  in  the  County  of  Clare,  that  the  outrages  which  had 
occurred  for  the  two  months  previous  to  the  assizes  were 
twice  as  numerous  as  in  the  corresponding  month  of  the 
previous  year,2  and  the  period  of  increased  crime  was  the 
period  of  Mr.  Clifford  Lloyd's  appearance  in  County  Clare. 

Meantime  the  author  of  this  cycle  of  eviction,  imprison- 
ment, and  brutal  murder,  persevered  in  his  system  with  fatu- 
ous obstinacy,  every  day  prophesying  that  Coercion  would  be 
triumphant,  and  that  murder,  or  organisations  to  murder, 
were  all  but  extinct. 

At  that  moment  there  was,  as  everybody  now  knows,  right 
under  his  feet,  within  a  few  yards  of  his  own  office,  a  con- 
spiracy more  murderous  and  more  powerful  than  any  that 
had  existed  in  Ireland  for  probably  half  a  century.  And 
while  the  Chief  Secretary  was  grimly  congratulating  himself, 
as  he  passed  to  the  station  for  England,  on  the  news  of  com- 
plete victory  over  crime  he  was  bringing  to  his  colleagues, 
his  steps  were  being  dogged  by  a  gang  of  assassins  armed 
against  his  life. 

But  the  colleagues  of  Mr.  Forster  and  the  public  opinion 
of  England  read  the  signs  of  the  times  more  intelligently. 
The  daily  list  of  arrests  and  crime  proved  at  last  too  sicken- 
ing, and  so  strong  was  the  revulsion  of  feeling,  even  in 
England,  against  the  horrible  state  of  things  in  Ireland,  that 
the  Conservatives  showed  some  inclination  to  put  a  restraint 
upon  the  career  of  Mr.  Forster. 

Then  these  various  outrages  upon  the  people  were  brought 
constantly  before  the  House  of  Commons  by  the  Irish  mem- 
bers, and  naturally  began  in  time  to  tell.  An  uneasy  feeling 
grew  up  that  after  all  such  a  crusade  against  every  form  of 
free  speech,  and  free  meeting,  and  free  action,  against  women 
and  children,  was  not  entirely  creditable  to  the  institutions 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclxviii.  pp.  680-7.  2  Ib.  p.  1003. 

I  I 


482  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

or  the  reputation  of  England.  The  daily  increase,  at 
the  same  time,  in  the  numbers,  character,  and  atrocity  of 
crimes  in  Ireland,  helped  to  shake  Mr.  Forster's  system  ; 
the  prevarication  of  which  he  was  frequently  guilty  spread 
uneasy  doubts  in  his  official  pictures  of  Ireland.  The  theory 
that  he  was  warring,  not  with  the  Irish  people,  but  with  a 
certain  small  and  criminal  section  among  the  population, 
received  its  final  overthrow  in  the  local  elections  throughout 
Ireland,  in  every  one  of  which  the  men  whom  he  had  sent 
into  gaol  as  either  abettors  or  perpetrators  of  crime,  were 
raised  to  the  highest  positions  in  the  gift  of  their  fellow- 
citizens.  It  was  when  his  position  was  thus  already  damaged 
that  Mr.  Sexton  was  able  to  bring  before  the  House  of 
Commons  a  startling  document.  This  was  a  circular  issued 
to  the  constabulary  of  the  County  of  Clare  by  the  County 
Inspector.  Beginning  with  a  statement  that  attempts  would 
probably  be  made  on  the  life  of  Mr.  Clifford  Lloyd,  it  went 
on  :  — 

Men  proceeding  on  his  (Mr.  Clifford  Lloyd's)  escort  should  be 
men  of  great  determination  as  well  as  steadiness  ;  and  even  on  suspi- 
cion of  an  attempt,  should  at  once  use  their  firearms,  to  prevent  the 
bare  possibility  of  an  attempt  on  that  gentleman's  life.  If  men 
should  accidentally  commit  an  error  in  shooting  any  person  on  sus- 
picion of  that  person  being  about  to  commit  murder,  I  shall  exonerate 
them  by  coming  forward  and  producing  this  document.1 

Mr.  Forster  saw  the  spectre  of  coming  ruin  in  the  dis- 
covery of  a  document  like  this  ;  prevaricated,  and  professed  to 
require  time  to  see  whether  the  document  was  genuine.  The 
interval  he  probably  hoped  to  employ  in  explaining  away  to 
his  colleagues  the  damning  testimony  of  the  document  itself. 
But  Mr.  Sexton  saw  through  this  expedient,  and  insisted  on 
raising  a  discussion  at  once,  and  when  that  discussion  was 
over,  Mr.  Forster  was  a  ruined  man. 

At  the  same  moment  he  was  assailed  from  another 
quarter.  The  Conservatives  had  seen  plainly  the  rise  of  a 
tide  of  popular  disgust  with  Mr.  Forster  and  his  system 
among  the  British  people — who,  to  do  them  justice,  are 

1   Hansard,  vol.  cclxviii.  pp.  991-1000. 


THE    IRISH   NEMESIS  483 

but  poor  hands  at  a  continuance  of  the  brutal  methods  of 
despotic  countries — and  thought  the  moment  had  come  when 
a  different  method  might  be  proposed  for  dealing  with  Ireland. 
The  whole  legislation  of  the  Ministry  had  evidently  broken 
down  ;  the  Coercion  Act  had  not  put  down  crime  ;  the  Land 
Act  had  not  closed  the  land  question  ;  and  against  both  the 
one  measure  and  the  other,  Conservative  members  proposed 
hostile  motions.  Sir  John  Hay  gave  notice  of  the  following 
motion  : — 

That  the  detention  of  large  numbers  of  Her  Majesty's  subjects  in 
solitary  confinement,  without  cause  assigned,  and  without  trial,  is  re- 
pugnant to  the  spirit  of  the  Constitution  ;  and  that,  to  enable  them  to 
be  brought  to  trial,  jury  trials  should  for  a  limited  time  (in  Ireland), 
and  in  regard  to  crimes  of  a  well-defined  character,  be  replaced  by 
some  form  of  trial  less  liable  to  abuse. l 

And  Mr.  W.  H.  Smith  gave  notice  of  his  intention  '  to  ask  the 
First  Lord  of  the  Treasury  if  the  Government  will  take  into 
their  consideration  the  urgent  necessity  for  the  introduction 
of  a  measure  to  extend  the  purchase  clauses  of  the  Land  Act, 
and  to  make  effectual  provision  for  facilitating  the  transfer  of 
the  ownership  of  the  land  to  tenants  who  are  occupiers  on 
terms  which  would  be  just  and  reasonable  to  the  existing 
landlords.'2 

If  the  leaders  of  the  Land  League  required  any  justifica- 
tion of  their  policy,  here  it  was.  They  had  declared  all  along 
that  Coercion  would  fail,  and  that  peasant  proprietary  was  the 
only  final  and  practical  settlement  of  the  Irish  Land  question  ; 
and  while  they  were  in  prison,  and  after  their  country  had 
passed  through  the  agony  of  a  fierce  and  bloody  strife,  two 
English  Conservatives  came  forward  to  filch  and  to  adopt 
their  scheme. 

On  the  Ministry  the  effect  was  almost  instantaneous. 
Their  hearts  had  remained  untouched  by  the  sight  of  the 
misery  they  were  inflicting  upon  Ireland  ;  they  had  made  up 
their  minds  to  conquer  Ireland  whatever  might  be  the  cost  to 
the  Irish  people,  and  their  consciences  slept  while  the  tornado 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclxviii.  p.  1945.  -'   Times,  March  II,  1882. 

I  I  2 


484  THE   PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

of  crime  and  eviction  was  passing  over  the  unhappy  country. 
It  awoke  at  once  when  the  opposite  party  menaced  their 
positions.  These  were  the  events  which  prepared  the  Govern- 
ment on  their  side  for  a  reconciliation  with  the  Irish  leader. 
On  his  side  the  motives  for  desiring  a  peace  are  apparent, 
and,  in  spite  of  all  the  absurd  mystification  with  which  the 
transaction  was  surrounded,  can  be  understood  by  any  rea- 
sonable person.  Mr.  Parnell  was  alarmed  at  the  vast  increase 
in  the  evictions  ;  the  greater  number  of  the  evicted  he  knew 
were  absolutely  unable  to  pay  their  rents,  the  arrears  which 
had  come  as  a  damnosa  htzreditas  from  the  famine  years 
being  a  burden  they  were  incapable  of  shaking  off;  and  he 
was  much  too  clear-headed  a  man  to  suppose  that  in  the  long 
run  the  purse  of  the  Land  League  could  hold  out  against 
the  Exchequer  of  England.  The  land  war  had  brought  ex- 
penditure on  the  scale  of  war,  and  the  immense  funds  of 
the  Land  League  were  rapidly  approaching  the  irreducible 
minimum.  Mr.  Parnell  did  not  indulge  in  any  illusions  ; 
he  wanted  to  win  a  substantial  victory  for  the  people  whose 
interests  were  under  his  charge,  and  such  a  victory  he  did 
win. 

The  Kilmainham  treaty,  as  it  was  called,  was  the  most 
abject  and  complete  surrender  ever  made  by  the  powerful 
Government  of  a  great  state  to  the  imprisoned  leader  of  a 
small,  poor,  and  unarmed  nation.  All  the  forces  of  the  em- 
pire had  been  pitted  against  Mr.  Parnell,  and  he  had  beaten 
the  empire.  The  terms  of  the  Government  are  sufficient 
proof  of  this.  These  terms,  summed  up  briefly,  were  :  First, 
the  failure  of  Coercion  was  acknowledged  frankly  and  unre- 
servedly. The  completeness  of  the  confession  involved  the 
sacrifice  of  the  men  chiefly  responsible  for  Coercion  ;  and 
accordingly  Mr.  Forster  and  Lord  Cowper  resigned  from 
the  Ministry.  Then  there  was  to  be  no  renewal  of  Coer- 
cion. This  is  a  statement  which  was  much  contested  during 
the  debates  that  came  soon  after ;  but  no  man  in  his  senses 
believes  that  Coercion  would  have  been  pressed  forward  by 
the  Government  which  had  shed  Mr.  Forster  and  released 
Mr.  Parnell.  It  is  quite  possible  that  the  Crimes  Bill  would 
have  been  introduced,  but  it  would  have  been  hung  up  after 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  485 

a  stage  or  two,  and  Ireland  would  have  returned  to  the 
ordinary  law.1 

And  the  other  concessions  made  by  the  Government  would 
have  made  Ireland  perfectly  tranquil,  and  would  have  com- 
pletely done  away  with  the  necessity  for  coercive  legislation. 
The  first  indication  of  the  coming  surrender  of  the  Govern- 
ment was  the  reception  given  by  Mr.  Gladstone  to  the  new 
Land  Bill  brought  in  by  Mr.  J.  E.  Redmond  on  behalf  of 
the  Irish  party.  This  Bill  proposed  an  amendment  of  the 
Healy  and  the  Purchase  clauses  of  the  Land  Act,  the  inclusion 
of  leaseholders,  but,  above  all,  the  remission  of  those  arrears 
which  shut  out  so  many  of  the  tenants  from  all  possible  benefit 
under  the  Land  Act  and  from  all  prospect  or  hope. 

Mr.  Gladstone  received  the  proposals  of  the  Bill  with  great 
favour,  practically  held  out  that  the  larger  and  more  remote 
questions  of  Land  Reform  would  be  favourably  considered  ; 
and,  with  regard  to  the  question  of  the  Arrears,  made  state- 
ments amounting  to  a  promise  that  the  Government  shared 
the  convictions  of  the  Irish  members,  and  would  be  prepared 
to  deal  with  the  question  immediately. 

Such,  then,  were  the  terms  of  the  so-called  Kilmainham 
treaty  :  abandonment  of  Coercion,  the  sacrifice  of  the  Coer- 
cion Minister,  and  the  acceptance,  on  the  other  hand,  of  the 
chief  demands  of  Mr.  Parnell  for  amendment  of  the  Land  Act 
in  less  than  a  year  after  it  had  become  law  and  been  declared 
the  last  word  upon  the  land  question,  and  the  immediate 
settlement  of  the  burning  question  of  Arrears,  The  House  of 
Commons  certainly  fully  appreciated  the  greatness  and  com- 
pleteness of  Mr.  Parnell's  victory.  The  first  few  days  after 
his  release  from  prison  were  days  of  veritable  triumph.  He 
received  every  recognition,  public  and  private,  of  being  master 

1  The  plan  of  the  Government  was  to  give  the  Rules  of  Procedure  priority 
over  the  renewed  Coercion,  and  it  was  one  of  Mr.  Forster's  most  bitter  charges 
against  the  Government,  both  during  that  Session  and  the  Session  following,  when 
the  question  was  again  raised,  that  Mr.  Gladstone  did  give  this  priority  to  the 
Procedure  Rules  over  Coercion.  Nobody  at  all  experienced  in  Parliamentary 
affairs  need  be  told  that  if  the  Procedure  Rules  had  got  the  priority  there  would 
be  no  more  mention  of  the  Crimes  Act  during  the  Session.  It  certainly  would 
have  taken  from  May,  the  date  of  Mr.  Forster's  fall,  to  the  end  of  the  Session  to 
pass  the  Procedure  Rules  alone. 


486  '    THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

of  the  situation.  Doubtful  friends  or  bitter  enemies  rushed 
up  to  shake  his  hand  and  worship  the  rising  sun.  He  was 
recognised  to  be — as  beyond  all  question  at  that  moment  he 
was — the  most  potent  political  force  in  the  British  Empire. 

From  no  man  did  Mr.  Parnell  receive  a  recognition  so 
eloquent,  though  probably  so  grudging,  of  the  supremacy  of 
his  power  and  the  completeness  of  his  triumph  at  this  moment 
as  from  his  baffled  and  beaten  opponent.  By  a  singularly 
dramatic  appropriateness,  it  was  during  the  speech  in  which 
Mr.  Forster  was  explaining  his  resignation  that  Mr.  Parnell 
entered.  '  There  are  two  warrants,'  Mr.  Forster  was  saying, 
*  which  I  signed  in  regard  to  the  hon.  member  for  the  city 
of  Cork  also  for  intimidation.  I  have  often  asserted  that  these 
arrests  for  intimidation  were— 

'  At  this  point,'  goes  on  Hansard,  '  the  entrance  of  Mr. 
Parnell  into  the  House  and  the  cheers  with  which  he  was 
greeted  by  the  Home  Rule  members,  drowned  the  voice  of 
the  right  hon.  gentleman  and  prevented  the  conclusion  of  the 
sentence  from  being  heard.'  l 

And  then  Mr.  Forster  went  on  to  use  the  following  words, 
which  clearly  prove  the  omnipotence  of  Mr.  Parnell  at  this 
moment  :— 

A  surrender  (said  the  Chief  Secretary  a  few  moments  later)  is 
bad,  but  a  compromise  or  arrangement  is  worse.  I  think  we  may  re- 
member what  a  Tudor  king  said  to  a  great  Irishman  in  former  times : 
'  If  all  Ireland  cannot  govern  the  Earl  of  Kildare,  then  let  the  Earl  of 
Kildare  govern  Ireland.'  The  king  thought  it  was  better  that  the  Earl 
of  Kildare  should  govern  Ireland  than  that  there  should  be  an  arrange- 
ment between  the  Earl  of  Kildare  and  his  representative.  In  like 
manner  if  all  England  cannot  govern  the  hon.  member  for  Cork,  then 
let  us  acknowledge  that  he  is  the  greatest  power  in  Ireland  to-day.2 

The  prospect  of  the  Irish  people  was  equally  bright.  The 
promises  of  the  Government  and  the  attitude  of  the  Conserva- 
tive party  as  shown  by  the  motion  of  Mr.  W.  H.  Smith, 
demonstrated  that  the  struggle  was  about  to  be  closed  in  the 
fashion  which  the  Land  League  leaders  had  originally  proposed. 

With  the  close  of  the  land  struggle,  with  the  abandonment 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclxix.  p.  108.  -  Ib.  p.  in. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  487 

of  Coercion  and  the  destruction  of  the  hated  Coercion  Minister, 
tranquillity  promised  to  immediately  return.  On  this  point 
two  authorities  as  antagonistic  as  Mr.  Forster  and  Mr.  William 
O'Brien  are  completely  agreed.  Speaking  of  the  desirability 
of  his  resigning  in  the  interests  of  peace,  Mr.  Forster  said  : — 

I  think  there  is  a  greater  chance  of  an  immediate  diminution  of 
outrages.  There  is  the  great  pleasure  amongst  hon.  members  opposite 
and  their  friends  of  getting  rid  of  the  late  Chief  Secretary  ;  and  if 
this  puts  men  into  good  humour  in  Ireland,  as  well  as  here,  it  may 
be  that  in  their  efforts  to  stop  outrages — if  they  make  them  at  all 
— they  will  be  stronger  than  they  would  otherwise  have  been. 1 

In  a  speech  made  in  1883,  Mr.  O'Brien  pointed  out  how 
while  the  agrarian  outrages  for  the  first  six  months  of  1882 
were  1,010,  they  were  only  365  for  the  next  six  months. 
He  pointed  out  how  in  June,  the  first  month  after  Mr. 
Forster's  resignation,  the  outrages  fell  to  283,  of  which  155 
were  threatening  letters,  while  in  the  month  of  April  they 
were  462.  Mr.  O'Brien  took  the  County  Clare  as  the  most 
typical  of  all  the  counties  of  Ireland,  because  it  was  the  county 
where  the  fight  between  landlord  and  tenant  was  most  despe- 
rate, and  where  both  sides  were  most  extreme  in  their  course. 

In  January  1882  Clare  had  the  sinister  privilege  with  41 
outrages  of  being  highest  on  the  criminal  roll.  In  February 
the  number  was  again  41,  and  in  the  black  list  of  evictions 
Clare  stood  highest  in  all  Ireland  for  the  first  quarter  of  1882  ; 
for  in  that  quarter  52  families  of  299  souls  were  evicted,  and 
only  seven  families  were  re-admitted.  In  July,  after  Mr. 
Forster  had  been  got  rid  of,  the  number  of  evicted  families 
had  a  fall  to  seven,  and  the  agrarian  offences  to  nine,  of  which 
three  were  threatening  letters.'2  Finally  in  the  pages  of  the 
'  Times,'  which  so  often  have  been  defaced  with  articles  bru- 
tally unfair  to  Ireland,  there  was  this  startling  confession  :— 

The  recurrence  of  St.  Patrick's  Day,  with  its  traditional  celebra- 
tion, its  old  toasts  and  its  old  memories,  reminds  us  that  the  Irish- 
man of  history  and  of  tale  is  nowhere  to  be  found.  .  .  .  The  Irishman 
is  becoming  like  the  Englishman,  that  is,  the  Englishman  of  the  dull, 
morose,  self-satisfied  sort —the  man  who  sees  everything  and  every- 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclxix.  p.  117.  *  Hansard,  vol.  cclxxxi.  pp.  513-15. 


488  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

body  from  his  own  point  of  view,  and  pursues  his  object  with  a  dogged 
indifference  to  all  reasons,  interests,  feelings,  and  beliefs.  The  Irish- 
man, like  the  Englishman,  is  now  righteous  in  his  own  eyes,  and  his 
righteousness  is  to  hold  money  and  land,  and  have  the  use  of  it  as 
long  as  he  can.  .  .  .  The  Irishman  has  become  more  a  thing  of 
earth.  ...  He  is  taking  root.  Of  course  this  is  what  his  friends 
most  desire  ;  but  it  will  be  with  the  usual  consequences.  No  one  ever 
planted  himself  deeper  in  the  earth  without  becoming  more  earthy.  .  . 
The  ancient  slave  was  a  very  droll  fellow,  and  a  great  relief  to  the 
high-toned  Greek  and  Roman  civilisation.  He  lost  his  native  charm, 
and  did  not  always  acquire  another  when  he  became  free.  ...  So 
long  as  the  Irishman  taught  himself  after  his  own  fashion,  and  man- 
aged his  affairs  generally  after  his  own  fashion,  he  successfully  deve- 
loped the  most  genial  and  fertile  part  of  his  own  nature,  and  was  far 
more  witty,  humorous,  poetic,  and  social  than  the  poor  English  clod- 
hopper, artisan,  or  tradesman.  But  he  did  not  succeed  in  acquiring 

a  good  position  or  his  rightful  share  in  the  products  of  the  soil 

He  has  actually  become  a  citizen  of  the  world  and  a  very  'cute 
fellow.  He  has  played  his  cards  well,  and  is  making  a  golden 
harvest.  He  has  beaten  a  legion  of  landlords,  dowagers,  and  en- 
cumbrances of  all  sorts,  out  of  the  field,  and  driven  them  into  work- 
houses. He  has  baffled  the  greatest  of  legislatures,  and  outflanked 
the  largest  of  British  armies  in  getting  what  he  thinks  his  due.  Had 
all  this  wonderful  advance  been  made  at  the  cost  of  some  other 
country,  England  would  have  been  the  first  to  offer  chaplets,  testi- 
monials, and  ovations,  to  the  band  of  patriots  who  had  achieved  it. 
As  the  sufferers  in  the  material  sense  are  chiefly  of  English  extraction, 
we  cannot  help  a  little  soreness.  Yet  reason  compels  us  to  admit 
that  the  Irish  have  dared  and  done  as  they  never  did  before.  They 
are  welcome  to  that  praise.  But  they  have  lost,  and  it  is  a  loss  we  all 
feel.  Paddy  has  got  his  wish— he  is  changed  into  a  landowner.1 

Everybody  knows  how  in  an  hour  Mr.  Parnell  was  reduced 
from  this  eminence  of  omnipotence  to  a  position  of  absolute 
and  apparently  irretrievable  disaster.  The  tragedy  of  May  6 
produced  a  tempest  of  passion  that  swept  away  for  the 
moment  the  power  of  Mr.  Gladstone  and  of  Mr.  Parnell  for 
good  to  Ireland.  Those  who  remember  the  fatal  Sunday 
when  the  news  reached  London,  and  saw  the  Irish  leader  and 
his  colleagues  that  day,  can  find  consolation  in  the  reflection 
that  their  fortunes  can  never  see  a  darker  or  gloomier  hour. 

1  Times,  March  17,  1882. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS 


489 


One  of  the  victims  of  the  knives  of  the  Invincibles  was  known 
to  and  popular  with  the  Irish  members,  as  he  was  with  all 
sections  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  the  kindly  feeling 
was  recognised  which  impelled  him  to  offer  himself  as  the 
bearer  of  a  new  message  of  peace  to  Ireland.  Wherever  the 
Irish  race  lived,  the  depth  and  the  pitifulness  of  the  tragedy 
and  the  magnitude  of  the  disaster  were  felt  and  appreciated  ; 
and  in  cities  as  distant  as  St.  Louis,  or  San  Francisco,  or  Mel- 
bourne, or  Wellington,  the  fatal  day  filled  Irish  households 
with  mourning. 

The  Government  found  themselves  unable  to  resist  the 
tide  of  passion  that  passed  over  their  country ;  there  was  a 
hoarse  cry  for  Coercion  ;  and  the  Ministers  felt  that,  unless 
Coercion  were  dealt  out  with  a  liberal  hand,  they  could  not 
hold  office  for  twenty-four  hours.  It  is  nevertheless  to  be  re- 
gretted that  the  men  who  had  turned  out  Mr.  Forster  because 
Coercion  had  failed,  should  have  at  the  same  time  adopted  his 
policy.  They  would  probably  have  been  able  after  a  while  to 
meet  and  defeat  the  movement,  powerful  though  it  was,  for  Co- 
ercion :  the  Ministry  which  survived  the  death  of  Gordon  could 
also  have  survived  the  Phoenix  Park  assassinations,  and,  even 
if  it  had  not,  it  would  have  done  inestimable  service  towards 
England  and  Ireland  by  showing  that  even  a  great  Ministry 
was  ready  to  sacrifice  itself  rather  than  sanction  any  further 
exclusion  of  the  Irish  people  from  the  Constitution.  And  it 
may  be  said,  too,  with  some  certainty  that  the  passion  of  their 
own  people,  though  fierce,  would  have  been  temporary ;  for  it 
is  a  characteristic  of  the  English  nation  to  be  short-lived  in  its 
violence,  and,  though  there  were  one  or  two  outbursts  of  in- 
sensate fury,  it  must  be  acknowledged  that  the  English  nation, 
as  a  body,  behaved  on  this  terrible  occasion  with  self-restraint 
and  dignity.  The  newspapers,  it  is  true,  did  their  best  in  one 
or  two  instances  to  fan  popular  excitement  into  fury.  The 
Times  ' — true  to  its  immemorial  traditions — suggested  that 
the  Irish  population  of  England,  unarmed  and  innocent,  should 
be  massacred  for  a  crime  which  they  abhorred,  and  that  the 
Irish  political  leaders  should  be  made  responsible  for  a  catas- 
trophe which  had  dashed  all  their  hopes.  But  these  shameful 
incitements  to  violence  remained  innocuous  before  the  good 
sense  of  the  English  people. 


490  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

The  most  peculiar  result  of  the  Phoenix  Park  assassinations 
was  the  change  it  made  in  the  position  of  Mr.  Forster.  The 
dread  tragedy  which  was  the  outcome  of  the  frenzy  that  his 
policy  had  generated,  was  taken  to  be  the  vindication  of  that 
policy,  and  the  undoubted  growth  of  a  large  and  potent 
murderous  conspiracy  was  held  to  be  the  proof  of  the  utility 
of  coercive  measures  against  the  preparation  and  the 
perpetration  of  crime.  If  the  Phoenix  Park  assassination 
preached  with  its  bloody  tongue  one  doctrine  more  loudly 
than  another,  it  was  the  futility  and  the  wickedness  and  dis- 
aster of  the  policy  for  which  Mr.  Forster  was  responsible. 

In  the  debates  which  ensued  nothing  could  be  more 
unanimous  than  the  condemnation  of  the  policy  of  Mr.  Forster 
himself.  It  was  one  of  his  own  colleagues  who  pronounced 
the  most  damning  condemnation  of  himself  and  his  Coercion 
Act 

It  was  assumed  (said  Sir  William  Harcourt)  ....  that  the  Pro- 
tection of  Person  and  Property  Bill  was  an  appropriate  remedy,  and 
that  if  we  only  had  the  summary  power  of  arrest  it  would  be  suf- 
ficient to  put  down  crime.  My  right  honourable  friend  who  had 
charge  of  that  measure  said,  'We  can  discover  the  persons  who 
commit  these  crimes — these  village  ruffians  ;  we  know  them  ;  we 
can  put  them  in  prison  ;  we  can  put  down  crime.'  That  turned  out 
not  to  be  so.  The  men  were  shut  up  ;  more  men  were  shut  up 
time  after  time  ;  yet  crime  went  on  increasing.  It  was  never  sug- 
gested— nor  did  it  occur  to  anybody — that  that  measure  would  have 
failed  so  completely  as  it  did  in  suppressing  crime.  The  consequence 
was  that  the  shutting  up  of  these  people  did  not  sensibly  diminish 
crime.  On  the  contrary,  the  more  people  were  shut  up  the  more 
crime  increased.1 

But,  in  the  heat  and  fury  of  party  conflict,  logic  is  silent. 
The  Conservatives  believed,  or  professed  to  believe,  that  Mr. 
Forster  and  his  policy  had  been  vindicated  by  the  murder  of 
Lord  Frederick  Cavendish  and  Mr.  Burke.  Time-servers  of 
Mr.  Forster's  coarse  type  can  never  see  a  great  popular  outburst 
without  an  instinctive  desire  to  turn  it  to  some  personal  profit. 
Even  if  he  had  not  been  personally  involved  in  the  matter  at 
all,  Mr.  Forster  could  no  more  have  resisted  an  attempt  to  ex- 

1   Hansard,  vol.  cclxxvi.  pp.  429-30. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  491 

ploit  the  death  of  Lord  Frederick  Cavendish  and  Mr.  Burke 
than  he  resisted  the  temptation  to  exploit  the  popular  tempest 
over  the  death  of  Gordon.  But,  of  course,  he  was  doubly  in- 
terested in  turning  the  outburst  of  popular  anger  and  sorrow 
over  the  Phcenix  Park  assassinations  to  his  own  justification, 
and  proceeded  to  make  as  much  capital  as  he  could  out  of 
the  tragedy.  He  attacked  his  former  colleagues,  he  made 
questionable  use  of  Cabinet  communications,  he  did  every- 
thing he  could,  while  professing  friendship  for  Mr.  Gladstone 
and  the  other  members  of  the  Ministry,  to  deal  them  as  many 
and  as  deadly  stabs  as  it  was  in  his  power  to  do.  He  had  his 
reward  in  the  welcoming  cheer  with  which  his  rise  was  for 
a  while  always  acknowledged  by  the  Conservative  party, 
and  by  the  fulsome  eulogies  which  he  received  in  all  their 
speeches.  Of  course  the  conduct  of  Mr.  Forster  was  very 
contemptible,  but  he  was  less  contemptible  than  the  rank 
and  file  of  his  own  party.  It  was  at  once  amusing  and 
disgusting  to  observe  the  change  which  came  over  the  at- 
titude of  the  Ministerialists  towards  him.  The  very  men 
who  had  been  denouncing  the  Irish  members  as  little  better 
than  assassins  for  their  attacks  upon  Mr.  Forster,  began  to 
assail  him  quite  as  mercilessly  now  that  he  attacked  the 
Ministry  ;  and  as  in  the  interests  of  party,  they  were  once 
pleased  that  he  should  be  exalted,  they  were  now  as  ready 
that  he  should  be  mercilessly  sacrificed. 

The  Crimes  Bill,  which  followed  the  Phoenix  Park  murders, 
was  fought  by  the  Irish  members  doggedly,  and  was  marked  by 
the  same  scenes  as  were  enacted  in  the  session  of  1881.  The 
progress  of  the  Bill  was  terribly  slow  ;  amendments  followed 
amendments.  There  came  the  system  of  relays,  and  then 
an  all-night  sitting.  Once  more  tempestuous  passion  was 
aroused  on  both  sides.  It  was  seen  that  some  blow  would  be 
struck.  On  the  morning  of  Saturday,  July  I,  Sir  (then  Dr.) 
Lyon  Playfair  declared  the  following  Irish  members  guilty  of 
obstruction,  and  suspended  them  en  masse : — Mr.  Biggar, 
Mr.  Callan,  Dr.  Commins,  Mr.  Dillon,  Mr.  Healy,  Mr.  Leamy, 
Mr.  Marum,  Mr.  Metge,  Mr.  McCarthy,  Mr.  T.  P.  O'Connor, 
Mr.  O'Donnell,  Mr.  Parnell,  Mr.  R.  Power,  Mr.  Redmond. 
Mr.  Sullivan,  and  Mr.  Sexton.  And  later  in  the  day  the 


492  *  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

following  members  were  also  suspended  : — Mr.  Byrne,  Mr. 
Corbet,  Mr.  Gray,  Mr.  Lalor,  Mr.  Leahy,  Mr.  A.  O'Connor, 
Mr.  O'Kelly,  Mr.  W.  H.  O'Sullivan,  and  Mr.  Shell. 

This  had  the  most  extraordinary  consequences.  Thus 
Mr.  John  Dillon  had  been  entirely  absent  during  the  night, 
and  when  he  arrived  in  the  morning  to  enter  the  House, 
he  was  refused  admission,  and,  for  the  first  time,  learnt 
of  his  suspension.  Similarly,  Dr.  Commins,  Mr.  T.  D. 
Sullivan,  and  Mr.  Biggar  had  been  absent  during  the  night. 
Mr.  Richard  Power  had  actually  not  spoken  even  once  during 
the  debates  in  Committee  on  the  Bill,  and  Mr.  Marum  had 
taken  so  little  part  that  Sir  John  Hay,  a  Conservative  member, 
got  up  and  protested  against  his  suspension.  It  thus  became 
evident  that  if  such  a  ruling  as  this  were  allowed,  it  would  be 
possible  for  a  stupid  or  an  arbitrary  Speaker  or  Chairman 
of  Committees  to  deprive  Ireland  of  the  services  of  all  her 
representatives  at  some  moment  particularly  convenient  to 
the  Ministers. 

It  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  this  step  was  taken  on  the 
initiative  of  Sir  Lyon  Playfair  himself.  It  certainly  was 
denounced  in  private  by  nearly  every  member  of  the  House 
to  whatsoever  section  he  belonged,  and  the  Ministers  repudi- 
ated it  with  some  eagerness.  But  whatever  interference  there 
be  in  the  House  of  Commons  with  the  rights  of  Irish  members 
the  House  of  Commons  is  ready  at  once  to  condone  ;  and 
every  attempt  on  this,  as  on  every  other  occasion,  to  bring  the 
ruling  of  the  presiding  officer  to  the  test  of  discussion,  was 
steadily  prevented.  Nevertheless  the  Irish  members  had  their 
revenge  ;  in  one  respect  immediately,  in  another  at  a  later 
period. 

The  Irish  members  were  so  exasperated  by  the  action  of 
Sir  Lyon  Playfair  and  by  the  evident  determination  of  the 
House  to  stand  by  it  in  public,  however  much  they  objected 
to  it  in  private,  that  they  resolved  to  take  no  further  part  in 
the  discussion  of  the  Bill. 

The  remainder  of  the  story  I  will  tell  in  a  sketch  which 
I  wrote  at  the  time  : — 

Vengeance  soon  overtook  the  Government  for  condoning  the  offence 
of  their  subordinate.  The  first  effect  of  it  was  to  produce  the  resolve 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  493 

of  the  Irish  members  to  abstain  from  all  further  participation  in  the 
discussion  of  the  Crimes  Bill.  The  history  of  the  resolution  passed  by 
the  Parnellites  on  the  subject  is  curious.  When  the  House  met  on 
Thursday  the  party  had  not  yet  made  up  their  minds  what  was  to  be 
done,  though  three  or  four  had  talked  the  matter  over  in  the  smoking- 
room  of  the  House  on  Monday  night.  When  a  division  takes  place 
in  Parliament,  members  retire  to  the  lobbies,  then  run  around  the 
House.  It  was  during  one  of  these  divisions  that  Mr.  Sexton  brought 
forward  the  resolution.  A  hurried  and  excited  debate  took  place, 
and  was  not  concluded  when  the  members  re-entered  the  House. 
There  was,  however,  immediately  afterwards,  a  second  division  ;  the 
debate  was  renewed,  and  the  resolution  was  adopted  by  a  majority  of 
1 6  to  4.  On  returning,  Mr.  Justin  McCarthy  got  up  to  state  the  course 
of  himself  and  his  colleagues.  It  will  reveal  to  you  the  tolerance 
and  good  taste  of  the  House  of  Commons  when  I  tell  you  that  this 
eminent  author  and  consistent  politician  is  sometimes  howled  at  by 
a  mob  of  ignorant  juveniles  on  the  Liberal  side.  When  he  read  the 
resolution,  Mr.  Gladstone — who  has  been  looking  very  haggard  and 
very  anxious  for  some  weeks — was  visibly  disturbed,  but  not  so  his 
followers.  When  Mr.  McCarthy  came  to  announce  that  the  Irish 
members  would  take  no  further  part  in  the  discussions  on  the  Crimes 
Bill,  there  was  a  mighty  cheer,  almost  the  loudest  I  have  heard  since 
the  famous  day  when  the  Liberals  roared  themselves  hoarse  on 
hearing  that  Michael  Davitt  had  been  sent  back  to  penal  servitude. 
When,  afterwards,  we  rose  to  leave  the  House,  the  same  insulting  and 
exultant  cheer  was  raised  once  again  and  followed  us  mercilessly 
until  we  had  disappeared  from  sight.  I  dwell  upon  this  fact  because 
it  forms  one  of  the  most  important  incidents  in  view  of  what  imme- 
diately followed. 

The  course  of  the  Crimes  Bill  since  our  departure  went  with  the 
greatest  smoothness  and  tranquillity  until  the  afternoon  of  yesterday. 
On  that  day  the  clause  had  to  be  discussed  which  dealt  with  searches 
for  arms,  and  the  point  of  difference  between  the  Government  and 
their  opponents  was  that  the  Government  wished  to  restrict  it  to  the 
day,  unless  where  an  illegal  meeting  was  being  held  at  night,  while 
their  opponents  desired  that  there  should  be  the  same  unlimited 
right  to  search  by  night  as  by  day.  The  debate  was  in  many 
respects  sensational  and  exciting.  Gladstone  saw  early  that  he  would 
have  very  difficult  work  to  pass  his  proposal,  and  he  made  a  speech 
so  strong  that  people  thought  it  pointed  to  resignation.  But  the 
Whigs  were  not  to  be  moved  even  by  the  most  pathetic  appeal  from 
the  '  Grand  Old  Man.'  Mr,  Goschen,  who  is  trying  to  make  a  Whig 


494  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

revolt  along  with  Mr.  Forster,  made  a  violent  speech  against  trie 
Government  from  the  Liberal  benches,  an  attack  the  more  effective 
because  he  is  a  professed  Liberal,  and  because  he  was  always  careful 
to  speak  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  even  while  he  was  stabbing  him  in  the 
back,  as  his  *  right  honourable  friend.'  But  a  more  significant 
speech,  as  showing  the  present  state  of  feeling  towards  Mr.  Gladstone, 
was  that  of  the  Hon.  Mr.  Lambton.  This  member  has  a  strange 
history.  He  is  the  son  of  one  Earl  of  Durham,  and  the  twin  brother 
of  another.  Though  there  was  but  a  quarter  of  an  hour  between  his 
birth  and  that  of  his  brother,  he  was,  according  to  our  precious  law 
of  primogeniture,  deprived  of  title  and  property  and  rights.  His 
father  was,  however,  a  sensible  and  considerate  man — saved  ioo,ooo/., 
invested  it  in  land,  and  so  was  able  to  leave  his  younger  son  a 
property  worth  between  io,ooo/.  and  i2,ooo/.  a  year.  The  Durhams 
have  always  been  Liberals,  and  one  Earl  of  Durham  was  a  Liberal 
and  something  more  :  a  strange,  passionate,  strong  man,  who  was  at 
once  a  nobleman  and  a  Radical,  who  made  Canada  and  ruined  him- 
self, and  who  fretted  out  his  heart  and  his  life  in  baffled  hopes  and 
ambition.  There  is  always  a  good  deal  of  interest,  therefore,  attached 
to  anything  a  scion  of  this  family  may  do.  Up  to  the  present,  young 
Mr.  Lambton  has  done  nothing  to  gratify  this  curiosity.  He  has  sat 
in  a  dark  corner  on  the  furthest  bench  behind  the  Ministry,  and  has 
obstinately  held  his  peace.  When  he  stood  up  yesterday  there  was 
a  general  inquiry  all  round  the  House  as  to  who  he  was.  A  small, 
dapper  young  fellow,  dressed  in  a  short  and  jaunty  coat,  he  looked  a 
mere  school-boy,  and  everybody  expected  that  we  would  have  had 
one  of  those  stuttering,  stumbling,  and  dreadfully  nervous  little 
speeches,  such  as  we  are  accustomed  to  hear  from  the  shambling 
young  creatures  that  represent  noble  houses  in  Parliament.  But 
there  was  nothing  of  the  kind.  In  an  icily  cold  voice,  with  perfect 
self-possession,  and  a  calmness  that  might  have  made  Captain 
Hawtree  burst  with  envy,  this  stripling  proceeded  to  attack  Mr. 
Gladstone  in  the  most  relentless  manner.  The  House  stood  aghast, 
and  then,  when  it  recovered,  burst  out  with  alternate  cheers  and  howls. 
Mr.  Gladstone's  brow  grew  overcast,  and  then  gradually  became  as 
sombre  and  dejected  as  the  visage  of  the  Crushed  Tragedian. 

Meanwhile  scenes  of  equally  intense  excitement  had  been  going 
forward  in  other  parts  of  the  Parliamentary  building.  The  Minis- 
terialists were  driven  almost  frantic  with  excitement  and  alarm,  and 
were  trying  all  sorts  of  methods  to  avert  the  coming  defeat.  I 
must  tell  your  readers  one  incident  which  I  shall  recall  to  the  end 
of  my  life  with  grim  satisfaction.  The  Irish  members  are  treated 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  495 

unfairly  and  insolently  by  the  Ministerialists  as  a  body,  but  there  are 
some  individuals  who  stand  out  in  bold  relief  even  from  their  howl- 
ing companions .  One  of  these  is  a  colonel,  an  excellent  type  of  the 
English  swashbuckler — tall,  corpulent,  with  a  fierce  fair  moustache, 
and  a  general  air  of  what  an  American  once  called  '  you-be-d — dness.' 
During  the  all-night  sittings  this  gentleman  always  makes  himself 
particularly  objectionable,  partly  because  on  these  occasions  he  par- 
takes of  the  grilled  bones  and  champagne  with  which  our  younger 
legislators  while  away  the  hours  of  waiting.  In  the  fight  of  last 
week  this  colonel  organised  a  small  group  which  kept  up  a  loud 
conversation,  interspersed  with  loud  guffaws  whenever  an  Irish 
member  was  speaking,  with  the  evident  intention  of  either  confusing 
or  irritating  him  into  some  heat  or  imprudence  of  language.  Well, 
yesterday  I  saw  this  colonel  in  one  of  the  rooms  of  Parliament,  panic- 
stricken  and  pale,  and  begging  the  Irish  members  whom  he  has 
been  constantly  insulting  to  come  in  and  vote  for  the  Government. 
Another  most  objectionable  person  is  a  lawyer  who  sits  immediately 
behind  Gladstone,  and,  in  hope  of  a  fat  office,  eats  as  much  dirt  as 
the  great  man  may  offer.  He  constantly  howls  at  us,  and  is  always 
ready  to  assail  our  position.  In  face  of  the  whole  House  this 
creature  yesterday  came  on  a  begging  mission  from  Gladstone  to  the 
Irish  members. 

I  have  said  in  face  of  the  whole  House  ;  for  one  of  the  dramatic 
peculiarities  of  the  situation,  as  you  have  already  heard,  doubtless, 
was  that  the  Irish  members  were  witnesses  of  these  death  throes  of 
the  Ministry.  A  gallery  runs  on  both  sides  of  the  House,  and  here 
were  gathered  Sexton,  Dillon,  Healy,  and  others  of  the  most  active 
and  able  of  Parnell's  following,  looking  down  calmly  for  the  moment 
on  the  arena  which  they  had  quitted.  There  they  were  in  far  and 
away  the  most  conspicuous  position  of  the  whole  Assembly,  clearly 
visible  not  only  to  the  members,  but  to  the  occupants  of  the  Ladies', 
and  the  Diplomatic,  the  Speaker's,  and  the  Strangers'  Galleries.  It 
was  most  amusing  to  watch  the  glances  of  piteous  appeal  which 
Trevelyan,  the  Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland,  and  other  members  of  the 
Government  occasionally  directed  to  this  quarter.  However,  these 
followers  of  Parnell,  whatever  may  be  their  other  faults,  know  their 
own  minds,  and  are  as  defiantly  insensible  to  the  cajolings  as  they  are 
to  the  menaces  of  the  Administration.  I  cannot  say  as  much  for  all 
the  gentlemen  who  nominally  follow  the  lead  of  the  member  for 
Cork.  Some  of  their  number,  cursed  with  the  souls  of  footmen  and 
the  spirits  of  spaniels,  got  into  a  dreadful  state  of  alarm  when  they 
found  that  the  Government  was  about  to  be  beaten,  and  came 


496  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

piteously  whining  about  their  stronger  brethren,  asking  them  to 
go  in  and  vote.  Of  course,  these  slavish  counsels  were  rejected,  and 
few  of  those  who  gave  them  were  ready  to  act  upon  them.  When 
the  division  was  called,  there  was  intense  excitement  in  the  House, 
and  nobody  could  tell  what  the  result  was  going  to  be,  and  the 
House  heaved  like  a  tempestuous  sea.  The  Irish  members  had  to 
leave  the  Gallery  in  which  they  had  hitherto  been  seated,  for  it  was 
technically  within  the  limits  of  the  House,  and  it  is  a  rule  of  Parlia- 
ment that  if  you  be  within  the  House  when  the  division  is  called  you 
must  vote  one  way  or  another.  The  Parnellites  accordingly  took 
refuge  in  the  Diplomatic  Gallery.  When  the  defeat  of  the  Govern- 
ment was  announced,  this  small  body,  which  might  have  saved  the 
Administration,  laughed  down  triumphantly  on  their  baffled  foes, 
and  those  on  the  other  side  pointed  and  glared  up  at  us  with  looks 
that  were  intended  to  kill.  And  so  the  Irish  party  avenged  their  ex- 
pulsion and  the  insulting  cheer  by  which  their  departure  from  the 
House  was  received.1 

The  later  vengeance  the  Irish  members  were  able  to 
take  on  Dr.  Playfair  for  his  ruling,  and  on  the  House  for  its 
sanction  of  the  ruling,  was  to  have  the  rule  about  obstruction 
so  modified,  when  the  Rules  of  Procedure  were  changed,  as 
to  make  '  constructive  obstruction  '  after  Dr.  Playfair's  fashion 
an  impossibility  for  the  future. 

A  word  is  required  for  another  Bill  of  the  session  of  1882. 
In  the  latter  portion  of  this  session  Mr.  Gladstone  introduced, 
and,  after  a  short  struggle  with  the  Marquis  of  Salisbury, 
succeeded  in  passing,  the  Arrears  Act.  If  Englishmen  were 
teachable  on  their  Irish  mistakes,  assuredly  the  introduction 
and  carnage  of  this  Bill  ought  to  have  taught  them  a  great 
lesson. 

For  it  was  the  Arrears  Bill  that  ought  to  have  brought 
before  the  minds  of  Englishmen  the  real  meaning  of  the  crisis 
through  which  Ireland  had  been  passing.  The  testimony  as 
to  the  circumstances  which  necessitated  the  Arrears  Bill 
comes  from  many  different  sources.  Mr.  Gladstone  spoke  in 
favour  of  the  Bill,  Mr.  Forster  spoke  in  favour  of  the  Bill. 
It  was  the  great  anxiety  of  Mr.  Parnell  in  Kilmainham,  and 
afterwards  of  Mr.  Trevelyan  in  Dublin  Castle.  Captain  O'Shea, 
in  giving  an  account  of  the  interview  which  preceded  the 

1  Gladstone's  House  of  Commons,  pp.  231-5. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  497 

release  of  Mr.  Parnell,  declared  that  the  Arrears  were  the 
question  which  chiefly  disturbed  the  Irish  leader's  mind. 
When  Captain  O'Shea  expressed  his  opinion  that  the  con- 
tinued imprisonment  of  the  *  suspects '  was  exercising  a  most 
pernicious  effect  in  Ireland,  with  his  hope  that  the  Govern- 
ment would  make  his  release  permanent,  Mr.  Parnell  replied, 
according  to  a  note  which  the  member  for  Clare  took  imme- 
diately afterwards  : — 

Never  mind  the  '  suspects ' ;  we  can  well  afford  to  see  the  Coercion 
Act  out.  If  you  have  any  influence  do  not  fritter  it  away  upon  us  ; 
use  it  to  get  the  Arrears  practically  adjusted.  Impress  on  every 
one  your  own  opinion  as  to  the  necessity  of  making  the  contribution 
from  the  State  a  gift,  and  not  a  loan  ;  and  further  the  equal  necessity 
of  absolute  compulsion.  The  great  object  of  my  life  (added  the 
hon.  member)  is  to  settle  the  land  question.  Now  that  the  Tories 
have  adopted  my  view  as  to  peasant  proprietary,  the  extension  of  the 
Purchase  clauses  is  safe.  You  have  always  supported  the  leaseholders 
as  strongly  as  myself ;  but  the  great  object  now  is  to  stay  eviction  by 
the  introduction  of  an  Arrears  Bill.1 

He  had  felt  (Mr.  Parnell  said  in  the  same  debate)  with  reference 
to  the  question  of  Arrears  in  Ireland,  as  relating  to  the  situation  of  the 
smaller  tenants,  the  very  gravest  anxiety  and  responsibility  for  many 
months  ;  and  he  was  rejoiced  that  the  hon.  member  had  found  some 
way  of  placing  the  views  of  himself  and  those  with  him,  before  the 
Government.  They  had  been  aware  from  what  they  had  seen  in  the 
newspapers,  and  from  the  information  of  prisoners  who  came  in  from 
time  to  time,  and  who  received  letters  from  different  parts  of  the 
country,  that  evictions  in  large  and  very  much  greater  numbers  than 
had  occurred  up  to  the  present,  were  imminent  unless  some  such 
proposal  as  the  Prime  Minister  had  announced  were  made  in  regard 
to  arrears.  They  had  anticipated  that  there  would  be  three  times  as 
many  evictions  in  the  present  quarter  of  the  year  as  there  were  in  the 
first  quarter,  when  7,000  persons  were  turned  out  of  their  homes. 
They  had  also  every  reason  to  believe  that,  owing  to  the  fact  that  the 
smaller  tenantry  in  Mayo,  Galway,  Sligo,  and  parts  of  Roscommon, 
Donegal,  Leitrim,  and  Kerry  were  sunk  in  arrears  to  the  extent  of 
three  or  four  years — in  many  cases  four  or  five  or  six  years,  and  in 
some  cases  ten  or  twelve  years — the  year's  or  half-year's  rent,  by  the 
payment  of  which  the  tenants  had  obtained  a  temporary  respite  from 
eviction,  would  be  but  a  temporary  respite^  and  that  the  coming 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclxix.  p.  783. 

K  K 


498  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

winter  would  see  evictions  resumed  against  the  smaller  tenants  to  an 
extent  never  witnessed  in  the  country  since  1848.  They  feared  also 
that  the  outrages  which  had  been  so  numerous  during  the  last  six 
months  would  increase  as  the  winter  came  on  ;  and  that  a  state  of 
affairs  in  Ireland  would  follow,  owing  to  the  non-settlement  of  this 
question,  the  end  of  which  they  could  not  possibly  foresee. 1 

Equally  emphatic  is  the  testimony  of  Mr.  Trevelyan  :  — 

I  think  those  hon.  members  have  left  out  of  sight  what  is  perhaps 
the  governing  consideration  of  this  question  why  ....  a  very  large 
number  of  members  think  it  necessary  to  assist  the  tenants  in  Ireland. 
It  is  because  the  times  have  been  most  exceptional.  ...  So  far  as  I 
can  remember,  no  instance  of  this  sort  in  which  money  has  been  asked 
to  assist  the  tenants  of  Ireland  can  be  quoted  since  the  famine  of  1846. 
The  reasons  why  we  have  come  forward  now  are  the  bad  years  of  1878 
and  1879.  I  only  put  into  other  words  what  was  said  by  the  right 
hon.  member  for  Bradford,  when  I  say  that  the  sudden  rise  in  Irish 
agrarian  crime  which  took  place  in  1879-80  was  connected  with  the 
discontent  which  was  fostered  in  an  atmosphere  of  misery.  There 
were  some  parts  of  the  country  where  the  people  could  not  pay  their 
rents.  They  could  not  keep  body  and  soul  together  without  chari- 
table assistance,  and  the  helplessness  and  despair  of  these  people 
gave  the  first  material  thirst  for  agitation.2 

Again  :  — 

Every  day  (went  on  the  Chief  Secretary)  the  Government  gets 
reports  of  evictions,  and  whenever  these  evictions  are  of  tenants  who 
can  pay  their  rents  and  will  not,  the  Government  is  very  carefully 
informed  by  their  officers.  That  is  not  the  case  with  all  evictions, 
and  at  this  moment  in  one  part  of  the  country  men  are  being  turned 
out  of  their  houses,  actually  by  battalions,  who  are  no  more  able  to 
pay  the  arrears  of  these  bad  years  than  they  are  able  to  pay  the 
National  Debt.  I  have  seen  a  private  account  from  a  very  trust- 
worthy source — from  a  source  anyone  would  allow  to  be  trustworthy 
—of  what  is  going  on  in  Connemara.  In  three  days  150  families 
were  turned  out,  numbering  750  persons.  At  the  head-quarters  of  the 
Union,  though  only  one  member  of  each  family  attended  to  ask  for 
assistance,  there  was  absolutely  a  crowd  at  the  door  of  the  workhouse. 
It  was  not  the  case  that  these  poor  people  belonged  to  the  class  of 
extravagant  tenants.  They  were  not  whisky  drinkers  ;  they  were  not 
in  terror  of  the  Land  League.  One  man  who  owed  8/.  borrowed  it 
on  the  promise  of  repayment  in  six  months  with  4!.  of  addition— a 

1   Hansard,  vol.  cclxix.  pp.  792-3.  *  Ib.  pp.  1327-8. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  499 

rate  of  interest  which  hon.  members  could  easily  calculate— that  he 
might  sit  in  his  home.  The  cost  of  the  process  of  eviction  amounted 
to  3/.  i  js.  6d.  I  am  told  that  in  this  district  there  are  thousands  in 
this  position — people  who  have  been  beggared  for  years,  people  who 
have  been  utterly  unable  to  hold  up  their  heads  since  those  bad 
years,  and  whose  only  resource  from  expulsion  from  their  homes  is 
the  village  money-lender.1 

And  it  was  the  tenantry  whose  miserable  condition  is  de- 
scribed so  eloquently  and  sympathetically  that  the  landlords 
of  Ireland  were  evicting  during  1881  and  1882,  at  the  time  of 
the  suppression  of  the  Land  League.  It  was  tenants  of 
this  kind,  17,341  of  whom  were  cast  from  their  homes  in  the 
year  1881.  It  was  to  evict  tenants  of  this  kind  Mr.  Forster 
was  filling  the  gaols,  was  arming  the  landlords  with  soldiers 
and  police.  It  was  to  evict  miserable  and  despairing  wretches 
like  these  that  the  mighty  forces  of  the  British  Empire  were 
pitted  against  Ireland  and  Mr.  Parnell.  Assuredly  it  is  not 
too  much  to  ask  when  these  were  the  issues  on  both  sides 
that  the  sympathies  of  all  real  haters  of  wrong  and  suffering 
should  rejoice  that  the  final  victory  remained  with  Mr.  Parnell 
and  the  tenantry,  instead  of  with  Mr.  Forster,  Coercion,  and 
the  evicting  landlords.2 

On  the  Arrears  Bill  Mr.  Gladstone  staked  the  existence  of 
his  Government,  and  even  risked  a  collision  with  the  House 
of  Lords;  but  that  Bill  was  the  grant  in  1882  of  a  de- 
mand contemptuously  rejected  in  1881.  The  Bill  itself  was 
an  adaptation  of  one  brought  in  by  Mr.  Redmond,  and  again 
the  Bill  brought  in  by  Mr.  Redmond  had  been  drafted — every 
clause  and  every  line  of  it — within  the  walls  of  Kilmainham 
by  Mr.  Parnell.  This  is  another  of  the  many  proofs  that  it  is 
only  through  the  suffering  of  Irish  leaders  that  the  dull,  cold 
ear  of  English  ignorance  can  be  penetrated.  Mr.  Parnell  was 

1  Hansard,  vol.  cclxix.  pp.  1328-9. 

2  The  following  sentence  from  Mr.  Brand,  who  is  no  friend  of  Mr.  Parnell  or 
the  Land    League,  sufficiently  explains   the  difference  between   the  position  of 
Irish  tenants  and  English  tenants,  and  the  action  of  Irish  and  English  landlords 
in  this  as  in  many  other  agrarian  crises  before  and  since  : — In  England  during  the 
recent  bad  seasons  landlords  had  made  very  large  remissions,  varying  from  75  to 
50,  40,  20,  and  10  per  cent.     But,  he  was  sorry  to  say,  that  Irish  landlords  had 
not,  in  any  large  number  of  cases,  shown  a  similar  spirit. — Ib.  p.  1321. 

K  K  2 


500  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

quite  content,  of  course,  that  his  scheme  should  be  taken  up 
by  Mr.  Gladstone  and  passed  into  law  ;  but  it  seemed  a  little 
hard  that  he  should  have  had  to  go  through  six  months' 
imprisonment  in  order  to  educate  the  mind  of  the  Prime 
Minister. 

The  recess  that  followed  the  Session  of  1882  is  chiefly 
remarkable  for  the  first  manifestations  of  the  spirit  in  which 
the  Crimes  Act  was  to  be  worked.  As  the  Red  Terror  of 
France  was  succeeded  by  the  cruelties  and  horrors  of  the 
White  Terror,  the  regime  of  Lord  Spencer  followed  on  the 
frenzied  crime  that  grew  out  of  the  policy  of  drastic  Coercion. 
A  system  of  jury-packing  was  resorted  to  of  a  shamelessness 
that  was  considered  to  have  been  buried  with  the  days  of  1848. 

As  a  specimen  of  the  jury-packing  the  following  facts 
suffice  :  Two  hundred  jurors  were  summoned  to  try  seven 
cases  under  the  Crimes  Act,  and  the  jury  panels  represented 
a  proportion  of  about  four  and  a  half  Catholics  to  one  Pro- 
testant.1 The  gentlemen  swoin  as  jurors  in  these  seven  cases 
were  almost  exclusively  Protestants.  A  proportion  of  four 
and  a  half  to  one  would  have  represented  forty-five  Catholics 
and  ten  Protestants.  By  the  efforts  of  Mr.  George  Bolton, 
the  Crown  solicitor,  the  juries  were  so  selected  that  the 
numbers  were  nine  Catholics  and  forty-one  Protestants.  The 
first  jury  contained  three  Catholics  and  nine  Protestants. 
When  this  jury  disagreed  a  second  jury  was  selected  con- 
sisting of  eleven  Protestants  and  one  Catholic.  The  Crown 
solicitor  ordered  aside  twenty  Catholics  and  three  Protestants. 
On  the  second  trial  of  Patrick  Higgins  the  jury  consisted  of 
eleven  Protestants  and  one  Catholic.  Thirty  Catholics  and 
one  Protestant  were  ordered  to  stand  aside.  Tom  Higgins 
was  tried  by  a  jury  of  ten  Protestants  and  two  Catholics. 
The  Crown  set  aside  fifty  jurors,  almost  wholly  Catholics. 
Michael  Flynn  was  convicted  by  ten  Protestants  and  two 
Catholics.  The  Crown  ordered  aside  fifty-three  jurors,  forty- 
one  of  whom  were  Catholics.2 

Thus  the  men  who  were  accused  of  having  taken  part  in 
the  terrible  struggle  with  landlordism  were  now  brought  up, 

1  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  Sept.  6,  1882  ;  quoted  in  How  the  Crimes  Act  is 
Administered,  p.  50.  2  Hoiv  Hie  Crimes  Act  is  Administered,  p.  50. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  501 

when  their  organisation  had  been  destroyed,  before  juries 
consisting  exclusively  of  men  drawn  from  the  ranks  of  their 
enemies.  The  temper  of  these  enemies  was  at  the  time, 
naturally  enough,  roused  to  fury,  at  once  by  the  sense  of  in- 
sult and  wrong  endured,  and  of  vengeance  safe  though  tardy 
in  its  arrival.  So  fierce,  indeed,  was  the  spirit  of  the  land- 
lord party,  that  it  led  to  exhibitions  scarcely  possible  in  any 
country  but  one  in  which  different  classes  are  divided  by  the 
hatred  of  centuries  and  the  exasperations  of  antagonistic 
creed,  and  race,  and  class.  The  courts  were  crowded  by 
representatives,  male  and  female,  of  the  landlord  party  ;  and 
when  the  verdict  of  conviction  doomed  another  hapless  being 
to  the  terrors  and  horrors  of  violent  death,  the  representatives 
of  landlordism  exhibited  the  savagery  of  their  joy  by  public 
applause  within  the  walls  of  the  court  itself. 

To  render  conviction  still  more  assured,  huge  bribes  were 
offered  for  informers,  and  the  cases  were  tried  by  judges 
well  known  for  perpetuating  on  the  bench  the  odious  tradi- 
tions of  the  Crown  prosecutor.  Of  course  Judge  Lawson 
played  a  prominent  part  in  these  trials.  Judge  Keogh  was 
dead  ;  Judge  Fitzgerald  had  received  well-merited  reward  by 
being  raised  to  the  English  peerage  ;  but  Judge  Lawson  re- 
mained of  the  precious  trio  who  had  reached  the  judicial  seat 
through  popular  politics. 

Judge  O'Brien,  who  had  been  recently  raised  to  the 
Bench  from  the  position  of  a  Crown  prosecutor,  also  took 
part  in  these  trials,  and  carried  to  the  judicial  Bench  the 
virulence  that  always  distinguishes  the  Crown  prosecutor  in 
Ireland.  Thus  three  men  were  tried  for  the  Lough  Mask 
murder.  When  Patrick  Higgins,  the  first  man,  was  convicted, 
Judge  O'Brien  made  this  extraordinary  declaration  :  '  I  con- 
sider it  my  duty  to  state  that  in  my  opinion  the  prisoner  is 
the  least  guilty  of  the  persons  concerned  in  this  murder,  and 
that  the  evidence  has  produced  in  my  mind  a  firm  belief  that 
the  design  of  this  murder  did  not  originate  with  him.'  Two 
men  had  yet  to  be  tried  for  this  murder,  and  even  a  London 
journal  had  to  protest  against  the  unprecedented  unfairness 
of  the  case  of  these  two  men  being  prejudiced  by  such  an 
observation.  Four  of  the  jurors  who  convicted  Michael 


502  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

Flynn,  another  of  the  men  accused  of  the  same  murder,  had 
served  in  the  trial  of  Pat  Higgins,  and  were  present  at  the 
moment  when  the  judge  made  the  remark  that  Higgins  was 
the  least  guilty  of  the  three.1  One  of  these  jurors  gave  the 
strongest  condemnation  of  the  action  of  the  judge,  though 
perhaps  unconsciously.  The  jury,  he  said,  concurred  in  the 
statement  that  Higgins  was  the  least  guilty  of  the  three  ;  but 
*  he  had  refrained  from  making  it  lest  it  might  prejudice  the 
trial  of  the  remaining  two  prisoners.' 

Some  of  the  prisoners  who  were  tried  before  such  jurors 
and  such  a  judge  did  not  know  a  word  of  English — for  all 
they  knew,  the  cases  might  as  well  have  been  tried  in  Arabic-- 
and  they  could  only  gaze  in  dumb  bewilderment  while  the 
bloody  game  was  going  on  of  which  their  necks  were  the 
forfeit. 

Tried  before  tribunals  thus  constituted,  convictions  came 
fast  and  furious  ;  until  one  prisoner  summed  up  the  proceed- 
ings to  the  satisfaction  of  the  whole  shocked  and  horrified 
nation  in  the  memorable  words :  '  This  is  a  slaughtering 
house.' 

The  character  of  these  trials  was  over  and  over  again 
brought  before  the  House  of  Commons,  and  if  the  damning 
figures  already  brought  forward  were  not  sufficient  to  con- 
demn the  Government,  the  Irish  members  could  bring  for- 
ward the  testimony  of  two  English  newspapers,  the  one  in 
eulogy  and  the  other  in  condemnation  of  the  system,  which 
would  sufficiently  establish  their  case.  *  We  must,  to  convict 
murderers,'  declared  the  '  Daily  Telegraph,'  '  secure  by  hook 
or  crook,  by  law  or  challenge,  metropolitan  Protestants  and 
loyal  juries.'2  '  No  decently  impartial  person,'  said  the  '  Pall 
Mall  Gazette,'  '  can  deny  that  there  has  been  jury-packing, 
that  there  has  been  a  vast  deal  of  oppression,  that  persons 
have  been  treated  in  a  way  that  in  England  would  be  found 
intolerable.' 3 

The  worst  part  of  these  proceedings  on  the  part  of  the 
Government  was  their  absolute  needlessness.  The  public 
mind  and  conscience  of  Ireland  were  in  the  frame  to  welcome 

1  How  the  Crimes  Act  is  Administered,  p.  44.  '-'  Oct.  2,  1882. 

3  Aug.  14,  1883. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  503 

the  conviction,  after  fair  trial  and  by  properly  constituted 
juries,  of  the  perpetrators  of  crime.  The  outbursts  of  bloody 
passion  which  had  followed  the  arrest  of  Mr.  Parnell  had  left 
behind  feelings  of  profound  horror,  and  these  feelings  were 
transformed  into  a  sense  of  sickened  loathing  by  the  Maam- 
trasna  massacre.  But  the  effect  of  trials  so  conducted  was 
to  drive  back  public  sympathy  from  the  law  to  the  criminals, 
and  the  conviction  of  each  successive  murderer  was  followed, 
not  by  a  sense  of  relief  but  of  anger  and  of  pity.  The  cir- 
cumstances of  the  trials,  too,  added  a  new  cause  to  those 
already  existing  for  hatred  between  different  classes  and 
creeds  in  Ireland,  and  the  Catholic  looked  again  on  his 
Protestant  fellow-countryman  of  the  landlord  class  as  an 
enemy  more  cruel  and  more  relentless  than  any  outside  their 
common  land. 

A  worse  sentiment  soon  came  to  undo  whatever  good  the 
conviction  of  the  vindication  of  the  law  might  have  produced. 
There  began  to  spread  the  uncomfortable  feeling  that  trials 
conducted  in  such  a  manner  must  lead  to  some  cases  of  un- 
just conviction.  This  feeling  was  increased  by  the  dying 
declarations  of  innocence  from  more  than  one  scaffold  by 
men  with  the  ropes  around  their  necks,  and  about  to  be 
plunged  into  the  Dark  Unseen.  To  such  declarations  the 
Irish  people  attach  peculiar  importance.  Among  them  re- 
ligious faith  holds  unchecked  sway  ;  and  according  to  their 
convictions,  the  dying  are  about  to  enter  an  eternity  of 
happiness  or  of  woe.  Before  the  hour  of  death  their  religion 
gives  them  the  means  of  reconciliation  and  forgiveness  of 
sin  ;  and  to  them  it  was  incredible  that  men  of  their  faith, 
after  they  had  passed  through  the  observances  of  their  creed, 
should  have  imperilled  their  eternal  salvation  by  going  be- 
fore the  judgment  seat  with  a  lie  upon  their  lips.  This  con- 
viction soon  became  general,  and  to-day  it  may  be  said  that 
it  has  passed  far  beyond  Ireland. 

The  horrors  at  the  execution  of  one  of  the  persons  con- 
victed of  the  Maamtrasna  murder  tended  to  excite  this  feel- 
ing to  one  of  supreme  and  angry  horror.  Myles  Joyce,  one  of 
the  men  convicted,  went  to  the  scaffold  still  shouting  out  in 
the  Gaelic — the  only  tongue  he  knew — asseverations  of  his 


504  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

innocence.  He  was  still  appealing  for  mercy  when  the  rope 
was  put  around  his  neck  ;  some  bungle  in  the  arrangements 
led  to  the  rope  catching  in  one  of  his  arms  ;  Marwood,  the 
executioner,  had  to  complete  his  ghastly  task  by  kicking  the 
shoulder  of  the  unhappy  man,  and  it  is  reported  that  he 
added  some  words  of  savage  scorn. 

That  scene  will  live  in  Irish  memory  to  the  end  of  time. 
The  case  of  Myles  Joyce  was  afterwards  brought  before  the 
House  of  Commons  by  Mr.  Harrington,  and  his  innocence 
was — or  at  least  the  unsatisfactory  character  of  the  trial  was — 
admitted  by  some  of  the  ablest  lawyers  who  took  part  in  the 
debate.  While,  however,  many  stopped  short  of  this  point, 
there  was  not  a  single  lawyer  who  took  part  in  the  debate — 
save  the  Irish  Solicitor- General — who  does  not  count  in  such 
a  discussion — who  did  not  express  grave  dissatisfaction  with 
the  manner  in  which  the  trial  had  been  conducted. 

Hut  this  was  long  after  the  trials  had  taken  place,  and 
the  remains  of  Myles  Joyce  had  been  reduced  to  calcined 
ashes.  While  the  agrarian  trials  were  going  on,  Lord  Spencer 
and  the  rest  of  the  bureaucracy  decreed  that  no  voice  should 
be  raised  in  protest  or  in  criticism.  Mr.  Edmund  Dwyer 
Gray  admitted  into  his  newspaper  ('  The  Freeman's  Journal ') 
— the  chief  journal  of  Ireland — some  comments  on  the  no- 
torious packing  of  the  juries,  and  on  the  misconduct  of  a 
jury  who  spent  the  night  before  they  sent  a  man  to  the  scaffold 
in  a  drunken  debauch. 

Judge  Lawson  summoned  Mr.  Gray  before  him,  and 
although  he  was  at  the  time  high  sheriff  of  the  city,  and  was 
known  as  a  man  of  moderate  views  and  careful  expression, 
sent  him  to  prison  for  three  months  and  inflicted  a  fine  of 
5oo/.  Thus  it  was  understood  that,  while  the  courts  were 
turned  into  shambles,  there  was  to  be  throughout  the  country 
the  silence  of  the  grave  ;  the  bloody  work  was  not  to  be  stayed 
by  one  word  of  comment  or  reproof. 

At  the  same  time  the  landlord  press  was  to  be  allowed  to 
hound  the  juries  on  by  praise  and  blame  to  convict  the  prisoners. 
Thus,  after  the  first  trial  of  Pat  Higgins  for  the  Lough  Mask 
murder,  when  the  jury  disagreed,  the  '  Daily  Express  '  was 
allowed  to  declare  that  the  jury  had  been  '  demoralised,' 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  505 

while  the  second  jury  which  convicted  Pat  Higgins  was 
described  as  '  intelligent  and  independent.' l 

It  was  at  this  period  that  there  began  one  of  the  strangest 
duels  of  Irish  history.  The  letter  in  which  attention  had  been 
called  to  the  action  of  the  jury  in  the  Hynes  case  was  written 
by  Mr.  William  O'Brien  ;  and  from  this  time  forward  he  takes 
a  part  as  one  of  the  most  prominent  leaders  of  the  Irish 
people. 

William  O'Brien  comes  from  a  good  stock,  and  was 
brought  up  from  his  earliest  years  in  those  principles  of  which 
he  has  become  so  prominent  and  so  vigorous  an  advocate. 
On  the  day  his  elder  brother  was  born,  in  1848,  the  sub- 
inspector  of  police  in  Mallow  had  a  warrant  to  search  the 
house  for  firearms,  but  desisted  from  using  it  because  of 
Mrs.  O'Brien's  illness,  and  on  Mr.  O'Brien  giving  his  word 
that  there  were  no  arms  in  the  house.  O'Brien's  father  was 
one  of  the  fiercest  and  most  resolute  spirits  of  the  Young 
Ireland  party,  but  afterwards,  like  so  many  of  the  men  who 
survived  the  terrible  abortiveness  of  that  time,  was  by  no 
means  friendly  to  physical  force  movements.  In  time  he 
had  to  remonstrate  with  some  of  his  own  offspring  for  their 
adhesion  to  Fenianism,  but  his  mouth  was  closed  whenever 
his  remonstrances  became  too  vehement  by  an  allusion  to 
this  episode  in  the  days  of  his  own  haughty  youth. 

William  was  born  on  October  2,  1852,  in  Mallow,  with 
which  town  his  family  on  the  mother's  side  has  been  connected 
from  time  immemorial.  He  received  his  education  at  Cloyne 
Diocesan  College.  This  was  a  mixed  school,  attended  by 
both  Catholic  and  Protestant  children.  There  was  not  the 
slightest  sectarian  animosity  between  the  children  of  the 
different  creeds,  but  there  was  plenty  of  political  argument 
and  differences.  The  Catholic  Nationalists  in  the  school 
formed  a  sort  of  small  Irish  party  and  held  their  own  ; 
William  O'Brien  being  successful  in  carrying  off  the  class- 
prizes,  while  his  brothers  and  others  carried  off  the  honours 
in  cricket,  football,  and  the  like.  William  from  his  earliest 
years  had  the  same  principles  as  he  professes  to-day.  Apart 
from  the  example  of  his  father,  he  had  in  his  brother  a  strong 

1  How  the  Crimes  Act  is  Administered,  p.  43. 


5o6  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

apostle  of  the  epistle  of  national  rights.  To  this  brother,  his 
senior  by  some  years,  he  looked  up  with  that  mixture  of 
affection  and  awe  which  an  elder  brother  often  inspires  in  a 
younger.  This  brother  was  indeed  of  a  type  to  captivate  the 
imagination  of  such  a  nature  as  that  of  his  younger  brother. 
He  was  a  man  of  inflexible  resolution,  great  daring,  and 
boundless  enthusiasm.  Among  the  revolutionaries  of  his 
district  he  was  the  chief  figure,  and  there  was  no  raid  for 
arms  too  desperate,  or  no  expedition  too  risky  for  his  spirit. 
He  took  part  with  Captain  Mackay,  who  was  one  of  the 
boldest  of  the  Fenian  leaders,  in  many  of  the  raids  for  arms 
on  police  barracks,  and  other  places  in  the  County  of  Cork. 
He  was  arrested,  of  course,  when  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  \vas 
suspended,  and  underwent  the  misery  and  tortures  which,  as 
has  already  been  described,  were  inflicted  on  untried  prisoners 
under  the  best  of  possible  Constitutions  and  the  freest  of  pos- 
sible Governments.  With  this  episode  in  the  life  of  the  elder 
brother,  the  brightness  of  the  life  of  William  O'Brien  for 
many  a  long  day  ceased.  His  family  history  is  strangely  and 
terribly  sad.  The  seeds  of  consumption  seem  to  have  been 
in  several  members  of  the  family,  and  the  disease  reached 
its  final  stages  with  dread  simultaneousness. 

In  the  O'Brien  household  there  were  at  the  one  moment 
three  members  of  the  family  dying.  The  father  of  the  family 
had  died  before,  and  now  two  of  his  sons  and  his  daughter 
were  lying  on  their  death-beds  at  the  same  time.  The  two 
brothers  died  on  the  one  day,  and  a  fortnight  afterwards  the 
sister  died  also.  The  shock  to  a  nature  so  fiercely  and  in- 
tensely affectionate  as  that  of  William  O'Brien,  can  well  be 
imagined.  The  death  of  his  father  and  the  illness  of  his 
brothers  had  thrown  to  a  large  extent  the  support  of  the  entire 
family  on  his  hands,  and  to  them  he  was  not  merely  a  brother 
but  to  a  certain  extent  a  helpful  parent.  It  seemed  for  a 
time  as  if  he  were  to  be  swept  away  by  the  same  disease 
which  had  proved  fatal  to  so  many  of  his  kin.  He  was  only 
saved  from  death  by  a  journey  to  Egypt,  but  he  has  never 
really  recovered  from  the  shock  to  his  mind  and  heart  which 
this  family  tragedy  caused,  and  he  is,  and  will  be  for  ever, 
haunted  by  its  memory. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  507 

The  first  thing  which  William  O'Brien  ever  wrote  was  a 
sketch  of  the  trial  of  Captain  Mackay.  This  attracted  the 
attention  of  Alderman  Nagle,  the  proprietor  of  the  '  Cork 
Daily  Herald,'  and  he  was  offered  an  engagement  upon 
that  paper.  There  he  remained  until  somewhere  towards 
1876,  when  he  became  a  member  of  the  reporting  staff  of  the 
'  Freeman's  Journal.'  He  had  become,  meantime,  and  remains 
an  expert  shorthand  writer.  He  did  the  ordinary  work  of  the 
reporter  for  several  years,  with  occasional  dashes  into  more 
congenial  occupation  in  special  descriptions  of  particular  pic- 
turesque incidents.  Whenever  his  work  had  any  connection 
with  the  politics,  condition,  or  prospects  of  his  country,  he 
devoted  himself  to  it  with  a  special  fervour.  It  was  his  de- 
criptions  of  the  County  of  Mayo  in  the  great  distress  of  1879 
which  first  concentrated  the  attention  of  the  Irish  people  on 
the  calamity  impending  over  the  country.  While  he  was 
working  with  an  energy  as  great  as  that  of  any  other  journalist 
in  Dublin  at  his  own  profession,  his  heart  was  in  the  cause  of 
his  people.  When  the  Coercion  Act  was  passed  in  1880,  he 
thought  the  moment  had  come  for  him  to  offer  his  services  to 
maintain  the  fight  in  face  of  threats  of  danger,  and  he  pro- 
posed through  Mr.  Davitt  and  Mr.  Egan  that  he  should  take 
up  some  of  the  work  of  the  League.  His  health,  however, 
was  at  the  time  so  weak  that  his  friends  feared  that  the  im- 
prisonment which  was  almost  certain  to  follow  employment 
by  the  League  would  prove  fatal  to  his  constitution,  and  he 
was  dissuaded  from  joining  the  ranks  of  the  movement.  In 
June  1 88 1,  when  the  conflict  between  Mr.  Forster  and  the  Land 
League  was  at  its  fiercest,  the  idea  occurred  of  establishing  a 
newspaper  as  an  organ  of  the  League  and  Parnellite  party. 
At  once  the  thoughts  of  several  people  turned  to  the  able  and 
brilliant  writer  on  the  '  Freeman's  Journal,'  and  he  was  in- 
vited by  Mr.  Parnell  to  found  'United  Ireland'  and  to  become 
its  editor. 

It  was  then  for  the  first  time  that  the  higher  powers  of 
O'Brien  were  discovered.  Great  as  was  his  reputation  as  a 
writer  of  nervous  and  picturesque  English,  he  had  hitherto 
been  unknown  as  the  author  of  editorial  and  purely  political 
articles,  and  few  were  prepared  for  the  political  grasp  and 


5o8  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

feverish  and  bewildering  force  of  the  editorials  he  contributed 
to  the  new  journal.  He  had  now  been  placed  in  the  position 
for  which  his  whole  character  and  gifts  especially  fitted  him. 
O'Brien  is  the  very  embodiment  of  the  militant  journalist. 
In  some  respects,  indeed,  his  character  resembles  that  of  the 
French,  rather  than  of  the  Irish,  litterateur.  Though  he 
has  keen  literary  instincts  and  a  fine  soul,  his  work  is  im- 
portant to  him  mainly  because  of  its  political  result.  Fragile 
in  frame  and  weak  in  health,  he  is  yet  above  all  things  a 
combatant,  ready  and  almost  eager  to  meet  danger.  If  he 
had  been  born  in  Paris,  he  would  probably  have  been  found 
at  the  top  of  a  barricade,  or,  like  Armand  Carrel,  might  have 
perished  in  a  political  duel.  A  long,  thin  face,  deep-set  and 
piercing  eyes,  flashing  out  from  behind  spectacles,  sharp  fea- 
tures, and  quick,  feverish  walk — the  whole  appearance  of  the 
man  speaks  of  a  restless,  fierce,  and  enthusiastic  character. 

The  times  were  such  as  to  bring  out  to  the  full  all  his 
qualities  of  mind  and  character.  As  has  been  said,  the  foun- 
dation of  United  Ireland  '  came  in  the  agony  of  the  struggle 
against  Coercion.  Its  tone  was  a  trumpet-call  to  further  and 
fiercer  advance  instead  of  an  appeal  to  retreat,  and  naturally, 
before  long,  Mr.  Forster  knew  that  either  '  United  Ireland 
should  be  crushed  or  the  spirit  of  revolt  would  grow  daily  fiercer 
and  more  unbending.  Mr.  O'Brien  was  accordingly  arrested 
the  day  after  Mr.  Parnell,  under  an  Act  which  was  obtained  for 
imprisoning  manvais  sujcts  and  village  tyrants,  the  perpetrators 
and  participators  in  crime  !  It  was  a  part  of  the  sadness  that 
has  followed  his  whole  life  that  at  the  very  moment  of  his 
arrest  his  mother  was  seriously  ill,  a  woman  whose  nobility  of 
character  deserved  the  affection  she  received  from  her  son. 
During  his  imprisonment  the  authorities  were  gracious 
enough  to  allow  him  out  under  escort  to  pay  a  visit  to  her, 
and  he  was  released  the  day  before  her  death. 

After  various  attempts  to  have  the  paper  published  in 
different  places,  sometimes  in  England  and  sometimes  in 
France, ( United  Ireland'  was  finally  suppressed  by  Mr.  Forster. 
With  the  overthrow  of  Mr.  Forster,  the  paper  was  again  re- 
vived. It  soon  became  evident  that  '  United  Ireland '  was  about 
to  enter  upon  a  struggle  fiercer  and  more  desperate  than  even 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  509 

that   with    Mr.    Forster.       Lord   Spencer   had    obtained    the 
Crimes  Act,    and  throughout   Ireland  the    White   Terror  of 
Coercion  had  succeeded  the  Red  Terror  of  the  Land  League. 
It  seemed  as  if  the  country  would  lie  paralysed  and  terror-" 
stricken  under  the  regime  of  packed  juries  and  partisan  judges, 
of  men  dragged  to  Green  Street  as  to  a  shambles,  and  of  prison- 
cells   throughout    Ireland   echoing  to   vain    protestations    of 
innocence  from  men  convicted  by  carefully  arranged  tribunals 
of  their  fiercest  and  most  exasperated  political  and  religious 
opponents.     It  has  been  seen  how  at  the  same  time  every 
man  who  ventured  to  say  a  word  against  the  oppression  of  the 
landlords  was  harried  by  a  now  omnipotent  and  unchecked 
police.      In  the  stillness,  which  came  over  the  country  under 
such  a  regime,  the  voice  of  '  United   Ireland  '  rang  out  clear 
and  loud  and  defiant  as  ever.     The  partisanship  of  the  judges 
was   ruthlessly  attacked,  the  shameful  packing  of  juries  was 
exposed,   and   attention   was   called    to   the   protestations   of 
innocence  that  came  from  so  many  dying  lips.     These  com- 
ments were  such  as  are  to  be  found  in  every  English  journal 
with  regard  to   every  case    of  murder  in  which   there  is  the 
slightest   doubt  of  the  innocence  of  the  prisoner,  the  suffi- 
ciency of  the  evidence,  or  of  the  conduct  of  the  jury  or  the 
judge.     In  the  despotic  regime  which  it  suited  the  Govern- 
ment to  establish  in   Ireland  at  this  period,  it  was  held  that 
no   such   criticism  was   permissible,  and    Lord   Spencer  and 
Dublin  Castle  resolved  to  put  forward  every  weapon  in  the 
large  armoury  of  Coercion  for  the  purpose  of  crushing  the 
fearless  and  brilliant  journalist  that  seemed  alone  to  stand 
between  them  and  the  country  they  wished  to  cow.     Then 
began  that  long  and   lonely  duel  between   Mr.  O'Brien  and 
Earl  Spencer   which  lasted   with  scarce  an  interruption   for 
three  of  the  fiercest  years  in  Irish  history. 

The  attack  was  opened  by  an  action  against  Mr.  O'Brien 
for  what  is  called  *  seditious  libel.'  The  meaning  of  seditious 
libel  is,  attacks  upon  the  Administration  which  are  not  agree- 
able to  the  Administration.  An  action  of  this  character  is,  of 
course,  no  longer  possible  in  England.  In  the  midst  of  this 
trial,  a  vacancy  arose  in  the  representation  of  Mallow,  through 
the  promotion  of  Mr.  Johnson,  the  Attorney-General,  to  a 


510  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

judgeship.  It  had  been  arranged  before,  that  whenever  the 
General  Election  came,  Mr.  O'Brien,  as  a  Mallow  man,  should 
appeal  to  the  town  to  throw  off  its  servitude  to  Whiggery  and 
join  the  rest  of  the  country  in  the  new  demand  for  the  resto- 
ration of  Irish  rights.  The  opportunity  for  the  appeal  had 
come  sooner  than  anybody  had  anticipated.  The  prosecution 
of  O'Brien  by  the  Government  lent  a  singular  opportuneness 
to  the  struggle,  and  a  still  further  element  of  significance  was 
added  to  the  contest  by  the  Government  sending  down  Mr. 
Naish,  their  new  Attorney-General,  as  his  opponent.  Mallow, 
in  some  respects,  has  a  history  similar  to  that  of  Athlone, 
Sligo,  and  some  other  small  constituencies  of  Ireland.  During 
the  dread  interregnum  between  the  betrayal  of  Keogh  and  the 
rise  of  Butt,  it  had  followed  the  example  of  the  other  small 
constituencies  in  sending  into  Parliament  the  worthless  repre- 
sentatives of  Whiggery  or  Tories.  The  representatives  of 
Mallow,  like  the  representatives  of  Galway  and  Athlone,  and 
of  Sligo  and  Carlow,  bought  that  they  might  sell.  It  had, 
accordingly,  been  a  favourite  ground  for  the  race  of  Rabagas, 
in  the  period  when  a  place  in  Parliament  was  the  only 
avenue  to  legal  promotion,  and  brought  to  the  ease  and 
emolument  of  the  judicial  bench  the  aspiring  lawyers  who 
had  been  willing  to  pay  largely  for  the  privilege  of  repre- 
senting the  place.  Its  most  noticeable  representative  of 
this  type  was  Mr. — afterwards  Sir  Edward — Sullivan,  the 
Lord  Chancellor  of  Ireland.  He  was  a  Mallow  man,  but 
it  was  not  his  claim  upon  it  or  his  politics  that  had  so 
largely  helped  to  gain  him  the  position  as  the  lavish  bribes 
he  bestowed  from  his  own  pocket,  like  nearly  every  other 
member  of  the  judicial  bench,  upon  the  corrupt  members  of 
the  constituency,  and  the  still  larger  bribes  he  was  able  to 
bestow  in  the  shape  of  official  appointments.  The  contest 
for  Mallow,  under  circumstances  like  these,  attracted  an  im- 
mense amount  of  attention,  and  all  Ireland  looked  to  the 
result  with  feverish  eagerness.  Mr.  O'Brien  was  assisted  by 
some  of  the  most  prominent  members  of  his  party,  and  there 
was  considerable  hope  that  the  contest  might  end  in  a  victory. 
But  the  reputation  of  Mallow  had  been  so  bad  for  so  many 
years  that  there  were  doubts  mixed  with  hope,  and  the  utmost 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  511 

expectation  was  that  Mr.  O'Brien  would  be  returned  by  a  small 
majority.  The  full  significance  of  the  change  that  had  come 
over  all  Ireland  was  shown  when  the  result  was  announced, 
and  it  was  found  that  O'Brien  had  been  returned  by  a  majo- 
rity of  72 — 161  to  89. 

The  Irish  members  were  prepared  to  bring  before  Par- 
liament the  shameless  jury-packing  and  the  other  features 
of  the  Coercion  regime  when  the  Session  of  1883  opened. 
But  meantime  there  had  come  to  the  Lord-Lieutenant  aid 
from  an  unexpected  quarter.  On  January  21  a  number  of 
men  were  arrested  on  a  charge  of  being  concerned  in  the 
murder  of  Lord  Frederick  Cavendish  and  Mr.  Burke,  and 
some  days  after  the  trial  opened  the  whole  world  was  startled 
by  the  appearance  of  James  Carey,  the  chief  of  the  gang,  in 
the  witness-box.  The  circumstances  under  which  the  Govern- 
ment consented  to  allow  this — the  leading  and  the  worst  spirit 
of  the  whole  conspiracy  to  escape  punishment — will  remain 
unknown  until  memoirs  have  begun  to  tell  another  generation 
of  the  hidden  springs  of  action  in  the  present  generation.  It 
is  certain,  however,  that  the  acceptance  of  Carey's  testimony 
was  not  agreed  to  till  after  several  consultations  ;  and  if 
rumour  be  trustworthy,  the  chief  person  in  insisting  on  calling 
Carey  from  the  dock  to  the  witness-table  was  Sir  William 
Harcourt.  His  hope,  of  course,  was  that  Carey  would  have 
been  able  to  give  evidence  which  might  implicate  the  Land 
League  in  the  atrocious  doings  of  the  Invincible  Society,  and 
thereby  bring  home  murder  to  Mr.  Parnell  and  the  other 
leaders  of  the  Irish  party.  There  is  a  saying  attributed  to  the 
Home  Secretary  which  roughly  sums  up  his  expectation  of 
the  effect  upon  the  Irish  party  of  the  evidence  of  Carey. 
'  This,'  he  is  reported  to  have  said,  '  will  take  the  starch  out 
of  the  boys.' 

Other  speakers,  especially  of  the  Ministerial  party,  did 
not  scruple  to  say  outright  what  Sir  William  Harcourt  had 
thus  put  in  the  deshabille  of  private  conversation,  and  more 
than  suggested  that  while  it  was  Joe  Brady  that  used  the 
knife,  the  Irish  members  were  the  men  who  had  supplied 
the  funds. 

Under  the  influence  of  speeches  like  this  public  passion 


512  THE    PARNELL  MOVEMENT 

in  England  once  more  became  fiercely  aroused,  and  the 
majority  of  the  English  people  were  firmly  convinced,  in  all 
probability,  that  before  many  days  Mr.  Parnell  would  take  his 
place  beside  the  murderers  of  Lord  Frederick  Cavendish  and 
Mr.  Burke.  Irish  members  are  sometimes  accused  of  being 
venomous,  violent,  and  unscrupulous  in  their  attacks  upon 
their  political  opponents.  Their  speeches  in  this  respect  were 
once  compared  by  Mr.  Chamberlain  to  the  use  of  explosive 
bullets  in  civilised  warfare.  This  charge  is  conveniently  but 
characteristically  forgetful  of  the  things  Irish  members  have 
had  to  bear  from  the  tongues  of  their  English  opponents  and 
the  pens  of  English  journalists. 

There  was  one  man  who  was  again  dragged  from  the 
depths  to  the  surface  by  the  new  revelations  as  to  the  state 
of  Ireland.  By  the  same  strange  logic  which  had  made  the 
hideous  outcome  of  Mr.  Forster's  policy  in  the  assassinations 
its  defence  and  not  its  most  eloquent  condemnation,  the  reve- 
lations of  the  trials  became  again,  amid  the  fury  of  English 
passion,  to  be  the  vindication  of  his  wisdom.  After  his  fashion 
he  resolved  to  take  full  advantage  of  the  tide  of  passion  that 
was  running  so  high.  Mr.  Gorst  proposed  :— 

And  we  venture  to  express  our  earnest  hope  that  the  policy  which 
has  produced  these  results  will  be  maintained,  and  that  no  further 
attempts  will  be  made  to  purchase  the  support  of  persons  disaffected 
to  Her  Majesty's  rule  by  concessions  to  lawless  agitation  ;  and  that 
the  existence  of  dangerous  secret  societies  in  Dublin,  and  other  parts 
of  the  country,  will  continue  to  be  met  by  unremitting  energy  and 
vigilance  on  the  part  of  the  Executive.1 

On  February  22,  1883,  Mr.  Forster  took  part  in  this 
debate,  and  at  once  resolved  to  make  it  the  occasion  of 
having  it  out  with  his  old  and  triumphant  enemy.  He  had 
carefully  prepared  himself  for  the  occasion.  His  notes  were 
voluminous  ;  every  sentence  in  his  long  indictment  had  been 
carefully  weighed  ;  the  speech  was  full  of  the  adroit  innuendo 
and  the  deeply  laid  though  apparently  casual  asides  of 
which  the  member  for  Bradford  is  a  master.  The  attack 
on  Mr.  Parnell  was  made  the  more  palatable  to  the  House 

1   Hansard,  vol.  cclxxvi.  p.  414. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS 


513 


by  its  being  dexterously  sandwiched  between  attacks  on 
Mr.  Forster's  former  colleagues,  against  whom  at  this  moment 
the  tide  ran  almost  as  high  as  against  Mr.  Parnell  himself. 

The  indictment  was  a  great,  an  immense  parliamentary 
success.  The  House,  swept  by  its  invective,  was  lashed  into 
fury,  and  there  were  loud  cries  for  Mr.  Parnell's  immediate 
rise.  This  demand  is  a  sufficient  proof  of  the  fairness  of 
the  temper  in  the  House.  Mr.  Forster  had  delivered  a  speech 
which  he  had  prepared  for  weeks ;  the  speech  had  been 
extended  into  the  dinner  hour  ;  and  it  was  this  famished 
and  impatient  assembly  that  Mr.  Parnell  was  expected  to 
address  with  an  impromptu  reply  to  a  most  elaborately  pre- 
pared attack.  Mr.  Parnell,  of  course,  declined  to  be  bullied 
into  premature  speech  ;  and,  indeed,  contemptuous  of  this  as 
he  is  of  every  attack,  he  for  some  time  was  doubtful  whether 
he  should  take  the  trouble  of  replying  at  all.  The  English 
press,  meantime,  was  in  exultant  delight.  '  Mr.  Forster's 
stern  interrogatories,'  said  the  '  Times,'  '  fell  on  Mr.  Parnell 
like  the  lash  of  a  whip  on  a  man's  face.' 

It  is  worth  pausing  for  a  moment  here  to  say  that  the 
whole  cause  of  the  tempest  against  Mr.  Parnell  and  the  Land 
League,  which  raged  for  weeks  in  England  and  threatened 
the  liberty  if  not  the  life  of  some  of  the  Irish  leaders,  was  the 
result  of  a  couple  of  sentences  of  an  informer.  The  following 
are  the  sentences  referred  to.  Carey  is  being  examined  by 
the  Crown  prosecutor. 

What  was  the  opinion  amongst  some  of  them  as  to  where  the 
money  came  from  ? — There  were  different  ideas.  Some  said  it  came 
from  America  ;  I  said  I  did  not  believe  that  it  came  from  America. 

Where  did  you  say  you  believed  it  came  from  ? — I  said  I  did  not 
think  from  America.  I  think  I  expressed  myself,  but  I  know  between 
the  whole  of  us  it  was  repeatedly  said,  '  Perhaps  they  are  getting  it 
from  the  Land  League.' 1 

From  this  it  will  be  seen  that  all  Carey  ventured  to  say 
was  that  he  or  some  other  members  of  his  gang  had  a  sus- 
picion that  the  money  came  from  the  Land  League.  The 
subject  was  never  recurred  to  in  his  evidence,  and  of  course,  it 


United  Ireland,  Feb.  24,  1883. 


L  T< 


5M  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

was  never  recurred  to,  for  the  reason  that  the  Crown  authorities 
knew  that  a  connection  between  the  Land  League  and  the 
*  Invincibles '  could  not  be  established.  This  is  one  of  the  many 
indications  of  how  terrible  a  thing  it  is  that  the  reputation  and 
fortunes  of  an  Irish  cause  should  be  at  the  mercy  of  a  national 
opinion  in  England,  which  is  so  inevitably  liable  to  go  wrong 
and  to  believe  the  worst  and  the  weakest  evidence.  Attention 
would  have  been  more  fitly  directed  to  another  portion  ot 
the  evidence  of  Carey  which  spoke  in  trumpet  tones  against 
Mr.  Forster.  The  '  Invincibles  '  were  the  same  dread  brood 
that  despotism  always  begets,  were  as  much  the  children 
of  Mr.  Forster's  regime  as  the  Nihilists  are  of  the  autocracy 
of  Russia,  and  Carey  himself  was  the  strongest  witness  in 
proof  of  this. 

James  Carey  cross-examined  by  Mr.  Walsh — 

When  you  became  a  member  of  the  Order  of  Invincibles  was  it  for 
the  object  of  serving  your  country  that  you  joined  ? — Well,  yes. 

And  at  that  time  when  you  joined  with  the  object  of  serving  your 
country,  in  what  state  was  Ireland  ? — In  a  very  bad  state. 

A  famine,  I  think,  was  just  passing  over  her? — Yes. 

The  Coercion  Bill  was  in  force,  and  the  popular  leaders  were  in 
prison  ? — Yes. 

And  was  it  because  you  despaired  of  any  constitutional  means  of 
serving  Ireland  that  you  joined  the  Society  of  Invincibles  ? — I  believe 
so.1 

It  was,  of  course,  assumed  that  Mr.  Parnell  would  go 
down  under  this  flood  of  hatred  and  calumny.  The  only 
effect  in  Ireland  was  to  attract  to  him  the  more  passionate 
affection  of  his  people.  The  idea  had  long  been  familiar  to 
the  minds  of  his  admirers  that  he  should  be  relieved  from 
some  of  the  pecuniary  embarrassments  which  he  inherited 
and  which  he  had  himself  largely  increased  by  his  generosity 
to  his  tenants  both  during  and  before  the  Land  League 
agitation.  The  attack  of  Mr.  Forster  brought  this  idea  to 
practical  shape,  and  the  Parnell  Tribute  was  started  with  a 
letter  from  Archbishop  Croke.  One  thing  only  was  wanted 
to  its  success  ;  that  was  another  attack.  This  came  as  a 
result  of  the  sinister  counsels  of  a  renegade  Nationalist  at  the 

1    United  Ireland,  Feb.  24,  1883. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  5I5 

Vatican.  The  tribute  went  on  apace,  and  when  it  was  closed 
it  had  reached  close  upon  the  handsome  amount  of  4o,ooo/. 

In  other  ways,  too,  Ireland  was  showing  that  she  was 
not  to  be  turned  back  from  the  man  and  the  principles  to 
which  she  had  now  definitely  committed  herself.  One  of  the 
worst  acts  of  the  White  Terror  was  the  imprisonment  of 
Mr.  Harrington.  He  had,  in  a  speech  at  Westmeath,  en- 
deavoured to  rouse  the  farmers  to  a  sense  of  their  duty  to 
their  labourers.  The  farmers,  unfortunately,  required  some 
stimulus  in  this  direction.  Serfs  themselves,  who  had  been 
plundered  for  generations,  and  had  thus  been  in  most  cases 
reduced  to  abject  poverty,  they  naturally  treated  those  under 
them  with  want  of  consideration ;  and  the  labourers  of  Ire- 
land remain  still  the  worst-housed,  worst-dressed,  and  worst- 
fed  population  in  any  Christian  country.  At  the  same  time, 
deprived  of  education,  the  labourers  might  be  led  astray  into 
seeking  reform  through  violence  ;  and  the  labourer,  as  a  land 
agent  once  triumphantly  informed  Mr.  Healy,  can  be  more 
dangerous  to  the  farmer  than  ever  the  farmer  can  be  to  the 
landlord.  The  farmer  requires  a  blunderbuss  ;  the  labourer 
requires  only  a  match. 

These  were  the  considerations  which  will  occur  to  any- 
body who  knows  anything  of  the  Irish  land  problem.  They 
were  certainly  the  considerations  present  to  the  mind  of  Mr. 
Harrington.  The  words  he  was  accused  of  employing  were  : 
'  Now  I  ask  the  tenant-farmers  to  come  forward  generously 
and  give  the  labourers  a  fair  day's  wages  for  a  fair  day's 
work.  If  not,  the  agitation  which  has  been  carried  on  in 
their  behalf  will  be  turned  against  them  if  they  do  not  come 
forward  and  assist  the  labourers  here  in  their  hour  of  need.' 

These  words  the  authorities  of  Dublin  Castle  professed 
to  regard  as  intended  and  calculated  to  intimidate  the  farmers 
of  Westmeath.  Mr.  Harrington  was  sent  before  two  of  the 
magistrates  who  had  been  specially  appointed  to  carry  out 
the  work  of  the  authorities  under  the  Crimes  Act.  It  is  one 
of  the  jokes  of  this  period  that  the  appointment  of  these 
magistrates  was  held  up  as  a  concession  to  popular  feeling ; 
and  that  such  magistrates,  being  independent  of  the  Adminis- 
tration, would  hold  the  scales  evenly  between  the  Crow  and 

L  L  2 


516  *THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

the  subject.  Mr.  Trevelyan  —  the  saddest  instance  in  these 
days  of  the  shameless  apostasy  from  lifelong  principles  which 
Irish  office  can  produce  in  an  English  statesman — actually 
was  not  ashamed  to  bring  this  argument  forward  in  defending 
the  action  of  the  Administration  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Harrington. 
The  magistrates  were,  as  has  already  been  pointed  out, 
servants  of  the  Crown,  appointed  by  the  Crown,  continued 
or  dismissed  from  office  by  the  Crown,  promoted  to  higher 
or  reduced  to  lower  positions  and  emoluments  by  the  Crown, 
and  as  much,  therefore,  independent  judicial  tribunals  as  the 
provincial  magistrate  of  a  Turkish  administration.  Before 
two  of  such  magistrates  Mr.  Harrington  had  not,  of  course, 
the  least  chance  of  acquittal.1  Then  an  appeal  was  allowed 

1  There  was  an  amusing  but  instructive  instance  of  the  manner  in  which 
evidence  used  to  be  doctored  in  trials  under  the  Crimes  Act.  The  main  witness 
against  Mr.  Harrington  was  Acting-Constable  Mathews,  who  professed  to  have 
taken  a  shorthand  note  of  Mr.  Harrington's  speech.  It  was  on  the  report  of 
Acting-Constable  Mathews  that  the  prosecution  was  undertaken. 

Mr.  HARRINGTON,  to  witness  :  Now,  on  your  oath  are  these  the  bond  fide 
notes  that  you  took  on  the  platform  while  I  was  speaking  ? — No.  ...  I  wrote 
the  transcripts  from  my  notes  and  from  memory. 

Did  you  alter  your  notes  after  the  meeting  ? — I  did.  ...  In  writing  mynotes 
on  the  next  day  I  called  my  memory  into  requisition.  My  memory  is  a  particu- 
larly clear  one. 

Notwithstanding  the  fact  that  with  your  four  years'  shorthand  writing  you 
cannot  write  the  letter  L?  Yes,  but  I  can  write  the  letter  L.  .  .  .  I  could 
make  it  on  the  last  day. 

Mr.  HARRINGTON  asked  the  Court:  Did  he  make  the  proper  character  L  on 
the  last  day  ? 

CHAIRMAN  :  We  believe  it  is  within  our  recollection  that  he  did  not.    .   .   . 

Mr.  HARRINGTON,  to  witness  :  In  the  original  notes  you  took  on  the  plat- 
form did  you  write  all  the  words  of  my  speech  ? — No,  I  did  not.  I  used  my 
memory  in  suppressing  some  words  you  used.  I  used  my  memory  also  in  sup- 
pressing some  of  the  sentences  used  by  you.  I  did  not  alter  my  notes.  ...  I 
altered  them.  —  (How  the  Crimes  Act  is  Administered,  pp.  55-6.) 

Mathews  was  asked  to  read  his  notes,  and  was  given  four  hours  to  study  them. 
On  the  following  day  this  is  what  occurred  :  Acting-Constable  Mathews  was 
afterwards  put  into  the  witness-box  and  asked  to  read  the  whole  of  Mr.  Harring- 
ton's speech  from  his  original  notes  of  the  speech  taken  on  the  platform.  He 
was  obliged  to  confess  that  he  was  utterly  unable  to  read  them.  He  alleged  that 
the  book  was  soiled  and  that  he  could  not  read  his  notes  in  consequence.  The 
shorthand  was  easily  obliterated. 

The  Bench  examined  the  note-book  at  the  defendant's  request,  and  expressed 
their  opinion  that  the  book  was  clean  and  that  there  was  no  reason  why  he  should 
not  be  able  to  read  it.  —  (Extract  of  report  from  Daily  Express  Dublin  Conserva- 
tive organ),  Jan.  1 1,  1883,  quoted  in  How  the  Crimes  Act  is  Administered,  p.  59.) 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  517 

to  the  County  Court  Judge.  Here  again  Mr.  Harrington 
was  before  what  the  Chief  Secretary  did  not  scruple  to  call 
an  independent  judicial  tribunal.  The  County  Court  Judge 
was  Mr.  J.  Chute  Neligan.  Mr.  Neligan  is  a  Kerry  land- 
lord ;  Mr.  Harrington  is  the  proprietor  of  the  '  Kerry  Sen- 
tinel,' which  has  waged  fierce  war  upon  the  oppression  of 
the  landlords  of  the  County  Kerry  ;  and  it  will  be  understood 
under  the  circumstances  how  fair  a  trial  Mr.  Harrington  was 
likely  to  have.  The  conviction  was  confirmed,  and  Mr. 
Harrington  was  sentenced  to  two  months'  imprisonment.  It 
was  a  consequence  of  this  sentence  that  he  should  be  subjected 
to  the  punishment  of  the  plank-bed  for  a  month,  and  under- 
go all  the  other  hardships  that  are  meted  out  to  the  worst 
criminals.  This  sentence,  severe  enough,  was  aggravated  by 
the  determination  of  the  prison  authorities  to  render  his  stay 
in  prison  as  odious  as  possible.  He  was  asked  to  perform 
a  duty  the  description  of  which  is  not  permissible  ;  some  of 
the  landlords  of  the  county  could  see  their  hated  and  fallen 
foe  thus  menially  and  disgustingly  employed  from  the  window 
of  the  governor's  house,  and  Mr.  Harrington  refused  to  give 
his  enemies  the  spectacle  of  his  degradation.  In  consequence 
he  was  condemned  by  the  governor  to  the  loss  of  the  two 
hours'  recreation  he  was  allowed  by  the  prison  rules,  and  for 
six  days  he  had  to  remain  within  his  cell  without  even  once 
tasting  a  breath  of  fresh  air  or  enjoying  a  moment's  exercise. 
It  was  while  he  was  thus  in  the  solitude  of  his  cell  that  he 
received  news  which  was  his  vindication  and  the  everlasting 
shame  of  Lord  Spencer  and  Mr.  Trevelyan  and  all  the  other 
persons  responsible  for  his  imprisonment.  A  vacancy  had 
been  made  in  the  representation  of  Co.  Westmeath  by  the  retire- 
ment of  Mr.  Gill.  Mullingar — the  town  in  which  Mr.  Har- 
rington was  imprisoned — is  the  capital  town  of  Co.  Westmeath, 
and  here  the  nomination  of  candidates  had  to  take  place.  The 
constituency,  up  to  the  passage  of  the  Franchise  Act,  consisted 
exclusively,  or  almost  exclusively,  of  farmers  ;  probably  there 
was  not  a  single  labourer  on  the  whole  electoral  roll  In 
other  words,  the  constituency  consisted  exclusively  of  the 
class  whom  Mr.  Harrington  was  convicted  of  having  intimi- 
dated, and  excluded  everyone  of  the  class  in  whose  interest 


518  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

he  was  accused  of  having  employed  intimidation.  Yet  it 
came  to  pass  that  no  less  than  three  nomination  papers  were 
sent  in  signed  by  farmers,  and  Mr.  Harrington's  popularity 
was  so  great  that  nobody  even  attempted  to  oppose  him.  It 
had  been  arranged  that  a  signal  from  the  railway  embank- 
ment, from  which  the  cell  of  Mr.  Harrington  was  visible, 
should  announce  the  result  of  the  election  ;  and  the  signal 
seen  by  Mr.  Harrington  in  his  cell  told  him  that,  though 
humiliated  and  tortured  by  the  British  power,  he  had  been 
freely  given  by  his  own  people  the  highest  honour  it  was  in 
their  power  to  bestow. 

But  the  Government  were  not  yet  done  with  Mr.  Harring- 
ton. He  had  to  serve  out  the  full  term  of  imprisonment  for 
a  crime  of  which  he  had  thus  been  triumphantly  acquitted  ; 
and  soon  after  the  issue  of  a  ridiculous  placard,  that  bore  the 
indications  of  a  practical  joke  in  its  every  line,  was  used  as  a 
pretext  for  seizing  his  newspaper,  turning  his  printing-office 
inside  out,  and  later  his  brother  was  sentenced  to  six  months' 
imprisonment.  It  is  paying  a  very  bad  compliment  to  Lord 
Spencer  and  Mr.  Trevelyan  not  to  assume  that  they  knew 
the  utter  groundlessness  of  the  charge  against  Mr.  Harring- 
ton's brother  quite  as  well  as  Mr.  Harrington  himself.  There 
are  many  darker  and  more  heinous  crimes  to  be  laid  to  the 
charge  of  the  administration  of  Lord  Spencer  and  Mr. 
Trevelyan,  but  their  action  towards  Mr.  Harrington  and 
his  brother  marked,  perhaps,  the  lowest  depth  of  mean 
malignity. 

A  more  important  victory  than  even  that  in  Westmeath 
soon  came.  The  promotion  of  Mr.  Givan  to  a  Government 
situation  left  a  vacancy  in  the  county  of  Monaghan.  It  was 
at  once  resolved  that  the  seat  should  be  contested  by  Mr. 
Healy,  whose  great  services  in  amending  the  Land  Act,  and 
especially  in  obtaining  the  clause  called  after  his  name, 
marked  him  out  as  the  strongest  candidate  for  such  a 
contest.  The  attempt  to  gain  a  seat  in  one  of  the  Ulster 
constituencies  was  regarded  as  insane  impudence.  The 
Whigs  demanded  that,  though  representative  of  a  miserable 
minority  of  the  popular  party,  they  should  be  allowed  their 
traditional  place  as  the  officers  of  the  army  of  which  the 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  519 

rank  and  file  were  almost  entirely  composed  of  Nationalists.1 
These  impudent  pretensions  were  for  once  rejected,  and  the 
Nationalists  determined  to  win  or  lose  with  their  own  man. 
The  Tories,  on  their  side,  felt  the  full  importance  of  the 
contest,  and  put  forward  one  of  their  ablest  representatives 
in  Mr.  John  Monroe,  an  eminent  Queen's  Counsel.  The 
three  parties  were  thus  represented  :  the  Nationalists  by  Mr. 
Healy,  the  Liberals  by  Mr.  Pringle,  and  the  Conservatives  by 
Mr.  Monroe.  The  contest  was  fought  with  considerable  spirit 
on  all  sides,  and  in  the  end  the  National  candidate  won. 
The  Liberal  candidate  exposed  the  emptiness  of  the  pre- 
tensions on  which  his  party  had  held  the  monopoly  of 
political  power  for  so  long.  Mr.  Pringle  had  but  274  votes  ; 
Mr.  Monroe  received  2,011  votes;  Mr.  Healy,  with  2,376 
votes,  had  a  clear  majority  over  the  candidates  of  the  two 
parties  combined.  A  few  weeks  afterwards  Whiggery  re- 
ceived an  even  more  crushing  blow.  For  the  vacancy  made 
by  Mr.  Healy  there  came  forward  The  O'Conor  Don  and 
Mr.  W.  H.  K.  Redmond.  Mr.  Redmond  was  a  young  man, 
scarcely  of  legal  age  at  the  time  of  the  contest,  and  he  was 
absent  in  Australia.  The  O'Conor  Don,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  a  trained  and  mature  politician ;  and,  though  he  had 
joined  the  ranks  of  his  country's  enemies,  came  from  an  old 
Irish  stock.  But  in  the  struggle  he  was  beaten  ignominiously. 
The  numbers  were:  Redmond,  307  ;  O'Conor  Don,  126  ;  and 
it  was  only  the  intervention  of  the  popular  leaders  that  saved 
the  defeated  Whig  from  the  vengeance  of  the  people,  ex- 
asperated at  the  implied  insult  in  the  effort  to  seduce  their 
ancient  town  from  the  rest  of  the  country  in  the  struggle  for 
the  restoration  of  Irish  liberties. 

In  the  autumn  of  this  year  an  attempt  was  made  from 
another  of  the  anti-National  forces  to  arrest  the  tide  of 
National  victory. 

The  province  of  Ulster  has,  with  a  characteristic  ignorance 
of  Irish  affairs,  been  always  regarded  by  the  English  public 

1  Ulster  (said  the  Northern  Whig]  is  not  National  and  cannot  be  made 
National.  .  .  .  The  loyal  Ulster  electors,  Protestant  and  Catholic,  Liberal  and 
Conservative,  have  only  to  come  to  an  understanding  to  divide  the  representation. 
Under  such  an  arrangement  not  one  Nationalist  candidate  could  be  returned  for 
Ulster.— (Quoted  in  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  June  27,  1883.) 


520  ,   THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

as  forming  a  solid  mass  unanimously  in  favour  of  the  per- 
petuation of  English  domination  and  against  the  restoration 
of  Irish  liberties.  This  absurd  misrepresentation  of  the  real 
state  of  Ulster  obtained  even  among  a  portion  of  the  Irish 
public.  To  the  southern  Nationalist  the  north  was  chiefly 
known  as  the  home  of  the  most  rabid  religious  and  political 
intolerance  perhaps  in  the  whole  Christian  world  ;  it  was 
designated  by  the  comprehensive  title  of  the  '  Black  North.' 
But  it  was  not  always  so.  In  the  days  of  1798  the  most 
stubborn  resistance  to  the  success  of  the  English  forces  was 
made  in  Ulster.  It  was  Ulster  Presbyterians  who,  banished 
from  Ireland  by  laws  that  worked  oppression  without  regard 
to  religion,  gave  to  the  American  Revolution  its  most  stead- 
fast counsellors  and  some  of  its  best  generals  and  bravest 
soldiers.  It  was  among  Ulster  Presbyterians  that  the 
foundation  was  laid  of  the  association  known  as  the  United 
Irishmen,  who  formed,  up  to  the  days  of  Fenianism,  the  most 
formidable  conspiracy  against  English  rule.  In  more  modern 
times  Ulster  Presbyterians  formed  one  of  the  strongest  ele- 
ments of  the  Tenant  Right  party.  It  is  true  that,  in  the  course 
of  time,  the  Presbyterians  forgot  the  more  robust  faith  of 
their  ancestors,  were  in  some  instances  carried  away  by  the 
tide  of  religious  bigotry,  and  in  a  large  degree  lapsed  to  the 
ignoble  compromise  of  Whiggery  ;  but  at  all  times  in  the 
history  of  Ulster  the  Catholics  formed  nearly  a  half  of  the 
entire  population.  These  Catholics  were  Nationalists  to  a 
man  ;  and,  living  in  the  midst  of  a  population  which  the  law 
permitted  to  insult,  to  persecute,  and  often  to  murder  them 
with  perfect  impunity,  they  held  to  their  faith  with  a  fervour 
unknown  in  the  almost  exclusively  Catholic  parts  of  the 
country.  But  the  landlords  belonged  to  the  anti-Nationalist 
party  ;  the  boards  were  all  manned  by  members  of  the  anti- 
Nationalist  party  ;  the  occupants  of  the  Bench  were  gathered 
from  the  ranks  of  an  organisation  sworn  to  persecution  and 
hatred  of  the  Catholics  ;  and,  finally,  under  a  restricted 
franchise,  the  parliamentary  representatives  were  taken  ex- 
clusively from  the  two  English  parties.  Under  these 
circumstances  the  National  party  in  Ulster  still  remained 
inarticulate,  and  Ulster  continued  to  present  to  the  outside 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  521 

world  a  solid  front  of  fierce  antagonism  to  everything  Irish 
and  National. 

The  Land  League  did  much  to  make  this  terra  incognita 
known  to  the  rest  of  Ireland  and  to  the  world  generally.  The 
Land  League  gathered  to  its  ranks  all  the  Nationalists,  and 
obtained,  if  not  adhesion,  at  least  toleration  ;  National  repre- 
sentatives spoke  from  Ulster  platforms  to  audiences  as  large 
and  more  enthusiastic  than  in  any  other  part  of  Ireland  ; 
and  practically  the  masses  of  the  people  there  were  as  solidly 
on  the  side  of  the  League  as  in  any  other  part  of  the 
country.  After  the  Monaghan  election  the  Ulster  Nationalists 
decided  that  they  should  hold  meetings  in  different  parts  of 
the  country  for  the  purpose  of  preparing  for  the  general 
election  by  establishing  registration  associations.  The  object 
was  unquestionably  legitimate  and  even  praiseworthy.  It 
was  in  the  highest  sense  legal,  and  these  meetings  were 
organised  and  upheld  by  something  like  48  per  cent,  of  the 
population  generally  in  Ulster,  and  in  some  of  the  counties 
where  the  meetings  were  to  be  held,  by  70  per  cent  of  the 
population. 

The  meetings,  which  were  protested  against  by  Orange- 
men as  an  invasion,  were  summoned,  among  other  places,  for 
the  county  of  Cavan,  and  Cavan,  both  in  the  election  of  1880 
and  in  the  last  election,  returned  two  National  representatives  ; 
in  Monaghan,  and  Monaghan  is  now  represented  by  two 
National  members  ;  in  Tyrone,  and  three  out  of  four  seats  in 
Tyrone  are  represented  by  Nationalists  ;  in  Fermanagh,  and  the 
two  seats  in  Fermanagh  are  represented  by  two  Nationalists  ; 
in  Newry,  and  the  return  of  a  Nationalist  in  Newry  was  not 
even  opposed.  The  statistics  of  population  show  with  equal 
clearness  the  impudence  of  the  Orange  claim.  In  Strabane, 
where  a  meeting  was  called,  out  of  the  total  population  of 
4,196,  2,720  are  Catholics,  and  there  are  only  693  of  the 
Episcopalian  Protestants,  from  whom  Orangeism  is  largely 
recruited,  and  685  Presbyterians.  Out  of  the  entire  popu- 
lation of  5,231  in  Pomeroy,  3,537  are  Catholics,  734  Episco- 
palian Protestants,  and  892  Presbyterians.  Out  of  the  entire 
population  of  Castle  Derg,  3,748  are  Catholics,  940  Episco- 
palian Protestants,  and  505  Presbyterians.  And,  finally,  out 


522  '  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

of  the  entire  population  of  6,069  in  Rosslea,  where  there  was  > 
a  most  violent  attempt  to  break  up  the  Nationalist  meeting, 
4,394  are  Catholics,  1,357  Protestant  Episcopalians,  and  258 
Presbyterians.1 

The  landlords  resolved  to  make  a  last  desperate  effort 
for  the  preservation  of  their  power,  and  organised  a  move- 
ment perhaps  as  wicked  and  as  shameful  as  any  known  to 
the  modern  history  of  Ireland.  They  openly  proclaimed 
that  they  would  put  down,  by  force  of  arms  if  necessary, 
these  meetings  of  their  fellow-citizens.  They  organised 
bodies  which  had  all  the  appurtenances  as  well  as  the  spirit 
of  armies.  Wherever  a  Nationalist  meeting  was  arranged 
they  organised  a  counter-demonstration.  Their  followers 
went  to  these  demonstrations  as  heavily  armed  as  if  they 
were  marching  to  the  field  of  battle,  and  the  orators  of  the 
day  made  speeches  openly  inciting  to  wholesale  murder. 

*  With  no  uncertain  sound,'  said  an  Orange  placard  pub- 
lished in  Omagh,  '  compel  the  rebel  conspirators  to  return  to 
their  haunts  in  the  south  and  west,  and  under  a  guard  of 
military  and  police,  as  in  Dungannon  on  Thursday.' 2  ' It  was 
a  great  pity,'  said  Lord  Rossmore, '  that  the  so-called  Govern- 
ment of  England  stopped  loyal  men  from  assembling  to 
uphold  their  institutions  here,  and  had  sent  down  a  handful 
of  soldiers  whom  they  could  eat  up  in  a  second  or  two  if 
they  thought  fit.' 3  '  The  Orangemen,'  said  Captain  Barton, 
'  if  they  liked  could  be  the  Government  themselves.  .  .  . 
He  only  wished  they  were  allowed,  and  they  could  soon 
drive  the  rebels,  like  Parnell  and  his  followers,  out  of  their 
sight'4 

Major  Saunderson  wondered  '  why  those  rebels  abused 
the  police  and  soldiers  ;  only  for  them  where  would  they 
have  been  in  Dungannon  ?  They  would  have  been  in  the 
nearest  river  (cheers),  and  at  Omagh  and  Aughnacloy  they 
would  have  been  in  the  same  place.' 5 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Jagoe  '  would  conclude  by  telling  them 
what  John  Dillon,  another  rebel,  said  in  a  speech  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  and  which  he  took  from  a  report  in  the 

1  Loyalty  plus  Murder,  p.  10.     By  Mr.  T.  M.  Ilealy,  M.P.  2  Ib.  p.  7- 

3  Ib.  p.  1 8.  4  Il>.  p.  22.  5  Ib.  p.  23. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  523 

"  Freeman's  Journal,"  and  which  he  had  in  his  pocket— 
"  That  he  would  advise  the  people  to  shoot  down  every 
Protestant  in  Ireland."  (Groans  and  cries  of  "  We'll  shoot 
them.") ' l 

'  Theirs  was  no  aggressive  party,'  exclaimed  Mr.  Murray 
Ker,  D.L.  .  .  .  '  Let  there  be  no  revolver  practice.'  (Cheers.) 
1  His  advice  to  them  about  revolvers  was,  never  use  a  revolver 
except  they  were  firing  at  someone.'  (Laughter  and  cheers.)2 

'  If  the  Government,'  said  Lord  Claud  Hamilton,  '  fail  to 
prevent  Mr.  Parnell  and  Co.  from  making  inroads  into 
Ulster  ...  if  they  do  not  prevent  those  hordes  of  ruffians 
from  invading  us,  we  will  take  the  law  into  our  own  hands, 
and  we  ourselves  will.' 3  *  Keep  the  cartridge  in  the  rifle,' 
said  Colonel  King-Harman  at  Rathmines.4  '  Keep  a  firm 
grip  on  your  sticks,'  said  Mr.  Archdale  at  Dromore.5  The 
1  Daily  Express,'  the  organ  of  law  and  order  and  of  the  land- 
lords, whose  editor  is  the  well-known  Dr.  Patton,  Dublin 
correspondent  of  the  '  Times,'  filled  its  columns  with  direct 
incitements  to  murder  which  would  have  landed,  and  justly 
landed,  a  Nationalist  editor  in  penal  servitude. 

This  new  attempt  (it  wrote  of  the  Nationalist  meetings  in  Ulster) 
.  .  .  will  be  repelled,  and  the  hireling  disturbers  of  the  peace  of 
Ulster  hurled  back  ignominiously  from  the  frontier  by  the  loyal  men 
of  Fermanagh.  .  .  .  They  have  at  length  aroused  a  spirit  in  the  north 
which  will  no  longer  submit  to  insult.  The  alarm  is  sounded,  and 
the  determination  of  the  Loyalists  of  the  country  expressed  in  another 
column.  It  is  a  warning  which  they  will  do  well  to  respect.  Let 
them  call  it  a  threat  if  they  choose.  There  it  is  to  be  read  and 
pondered.  It  is  no  time  to  quibble  about  words.  The  meaning  is 
clear  and  plain,  and  the  men  to  whom  it  is  addressed  do  not  shrink 
from  the  avowal  of  their  final  determination.  They  plainly  tell  the 
disturbers  of  the  peace  .  .  .  that  they  are  determined  to  take  effectual 
measures  to  put  a  stop  to  every  attempt  to  disseminate  pernicious 
doctrines  in  their  midst.6 

Commenting  on  the  death  of  an  unfortunate  creature 
named  Giffen,  who  was  killed  by  the  police  at  Dromore,  the 
same  organ  wrote  : — 

1  Loyalty  plus  Murder,  p.  23.  2  Ib.  p.  41.  3  Ib.  p.  42. 

<  Ib.  title-page.  5  Ib.  e  Ib.  pp.  32,  33- 


524  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

As  it  was,  the  fact  that  a  couple  of  men  on  the  Loyalist  side 
were  wounded  with  lances  or  bayonets  is  most  unlucky.  The  men 
may  have  misbehaved,  they  may  have  deserved  what  they  got,  but  it 
is  very  painful  to  the  feelings  of  all  people  to  find  the  Queen's  troops 
charging  and  rutting  down  even  rioters  who  are  urged  on  to  riot  by 
loyalty.1 

Meantime  everybody  was  naturally  asking,  What  were  the 
executive  doing  ?  The  same  man  who  had  sent  peasants  to 
the  scaffold  after  hurried,  partial  trials,  permitted  the  Lord- 
Lieutenants,  deputy  lieutenants,  and  magistracy  of  Ulster  to 
proclaim  these  incitements  and  to  make  these  preparations 
for  wholesale  murder.  The  authorities  who  had  endeavoured 
to  consign  Mr.  O'Brien  to  a  prison  for  fair  comments  on  public 
trials  allowed  Orange  journals  to  preach  with  absolute  im- 
punity the  gospel  of  assassination.  To  add  to  the  outrage 
of  the  occasion,  a  member  of  the  Cabinet,  boastful  of  his 
more  robust  Radicalism,  and  claimed  as  an  ardent  friend  of 
Ireland,  insulted  and  mocked  the  people  of  the  country  by 
describing  the  impunity  of  these  gross  encouragements  to 
the  shedding  of  blood  on  one  side,  and  this  cruel  and  relent- 
less persecution  of  the  National  majority  on  the  other,  as  the 
policy  of  '  an  even  keel.'  Another  Cabinet  minister,  who  had 
been  one  of  the  most  violent  in  his  denunciations  of  Mr. 
Parnell  on  the  ground  of  his  exploiting  crime  as  a  political 
weapon,  was  not  ashamed  to  speak  in  language  of  exultation 
at  these  outbursts  of  ferocious  and  sanguinary  bigotry,  and 
showed  a  perfect  readiness  to  exploit  the  bludgeons  and  the 
revolvers  of  Orangemen  and  their  lawless  and  murderous  pro- 
ceedings as  an  argument  in  favour  of  his  own  political  princi- 
ples. Lord  Hartington's  comment  on  Sir  Stafford  Northcote's 
tour  was  that  it  had  shown  how  much  loyalty  to  England 
there  was  in  Ireland  ;  and  this  was  a  gratification. 

This  is  one  of  the  instances  of  that  true  appreciation  of 
Irish  affairs  which  makes  Irishmen  nowadays  so  confident 
in  the  goodwill  and  the  pledges  of  English  Liberals.  But 
by  the  Irish  public  the  situation  was  perfectly  understood. 
Lord  Spencer,  professing  to  hold  the  scales  of  justice,  and  to 
govern  evenly  between  the  contending  factions  in  Ireland, 

1  Loyalty  plus  Murder,  p.  53. 


THE   IRISH    NEMESIS  525 

thus  lent  all  the  force  and  encouragement  he  dared  to  the 
English  faction.  In  fact  he  adopted  what  most  people  thought 
the  discredited  and  abandoned  principles  of  an  earlier  and 
a  more  sanguinary  generation.  He  divided  in  the  hope  of 
conquering  ;  and  Mr.  Trevelyan,  as  the  result  of  the  direct 
encouragement  which  he  and  his  superior  had  given  to  these 
riotous,  illegal,  and  murderous  proceedings,  was  able  to  draw 
the  agreeable  moral  that  English  domination  was  required  in 
order  to  keep  Irish  factions  from  each  other's  throats,  and 
that  National  government  in  Ireland  would  necessarily  result 
in  internecine  and  destructive  quarrels. 

The  approach  of  the  opening  of  Parliament  compelled 
Lord  Spencer  to  take  action,  and  the  result  of  his  awakened 
energies  was  the  severest  condemnation  of  his  previous  in- 
action. Police  shorthand  writers  were  sent  to  some  of  the 
Orange,  as  previously  they  had  been  sent  to  all  of  the 
Nationalist  meetings,  and  the  peers  and  the  deputy  lieutenants 
and  the  magistrates  at  once  abandoned  the  tone  of  murderous 
incitement.  A  body  of  police  was  ordered  to  prevent  the 
breaking  up  of  a  meeting  by  Orange  rowdies,  and  the  rowdies, 
of  course,  flew  pell-mell  before  the  first  charge  of  the  police. 
There  never  was  a  movement  so  blustering  and  so  cruel  that 
vanished  with  such  rapidity  before  the  first  show  of  deter- 
mination on  the  part  of  the  Government.  Under  a  National 
government  such  a  movement  would  be  almost  unimaginable. 
It  required  the  stimulation  of  foreign  intervention  to  permit 
or  to  create  it ;  and  it  was  the  wicked  action  of  himself  and 
his  colleagues  in  producing  divisions  that,  without  him  and 
them,  would  not  have  existed,  that  Mr.  Trevelyan  was  not 
ashamed  to  adduce  as  an  argument  in  favour  of  English  rule.-1 

1  It  is  well  to  quote  Mr.  Trevelyan 's  own  description  of  the  state  of  things 
which  he  and  Lord  Spencer  permitted  to  exist  in  Ireland  :  they  are  the  strongest 
condemnation  of  the  policy  of  the  Irish  Government  at  this  crisis.  This  is  his 
description  of  the  character  and  purpose  of  the  Orange  counter-demonstrations  : 
*  Unfortunately,  however,  the  counter-demonstrations  of  the  Orangemen  were,  to 
a  great  extent,  demonstrations  of  bodies  of  armed  men.  At  their  last  meeting 
at  Dromore  sackfuls  of  revolvers  tvere  left  behind  close  to  the  place  of  meeting.  The 
reason  that  they  were  so  left  was  that  a  shrewd  and  energetic  officer  who  was 
present  was  seen  to  search  the  Orangemen  as  they  came  along.  The  Orange 
meetings,  therefore,  were  bodies  of  armed  men.  many  of  whom  came  prepared 
to  use  their  arms  ;  some  of  them  prepared  to  make  a  murderous  attack  upon  the 


526  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

This  was  the  last  effort  of  ascendency  in  Ireland.  In  the 
next  session  of  Parliament  the  Irish  masses  were  offered  for 
the  first  time  in  all  their  history  an  opportunity  of  being  truly 
represented  in  an  Imperial  parliament.  To  the  acquisition  of 
their  rights  by  their  countrymen  the  Irish  Tory  party  offered 
a  frantic  resistance,  but  the  Irish  question  had  by  this  time 
got  beyond  the  stage  at  which  it  could  any  longer  be  trifled 
with  or  avoided.  Though  possibly  in  their  hearts  the  majority 
of  English  Liberals  disliked  as  heartily  as  English  or  Irish 
Tories  the  prospect  of  the  voice  of  Ireland  being  heard  at 
Westminster,  English  statesmen  saw  that  the  time  had  passed 
for  refusing  to  Irish  citizens  an  exact  equality  of  rights  with 
those  of  their  fellow-citizens  in  Great  Britain.  Even  the 
Tories  appreciated  the  situation  sufficiently  to  be  divided  upon 
it.  Sir  Stafford  Northcote  and  several  other  leaders  of  the 
party  refused  to  join  in  the  demand  for  excluding  Ireland,  and 
although  the  voices  against  Irish  rights  had  been  loud  during 
the  recess,  the  anti-Irish  forces  scattered  in  shameful  and 
disastrous  retreat  when  the  moment  for  conflict  came.  Mr. 
Chaplin  proposed  an  amendment  the  object  of  which  was 
to  exclude  Ireland  from  the  franchise.  He  was  able  to  quote 
in  favour  of  his  proposition  the  words  of  the  Marquis  of 
Hartington — not  more  than  twelve  months  old — which  de- 
scribed this  very  measure — the  measure  which  the  Liberal 
Government,  with  the  Marquis  of  Hartington  as  one  of  its 
members,  were  now  bringing  in — as  an  act  little  short  of  mad- 
ness. Mr.  Chaplin  was  able  to  point  out,  without  any  contra- 

Nationalists. '  ('No!  No!')  'So  far  as  the  Government  knew,  it  was  not 
the  custom  of  the  Nationalists  to  go  armed  to  their  meetings  until  the  bad  ex- 
ample was  set  by  the  Orangemen.' — (Hansard,  vol.  cclxxxiv.  p.  383.)  And  here 
is  his  description  of  the  state  to  which  the  Orange  firebrands  had  brought  Ulster  : 
'  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  Ulster  was  full  of  armed  men,  who  were  excited  to  an 
extreme  degree  by  the  violent  speeches  of  their  leaders  ;  that  every  hand 
brandished  a  cudgel  ;  that  tens  of  thousands  of  revolvers  were  being  carried 
nbout ;  and  that  the  leaders  of  the  men  were  telling  them  to  take  a  firm  grip  of 
their  stick?,  and  not  to  lire  their  pistols  except  when  they  were  certain  of  hitting 
somebody,  the  winter  had  so  far  passed  with  no  great  or  striking  disaster.' — (//'. 
p.  384.)  Mr.  Trevelyan's  inference  from  the  state  of  things  thus  described  was 
that  he  and  Lord  Spencer  were  required  to  stand  between  Ireland  and  civil  war 
(rfi/nes,  Dec.  7,  1883).  The  more  reasonable  inference  is  that  a  Government  that 
could  allow  such  a  state  of  things  to  continue  was  not  the  obstacle  to  civil  war, 
but  the  cause  and  stimulus  of  civil  war. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  527 

diction,  that  the  inevitable  result  of  the  reduction  of  the  fran- 
chise would  be  to  send  into  Parliament  a  larger  proportion  of 
Nationalist  representatives.  But  these  arguments  fell,  as  he 
knew,  upon  deaf  ears  ;  and  after  the  House  had  listened  for 
nearly  half  an  hour  to  his  speech — a  speech  delivered  with  ap- 
parent conviction  and  fervour — they  were  suddenly  astonished 
to  hear  him  say :  '  He  had  only  to  consider  the  course  which 
on  this  occasion  he  should  pursue.' 1 

The  truth  at  once  flashed  upon  the  assembly.  The  mover 
of  the  amendment  was  afraid  to  put  it  to  the  test  of  the 
division  lobby,  was  about  to  flee  from  his  own  proposal  and 
to  resume  his  seat  without  proposing  his  motion.  But  not 
even  yet  was  Irish  Toryism  satisfied.  Mr.  Brodrick,  who, 
though  sitting  for  an  English  constituency,  is  the  son  of  an 
Irish  landlord,  rushed  in  where  English  Tories  feared  to 
tread,  proposed  a  similar  amendment,  was  backed  again  by 
all  the  forces  of  the  Irish  landlord  party,  and,  having  foolishly 
given  a  pledge  at  the  beginning  of  his  speech,  that  he  would  go 
to  a  division,  was  compelled  to  test  the  opinion  of  the  House. 
The  result  was  that  about  a  hundred  members  of  his  own  party 
left  the  House,  that  several  of  its  most  prominent  members 
were  found  in  the  same  lobby  with  the  Irish  National  members, 
and  that  the  attempt  to  deprive  Ireland  of  her  rights  was 
rejected  by  332  to  137 — probably  the  largest  majority  ever 
recorded  in  favour  of  an  extension  of  popular  liberties. 

The  next  attack  upon  the  rights  of  Ireland  was  upon  the 
question  as  to  whether  she  should  retain  her  103  seats,  and 
upon  this  point  the  Irish  Tories  found  in  the  ranks  of  the 
Liberal  party  allies  of  a  hostility  to  Ireland  as  malignant  and 
as  relentless  as  their  own.  Mr.  Forster  had  not  forgiven  the 
country  that  had  destroyed  his  career,  and,  in  spite  of  all  the 
bitter  memories  associated  with  his  connection  with  that 
country,  joined  in  the  attack  upon  her  rights  with  indecent 
acerbity.  Forgetting  the  number  of  years  during  which  the 
representation  of  Ireland  in  Parliament  was  vastly  inferior  to 
her  just  numerical  claims,  Mr.  Forster  brought  forward  the 
reduction  in  her  population — a  reduction  caused  by  English 
laws  and  English  bayonets — as  a  reason  why  she  should  be 

1  Hansard,  vol.  ccliii.  p.  1080. 


528  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

less  potent  in  the  future  for  protecting  her  rights  against  the 
more  powerful  nation.     He  set  down  the  number  of  repre- 
sentatives to  which  Ireland  was  entitled  as  eighty-one.1    In  this 
crusade  against  Ireland  Mr.  Forster  found  a  willing  ally  in 
Mr.  Goschen.     It  is  one  of  the  saddest  signs  of  the  times  that 
a  man  like  this,  who  has  grown  wealthy  by  pandering  to  the 
extravagance  and  vices  of  an  Eastern  despot,  who  has  amassed 
his  riches  through  the    torture    and   impoverishment  of  the 
Egyptian  people,   should  be  tolerated   in  an   assembly  sup- 
posed to  consist  of  honourable  men,  and  as  a  member  of  a 
party  which  claims  to  fight  for  freedom  and  for  justice.     Mr. 
Goschen  was  naturally  hostile  to  the  rights  of  Ireland.     When 
the  second  reading  of  the  Franchise  Bill  was  proposed,  Mr. 
Goschen  asked  whether  the  number  of  Irish  seats  was  to  be 
reduced,  and  emphatically  declared  that  if  no  guarantee  were 
given  by  the  Ministry  on  this  point  he  would  be  compelled 
to  vote  against  the  measure.     Amid  a  chilling  silence,  which 
he  himself  noticed  and  utilised,  he  asked  whether  the  reten- 
tion of  all  her  seats  by  Ireland  was  a  principle  by  which  the 
Government    were   prepared    to    stand    or  fall  ;  and   at   that 
moment,  when  there  was  no  reply  beyond  a  few  stray  cheers 
from  the  Radicals  below  the  gangway,  he  looked  as  if  he  were 
indeed   destined  to   triumph   over  Ireland.     But  neither  the 
Irish  landlords,  nor  Mr.   Forster.  nor  Mr.  Goschen  could  pre- 
vail against  the  forces  which  had  now  been  arrayed  on  the 
side  of  Ireland,  and  amid  the  practically  universal  assent  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  Mr.  Gladstone  announced,  on  intro- 
ducing the  Redistribution  Bill,  that  Ireland  was  to  retain  the 
full  measure  of  her    seats.      In    the  course    of  the    debates 
upon  this  Bill  the  Irish  landlord  party  made  several  attempts 
against  this  part  of  the  scheme,  but  these  were  rejected  by 
overwhelming  majorities,  and  thus  the  last  obstacle  was  re- 
moved towards  Ireland  finding,  in  the  Imperial  Parliament,  a 
body  of  representatives  truly    expressing  the    views    of  her 
people.     In   Ireland  itself,  meantime,  other  victories  had  fol- 
lowed.    The  nominal  Home  Rulers,  at  the  time  of  their  seces- 
sion, were  loaded  with  the  praises  of  English  ministers,  and 
were  described  by  the  English  press  as  the  real  representatives 

1   Times,  March  I,  1884. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  529 

of  Irish  feeling,  and  upright,  outspoken,  and  reasonable  men. 
It  is  possible  that  some  of  the  people  who  spoke  and  wrote 
in  this  way  believed  what  they  said,  but  the  gentlemen 
themselves  soon  gave  convincing  testimony  of  what  they 
meant  by  their  separation  from  the  ranks  of  the  Parnellite 
party.  They  belonged,  as  everybody  in  Ireland  knew,  and 
the  people  of  England  were  taught  to  ignore,  to  the  class  of 
office-seekers,  the  analysis  of  whose  mischievous  influence 
forms  so  large  a  portion  of  this  volume.  In  due  time  they 
sought  for  the  rewards  of  their  treason  ;  the  result  in  every 
case  was  their  replacement  by  men  pledged  to  the  National 
principles,  to  the  leadership  of  Mr.  Parnell,  and  to  entire 
co-operation  with  the  Irish  party.  Mr.  O'Shaughnessy,  pro- 
moted to  the  Registrarship  of  Petty  Sessions  Clerks,  was 
succeeded  by  Mr.  MacMahon.  Mr.  P.  J.  Smyth,  made  Secre- 
tary of  the  Loan  Fund,  was  succeeded  by  Mr.  John  O'Connor. 
Two  other  constituencies,  whose  names  occur  in  the  shameful 
and  painful  record  of  the  days  when  Rabagas  was  supreme, 
joined  as  heartily  as  the  other  constituencies  of  the  country 
in  returning  National  representatives.  Mr.  Kenny,  opposed 
by  a  Conservative  in  Ennis,  a  town  which  formerly  had  the 
shame  of  having  elected  Lord  Fitzgerald,  had  been  returned 
by  an  overwhelming  majority.  Athlone,  which  must  be  irre- 
vocably associated  with  the  name  and  the  treason  of  Judge 
Keogh,  returned  Mr.  Justin  Huntly  McCarthy  without  a 
contest.  Thus  the  country  proved  its  solid  unity. 

Meantime  events  had  been  happening  in  Parliament 
which  were  destined  soon  to  give  the  Irish  people  an  oppor- 
tunity of  expressing  their  opinions  in  a  manner  still  more 
emphatic.  From  the  day  when  Mr.  Forster  introduced  coercion 
for  Ireland,  the  Irish  members  set  before  their  minds  the  de- 
struction of  the  Liberal  Ministry  as  their  first  political  duty. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  argue  here  at  any  length  as  to  whether 
this  was  or  was  not  a  wise  policy.  It  has  certainly  met  with 
the  enthusiastic  approval  of  the  Irish  constituencies.  It  was 
founded  on  the  idea  that  the  constitution  of  a  country  is  its 
most  sacred  possession  and  its  most  inviolable  right,  that  no  cir- 
cumstances justify  the  interference  of  another  nation  with  this 
right,  and  accordingly  that  the  Ministry  which  had  by  coercion 

M  M 


530  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

placed  Ireland  outside  the  constitution  had  committed  treason' 
so  flagrant  against  Ireland  as  to  call  upon  Irish  representatives 
to  inflict  upon  it  the  severest  and  the  promptest  punishment 
Besides,  the  idea  still  prevailed  in  England  that  Ireland  was 
an  inferior  dependency  which  had  no  equality  of  rights 
with  England,  and  that  accordingly  to  pass  coercion  laws  for 
Ireland — the  application  of  which  to  England  belongs  to  an 
irrevocable  past,  and  in  the  present  would  be  productive  of 
revolution — was  an  enterprise  to  be  undertaken  with  a  clear 
conscience  and  a  light  heart.  The  conception  of  Ireland  as 
of  an  equal  nation,  with  exactly  the  same  constitutional  rights 
as  England,  was  an  idea,  therefore,  which  required  to  be 
hammered  by  repeated  blows  into  the  public  mind  of  England  ; 
and  relentless  war  upon  the  Ministry  which  had  placed  Ireland 
outside  the  constitution  was  the  means  by  which  the  lesson 
of  Irish  constitutional  rights  could  be  most  emphatically 
taught.  The  opportunities  for  attacking  the  Government 
were  frequent  and  were  always  taken  the  fullest  advantage 
of.  A  rapid  sketch  of  these  attacks  by  the  Irish  party  on  the 
Gladstone  Ministry  will  not  be  without  its  moral  in  the  cir- 
cumstances in  which  England,  English  parties,  and  the  Irish 
representation  find  themselves  at  the  present  moment 

At  first  sight  no  enterprise  would  appear  more  hopeless 
than  the  resolve  of  the  Irish  party  to  destroy  the  Liberal 
Ministry.  According  to  a  Liberal  organ  }  the  strength  of  the' 
different  parties  at  the  beginning  of  the  Parliament  of  1880 
was:  Liberals  350,  Conservatives  238,  Home  Rulers  64. 
There  must  be  one  slight  correction  made  in  this  ;  the  number 
of  Home  Rulers  was  but  63.  The  mistake  of  the  '  Daily 
News '  probably  arose  from  the  fact  that  it  classed  Mr. 
Whitvvorth  as  a  Home  Ruler,  because  Mr.  Whitworth  had 
made  promises  so  studiously  ambiguous  as  to  leave  him  free 
to  be  regarded  either  as  an  orthodox  English  Liberal  or  a 
sound  Irish  Nationalist.  Under  the  circumstances  let  Mr. 
Whitworth  pass  into  the  Liberal  camp.  The  figures  then 
should  stand  :  Liberals  351,  Conservatives  238,  Home  Rulers 
63.  Thus  the  Liberals  had  a  majority  over  the  Conservatives 
of  113,  counting  226  on  a  division,  and  the  Liberals  had  over 

1  Supplement  to  the  Daily  News,  Dec.  24    1885. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS 


531 


the  Conservatives  and  Home  Rulers  combined  a  majority  of 
50,  counting  a  hundred  on  a  division.  But,  as  everybody 
knows,  the  Home  Rulers  did  not  remain  a  united  party. 
From  almost  the  start  of  the  Parliament  of  1880  they  divided 
into  two  bodies— those  who  sat  with  the  Liberal  Ministers 
and  generally  supported  them,  and  those  who,  following  the 
example  of  Mr.  Parnell,  sat  on  the  Opposition  benches  and 
generally  acted  as  a  portion  of  the  general  opposition  to  the 
Ministry.  Dividing  the  Irish  representation  according  to 
these  different  sections,  it  stood  thus:  Irish  Liberals  14,  Irish 
Conservatives  25,  Home  Rulers  37,  Nominal  Home  Rulers 
26.  *  This  makes  a  total  of  102  ;  the  remaining  member,  the 
Rev.  Isaac  Nelson,  could  not  be  counted  as  a  supporter  of  any 
section  ;  after  a  few  appearances  in  the  House  he  disappeared 
to  Belfast,  and  neither  entreaty  nor  threat  nor  duty  could  ever 
attract  him  therefrom  again  during  the  entire  Parliament.  Of 
the  26  Nominal  Home  Rulers,  the  Liberal  party  could  count 
in  every  political  division  on  the  support  of  at  least  23  (ex- 
clusive of  Mr.  Bellingham  and  Sir  J.  Ennis,  who  usually  voted  ' 
with  the  Conservatives,  and  Captain  O'Shea,  who  in  Irish 
divisions  usually  voted  with  the  Irish  party).  Indeed,  these 
23  formed  the  body  on  whose  attendance  on  every  political 
occasion  the  Liberal  whips  could  rely  more  confidently  than 
on  that  of  any  other  section  in  the  House.  A  number  of 
them  were  not  seen  in  the  House  except  when  the  Govern- 
ment was  in  difficulties  ;  and  their  presence  at  Westminster 
was  as  well  known  and  as  infallible  a  portent  of  minis- 
terial danger  as  the  petrel  of  coming  storm.  These  23, 
therefore,  must  be  taken  from  the  Home  Rule  total  of  63  and 
added  to  the  Liberal  total  of  351  ;  and  the  struggle  then  was 
between  a  Liberal  party  with  a  nominal  strength  of  374,  and 
an  Opposition  consisting  of  238  Conservatives  and  37  Home 
Rulers — 374  against  275,  or  a  majority  of  101  over  the 
combined  Opposition. 

Bearing  these  figures  always  in  mind,  let  us  see  how  they 
worked  out  on  a  few  great  political  divisions.     In  1882  there 

1  The  epithet  '  nominal '  was  first  applied  to  these  gentlemen  by  Mr.  Gladstone 
in  his  Leeds  speech  of  October  1881.  The  phrase  was  immediately  taken  up  in 
Ireland,  and  became  at  once  not  only  an  appellation  but  an  epitaph. 

M  M  2 


532  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

was  a  division  on  the  Cloture.  The  Ministry,  with  a  majority 
of  101  over  all  Oppositions  combined,  escaped  by  a  majority 
of  39.  In  1884  it  had  a  still  narrower  escape,  for  by  this  time 
the  crime  and  folly  of  the  Egyptian  enterprise  had  begun  to 
develop  themselves,  and  to  produce  disintegration  in  the  ranks 
of  the  ministerialists  themselves.  The  despatch  and  then 
desertion  of  Gordon  had  brought  the  dissatisfaction  of  the 
country  to  a  crisis,  and  on  May  12,  1884,  a  vote  of  want  of 
confidence  was  proposed.  The  Irish  members  had  by  this 
time  their  original  hatred  of  the  Government  largely  increased 
by  the  policy  which  Lord  Spencer  carried  out  in  Ireland. 
That  policy  had  resulted  in  making  the  Viceroy  himself  more 
loathed  by  Irishmen  than  any  English  politician  of  our  time, 
with  the  single  exception  of  Mr.  Forster.  His  tours  through 
the  country  had  resulted,  in  spite  of  battalions  of  soldiery, 
an  ubiquitous  army  of  spies  and  detectives,  in  manifestations 
of  popular  hate  as  widespread  and  eloquent  as  any  that  ever 
greeted  Czar  in  Warsaw,  and  he  was  unable  to  pass  even 
through  the  streets  of  Dublin  without  an  escort  as  large  as 
any  that  to  the  scandal  of  Englishmen  is  required  for  the 
protection  of  an  autocrat  in  a  continental  country. 

The  feeling  that  at  last  the  hour  had  come  for  striking 
back  at  the  Government  which  had  approved  the  policy  of 
Lord  Spencer  produced  an  exultation  amongst  the  Irish 
members  which  swept  away  all  other  considerations  ;  and 
although  at  that  very  moment  the  fate  of  the  Franchise  and 
Distribution  Bill  were  at  stake,  the  desire  to  avenge  coercion 
proved  an  overmastering  passion.  The  division  took  place 
on  May  13  :  the  Irish  members  voted  in  a  body  against  the 
Government,  and  the  result  was  that  the  ministerial  majority 
sank  to  28. 

In  the  session  of  1885  the  opportunities  of  destroying 
the  Ministry  became  even  greater  ;  but  still  numerically  the 
struggle  between  the  two  sides  was  apparently  hopeless.  As 
has  been  already  stated,  the  Irish  members  had  augmented 
their  strength,  and  had,  whenever  the  promotion  of  a  place- 
man left  a  vacancy,  succeeded  in  returning  one  of  their  party, 
and  a  Conservative  had  been  replaced  by  a  Home  Ruler  in 
Athlone  and  a  Liberal  by  a  Home  Ruler  in  Monaghan.  But 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS 


533 


altogether  there  had  been  no  very  great  change  in  the 
strength  of  the  different  sections.  The  number  added  to  the 
Irish  party  was  altogether  seven,  raising  their  strength  to 
forty-four  ;  and  the  number  lost  by  the  Liberals  altogether  was 
but  three,  and  these  must  be  further  reduced  to  two,  because 
they  had  succeeded  in  returning  Mr.  Sinclair  in  the  place  01 
Mr.  Chaine  for  County  Antrim.  On  February  27,  1885,  a 
division  took  place  on  a  vote  of  censure  proposed  on  the 
conduct  of  the  Government  in  reference  to  General  Gordon. 
The  Irish  members  voted  in  a  body  against  the  Government, 
and  the  ministerial  majority  was  reduced  to  fourteen. 

Immediately  after  this  narrow  escape  of  the  Government, 
the  Irish  members  received  an  additional  reason,  if  an 
additional  reason  were  required,  in  favour  of  their  policy  of 
relentless  hostility  to  the  Ministry.  After  all  the  bitter  ex- 
periences of  the  dark  and  terrible  years  that  had  followed 
Mr.  Forster's  Coercion  Act,  Mr.  Gladstone  announced  that 
the  Ministry  intended  to  coerce  Ireland  once  more.  On 
May  13,  1885,  the  Prime  Minister  rose  and  made  the  an- 
nouncement that  the  Government  intended  to  propose  the 
re-enactment  of  *  certain  valuable  and  equitable  '  provisions  of 
the  Crimes  Act  of  1882. 

Nothing  further  was  done  until  the  night  of  Friday, 
June  5,  when  Mr.  Gladstone  announced  that  on  the  follow- 
ing Thursday  the  new  Coercion  Bill  would  be  introduced. 
But  on  Monday,  June  8,  came  the  division  on  the  second 
reading  of  the  Budget  Bill.  Again  the  Irish  members 
voted  in  a  body  against  the  Government,  and  when  that 
division  was  over  the  Gladstone  Ministry  had  ceased  to 
exist 

The  moral  of  this  final  victory,  and  of  the  various  other 
divisions  in  which  the  Irish  members  have  played  a  part, 
has  been  drawn  by  one  of  the  most  brilliant  Liberal  writers 
of  the  generation  :— 

A  second  point  (wrote  Mr.   John  Morley)  l  that  cannot  escape 

attention  in  the  crisis,    is  the  peremptory   dissipation  of  favourite 

allusions  as  to  the  Irish  vote  'not  counting.'     The  notion  that  the 

two  English  parties  should  establish  an  agreement  that,  if  either  of 

1  Macmillari 's  Magazine,  July  1885,  p.  233. 


534  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

them  should  chance  to  be  beaten  by  a  majority  due  to  Irish  auxiliaries 
the  victors  should  act  as  if  they  had  lost  the  division,  has  been 
cherished  by  some  who  are  not  exactly  simpletons  in  politics.  We 
now  see  what  such  a  notion  is  worth.  It  has  proved  to  be  worth 
just  as  much  as  might  have  been  expected  by  any  onlooker  who 
knows  the  excitement  of  the  players,  the  fierceness  of  the  game,  and 
the  irresistible  glitter  of  the  prizes.  When  it  suits  their  own  purpose, 
the  two  English  parties  will  unite  to  baffle  or  to  crush  the  Irish,  but 
neither  of  them  will  ever  scruple  to  use  the  Irish  in  order  to  baffle  or  to 
crush  their  own  rivals.  This  fancy  must  be  banished  to  the  same  limbo 
as  the  similar  dream  that  Ireland  could  be  disfranchised  and  reduced 
to  the  rank  of  a  Crown  colony.  Three  years  ago,  when  Ireland  was 
violently  disturbed,  and  the  Irish  members  were  extremely  troublesome, 
this  fine  project  of  governing  Ireland  like  India  was  a  favourite  con- 
solation, even  to  some  Liberals  who  might  have  been  expected  to 
know  better.  The  absurdity  of  the  design,  and  the  shallowness  of 
those  who  were  captivated  by  it,  were  swiftly  exposed.  A  few  months 
after  they  had  been  consoling  themselves  with  the  idea  of  taking 
away  the  franchise  from  Ireland,  they  all  voted  for  a  measure  which 
extended  the  franchise  to  several  hundreds  of  thousands  of  the  in- 
habitants of  Ireland  who  had  not  possessed  it  before,  and  who  are 
not  at  all  likely  to  employ  their  new  power  in  the  direction  of  Crown 
colonies  or  martial  law  or  any  of  the  other  random  panaceas  of 
thoughtless  and  incontinent  politicians.  As  for  the  new  Government, 
sharp  critics — and  some  of  the  sharpest  are  to  be  found  on  their  own 
benches — do  not  shrink  from  declaring  that  they  come  into  power  as 
Mr.  Parnell's  lieutenants.  His  vote  has  installed  them,  it  can  dis- 
place them  ;  it  has  its  price,  and  the  price  will  be  paid.  In  the  whole 
transaction,  the  Irish  not  only  count ;  they  almost  count  for  every- 
thing. 

Thus,  at  last,  after  many  ineffectual  attempts,  after  years  I 
of  waiting,  the  Irish  party  broke  the  Coercion  Government. 
The  news  of  this  final  victory  was  received  throughout  the 
whole  Irish  world  with  joy  as  mad  as  that  which  was  dis- 
played by  the  Irish  members  themselves  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  To  wake  up  from  such  a  regime  as  that  of  Lord 
Spencer  was  to  the  Irish  people  as  an  awakening  from  a  hideous 
nightmare.  But  this  joy,  mighty  as  it  was,  received  daily 
fuel,  for  every  morning  brought  more  startling  announce- 
ments of  the  beneficent  transformation  in  the  political 
prospects  of  Ireland  which  the  fall  of  the  Liberal  Ministry 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  535 

had  brought  about.  By  the  Irish  members  themselves  these 
events  had  long  been  foreseen  and  counted  upon  ;  but  never- 
theless they  were  welcomed  as  the  realisation  in  fact  of  what 
had  been  hitherto  only  speculative  anticipation.  Mr.  Parnell 
and  his  party  had  always  declared  that  the  destruction  of  the 
Liberal  Ministry  would  mean  not  the  aggravation  and  the 
renewal  of  coercion,  but  either  its  mitigation  or  its  abandon- 
ment, and  so  it  came  to  pass.  Assuredly  it  ought  to  cause 
some  searching  of  hearts  among  English  Liberals  that  the 
death  of  a  Liberal  Administration  should  be  the  new  birth 
of  Irish  hope  and  of  Irish  liberty,  and  that  the  birth  of  a 
Conservative  Administration  should  be  the  death  of  Irish 
coercion.  Another  excellent  result  which  followed  the  over- 
throw of  the  Liberal  Ministers  was  to  transform  a  number  of 
them  at  once  from  coercionists  to  violent  enemies  of  coercion. 
On  June  8  the  Government  had  been  overthrown.  On 
June  17,  Mr.  Chamberlain,  speaking  of  Ireland  at  Holloway, 
denounced  the  whole  system  of  government  in  Ireland,  in 
terms  of  condemnation  as  clear  and  emphatic  as  could  be 
employed  by  the  most  advanced  Irish  Nationalist ;  and  several 
times  afterwards  he  announced  his  agreement  with  the  Con- 
servative Government  in  abandoning  coercion.  Sir  Charles 
Dilke  adopted  a  similar  policy.  This  was  the  attitude  of 
Mr.  Chamberlain  after  his  expulsion  from  office  ;  but,  mean- 
time, a  revelation  came  which  threw  some  astonishing  light 
on  his  attitude  towards  coercion  before  his  resignation.  Mr. 
Gladstone,  writing  to  Sir  Michael  Hicks  Beach,  announced  that 
the  Ministry  had  been  practically  agreed  on  coercing  Ireland 
before  their  expulsion  from  power,  and  he  even  set  forth  the  / 
'valuable  and  equitable'  provisions  which  were  to  have  ' 
formed  the  new  Coercion  Bill  of  the  Liberal  Ministry.  The 
'  valuable  and  equitable '  provisions  that  were  to  be  re- 
newed were  the  venue,  the  jury,  and  the  intimidation  clauses  ; 
precisely  those  clauses  under  which  some  of  the  grossest 
acts  of  the  Spencer  regime  had  been  perpetrated.  It  was 
through  the  change  of  venue  and  the  jury  clauses  that 
the  Crown  officials  were  able  to  drag  Mayo  and  Galway 
peasants,  ignorant  of  the  English  tongue,  to  the  special  juries 
of  Orange  shopkeepers  and  enraged  landlords  who  tried  them 


536  'THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

in  Green  Street  Court-house  in  Dublin.  And  it  was  under 
the  intimidation  clauses  that  effective  organisation  against 
wholesale  evictions  was  kept  down  during  the  Crimes  Act ; 
and  times  were  coming,  though  the  fact  was  not  sufficiently 
known  or  grasped,  which  would  have  made  the  renewal  of 
coercion  a  disaster  of  national  gravity.  For  1885  came  to  be 
one  of  those  years  of  periodic  agricultural  depression  which 
bring  the  Irish  tenantry  face  to  face  with  the  prospect  of 
widespread  and  inevitable  ruin.  The  severity  of  foreign 
competition,  the  badness  of  the  season,  the  extraordinary 
depression  of  prices  once  more  raised  the  dread  alternative  of 
retaining  or  losing  the  farm,  of  home  or  exile,  of  life  or  death, 
through  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Irish  farms.  Once  more 
the  great,  central,  primordial  battle  of  Irish  life  had  to  be 
fought  out — the  battle  of  the  rent.  If  the  Government  had 
not  been  expelled,  Lord  Spencer  would  have  been  in  Dublin 
Castle  and  a  Coercion  Act  in  full  swing.  The  landlords 
would  again  be  given  all  the  vast  resources  of  the  Empire. 
Under  the  rigorous  administration  of  the  Crimes  Act  every 
blow  made  against  the  exaction  of  the  uttermost  farthing  of 
the  rent  would  have  been  checked  by  coercion  magistrates, 
and  every  attempt  at  combination  strangled  by  the  omni- 
potent police.  Troops  and  police,  inspired  by  the  spirit 
radiating  from  Dublin  Castle,  would  have  helped  the  evicting 
sheriff  with  fierce  goodwill.  Under  the  stimulus  of  Lord 
Spencer  and  of  coercion,  the  landlords  would  have  held  out 
for  every  ounce  of  the  pound  of  flesh,  and  Mr.  Trevelyan  would 
still  have  been  able  to  boast  that  rents  were  more  regularly 
paid  under  Lord  Spencer  and  coercion  in  Ireland  than  they 
were  in  England,  For  again  and  again  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  the  Irish  tenants  were  not  making,  either  in 
1885  or  in  18/9,  or  in  any  preceding  crisis,  demands  which 
were  not  at  the  same  time  made,  and  at  the  same  time  con- 
ceded, in  England  and  Scotland.  '  By  almost  general  ad- 
mission,' wrote  the  'Daily  Telegraph'  of  Dec.  28,  1885, 
'  nothing  short  of  a  very  general  and  large  reduction  of  rents 
by  landlords  can  save  a  considerable  portion  of  the  British 
farmers  from  ruin.' }  '  The  tenant  farmers  and  others  in 
Monmouthshire,'  announced  the  '  Standard  '  of  Jan.  r,  1886, 

1  Quoted  in  Freemaii's  Journal,  Dec.  29,  1885. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  537 

'  are  receiving  very  considerate  treatment  at  the  hands  of  their 
landlords.'  '  An  important  meeting  of  farmers,'  said  the  same 
journal  in  the  same  issue,  '  on  the  Flintshire  estates  of  Sir 
Edward  Bates,  Bart,  Sir  Piers  Mostyn,  Bart,  and  Mr.  H.  F. 
Pochin  was  held  yesterday,  and  it  was  resolved  to  insist  on  a 
reduction  of  rents  all  round.'  And  similar  announcements  have 
been  made  in  the  same  strong  Conservative  organ  of  demands 
and  of  concessions  of  large  reductions  of  rent  in  Scotland.  To 
make  the  meaning  of  Mr.  Trevelyan's  boast  more  clear,  then, 
the  daily  papers  would  have  been  at  one  and  the  same  time 
describing  the  abatements  of  rent  on  almost  every  estate  in 
England  and  Scotland,  with  their  numerous  and  teeming 
markets  and  their  unsurpassed  railway  development,  and 
wholesale  evictions  in  Ireland,  with  its  poverty,  its  absence 
of  markets,  and  its  infant  railroad  system.  Fortunately  Lord 
Spencer  was  not  in  Dublin  Castle,  coercion  was  not  in  full 
swing,  and  the  result  was  that  the  battle  between  the  land- 
lord and  the  tenant  for  rent  was  to  some  extent  equalised, 
and  the  landlords  of  Ireland  were  compelled  by  necessity  to 
give  those  abatements  of  rent  which,  at  the  same  time,  were 
voluntarily  conceded  by  the  landlords  of  England.  From 
the  beginning  of  this  agrarian  crisis  Irish  papers  have  been 
able  constantly  to  make  the  same  announcement  of  abate- 
ments as  are  made  in  the  English  papers  ;  and  some  of  these 
announcements  are  testimony  to  the  main  objection  of  the 
Irish  party  to  the  Land  Act  of  1881.  Let  us  give  some 
samples :  — 

Lord  Fitzwilliam  has  given  a  reduction  of  25  per  cent,  on 
his  Wicklow  estates.  The  trustees  of  Mr.  Herbert's  estates 
in  Kerry  have  given  a  reduction  of  'js.  in  the  pound.  Mr. 
S.  C.  McCormack  has  given  a  reduction  of  50  per  cent,  to 
his  tenants  at  Ballycastle.  Mr.  Eaton,  R.M.,  of  Mitchels- 
town,  has  given  a  reduction  of  50  per  cent,  to  his  tenants  in 
Kilfinane,  and  the  Board  of  Works,  with  the  consent  of  the 
Lords  of  the  Treasury,  have  given  a  reduction  of  20  per  cent 
to  the  grazing  tenants  in  Phoenix  Park.1  But  that  is  not  all ; 
for  reductions,  and  large  reductions,  have  been  made  in  the 
'  fair '  rents  fixed  by  the  Land  Commissioners.  Captain 
Plunket,  R.M.,  has  given  an  abatement  of  20  per  cent,  on  the 

1   United  Ireland,  Jan.  2,  1886. 


538  •   THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

rents  fixed  three  years  ago  in  judicial  leases.1  Captain 
Dawson  has  given  reductions  of  2s.,  3^.,  and  4s.  in  the 
pound  on  judicial  rents  ;  and  Mr.  John  Conlan,  of  Rath- 
more,  has  given  a  reduction  of  $s.  in  the  pound  on  the 
judicial  rents. 

Thus  the  landlords  themselves  have  broken  down  the 
Land  Act  of  1881.  A  reduction  of  a  judicial  rent  under  any 
circumstances  is  a  proof  of  the  unfairness  of  that  rent ;  for 
the  meaning  of  a  judicial  rent  was  not  a  rent  that  could  be 
paid  in  one  year  and  could  not  be  paid  in  another  year  ;  was 
not  a  rent  that  was  possible  in  years  of  prosperity  and 
became  impossible  in  years  of  depression  ;  but  was  a  rent 
which,  taking  one  year  with  another,  an  industrious  and 
intelligent  peasant  would  always  be  able  to  pay.  The  judicial 
rents  were  first  put  to  the  test  in  1885  ;  the  farmers  were  face 
to  face  with  a  real  and  widespread  agricultural  depression,  and 
the  judicial  rents  broke  down  ;  and  as  an  English  journal,  which 
has  been  and  is  one  of  the  ablest  and  most  resolute  enemies 
of  the  Irish  party  remarked,  '  now  we  have  to  face  the  fact 
that  the  fair  rent  is  unfair.' 2  The  reader  has  now  another 
opportunity  of  comparing  the  attacks  made  upon  the  policy 
of  the  Land  League,  and  the  policy  of  the  Land  Act  and  of 
the  Liberal  Ministry. 

The  change  of  administration  produced  another  and  an 
almost  equally  important  result  upon  the  land  question. 
This  is  the  proper  place  to  quote  the  programme  of  the  Land 
League  before  the  Land  Act.  Immediately  after  the  general 
election  a  Land  League  conference  was  held  in  Dublin,  and 
there  the  policy  of  the  League  was  formulated.  Afterwards 
one  of  the  most  flagrant  charges  against  the  Land  League 
was  that  it  had  no  proposals,  and  that  it  never  put  its  ideas 
into  definite  shape.  The  real  fact  was  that  so  far  back  as 
the  date  mentioned  it  had  given  its  ideas  shape  as  definite 
as  political  ideas  could  receive.  The  proceedings  of  the  Land 
League  had  not  attracted  any  particular  attention  in  the 
English  papers  or  from  English  leaders,  and  in  this,  as  in  so 
many  other  cases,  English  ignorance  or  neglect  of  Irish  affairs 

1  United  Ireland,  Jan.  2,  1886. 

2  Western  Morning  News ;  Dec.  28,  1885. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  539 

led  to  stupid  and  groundless  charges  against  the  policy  of  the 
Irish  party.  At  the  Land  League  conference  the  following 
programme  was  agreed  to  : — - 

To  carry  out  the  permanent  reform  of  land  tenure,  we  propose 
the  creation  of  a  Department  or  Commission  of  Land  Administration 
for  Ireland.  This  Department  would  be  invested  with  ample  powers 
to  deal  with  all  questions  relating  to  land  in  Ireland,  (i)  Where  the 
landlord  and  tenant  of  any  holding  had  agreed  for  the  sale  to  the 
tenant  of  the  said  holding,  the  Department  would  execute  the  neces- 
sary conveyance  to  the  tenant  and  advance  him  the  whole  or  part  of 
the  purchase  money,  and  upon  such  advance  being  made  by  the 
Department,  such  holding  would  be  deemed  to  be  charged  with  an 
annuity  of  5/.  for  every  ioo/.  of  such  advance,  and  so  in  proportion 
for  any  less  sum,  such  annuity  to  be  limited  in  favour  of  the  Depart- 
ment, and  to  be  declared  to  be  repayable  in  the  term  of  thirty-five 
years. 

(2)  When  a  tenant  tendered  to  the  landlord  for  the  purchase  of 
his  holding  a  sum  equal  to  twenty  years  of  the  Poor  Law  valuation 
thereof,  the  Department  would  execute  the  conveyance  of  the  said 
holding  to  the  tenant,  and  would  be  empowered  to  advance  to  the 
tenant  the  whole  or  any  part  of  the  purchase  money,  the  repayment 
of  which  would  be  secured  as  set  forth  in  the  case  of  voluntary  sales. 

(3)  The  Department  would  be  empowered  to  acquire  the  owner- 
ship of  any  estate  upon  tendering  to  the  owner  thereof  a  sum  equal 
to  twenty  years  of  the  Poor  Law  valuation  of  such  estate,  and  to 
let  said  estate  to  the  tenants  at  a  rent  equal  to  3^  per  cent,  of  the 
purchase  money  thereof. 

(4)  The    Department   of  the    Court  having  jurisdiction   in  this 
matter  would  be  empowered  to  determine  the  rights  and  priorities  of 
the  several  persons  entitled  to,  or  having  charges  upon,   or  otherwise 
interested  in  any  holding  conveyed  as  above  mentioned,  and  would 
distribute  the  purchase  money  in  accordance  with  such  rights  and 
priorities  ;  and  when  any  moneys  arising  from  a  sale  were  not  im- 
mediately distributed,  the  Department  would  have  a  right  to  invest  the 
said  moneys  for  the  benefit  of  the  parties  entitled  thereto.    Provision 
would  be  made  whereby  the  Treasury  would  from  time  to  time  ad- 
vance to  the  Department  such  sums  of  money  as  would  be  required 
for  the  purchases  above  mentioned. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  say  that  these  proposals  met 
with  fierce  opposition  and  denunciation  from  the  British  press. 
'  They  were/  said  the  '  Times/  l  (  clearly  confiscation  pure  and 

1   May  5,  1881. 


540  'THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

undisguised.'  These  also  were  the  proposals  which  were  put 
forward  by  the  Irish  party  when  the  land  question  was  taken 
up  by  Mr.  Gladstone.  They  were  rejected  at  that  time,  with  the 
result  that  they  were  taken  up  by  all  parties  at  a  later  period. 
It  has  been  seen  that  Mr.  W.  H.  Smith,  in  1882,  proposed 
a  resolution  which  demanded  exactly  the  same  settlement 
for  the  land  question  as  had  been  demanded  by  the  Land 
League  in  1880.  In  the  excitement  caused  by  the  assassina- 
tion in  Phoenix  Park,  coupled  with  the  Crimes  Act,  the  ques- 
tion was  then  dropped  ;  but  on  June  12  of  the  following  year 
it  was  once  more  taken  up,  and  on  this  occasion  the  sponsor 
of  the  Land  League  settlement  of  the  Irish  land  question 
was  no  less  a  person  than  Lord  George  Hamilton,  a  leader 
among  the  Conservatives,  and  the  son  of  an  Irish  landlord. 
One  English  journal  at  least  appreciated  the  significance  of 
this  appropriation  of  Land  League  doctrines  by  Conservative 
leaders  and  by  Parliament  generally,  for  the  motion  of  Lord 
George  practically  commanded  universal  assent  *  Another 
step  in  the  Irish  revolution  '  was  the  phrase  which  it  applied 
to  the  debate  on  the  motion.  '  The  proposal,'  it  wrote,  '  brought 
forward  last  night  by  Lord  George  Hamilton  is  the  first  con- 
spicuous sign  in  the  new  move  in  the  game  of  party  politics. 
.  .  .  Irishmen  will  continue  to  get  a  little  from  the  Liberals 
and  then  a  little  from  the  Tories,  until  some  fine  day  we  shall 
awake  to  the  fact  that  they  have  got  all.'  '  In  1884  Mr.  Tre- 
velyan  brought  forward  a  Bill  the  principle  of  which  was  the 
principle  of  the  Land  League,  but  the  measure  proposed  was 
so  impracticable  that  the  Bill  was  still-born.  In  1885  the 
Government  showed  no  signs  of  touching  the  question,  and  Irish 
members  had  despaired  of  seeing  any  attempt  to  make  even 
the  beginning  of  its  settlement.  But  the  change  of  Administra- 
tion produced  on  the  land  question,  as  well  as  on  the  question 
of  coercion,  a  surprising  and  beneficent  transformation  of  the 
political  prospect.  The  Conservatives  had  scarcely  been  in 
office  when  Lord  Ashbourne  —  as  Mr.  Gibson  had  become — 
brought  in  a  Bill  of  a  much  more  practical  character,  and 
in  a  comparatively  short  time  the  Bill  passed  into  law, 
and  the  programme  of  the  Land  League,  five  years  after  its 

1  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  June  13,  1883. 


THE    IRISH    NEMESIS  541 

publication,  and  with  all  the  savage  and  dread  incidents 
crowded  into  the  dreary  interval,  was  embodied  in  the  statute- 
book  of  England 

In  Ireland  the  change  in  the  Government  was  marked 
by  unmistakable  incidents.  The  Conservative  Viceroy  was 
able  to  dispense  with  the  dragoons  and  foot  soldiers  and  police, 
and  to  go  unattended  through  the  country  and  among  the 
people.  His  reception  everywhere,  if  not  cordial,  was  at  least 
not  hostile.  In  the  loneliest  parts  of  the  country  he  found 
himself  perfectly  safe  from  blow  or  from  insult,  and  to  make 
the  transformation  which  the  change  of  Government  had  pro- 
duced in  Ireland  dramatically  complete,  on  one  occasion  he  was 
driven  through  the  country  by  Bryan  Kilmartin,  an  innocent 
man  whom  Lord  Spencer  and  a  coercion  judge  and  jury  had 
sentenced  to  penal  servitude  for  life.  Crime  at  the  same  time 
sank  to  almost  infinitesimal  proportions.  The  sympathy  which 
it  was  able  to  command  when  innocent  and  guilty  were  alike 
oppressed  and  harried,  was  denied  now  that  the  country  was 
once  more  free.  The  severity  of  the  agrarian  crisis  was  miti- 
gated by  the  reductions  which  good  landlords  made  volun- 
tarily and  bad  landlords  made  in  obedience  to  organisation, 
as  firmly  knit  as  the  trades'  unions  which  extort  fair  wages 
and  honourable  treatment  for  English  workmen  ;  and  the 
bitterness  which  had  sprung  up  between  the  peoples  of  England 
and  Ireland  became  in  some  degree  at  least  softened.  In  this 
mood  the  Irish  people  approached  the  great  turning-point  in 
their  history,  and  entered  upon  the  general  election  of  1885. 


542  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

THE   GENERAL   ELECTION. 

ON  November  14  the  Parliament  of  1880  was  dissolved,  and 
the  next  day  the  writs  were  transmitted  to  the  different  con- 
stituencies. The  election  campaign  was  one  of  the  most 
curious  in  English  history.  It  was  opened  in  Ireland  by  Mr. 
Parnell,  who  declared  boldly  that  he  and  his  party  had  now 
resolved  to  have  but  one  plank  in  their  platform,  and  that 
this  plank  was  legislative  independence.  In  England,  the 
campaign  was  started  with  equal  emphasis  by  Mr.  Cham- 
berlain. The  member  for  Birmingham  had  a  programme, 
daring,  distinct,  and  uncompromising.  He  called  for  great  and 
immediate  changes  in  the  whole  social  system  of  the  country  ; 
in  the  land,  in  the  school,  in  the  Church.  Local  bodies  were 
to  have  powers  to  acquire  land  and  redistribute  it  among  the 
deserving  poor.  Free  schools  were  advocated,  and  school 
fees  denounced  as  an  odious  form  of  tyranny.  The  dises- 
tablishment of  the  Church  was  strongly  suggested,  and  dis- 
endowment  was  pointed  to  as  affording  an  excellent  fund  to 
supplement  the  education  rate  of  the  country  and  provide  for 
the  abolition  of  the  fees  in  the  schools. 

One  point  finally  remained  in  the  programme  of  Mr. 
Chamberlain.  His  allusions  to  Ireland  immediately  after  his 
retirement  from  office  have  already  been  referred  to ;  his 
reply  to  the  speech  of  Mr.  Parnell  did  not  carry  out  the  pro- 
mise of  these  speeches.  Mr.  Parnell's  demands  had  been  met 
in  the  manner  characteristic  of  the  first  reception  of  all  Irish 
reform  by  the  ignorant  public  opinion  of  England — or  rather 
by  the  ignorant  guides  of  that  opinion  in  the  press — and  there 
was  a  unanimous  outburst  of  vehement  vituperation  and  em- 
phatic rejection.  It  was  while  the  tide  still  ran  high  against 


THE    GENERAL   ELECTION  543 

Mr.  Parnell  that  Mr.  Chamberlain  had  to  speak.  This  was 
a  sufficient  temptation  to  a  man  whose  chief  conception  of 
political  life  seems  to  be  the  catching  of  every  passing 
breeze.  But  there  was  a  still  greater  temptation  to  attack 
Mr.  Parnell ;  Lord  Randolph  Churchill  had  spoken  a  few 
days  before.  The  Secretary  for  India  probably  felt  that  the 
Liberals  were  desirous  above  all  things  to  maintain  their  mono- 
poly in  Irish  reform,  and  were  seeking  to  bully  the  Conserva- 
tives into  declarations  against  Ireland  which  would  have  the 
double  effect  of  estranging  the  Irish  vote  in  the  coming  elec- 
tion, and,  at  the  same  time,  of  tying  the  hands  of  the  Conser- 
vative party  against  any  attempt  to  settle  the  Irish  question. 
Lord  Randolph  Churchill  had  been  astute  enough  to  perceive 
this  somewhat  clumsy  and  palpable  trick,  and  had  therefore 
left  himself  and  his  party  quite  free  to  deal  with  the  Irish 
question  as  the  necessities  of  the  future  might  impose.  Mr. 
Chamberlain  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  make  capital 
out  of  a  passing  passion,  and  out  of  the  ambiguous  and  perhaps 
damaging  attitude  of  a  political  opponent.  Accordingly  he 
attacked  the  speech  of  Mr.  Parnell,  and  declared  that  Mr. 
Parnell's  claims  were  such  as  no  British  statesman  could  agree 
to.  These  then  were  the  cries  of  the  Liberal  party — Dis- 
establishment, Free  Schools,  Revolutionary  Land  Reform,  and 
hostility  to  Mr.  Parnell. 

For  awhile  the  programme  of  Mr.  Chamberlain  was  the 
only  one  brought  by  the  Liberal  leaders  before  the  country, 
and  it  was  emphasised  by  the  incursion  of  Mr.  Chamberlain 
into  the  favoured  land  of  Scotland,  where  the  reception  of 
himself  and  his  speeches  almost  equalled  in  enthusiasm  the 
receptions  hitherto  entirely  reserved  for  Mr.  Gladstone  himself. 
The  Marquis  of  Hartington  remained  for  some  time  in  moody 
and,  as  it  appeared,  in  baffled  silence  ;  from  Hawarden  no 
word  came  ;  and  Sir  William  Harcourt — though  he  belonged 
to  the  section  which  has  always  hated  and  distrusted  and 
opposed  Mr.  Chamberlain — was  as  eager  as  Mr.  Chamberlain 
himself  to  catch  the  popular  breeze,  and  with  the  charac- 
teristic attitude  of  the  Opportunist  political  adventurer,  pro- 
fessed agreement  with  the  programme  of  the  Radical  apostle. 
And  so  for  a  time,  amid  triumphal  processions  and  eulogistic 


544  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

addresses,  meetings  crowded  to  suffocation,  verbatim  reports 
and  multitudinous  leading  articles,  Mr.  Chamberlain  appeared 
the  master  of  the  situation,  the  hero  of  the  hour,  the  figure 
and  the  prophet  of  the  election. 

But  there  soon  came  signs  that  the  Chamberlain  pro- 
gramme was  not  the  programme  to  win  the  election  with, 
and  the  second  part  of  the  electoral  campaign  was  mainly 
occupied  in  explaining  away  Mr.  Chamberlain  and  the  first 
epoch.  First  came  the  manifesto  of  Mr.  Gladstone.  This 
historic  document  was  a  dexterous  attempt  to  please  the 
Radicals  by  admitting  their  proposals,  and  to  retain  the  Whigs 
by  postponing  the  application  of  these  proposals  to  a  future 
which  wras  not  even  fixed  in  time  ;  for  it  was  described  as 
more  or  less  remote — that  is,  as  near  or  distant  as  the  times 
and  the  seasons  and  the  political  forces  might  decree.  For  a 
while  the  manifesto  appeared  a  great  success,  for  on  the  same 
night  it  was  eagerly  eulogised  by  critics  so  opposed  as  Mr. 
Goschen  and  Mr.  Chamberlain. 

But  time  passed  on,  and  it  was  discovered  by  the  Liberal 
wirepullers  that  even  the  dubious  manifesto  did  not  sufficiently 
explain  away  the  Chamberlain  evangel.  It  was  found  that 
the  speeches  of  the  member  for  Birmingham  had  estranged 
the  landowners — and  the  landowner  is  still  a  power  in  the 
Liberal  party  ;  the  Churchman,  and  Churchmen  are  still  the 
majority  in  the  ruling  hierarchy  of  the  Liberal  party  ;  while 
the  attack  on  the  voluntary  system,  by  the  crude  proposal  of 
free  schools,  had  arrayed  in  solid  union  the  Catholic  and  the 
Protestant  Episcopate,  and  all  the  adherents  of  religious 
education  throughout  the  country.  The  intensity  of  the  feel- 
ing on  these  different  points  had  manifested  itself  in  an  unmis- 
takable manner.  The  Duke  of  Westminster—  a  great  land- 
owner and  a  great  Liberal — had  refused  to  vote  for  a  Liberal 
candidate  who  accepted  the  programme  of  Mr.  Chamberlain; 
the  same  nobleman  and  several  others — including  the  great 
lawyer  who  had  been  Lord  Chancellor  in  the  same  Ministry 
as  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Mr.  Chamberlain— drew  up  a  manifesto 
in  hostility  to  any  Liberal  candidate  who  pronounced  in  favour 
of  disestablishment,  and  Liberal  candidates  throughout  the 
country  eagerly  sought  the  support  of  the  religious  by  vows  of 
eternal  fidelity  to  the  cause  of  religious  education.  All  these 


THE    GENERAL   ELECTION  545 

things  proved  that  if  the  election  were  to  be  won,  the  Cham- 
berlain programme  must  be  further  explained  away. 

Lord  Hartington,  taking -courage  from  the  intensity  of  the 
recoil  from  the  proposals  of  Mr.  Chamberlain,  ventured  to 
break  silence,  and  to  meet  Mr.  Chamberlain's  programme  with 
a  timid  negative.  As  time  went  on  he  grew  bolder,  and  made 
assaults  on  the  schemes  of  the  Radical  leader,  that  suggested 
the  question  whether  two  men  so  widely  different  in  opinion 
would  not  more  fitly  be  on  opposite,  instead  of  on  the  same 
benches.  Disestablishment,  the  Free  Schools,  large  Land 
Reform  gone,  what  was  left  to  the  Liberal  party  ?  To  an 
English  party  in  want  of  a  cry  there  are  always  left  the 
primordial  and  the  baser  passions  of  the  populace — religious 
fanaticism,  racial  hate.  A  '  No  Popery  !'  cry  was  anachronistic, 
but  an  anti-Irish  cry  was  supposed  to  be  still  potent.  An 
anti-Irish  cry  was  the  last  card  left  to  the  Liberal  party,  and 
on  an  anti-Irish  cry,  then,  they  resolved  to  go  to  the  con- 
stituencies. Misrepresentation  of  the  purposes  of  the  Irish 
party,  strong  personal  attacks  on  Mr.  Parnell,  violent  vitu- 
peration of  his  followers  generally,  and  a  lurid  picture  of  the 
danger  to  the  empire,  became  the  stock  in-trade  of  the  electoral 
oratory  of  the  Liberal  candidates.  Said  Mr.  W.  H.  Wills, 
a  Liberal  candidate,  the  Liberal  party  must  be  made  '  inde- 
pendent '  alike  *  of  Tory  Jingoes  and  Irish  rebels,' l  and  other 
Liberal  candidates  employed  similar  language. 

Of  course  Mr.  Gladstone  did  not  stoop  to  the  mean  lan- 
guage of  the  underlings  of  the  Liberal  party.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  spoke  of  the  Irish  claim  in  terms  of  respect  and  of 
good  feeling.  He  said  :— 

What  Ireland  may  deliberately  and  constitutionally  demand — 
unless  it  infringes  the  principles  connected  with  the  honourable 
maintenance  of  the  unity  of  the  Empire — will  be  a  demand  that  we 
are  bound,  at  any  rate,  to  treat  with  careful  attention.  .  .  .  To  stint 
Ireland  in  power  which  may  be  necessary  or  desirable  for  the 
management  of  matters  purely  Irish  would  be  a  great  error,  and,  if 
she  was  so  stinted,  the  end  that  any  such  measure  might  contem- 
plate could  not  be  attained.2 

1  Daily  News,  Sept.  30,  1885.  2  Times  t  Nov.  10,  1885. 

N  N 


546  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

But  he  had  scarcely  uttered  these  words  when  he  went  on 
to  make  this  declaration  :— 

Apart  from  the  term  of  Whig  and  Tory,  there  is  one  thing  I  will  j 
say  and  will  endeavour  to  impress  upon  you,  and  it  is  this.    It  will  be  ; 
a  vital  danger  to  the  country  and  the  empire,  if  at  a  time  when  the 
demand  of  Ireland  for  large  powers  of  self-government  is  to  be  dealt 
with,  there  is  not  in  Parliament  a  party  totally  independent  of  the 
Irish  vote.1 

It  required  little  logic  to  see  how  utterly  irreconcilable 
were  these  two  positions.  If  Mr.  Gladstone  intended  to  settle 
the  Irish  question,  he  must  have  known  that  it  could  only  be 
settled  for  any  real  length  of  time  by  an  understanding  and  in 
accord  with  the  representatives  of  Ireland.  A  settlement  of 
the  Irish  question  which  four-fifths  of  the  Irish  representatives 
condemned  would  obviously  be  a  settlement  which  would  be 
neither  just  nor  practical  nor  durable.  Speaking  a  few  days 
afterwards,  Lord  Randolph  Churchill  at  once  marked  this 
fatal  flaw  in  the  position  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  and  well  described 
the  late  Premier  as  at  one  moment  supporting  the  demand 
of  the  Irish  members,  and  the  next  asking  for  such  a  majority 
as  would  enable  him  to  silence  them. 

Meantime  a  force  was  working  quietly  of  which  the  general 
English  public  knew  nothing.  For  two  years  at  least  previous 
to  the  General  Election  the  most  energetic  efforts  had  been 
devoted  to  the  organisation  of  the  Irish  vote  in  England  ; 
and  there  were  several  constituencies  in  which  its  influence 
was  already  recognised  by  the  local  electioneerers  as  supreme. 
The  manner  in  which  this  vote  was  treated  was  characteristic 
of  the  relations  of  the  Liberal  party  to  the  Irish  people  and 
the  Irish  question.  In  constituencies  where  there  was  no  Irish 
vote  the  Liberal  candidates  exhausted  the  language  of  abuse 
upon  the  Irish  people  and  their  leaders,  and  followed  the 
excellent  precedent  of  Mr.  W.  H.  Wills.  Mr.  Trevelyan  and 
the  other  official  wrecks  which  the  Irish  question  had  left 
upon  the  political  shore,  spoke  with  a  bitterness  of  the  Irish 
claim  which  suggested  inconvenient  questions  as  to  what  was 
the  difference  between  an  English  Radical  and  the  obscur- 
antist Orange  Tory  on  the  Irish  question.  In  constituencies,  on 
1  Times,  Nov.  10,  1885. 


THE    GENERAL   ELECTION  547 

the  other  hand,  in  which  there  was  a  large  Irish  vote,  no  lan- 
guage was  too  flattering,  no  promises  for  the  future  too  big, 
no  apologies  for  the  past  too  abject.  Take,  for  example,  the 
case  of  Mr.  Thorold  Rogers.  During  the  struggle  of  the  Irish 
members  against  that  coercion  which  brought  such  dark  and 
terrible  misfortunes  to  both  England  and  Ireland,  no  member 
even  of  the  Liberal  party  was  more  vehement  in  his  support 
of  coercion,  or  more  malignant  in  his  attacks  upon  the  poli- 
tical and  even  the  personal  character  of  the  Irish  party.  In 
the  agony  of  the  fight  he  made  a  speech  in  which  he  openly 
suggested  that  Mr.  Parnell's  part  in  the  Land  League  move- 
ment was  solely  dictated  by  a  greed  for  money,  and  that  an 
examination  of  the  balance-sheet  of  the  League  would  show 
that  Mr.  Parnell  was  a  thief.  When  the  election  came,  Mr. 
Rogers  declared  his  regret  for  having  voted  for  coercion  ;  at 
one  of  his  meetings  his  chairman  made  an  appeal  to  the  Irish 
as  Catholics  to  practise  their  own  doctrine  of  the  forgiveness 
of  sins,  and  the  appeal  was  emphasised  by  an  appearance  of 
extreme  contrition  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Rogers  himself,  who 
sate  with  bent  head,  a  face  concealed — concealed  to  hide  either 
the  tears  that  dropped  from  his  eyes  or  the  tongue  that  was 
in  his  cheek. 

Of  course,  neither  the  Irish  people  nor  the  Irish  leaders 
were  deceived  by  pretences  so  vulgar  and  so  worn.  The 
constituencies  were  asked  to  vote  Liberal,  that  a  Liberal 
majority  might  stifle  the  voice  of  Ireland  ;  and  the  Irish 
voters  accordingly  resolved  not  to  vote  Liberal.  Their  re- 
fusal to  manufacture  the  rope  for  their  own  necks  the  Liberal 
leaders  professed  to  regard  as  black  ingratitude  ;  and  pathetic 
references  were  made  to  all  the  Irish  people  owed  the  Liberal 
party  in  the  past  five  years.  In  such  appeals  no  reference 
naturally  was  made  to  the  imprisonment  of  Mr.  Parnell  and 
Mr.  Dillon,  of  Mr.  Sexton  and  Mr.  O'Kelly  ;  nor  to  the  twelve 
hundred  other  men  imprisoned  without  trial  ;  nor  to  the  ladies 
harried  under  the  statute  of  Edward  III.  ;  nor  to  all  the  mad- 
dening acts  of  outrage  and  oppression  which  produced  the 
homicidal  frenzy  of  the  Invincibles,  and  the  dark  tragedy  in 
the  Phoenix  Park  ;  nor  to  the  Spencer  regime  with  its  packed 
juries  and  hanging  judges  ;  nor  to  the  final  fact  that  the 

N  N  2 


548  THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 

last  official  announcement  of  Mr.  Gladstone  with  regard  to 
Ireland  was  the  renewal  of  coercion.  The  Irish  people  re- 
membered but  too  well  the  things  they  owed  to  the  Liberal 
party  ;  they  neither  lacked  gall,  to  make  oppression  bitter, 
nor  intelligence  to  see  through  the  devices  of  the  op- 
pressors. It  was,  therefore,  with  almost  universal  satisfac- 
tion that  the  Irish  population  in  England  and  Scotland 
learned  that  their  leaders  counselled  them  to  vote  against 
the  Liberals. 

This  advice  was  conveyed  in  a  manifesto,  signed  by  the 
President  and  the  other  officers  of  the  Irish  National  League 
of  Great  Britain — the  organisation  in  which  the  Irish  in 
England  are  enrolled.  The  manifesto  called  upon  the  Irish 
electors  to  vote  against  the  Liberals  in  every  case  excepting 
some  particular  exceptions  to  be  afterwards  mentioned.  The 
exceptions  made  were  Mr.  Joseph  Cowen  of  Newcastle,  Mr. 
T.  C.  Thompson  of  Durham,  Mr.  Storey  of  Sunderland,  Mr. 
Labouchere  of  Northampton.  This  was  but  a  small  return 
to  the  courageous  and  splendid  service  these  gentlemen 
had  rendered  to  the  Irish  cause  during  its  darkest  hours  ; 
and  as  long  as  there  are  Irishmen,  the  memory  will  endure 
of  the  way  in  which  these  men  stood  up  from  the  ranks  of 
the  self-seeking  and  the  time-serving  around  them,  and  in 
face  of  overwhelming  odds  inside  Parliament,  and  a  savage 
tempest  of  passion  outside,  maintained  a  consistent  course 
and  a  sound  policy.  Exception  was  also  made  in  the  case  of 
Mr.  Lloyd  Jones,  who  fought  as  a  labour  representative  against 
the  candidate  of  the  caucus,  and  had  been  a  life-long  advocate 
of  Irish  rights.  The  manifesto  was  kept  back  to  the  latest 
moment  possible.  The  Irish  leaders  judged  that  the  very 
fact  of  the  Irish  going  solid  in  one  direction  might  have  the 
effect  of  driving  a  quantity  of  the  '  shifting  ballast  '  among 
the  English  people,  who  turn  the  balance  at  every  election,  into 
going  the  other  way  ;  and  that  a  manifesto  in  favour  of  the 
Tories  might  thus  help  the  Liberals  to  get  that  overwhelming 
majority  which  all  intelligent  Irish  Nationalists  saw  was 
the  real  danger  of  the  immediate  future.  It  was  not  written 
until  Thursday,  November  19,  and  was  not  printed  until 
the  evening  of  the  following  day,  Friday  the  2Oth.  This 


THE    GENERAL   ELECTION  549 

left  very  little  time  for  its  circulation.  Sunday  is  the  best 
of  all  days  for  distributing  political  documents  among  the 
Irish  population,  a  large  number  being  easily  accessible  at  the 
churches.  There  was  but  one  Sunday  left  between  the  printing 
of  the  manifesto  and  the  opening  of  the  electoral  campaign. 
Accordingly,  the  manifesto  was  telegraphed  to  Glasgow,  in 
order  that  it  might  be  printed  on  Saturday  and  distributed 
over  all  the  Irish  centres  in  Scotland  by  the  Sunday.  A 
number  of  the  young  men  whose  energy,  zeal,  and  unbought 
work  were  the  main  factor  of  the  overwhelming  victory  of  the 
National  League,  remained  up  in  the  offices  of  the  League 
at  Palace  Chambers  all  Friday  night,  and  by  Saturday  mid- 
day copies  of  the  manifesto  had  been  received  by  every,  or 
nearly  every  branch  of  the  organisation  in  England  and  Scotland. 
Most  of  them  had  been  previously  informed  by  telegraph  of 
the  coming  of  the  long-expected  document,  and  had  made 
arrangements  for  having  it  printed  ;  and  in  this  way  adequate 
preparations  had  been  made  for  its  propagation  among  the 
Irish  voters  throughout  the  country.  All  copies  had  been 
rigidly  and  universally  refused  to  the  press,  and  the  intention 
was  that  the  manifesto  should  appear  in  the  newspapers  for 
the  first  time  on  Monday  morning.  But  the  enterprise  of  a 
news  agency  defeated  the  well-laid  plan.  By  a  device 
that  had  better  perhaps  not  be  too  rigidly  inquired  into,  this 
agency  obtained  a  copy  on  Saturday  morning,  and  the 
manifesto  appeared  in  the  evening  papers  of  Saturday.  This 
was  a  disappointment,  but  it  had  its  compensations  ;  it 
obtained  the  manifesto  an  immense  circulation,  and  thus 
there  was  no  danger  that  any  Irish  voter  could  remain  in 
ignorance  of  the  opinions  and  counsels  of  his  leaders. 

Even  those  intimate  with  the  work  of  the  National  League 
of  Great  Britain  were  surprised  by  the  splendid  discipline  and 
the  almost  unbroken  unity  of  the  Irish  ranks.  The  borough 
elections  came  first,  and  in  the  boroughs  the  Irish  vote  is 
especially  strong.  The  result  was  that  the  first  two  days' 
elections  went  so  completely  against  the  Liberals  that  a  Tory 
organ  was  able  to  declare  that  a  defeat  had  been  changed 
into  a  rout.  The  Irish  electors  were,  meantime,  gratified  by 
the  defeat  of  some  of  the  men  who  had  made  themselves 


550  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

especially  obnoxious  by  their  support  of  coercion.  The 
League  had  sent  out  for  distribution  a  fly  leaf  in  which  were 
set  forth  the  number  of  votes  which  one  hundred  members  of 
the  Liberal  party  had  given  in  favour  of  coercion.  When  the 
first  two  days  of  the  election  were  over  the  Irish  leaguers 
were  able  to  boast  that  they  had  rendered  it  impossible — at 
least  for  some  time  to  come — for  many  of  these  gentlemen  to 
give  another  vote  in  favour  of  the  coercion  of  Ireland.  Mr. 
Hopwood  was  rejected  in  Stockport ;  Mr.  Lyulph  Stanley 
was  rejected  in  Oldham  ;  Mr.  Briggs  was  rejected  in  Black- 
burn ;  Mr.  Cross  and  Mr.  Thomasson  were  rejected  in  Bolton  ; 
and  Mr.  Arthur  Arnold  was  rejected  in  Salford.  But  it  was 
in  Liverpool  and  Manchester  that  the  Irish  Nemesis  fell  with 
the  heaviest  hand.  Of  all  the  nine  constituencies  of  Liverpool, 
not  one  was  allowed  to  return  a  Liberal,  and  out  of  the  six 
Liberals  for  Manchester  but  one  escaped  extinction. 

In  London  there  was  even  a  greater  series  of  disasters 
to  the  representatives  of  coercion.  It  had  been  confidently 
calculated  by  the  Radicals,  in  the  enthusiasm  of  their  hopes, 
that  they  would  make  a  clean  sweep  of  nearly  all  the  con- 
stituencies which  had  been  so  largely  added  to  the  metro- 
polis. This  calculation  was  made  in  ignorance  of  the  vast 
mass  of  Conservative  feeling  in  the  capital  ;  in  miscalculation 
of  the  universal  disgust  caused  by  the  crimes  and  blunders  of 
the  last  Liberal  Administration,  and  in  forgetfulness  of  the  Irish 
vote,  which  is  strong  in  so  many  of  the  metropolitan  districts. 
A  gallant  attempt  was  made  to  oust  Mr.  Thorold  Rogers 
from  Bermondsey  ;  even  the  abjectness  of  his  appeals  had  no 
effect  upon  the  hearts  of  his  Irish  opponents.  He  was  returned 
by  a  majority  of  83  votes.  Such  a  majority  bears  a  striking 
contrast  to  his  majority  of  1,358  in  1880;  and  even  that 
miserable  handful  of  voters  by  which  he  escaped  destruc- 
tion was  attributed  to  a  mean  trick  by  one  of  his  prominent 
supporters.  In  Fulham,  Mr.  George  Russell,  who  had  dis- 
tinguished himself  by  some  ultra-coercive  speeches,  was 
defeated  by  the  Irish  vote  ;  in  Kennington,  the  Irish  worked 
with  heroic  energy,  and  succeeded  in  overthrowing  a  deserter 
from  their  own  ranks  ;  and  in  Chelsea  they  reduced  the  great 
majority  of  Sir  Charles  Dilke  down  to  the  miserable  proportions 


THE    GENERAL   ELECTION  551 

of  175.  In  Peckham,  in  East  Finsbury,  in  Greenwich,  in  North 
Islington,  in  North  Kensington,  in  North  Lambeth,  in  East 
Marylebone,  in  Walworth,  in  North  Paddington,  in  Rotherhithe, 
in  Limehouse,  in  Mile  End,  and  in  St-George's-in-the-East, 
they  contributed  the  great  part,  if  not  all,  of  the  small  majority 
by  which  the  Conservative  candidates  defeated  the  Liberals. 
In  some  cases  they  were,  of  course,  helped  by  Liberal  dissen- 
sion. In  various  constituencies  throughout  the  country  also 
the  Irish  vote  made  itself  felt,  and  often  in  constituencies  where 
it  was  comparatively  small ;  for  the  keenness  of  the  contest 
and  the  closeness  of  the  numbers  between  the  two  English 
parties  made  even  a  small  number  of  voters  omnipotent.  In 
Reading  a  few  Irish  voters  helped  to  temporarily  exclude  Mr. 
Shaw  Lefevre  ;  in  Pontefract  there  were  about  1 50  Irish  votes, 
and  Mr.  Childers  was  beaten  by  36  ;  in  the  Darwen  division 
of  Lancashire  there  were  200  Irish  votes,  and  Lord  Cranborne 
won  by  a  majority  of.  5.  Throughout  Lancashire  generally 
the  Irish  vote  produced  great  results,  and  this  in  spite  of 
potent  appeals  to  their  selfish  interests  or  selfish  fears.  In 
many  cases  the  Liberal  candidate  was  also  a  large  employer 
of  Irish  labour;  and  if  the  candidate  himself  feared  or  scorned 
to  use  intimidation,  there  were  plenty  of  his  foremen  to  hint 
that  times  were  bad,  employment  scarce,  and  that  as  a  Liberal 
defeat  could  only  be  brought  about  by  the  Irish  vote,  a  Liberal 
defeat  might  end  badly  for  Irish  labourers. 

The  difficulty  of  the  situation  was  often  increased  by  the 
character  of  the  Conservative  candidate,  who,  as  often  as  not, 
belonged  to  the  obscurantist  days  when  hatred  of  the  creed 
and  of  the  nationality  of  the  Irishman  was  part  of  the  Con- 
servative stock-in  trade.  But  the  Irish  voter  laughed  at  the 
threats  of  the  Liberal,  gulped  down  his  disgust  for  the  Con- 
servative, and  in  North  Lonsdale,  and  Eccles,  and  Ince,  and 
Newton,  and  Widnes,  helped  to  defeat  the  Liberal  representa- 
tives. Down  in  Plymouth  some  hundreds  of  Irish  voters  were 
discovered  at  the  last  moment,  and  helped  to  return  the  Con- 
servative candidate  ;  in  Brentford  and  in  Hornsey  there  never 
had  been  an  Irish  meeting  until  a  day  or  two  before  the  poll- 
ing, and  Brentford  and  Hornsey  both  went  Tory.  In  Scotland 
there  were  ten  Conservatives  returned  altogether — two  for 


552  'THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

the  Universities,  one  for  a  borough,  seven  for  counties.  The 
borough  seat  was  Kilmarnock,  and  the  Irish  vote  and  a 
second  Liberal  candidate  gave  that  to  the  Conservatives  ;  five 
of  the  seven  county  seats  could  not  have  been  won  without 
the  Irish  vote. 

The  Irish  vote  was,  then,  one  of  the  great  factors  in  the 
General  Election  of  1885  ;  and  so  it  was  recognised  to  be. 
In  terms,  sometimes  of  mild  complaint,  but  usually  of  violent 
abuse,  the  influence  of  the  Irish  was  described  by  the  leaders 
of  the  Liberal  party. 

'  Fair  trade  may  have  deluded  a  few,'  said  Mr.  Gladstone, 
commenting  on  the  borough  elections  while  speaking  in 
Flintshire  on  behalf  of  Lord  Richard  Grosvenor,  '  as  free 
trade  has  blessed  the  many,  but  that  has  not  been  the 
main  cause.  .  .  .  The  main  cause  is  the  Irish  vote.'  ]  'They' 
(meaning  the  Tories),2  he  wrote  to  the  Midlothian  electors, 
'  know  that  but  for  the  imperative  orders,  issued  on  their  be- 
half by  Mr.  Parnell  and  his  friends,  whom  they  were  never 
tired  of  denouncing  as  disloyal  men,  the  Liberal  majority  of 
forty-eight  would  at  this  moment  have  been  near  a  hundred.' 
'  Lancashire,'  he  said,  in  the  Flintshire  speech,  '  has  returned 
her  voice.  She  has  spoken,  but  if  you  listen  to  her  accents 
you  will  find  that  they  are  tinged  strongly  with  the  Irish 
brogue.'3  'We  have  had,'  said  Mr.  Chamberlain,  'a  most 
unusual  and  extraordinary  combination  against  us,  and  I  am 
inclined  to  describe  it  as  the  combination  of  the  five  P's,  and 
I  shall  tell  you  what  the  five  P's  are  in  the  order  of  their  im- 
portance, beginning  with  the  least  important.  They  are 
Priests,  Publicans,  Parsons,  Parnellites,  and  Protectionists.' 4 
'  Whatever  else/  wrote  the  'Birmingham  Daily  Post,'  '  may  be 
the  issue  of  the  elections,  or  however  they  may  benefit  by  the 
Parnellite  vote,  Great  Britain  has  most  unquestionably  re- 
jected the  Tory  party.  But  for  the  aid  of  their  Irish  allies, 
their  position  on  the  present  polls  would  have  been  as  bad  as 
it  was  in  1880  if  not  worse.'  '  But  for  the  Nationalist  vote 
in  English  and  Scotch  constituencies,'  said  the  '  Manchester 
Examiner,'  '  the  Liberals  would  have  gone  back  to  Parliament 
with  more  than  their  old  numbers.' ;"' 

1   Standard,  Dec.   I,  1885.  -  Ib.  Dec.  4.  3  Ib.  Dec.   I. 

4  //;.  Dec.  4.  5  Quoted  in  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  Dec.  7,  1885. 


THE    GENERAL   ELECTION  553 

This  unwelcome  and  portentous  phenomenon  might  well 
cause  strange  reflections  in  the  minds  of  Englishmen  and 
Scotchmen,  as  well  as  in  those  of  Irishmen.  The  reader  has 
seen  in  preceding  pages  the  tale  of  the  times  and  events 
which  produced  the  enormous  Irish  immigration  in  England 
and  Scotland  ;  and  the  historical  student,  seeing  these  exiles 
from  hunger  and  plague  produced  by  English  law  in  Ireland 
become  in  time  the  controllers  and  disturbers  of  the  best-laid 
plans  of  English  parties  and  English  statesmen,  might  draw 
another  picture  of  the  certainty  of  the  Nemesis  of  wrong-doing. 
Englishmen  and  Scotchmen  heard  their  voices  stifled  by  the 
voices  of  Irishmen  ;  or,  to  use  the  figure  of  Mr.  Gladstone, 
the  accents  of  Englishmen  were  tinged  with  the  Irish  brogue. 
To  this  complexion,  then,  it  hath  come  ;  the  vanquished  has 
mastered  the  conqueror  in  his  own  citadel,  and  even  in 
England  and  Scotland,  Englishmen  and  Scotchmen  are  no 
longer  the  unchecked  arbiters  of  their  own  political  destinies. 

Assuredly  the  election  of  1885  has  demonstrated  that  the 
burden  of  proof  lies  with  those  who  uphold  and  not  those 
who  seek  to  change  the  present  state  of  relations  between 
England  and  Ireland.  The  Irish  in  England  and  Scotland 
have  proved  that  the  opinions  of  Englishmen  and  Scotchmen 
may  be  overridden  by  the  opinions  of  Irishmen  ;  just  as  Irish- 
men complain  that  the  opinion  of  Ireland  is  overruled  by 
Englishmen  and  Scotchmen.  At  first  sight  certainly  the 
demand  seems  reasonable  for  a  change  by  which  the  opinion 
of  Englishmen  shall  be  supreme  in  England,  of  Scotchmen 
in  Scotland,  and  of  Irishmen  in  Ireland. 

While  English  and  Scotch  elections  were  going  forward 
in  this  somewhat  incongruous  fashion,  the  opinion  of  the 
Irish  people  in  Ireland  had  been  expressing  itself  in  a  manner 
the  emphasis  of  which  could  not  be  doubted.  The  anti- 
National  party  in  their  folly  had  accentuated  the  unanimity  of 
the  country's  demand  for  self-government. 

A  fund  had  been  collected — mostly,  it  may  be  as- 
sumed, by  Englishmen  whose  venom  was  greater  than  their 
intelligence — for  the  purpose  of  supporting  so  called  Loyalist 
candidates  for  the  different  Irish  constituencies.  The  story 
is  told  that  Mr.  Forster  was  one  of  the  gentlemen  engaged  in 


554  *  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

bringing  this  statesmanlike  enterprise  to  fruition.  The  story 
ought  to  be  true,  for  the  reason  that  it  would  crown  all  his 
preceding  success  in  bringing  about  in  Ireland  the  very  exact 
opposite  to  that  which  he  desired,  and  by  his  expedients 
strengthening  and  rendering  omnipotent  the  forces  he  most 
detested.  For  these  were  some  of  the  results  of  the  starting 
of  Loyalist  candidates.  In  South  Cork,  the  Loyalist  candidate 
polled  195  votes  ;  the  Nationalist  4,820.  In  Mid  Cork  the 
Loyalist  polled  106,  the  Nationalist  5,033.  In  North  Kilkenny 
the  Loyalist  polled  174,  the  Nationalist  4,084.  In  West  Mayo 
the  Loyalist  polled  131,  the  Nationalist  4,790.  In  South  Mayo 
the  Loyalist  polled  75,  the  Nationalist  4,900.  In  East  Kerry 
the  Loyalist  polled  30  votes,  the  Nationalist  3,169. 

In  the  North  of  Ireland  alone  did  any  contest  take  place 
in  which  the  National  party  did  not  win  by  overwhelming 
odds.  There  were  two  great  disappointments.  In  Derry 
City  Liberal  electors  refused  to  remain  neutral,  but  voted 
almost  to  a  man  for  a  Conservative  of  such  a  type  as  Mr. 
C.  E.  Lewis,  in  opposition  to  a  Nationalist  of  such  a  type  as 
Mr.  Justin  McCarthy,  and  out  of  a  poll  of  3,619,  the  Conser- 
vative won  by  29  votes.  In  West  Belfast  Mr.  Sexton  was 
beaten  with  a  small  majority  of  35  on  a  poll  of  7,523.  In 
North  Tyrone  an  energetic  fight  was  made  by  Mr.  John  Dillon, 
but  he  was  defeated  by  a  majority  of  423.  A  forlorn  hope 
was  entrusted  to  Mr.  Leamy,  in  Mid  Armagh,  and  if  eloquence 
and  courage  and  wit  could  have  won  the  fight  Mr.  Leamy  was 
the  man  to  win.  But  the  odds  were  all  against  him,  and 
the  Conservative  candidate  was  returned  by  a  large  majority. 
The  great  victories  of  the  North  were  the  capture  of  South 
Deny  and  South  Tyrone.  Mr.  Healy  won  South  Derry, 
though  the  Catholics  are  in  a  minority  of  some  thousands  in 
the  population  of  the  constituency  and  in  a  minority  of  some 
hundreds  on  the  electorate.  But  the  author  of  the  clause 
which  did  more  than  anything  else  to  establish  the  rights  of 
the  Irish  tenants  to  the  property  created  by  their  own  hands 
was  popular  alike  with  Protestant  and  Catholic,  and  by  the  aid 
of  a  large  Protestant  vote  left  behind  him  both  the  Liberal 
and  the  Conservative  candidate.  In  South  Tyrone,  likewise, 
Protestant  farmers  enabled  Mr.  William  O'Brien  to  beat  the 


THE    GENERAL   ELECTION 


555 


11  candidate  of  the  landlords.  The  final  result  was  that  the 
Irish  party  fought  eighty-nine  contests  in  Ireland  and  were 
successful  in  eighty-five.  They  had  besides  won  one  seat 
in  England,  the  Scotland  division  of  Liverpool,  and  their 
entire  strength  then  at  the  end  of  the  election  was  eighty- 
six  men.  Four  of  these  have  been  elected  for  two  consti- 
tuencies. Of  the  eighty-two  elected  twenty-two  were  put  in 
gaol  by  Mr.  Forster,  warrants  were  issued  against  four 
others,  and  there  are  in  the  number  a  '48  convict,  a  '67 
convict,  and  a  '67  suspect.  By  the  action  of  the  Irish  vote 
in  England  and  Scotland,  the  Liberal  party,  meantime, 
had  been  prevented  from  obtaining  that  overwhelming  pre- 
dominance which  the  Liberal  leaders  so  ardently  desired 
and  so  furiously  fought  for.  When  all  the  contests  were 
over  the  numbers  stood  thus: — Liberals,  333  ;  Conservatives 
(counting  2  Independents),  251  ;  Nationalists,  86  ;  majority  of 
Liberals  over  Conservatives,  82  ;  majority  of  Conservatives 
and  Nationalists  over  Liberals,  4. 

The  English  press  of  all  shades  acknowledged  the  supre- 
macy of  the  position  which  the  Irish  party  had  thus  obtained, 
and  in  journals  of  all  sections  and  shades  of  opinion  Mr- 
Parnell  was  recognised  as  the  master  of  the  situation.  Even 
the  papers  which  had  most  strongly  denounced  the  manifesto 
of  the  National  League  of  Great  Britain  now  acknowledged 
that  its  advice  was  justified  by  results.  So  said,  for  instance, 
the  '  Weekly  Dispatch  '  :— 

In  common  with  the  whole  Liberal  party  (it  wrote,  December  13, 
1885)  we  had  ourselves  desired  the  election  to  result  in  a  Liberal  ma- 
jority over  Tories  and  Parnellites  combined.  On  the  supposition  that 
advocates  of  Radicalism  would  have  been  more  largely  represented 
than  ever  before  in  the  new  Government  to  be  formed,  we  were 
willing  to  hope  that  not  only  English,  but  Irish  reforms  would  thus 
be  manipulated  with  a  freer  hand  and  with  the  most  lasting  results. 
Such  a  combination,  however,  is  now  impossible.  The  Liberals  are 
in  a  strong  majority  over  the  Conservatives  ;  but  they  do  not  quite 
balance  Conservatives  and  Parnellites  combined.  This  condition  of 
things,  however,  has  its  advantages,  and  amongst  others  there  is  the 
palpable  fact  that  the  completion  of  Irish  reforms  is  no  longer  a  matter 
of  benevolent  choice,  but  of  stern  necessity. 

1   United  Ireland,  Dec.  26,  1885. 


556  THE    PARNELL   MOVEMENT 

Shortly  after  the  close  of  the  elections  the  world  was] 
startled  by  the  rumour  that  Mr.  Gladstone  was  ready  to  con-1 
cede  the  principle  of  Home  Rule,  and  had  even  gone  the 
length  of  preparing  a  detailed  scheme  of  Home  Rule.  The 
statement  was  denied  and  repeated  and  denied  again,  with  the 
final  result  that  everybody  believes  Mr.  Gladstone's  mind  is! 
made  up  upon  the  subject,  and  that  the  continuance  of  the 
struggle  against  Home  Rule  will  not  be  through  him  but  in  spite 
of  him  and  of  his  best  efforts.  To  Irishmen  this  announce- 
ment was  welcome  on  grounds  not  only  national  but  personal. 
Even  amid  all  the  bitter  struggles  of  the  last  few  years,  when 
in  the  opinion  of  Irishmen  Mr.  Gladstone  was  dealing  the 
most  deadly  blows  against  Irish  rights  and  Irish  hopes,  there 
still  remained  a  lingering  kindness  for  him  personally.  No 
Irishman  had  forgotten  or  could  forget  that  his  was  the 
eloquent  voice  and  potent  spirit  that  had  brought  the  mind 
of  the  English  people  to  believe  in  the  destruction  of  the  Irish 
Church  and  the  destruction  of  the  hideous  land  system,  and 
every  Irishman  could  sympathise  with  the  generous  hope  of 
the  man  who  has  done  so  much  for  Ireland,  that  he  should 
also  reach  the  roof  and  crown  of  things  by  establishing  peace 
and  prosperity  in  Ireland  on  the  solid  basis  of  self-govern- 
ment. Many  Englishmen  will  probably  revolt  at  the  idea  of 
Ireland  being  endowed  with  a  native  Parliament,  and  the 
contest  may  be  bitter  and  it  may  be  prolonged  ;  but  in  one 
way  only  can  it  end.  The  contest  between  the  set  purpose 
and  the  solid  ranks  of  the  Irish  people  and  the  changing 
resolves  and  shifting  fortunes  of  English  parties  is  the  contest 
between  the  sand  and  the  granite,  between  the  sea  and  the 
rock.  When  the  struggle  is  over  Englishmen  themselves  will 
rejoice  in  their  defeat,  and  will  join  in  the  satisfaction  that  the 
wrong  which  they  so  vehemently  defended  should  have  been 
replaced  by  the  right  they  so  misunderstood.  This  book  is 
an  indictment  of  the  Act  of  Union,  and  it  but  poorly  serves 
the  purposes  of  its  author  if  it  do  not  convince  many  minds 
that  that  Act  has  been  a  fatal  heritage  alike  to  the  peoples 
of  England  and  Ireland.  He  has  passed  rapidly  through 
the  hideous  era  of  famine,  through  periods  of  coercion, 
of  rebellion,  and  of  emigration,  of  which  that  Act  was  the 


THE    GENERAL   ELECTION 


557 


parent.  To  the  Act  of  Union  must  be  attributed  the 
three  famines  since  1800,  with  their  million  and  a-half  of  deaths, 
the  exile  of  nearly  three  millions  of  Irishmen,  and  that  Act 
in  eighty-five  years  has  produced  from  the  Irish  three  re- 
bellions and  from  the  British  Parliament  eighty-four  Coercion 
Bills.  To  any  Englishman,  whatever  his  party,  such  a  record 
against  any  system  of  government  by  any  other  people  but  his 
own,  and  in  any  other  country  but  in  Ireland,  would  bring  prompt 
condemnation  and  swift  resolve.  Against  Governments  much 
I  less  destructive  Englishmen  have  subscribed  and  armed  and 
died,  and  it  is  the  writer's  hope  that  some  of  the  enthusiasm 
for  liberty  which  other  struggling  nationalities  so  often  gained 
from  Englishmen  may  also  be  gained  through  this  book  for 
the  struggling  people  of  Ireland.  In  any  case  the  Irish  party 
have  now  a  great  opportunity.  Unless  the  whole  framework, 
traditions,  and  probabilities  of  English  parliamentary  institu- 
tions be  unaccountably  reversed,  they  will  hold  in  their  hands 
I  the  fate  of  every  English  Ministry.  That  power  they  will  use 
|  for  the  purpose  of  restoring  liberty,  prosperity,  and  peace  to 
their  land.  The  drear  and  tragic  monotony  of  famine,  emi- 
gration, revolt,  imprisonment,  and  death  seems  destined  at  last 
to  be  brought  to  an  end  ;  and  haply,  before  many  years  have 
passed,  the  hideous  facts  recorded  in  the  preceding  pages  will 
read  like  the  records  of  nightmares  that  fly  before  the  growing 
day. 


INDEX 


ABE 

ABERDEEN,  Lord,  151,  157,  158,  160 
Abolition  of  Purchase  Bill,  268 
Absenteeism,  17 
Active   policy,    243,    262,    278,    279, 

401 
Adair,  John  George,   171,  177,   178, 

179,  181 

Adventurers,  political,  184,  185 
Afghan  difficulty,  310 
Afghanistan,  376 
Agrarian  crime  (Ireland),    412,    413, 

414,  415,  416,  417,  426,  487,  498 

—  (1880),  413,  416,  417,  498 

—  (1882),  487 

—  (1844-1880),  414 

—  movement,  297,  302 

—  system,   290 

—  trials,  500,  501,  502,  503   504 
Agricultural  depression,  297 

—  labourers  (Irish),  182 
Alexander,  Mr. ,  156 

Allen,  William  Philip,  213,  214,  215, 

260 

Allman,  Charlotte,  321 
Amendments  to  Land  Bill,  453 
America,  64,  73,  117,  157,    182,   205, 

212,  213,  255,  260,  293,   300,   309, 

311,  320,  325,   347,   356,   362,   363, 

365-  373-  396,  397.  513 
American  army,  347 

—  civil  war,  206,  208 

—  interviewer,  356,  361 

—  Irish,  117,  202,  205,  206,  208,  212, 
282,  292,  293,  300,  301,  319 

—  Land  League,  311 
Amnesty  movement,  218,  223,  231 
Anglesey,  Marquis  of,  2 
'Annual  Register,'  35,  44,  114,  115 
Antrim  Co. ,  249,  533 
Appropriation  clause,  190 
Archdale,  Mr.,  523 

Argyll,  Duke  of,  373 
Arms  Act,  443 

—  Acts,  15,  24,  25 
Arnold,  Mr.,  550 
Arrears  Act,  496,  497,  499 

—  question,  127,  128,  453,  484,  485, 
497,  498 


BEL 
Arterial  Drainage  (Ireland)  Act,   18, 

Ashbourne,  Lord.    See  Gibson 
Assizes,  Irish  (1881-2),  480 
Athlone,  81,  134,  148,  151,   152,    153, 

154,   156,   157,   159,   160,   162,  167, 

184,  198,  510,  529,  532 
Attwood,  Mr.,  136 
Aughadrina,  171 
Aughnacloy,  522 
Australia,  161,  181,  182,  206,  208,  293, 

367.  Si9 
Avondale,  255,  257,  258,  261,  464 


BAGOT  v.  Bagot,  284 

Ballarat,  367 

Ballinahinch,  79,  81 

Ballinasloe,  301 

Ballingarry,  72,  205 

Ballinglass,  36 

Ballinrobe,  81 

Ballot,  225,  268 

Ballycastle,  537 

Ballycohey,  220,  221 

Ballykilbeg,  248 

Balzac,  353 

Bandiera  Brothers,  3 

Banim,  John,  329 

Bank  of  Ireland,  465 

Bantry,  328,  346,  353,  397,  398,  405 

—  Earl  of,  398 
Barnesmore  Gap,  229 
Barrett,  212 

Barrington,  Sir  Jonah,  254 
Barron,  Sir  H.,  112 
Barry,  — ,  209 

—  John,  368,  370,  372,  400 
-  Judge,  481 

Barton,  Capt.,  522 

—  Rev.  Mr.,  257 
Bateman,  Mr.  W.  S. ,  422 
Bates,  Sir  E. ,  537 

Battle  of  Fredericksburg,  347 
Beaconsfield,  Lord.    See  Disraeli 
Becket,  Mr.,  474 

Belfast,  247,  248,  249,  250,  264,  531 
Belgium,  307 


56o 


THE    PARNELL    MOVEMENT 


BEL 

'  Belgravia/  324 

Rellingham,  Mr.,  531 

Bentinck,  Lord  George,  35,  38 

Berkeley,  Bishop,  25,  229 

Berlin,  310 

Bessborough  Commission,  457 

Bewley,  William,  169 

Biggar,  Joseph  Gillis,  232,  242,  243, 
244,  245,  246,  247,  248,  249,  250, 
251,  270,  271,  272,  273,  274,  275, 
276,  277,  278,  285,  287,  288,  289, 
290,  302,  307,  309,  342,  343,  370, 
372,  395,  401,  420,  432,  433,  434, 
435.  437.  44L  471.  491.  492 

Bilton  Hotel,  224,  362 

Birch  v.  Redington,  70 

Birmingham,    299,     426,    447,     542, 

544 

Blackburn,  550 
'  Black  North/  The,  520 
Black  Rod,  364 
Blake,  Mr.,  101 

M.P.,  372 

—  Mrs.  James,  171 
Blakeney,  General,  3 
Blennerhasset,  R.  P.,  226,    227,  261, 

312 

Blosse,  Sir  Robert,  169 
Boiton,   550 

—  Mr.   Ge  rge,  500 
Bond,  Major,  448,  449 
Bordentown,  256 

Borough  Franchise,  Irish,  410 
Boston,  255,  352 
Bowyer,  Sir  George,  232,  263 
Boycotting,  387,  388,  428 
Boyd,  Rochford,  171 
Braddon,  Miss,  324 
Bradlaugh,  Mr.,  343,  439,  413 

-  question,  343 
Brady,  ]o°,  470,  511 
Brand,  Mr.,  499 

'Brass    Band.'     See     'Pope's     Brass 

Band' 
Brazil,  361 
Brennan,  Joseph,  318 

-  Thomas,  302,  308,  309,  395 
Brentford,  551 

Brett,  Sergeant,  213 
Brewster,  Mr. ,  160 
Briggs,  Mr.,  550 

Bright,  John,  315,  323,  343,  379,  390, 
393,  394,  426,  478 

—  clauses,  309 
British  Empire,  486,  499 

—  people,  482 
Broadhurst,  Mr.,  M.P.,  468 
Brodrick,  Mr. ,  527 
Brooks,  Maurice,  263,  372 
Browne,  Dr.,  153,  154,  160 
Brownlow,  Mr.,  17,  18,  25 
Bryan,  George,  263 

—  John  P. ,  300 
Bryce,  Mr.,  31 3 
Budget,  533 


CAV 

Burke,  General  Thomas,  209  . 

—  Mr.,  Assassination  of,  488,  489, 
490,  491,  511,  512 

Burt,  Mr.,  M.P.,  468 

Butt,  Isaac,  opposes  O'Connell  in 
Repeal  debate  in  Dublin  Corpora- 
tion, 5  ;  his  rise  to  prominence, 
223  ;  joins  Amnesty  movement, 
ib.  ;  his  advice  to  farmers,  ib.  ; 
heads  Home  Rule  movement,  225  ; 
elected  for  Limerick  City,  226  ;  his 
early  career,  229 ;  character  and 
genius,  230,  233,  234  ;  political 
difficulties,  231  ;  character  of  his 
party,  232,  238  ;  his  early  policy, 
234,  235  ;  its  failure,  238,  239,  240, 
241  ;  Biggar  contrasted  with  him, 
266 ;  reproves  Obstructives,  270, 
271  ;  denounces  their  tactics,  276, 
277  ;  explains  his  policy  at  meeting 
of  party,  280;  supports  the  Ministry, 
281  ;  retires  from  leadership,  283  ; 
decline  and  death,  284,  285  ;  re- 
view of  his  policy,  285  ;  effect  of  his 
death,  285,  286 

Byrne,  Mr.  Garrett,  368,  372,  441, 
492 


CABINET,   380,   394,   395,  424,  464, 

465 

California,  183 
Callan,  Mr.,  372,  491 
Callanan,  Dr.,  54 
Cambridge  University,  257 
Canada,  65,  104,  305,  361,  494 
Canales,  General,  354 
Cappoquin,  320 
'  Carding,'  417,  418 
Card  well,  Mr.,  189,  191,  192,  193 
Carey,  James,  370,  511,  513,  514 
Carlingford,  Lord,  458 
Carlisle,  Lord,  3,  191,  198,  215 
Carlow,  151,  153,  156,  1 60,  161,  369 
Carnarvon,  Lord,  541 
Carrickmacross,  197 
Carrick-on-Shannon,  44,  58 
Carrigaholt,  173 
Cash  man,  D.  B. ,  298 
Castelar,  Sefror,  361 
Castle.     See  Dublin  Castle 
Castlebar,  58,  308 
Castlederg,  521 
Castlerea,  59 

Castlerosse,  Viscount,  226 
Catholic  Emancipation,  i,   2,   8,   225, 

368 

'  Catholic  Telegraph,'  143 
'  Catholic  Union,'  341 
Catholic  University,  364,  368 
Catholics,  22,  71,   126,   127,   135,  138, 

139,   140,  141,    145,    147,    149,    170, 

194,    211,     219,     226,    227,     238,     248, 

328,  329,  330,  337,  341,  393 
Cavan,  250,  422,  432,  433,  521 


INDEX 


CAV 

Cavendish,  Lord  Frederick,  Assassi- 
nation of,  488  489,  490,  491,  511 

Celt  and  Saxon,  201 

Celtic  race,  102,  103 

Census,  Irish,  41,  42,  43,  46 

Census  Commissioners'  Reports 
(quoted),  44,  53-61,  63,  64,  78-82, 
117 

Central  Tenants'  Defence  Association, 
301 

Cespedes,  President,  357,  360 

Chaine,  Mr.,  533 

Chairman  of  Committees,  275,  276 

Challemel-Lacour,  M.,  326 

Chamberlain,  Joseph,  288,  289,  386, 
393-  394.  Si2,  524.  535.  542,  543, 
544.  545.  552 

Chambers,  Corporal,  300 

'Chapel  Bell,'  217 

Chaplin,  Mr.,  264,  380,  526 

Chelsea,  337,  341,  550 

Cheshire,  254 

Chester  Castle,  299 

Chicago,  24,  293,  352 

Childers,  Mr.,  433,  551 

Cholera,  82 

Christian,  Judge,  186 

Church  Bill,  268 

Churchill,  Lord  R.,  543,  546 

City  Hall  (Dublin),   315,    327,    332, 


365.  370.  37L  406 
Civil  Bill  (Ejectn 


tments),  19,  23 

Claddagh,  328 

Clancarty,  227 

Clanricarde,  Lord,  158 

Clare,  County,  82,  474,  479,480,  481, 
482,  487 

Clare  election,  368 

Clarendon,  Lord,  70,  71 

Clerkenwell  Prison,  212,  217 

Clifden,  44 

Clonmel,  220,  316 

Clontarf  meeting,  9,  10,  n 

Cldtures,  435,  491,  532 

Coalition  Ministry,  150 

Cobbett,  William,  26 

Coercion,  393,  394,  395,  396,  397, 
398,  399,  412,  413,  416,  417,  418, 
419,  420,  424,  426,  427,  442,  444, 

450.  454.  464.  472,  473.  477.   481, 
485,  489,  500,  508,   511,  529,  530, 

535.  547.  550 

Coercion  Acts,  15,  19,  20,  22,  24,  25, 
34,  35,  36,  37,  38,  70,  106,  108, 
113,  114,  115,  242,  265,  333,  402, 
411,  420,  421,  430,  445,  447,  448, 
450,  451,  452,  460,  466,  472,  473, 
474,  476,  478,  482,  484,  497,  500, 
507,  514,  533,  536,  557 

Coffins  hinged,  61,  124 

Colthurst,  Colonel,  372 

Commins,  Dr.,  370,  372,  491,  492 

Compensation  for  disturbance,  290, 
291,  3°5.  3go.  381,  383,  445- 
478 


CYP 

Compensation  for  improvements,  18, 

189,  190,  191,  192,  193 
Conciliation  Hall,  73 
Condon,  Edward  O'Meara,  213 
Confederate  Clubs,  317 
Congleton,"  254 
Congleton,  Baron,  255 
Connemara,  78,  81,  498 
Conservatives,    127,    139,    145,    157, 

162,  188,  248,  249,  416,  427,  431, 

432,  435.  48i,  482,  483,  49°,  5r9, 

529.  530.  SSL  540,  543,  545.  550, 

SSL  552,  554,  555  . 
Conservatives    opposition,  383,    384, 

410 
Constabulary  Circular,  extraordinary, 

482 

'  Constitution '  (ship),  255 
Constitutional    agitators,     224,    241, 

^  3°i.  353 

Constructive  obstruction,  490 

Cook,  Dr.,  126 

Corbet,  J.,  173 

—  Mr.,  259,  372,  441,  492 

Cork,  47,  55,  137,  145,  167,  199,  312, 
316,  317,  319,  320,  344,  377,  397, 
422,  428,  440,  495,  506,  554 

'  Cork  Constitution,"  52 

'  Cork  Daily  Herald,'  507 

'  Cork  Examiner,'  54,  316 

Cork  Historical  Society,  317 

—  Scientific    and    Literary    Society, 

Corn  Laws,  Abolition  of,  255 
1  Corruption  Committee,'  156 
Corydon,  J.,  299 
Coup  d'Etat,  Dr.  Playfair's,  491 

—  Speaker's,  437 

Courtney,    Mr.    Leonard,    273,    276, 

277,  342 

Co  wen,  Joseph,  251 
-Mr.  J.,  548 
Cowper,  Earl,  484 
Cranborne,  Lord,  551 
Cranbrook,  Lord,  272,  275 
Crawford,  Sharman,  18,  19,  25,   109, 

in,  112,    114,   146,   149,  188,  189, 
Crawford,  Sharman,  jun.,  235 
Crimes  Act,  351,  419,  484,  492,  493, 

500,  509,  515,  516,  533,  536,  540 
Crimes   (Irish),   407,   412,   413,   414, 

415,  416,  480,  481,  482,  541 
Croke,  Archbishop,  514 
Cross,  Mr.,  310,  550 

—  Sir  R.,  432 

Crowbar  Brigade,  172,  173,  179 
Crown  officials,  541 

—  prosecutors,  500,  501 

Cuban    rebellion,     357,     358,     359, 

360 
Cullen,  Cardinal,  140,   141,   153,  154, 

206 

'  Cult  of  the  jumping  cat,'  278 
Curran,  J.  P.,  201 
Cyprus,  310 

O  O 


THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


DAI 

1  DATLY  EXPRESS,'  504,  516,  523 
'  Daily  News,'    324,    361,    426,    467, 

53.0.  545 

'Daily  Telegraph,'  202,  236,  502,536 
Daly,  Mr.,  M.P.,  372,  441 

—  Mr.  James,  308 
Darwen  (Lancashire),  551 
Davis,  Thomas,  10 
Davison,  Mr.  J.  M.,  468 

Davitt,  Michael,  260,  297,  298,  299, 
300,  301,  302,  303,  438,  460,  493, 

5°7 
Dawson,  Mr.  C,  368,  369,  409,  441 

—  Captain,  538 

1  Dear  Lady  Disdain,'  324 
Dease,  J.  A.,  226 
Deasy's  Act,  191 
Delahunty,  Mr.,  366 
'  Demons   of   assass  nation   and    de- 
spair,' 202 
Dempsey,  Pat,  258 
Denman,  Judge,  15 
Deputy-Speaker.     See  Playfair 
Derby-Disraeli  Administration  (1852), 

145.  *47 

Derby,  Lord,  146,  158,  184 
Deny,  422,  554 
Derry,  South,  397,  554 
'  Derry  Standard,"  179 
Derryveigh,  177 
D'Esterre,  7 

Devon  Commission,  18,  28,  29,  190 
Devoy,  Mr.  John,  299,  301 
Dewsbury,  429 
Diaz,  General,  354 
'Dictionary  of  Commerce,'  118,  119, 

121 
Dilke,  Mr.  A. ,  468 

—  Sir  Charles,    335,   394,    419,   535, 
550 

Dillon,  Mr.  John,  309,  363,  364,  365, 
368.  385.  388.  395.  4*8,  439,  440. 
447.  452,  462,  471,  491,  492,  495, 
522,  547,  554 

—  Mr.  John  B. ,  10,  72,  73,  364 

—  Mr.  (magistrate),  178 
Dillwyn,  Mr.,  216 
Disestablished     Irish    Church.       See 

Irish  Church 
'  Dismemberment  of  the  Empire/   6, 

391.  392 

Disraeli,  Mr.,  38,  114,  139,  149,  150, 
239,  263,  264,  268,  281,  296,  310, 
311,  313,  314,  323,  375,  382,  466 

—  Administration,  252 
Dissolution  of  Parliament,  311 
Distress,  Irish,  380,  382 
Disturbance   Bill.      See   '  Compensa- 
tion for  Disturbance  Bill ' 

Doherty,  Mr.,  17 
Donegal,  177,  292,  481.,  497 
'  Dove  of  Elphin,1  153,  160 
Dowling,  161,  162 

—  Mr.  Richard,  330 
Downing,  Captain  D.  J.,  347,  348 


ENG 

Downing,  Mr.  McCarthy,  145, 235,  265 

Dowse,  Baron,  374 

Drogheda,  313,  448,  449,  477 

1  Droit  de  Seigneur,'  177 

Dromore,  331,  523,  525 

Drummond,  Mr.,  3 

Dublin,  31,  32,  55,  59,  68,  70,  113, 
164,  206,  207,  208,  214,  215,  224, 
230,  263,  278,  279,  315,  318,  328, 
33°.  355-  369.  37L  393.  402,  446, 
464,  468,  470,  507,  532,  536,  538 

—  Castle,    179,    207,    369,   496,    509, 

5'5.  537 

—  Corporation,  4,  31,  229,  370,  470 

—  county,  252,  335,  364 
'Dublin  Evening  Post,'  156 

1  Dublin  University  Magazine,'  233 

Dufferin,  Lord,  293 

Duffy,  Sir  Charles  Gavan,  9,  10,  13, 
65.  69,  70,  72,  73,  128,  138,  142, 
143,  147,  151,  156,  161,  163,  367 

Duggan,  Bishop,  171,  250 

Dunally,  Lord,  422 

'  Dundee  Advertiser/  468 

Dungannon,  522 

Dungarvan,  47,  76,  271 

Dumas,  A.  (pere),  230 

Durham,  548 

—  Earl  of,  494 

'  Durham  letter,"  129 
Durkin,  Mr.  C.,  169 
Dwyer,  Mr.  John,  221 
Dynamite  funds,  117 
Dynamiters,  395 


EATON,  Mr.  R.  M.,  537 

Ebrington,  Lord,  2 

Eccles,  551 

Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill,  139,  142, 
143,  144,  150,  191 

'Echo,  The,'  468,  502 

'  Edinburgh  Courant,'  467 

Edward  III.,  statute  of,  473,  547 

Egan,  Mr.  Patrick,  309,  395,  507 

Eglinton,  Lord,  158,  159 

Egypt,  448 

Emigration  (Irish),  63,  64,  65,  79, 
103,  104,  184,  196,  197,  198,  199, 
200,  201,  202,  241,  305,  455 

—  (1849-60  and  1861-70),  199 

—  clause,  453 
Emly,  Lord,  137,  148 
Emmet,  Robert,  207 
Encumbered  Estates  Act,  27,  102,  103 

—  Court,  185 
Engineering,  250 

England,  3,  6,  16,  17,  33,  47,  64,  67, 
73,  82,  102,  104,  107,  125,  132,  163,. 

182,  l88,  192,  194,  210,  211,  212, 
217,  219,  220,  225,  226,  230,  232, 
241,  243,  255,  282,  292,  294,  298, 

299.  30°.  3*3.  3*5.  325.  345.  353. 
383.  385-  39i.  396,  398-  399.  4°7. 
410,  418,  419,  429,  456,  464,  470, 


INDEX 


563 


ENG 
478,  481,  482,  489,  502,  512,  513, 

54°.  555 

England,  Dr.,  309 
English  landlords,  17,  103,  294,  295, 

305,  456,  499 

—  Liberals,  12,  71,  72,  187,  188,  314, 
524,  526,  530,  535 

—  members,  269,  378,  432,  434,  435, 

445 

—  Ministers,    75,   76,  115,  116,   118, 
138,  223,  239,  241,  271,  297,  322, 
377,  382,  455,  528 

—  parties,  33,  38,  147,  239,  240,  271, 
279,  280,  372,  380,  386,  430,  435, 
520,  545 

—  people,  6,   32,  64,  108,  114,  116, 
117,  130,  139,  150,  215,  318,  364, 
396,  419,  489,  512,  529,  541,  553, 
556,  557 

—  press,  200,  201,  202,  211,  235,  308, 
398,  402,  443,  467,  489,  502,  509, 
512,  513,  528,  537,  538,  539,  540, 

555 
Ennis,  386,  388,  529 

—  SirJ.,  531 

Episcopalian  Protestants,  521,  522 

Errington,  Mr.,  372 

'  Espying  strangers,'  263,  264 

Essex,  Earl  of,  196 

Established     Church     (Irish).        See 

Protestant  Irish  Church 
Estate  Rules.     See  Office  Rules 
'  Even-keel '  policy,  524 
'  Evening  Mail,1  157,  159 
Evicted  farmers,  182 

—  farms,  386,  387 

Evictions,  2,  19,  23,  24,  25,  36,  82-102, 
no,  171,  173,  177,  179,  180,  221, 
290,  291,  296,  298,  302,  304,  305, 

306,  310,  373,  378,  380,  381,  382, 
388,  411,  451,  452,  474,  478,  479, 
484,  488,  497,  498,  499,  536,  537 

Evictors,  wholesale,  171 

Exports,   Irish   (1841-49),   119,    120, 

121 
Extremists,  278,  362,  471 


'  FAIR-MINDED  Englishmen,'  281 
Fair  rents,  127,  232,  390,  391,  409,  538 
Famine,  Irish,  16,  25,  26,  32,  33,  35, 

40,  52.  53.  54.  55.  5°.  57.  58.  59.  60. 
61,  62,  63,  64,  65,  66,  78,  79,  80,  81, 
82,  108,  116,  125,  195,  241,  292,  294, 
304,  384,  455,  478,  498 
Farmers,  English  and  Scotch,  292, 536, 

537 

—  Irish,  129,  182,  222,  223,  236,  291, 

292,  293,  302,  304,  306,  308,  309, 

386,  389,  392,  454,  455,  456,  459, 
460,  462,  467,  515,  538,  557 

Farney,  197 

Fay,  Mr.  C,  372 

—  Mr.  P.  McC.,  280 
Federal  Army,  347 


GAL 


Fenianism,  205,  219,  223,  224,  225, 
227,  231,  241,  260,  299,  300,  347, 
505.  5o6.  52o 

Fermanagh,  521,  523 

Fermoy  Christian  Brothers,  398 

Fingal,  Lord,  226 

Finigan,  Mr.  Lysaght,  343,  372,  441 

Finnegan,  209 

Finsbury,  East,  551 

First  Commissioner  of  Works,  342 

Fitzgerald,  J.  D.  (Judge,  afterwards 
Lord),  167,  350,  405,  406,  501,  529 

—  Baron,  449 

—  Lord  Edward,  207 
Fitzgibbon,  Mr.,  47,  52 
Fitzwilliam,  Lord,  537 

'  Five-pound  Repealers, '  77 

'  Five  P's  '  of  Mr.  Chamberlain,  552 

Fixity  of  tenure,  127,  222,  226,  390, 

39i.  409 

Flynn,  Michael,  500,  501 
Foley,  Mr.,  372 
Foreign  legion,  353 

—  Office,  342 

'  Forgotten  slaves,'  289 

Forster,  Mr.  W.  E.,  326,  333,  380, 

382,  383,  384,  389,  390,  391,  393, 

394.  395.  4°5.  4io,  411,  412,  413, 

414,  415,  416,  417,  418,  419,  420, 

421,  422,  425,  426,  428,  429,  430, 

432,  433.  435.  436,  442,  443.  444. 

445,  447,  448,  449,  450.  451,  452, 

460,  464,  470,  472,  473,  474,  475, 

470,  477.  478«  479.  4gi.  482,  484, 

485,  486,  487,  489,  490,  491,  493, 

494,  496,  499,  507,  508,  509,  512, 

513,  514,  527,  528,  529,  532,  533, 

Fortescue,  Mr.  C.  (Lord  Carlingford), 

216 

Fort  Sumter,  255 
Forty-one  hours'  sitting,  436,  438 
Forty-shilling  freeholders,  2,  456 
'  Four  Years  of  Irish  History,'  64,  65, 

367 

Fowler,  Mr.  W.,  429 

France,  297,  307,  354,  390,  508 

Franchise,  Extension  of,  255,  517,  527 

Franco-Prussian  War,  356 

'  Freeman's  Journal,  "82,  142, 143,  145, 
157.  215,  216,  307,  361,  370,  386, 
387.  389.  390.  391.  392,  437.  461, 
463,  465,  468,  470,  504,  507,  526, 
536 

Free  sale,  127,  222,  409 

Free  schools,  543,  544 

Free  trade,  48 

French  Army,  354 

French  Republicans,  211 

Fulham,  550 


GABBETT,  Mr.,  372 
'  Galaxy,'  323 

Galway,  55,  58,  124,  148,   184,   201, 
002 


564 


THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


CAL 

250,  292,  302,  313,  391,  392,  393, 
497,  422,  423,  428,  510,  535 

Galway,  County  Election,  226,  227 

Gambetta,  M.,  297 

General  Election  of  1847,  in 

—  of  1874,  231,  250,  278 

—  of  1880,  312,  313,  331,  353,  362, 

—  of  1885,  541,  542,  543,  544,    qR3 
546,  547,  548,  549,  550,  551-  545, 
553,  554 

General    Purposes    Committee,    338, 

339 

Genoa,  69 

Gerard,  Mr.,  36 

Germans,  256 

Germany,  390 

Gibson,  Mr.  (Lord  Ashbourne),  366, 
454-  540 

Giffen,  — ,  520 

Gill,  H.  D.,  351,  372,  441,  517 

Givan,  Mr.  ,518 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  163,  193,  215,  219, 
222,  223,  225,  231,  233,  235,  239, 
245,  246,  290,  291,  300,  313,  323, 
326,  375,  379,  380,  381,  382,  383, 
389>  390,  392,  4°o,  402,  403,  408, 

409,  420,  421,  425,  426,  427,  428, 

429,  43°.  431-  435,  436,  439,  44°, 

441,  444,  446,  447,  449,  462,  467, 

470,  471,  473,  479,  485,  491,  493, 

494,  496,  497,  499,  500,  528,  531, 

533,  535,  540,  543,  544,  545,  54$, 
548,  552,  555,  556 

—  Administration  (1868-74),  I9°>  268 

—  Ministry,  530,  533 

—  Mr.  Herbert,  403 

'  Gladstone  and  Irish  Ideas,'  352 

'  Gladstone's  House  of  Commons,"  496 

'  Glasgow  Daily  News,'  467 

Glasnevin,  207 

Glengariff,  344,  346,  405 

Glenveigh,  177 

Glin,  Knight  of,  50 

Glyn's  Bank,  163 

Godkin,  James,  127,  199 

Godley,  Mr.,  104 

'  God  save  Ireland,'  214,  348 

Gordon,  General,  489,  491,  532,  533 

Gorst,  Mr.,  480,  512 

Gort,  182,  187 

Goschen,  Mr.,  493,  528,  544 

'  Gospel  of  cant,'  259 

Cosset,  Capt.,  245,  439,  440,  441,  442 

Goulding,  Mr.,  316 

Government,  4,  10,  14,  15,  18,  31,  32, 

34,  35,  37,  38,  44-  45-  4$,  47,  49,  Si. 
52,  62,  63,  64,  70,  71,  73,  78,  94, 
116,  117,  193,  194,  205,  208,  243, 
252,  266,  267,  270,  274,  275,  276, 
277,  287,  297,  308,  310,  311,  315, 
374,  375,  376,  377,  378,  380,  381, 
382,  384,  385,  386,  387,  389,  390, 
392,  394-  4°5>  4o6,  407,  408,  409, 

410,  421,  425,  429,  430,  431,  432, 
435,  436,  438,  439,  452,  461,  463, 


HER 

464,  465,  467,  468,  471,  475,  483, 
484,  485,  486,  489,  492,  493,  495,   > 
496,  497,  498,  499,  502,  509,  510, 
518,  522,  523,  525,  531,  532,  533,   * 
535,  536,  540  _ 

Government  Whips,  77 

Graham,  Sir  James,  3,  35,  139,  146 

'  Grahamising  letters,'  3 

'Grand  Old  Man,'  The,  493 

Grattan,  Henry,  18,  25,  254 

Gray,  Mr.  E.  D.,  239,  271,  310,  369, 
370,  372,  441,  470,  492,  504 

—  Sir  John,  125,  147,  175,   176,   197, 
215,  216,  222,  235,  290,  369,  370 

Green-Street  Court  House,  209,  509, 

536 
Greville-Nugent,  Capt.,  219 

—  Col.,  218 

Grevy,  President,  317 

Grey,  Earl,  36,  37,  108,  no,  114,  255, 

408 

'  Griffith's  valuation,'  348,  349 
Grosse  Island,  65 
Grosvenor,  Lord  R.,  552 
Guildhall  meeting,  466,  467 


HABEAS    CORPUS  Suspension  Acts, 

19,  20,  24,  25,  114,  208,  420 
Hamilton,  Lord  Claud,  523 

—  Lord  George,  540 
Hampden,  Lord,  338 
Hampstead  Heath,  164 
Hancock,  Dr.  W.,  293 

'  Hanging  gale,'  128,  453 

Harcourt,  Sir  W.  V.,   103,  434,  438, 

439,  490,  511,  543 
Harper  Brothers,  325 
Harrington,  Mr.  E.,  518 

—  Mr.  T.,  515,  516,  517,  518 
Harris,  Alderman,  470 

—  Matthew,  301,  302 
Hartington,  Lord,  240,  263,  264,  289, 

374-  385,  40i,  4i6,   524,  526,  543, 

545 

'  Harvey  Duff/  476,  477 
Harwich,  230 
Haslingden,  298,  299 
Hatherton,  Lord,  3 
Hay,  Sir  John,  483,  492 
Healy  Clause,  400,  402,  454,  485 

—  Maurice,  406 

—  Miss  Kate,  346 

—  Mr.    Timothy,    25,    29,   235,  244, 
246,   293,   294,   311,   312,  331,  332, 
345>    370,    397,  398,  399-    4°°,  401. 
402,   403,  404,  405,  406,  420,  426, 
436,  441,  448,  449,  454,  461,  471, 
477,  491,  495,  515,  518,  519,  522, 

554 

Hennessy,  Sir  }.  Pope,  317 
Henry,  Mr.  Mitchell,  226,  297,  446 
Herbert,  Mr.,  537 

—  Sidney,  163 

Heron,  Denis  Caulfield,  218 


INDEX 


565 


HEW 

Hewetson,  Commissary,  47 

Hicks- Beach,  Sir  M.,  230,  265,  270, 

Higgins,   Patrick  and  Michael,   500, 

501,  504,  505 
Hill,  Lord  A.,  235 
'  History  of  England '  (Lecky),  26 
'  History    of  our  own  Times,'    117, 

315,  324,  325 
Hoey,   Mr.  J.   Cashel,  125,  190,  194, 

347 
'  Home  Government  Association,'  225, 

231  I 

Home  Rule,  223,  224,  225,  228,  231, 

240,  362,  366,  368,  392,   401,  556! 

—  Confederation,  279,  280,  281,  282, 
283,  313,  337 

—  League,  252,  331 

—  Party,   226,    230,    232,    238,   240, 

241,  250,  278,  279,  280,   283,  287, 
308,  315,  392,  401,  411,  486,  530, 

53i.  532 

Hopwood,  Mr.,  550 
Horgans,  case  of,  423 
Horsman,  Mr.,  112,  189,  191 
House  of  Commons,  4,  2,  15,  18,  68, 
70,  71,  75,  103,  114,  115,  125,  131, 
137,  138,  146,  154,   165,   189,  236, 
238,  239,  240,  242,  243,  244,  245, 
246,  252,  262,  263,  264,  265,  266, 
267,  268,  269,  271,  274,  275,  277, 
279,  280,  281,  289,  290,  297,  302, 
3!0,  3iS.  327.  33i.  333,  33£>  33&S 
353.  370,  372,  373.  375-  376,   377, 
378,  38o.  38i,  384.  387,  389.  396, 
398,  401,  402,  403,  406,  407,  409, 
410,  411,  412,  413,  414,  415,  416, 
417,  418,  419,  421,  428,  431,  432, 

433.  434.  435.  43^,  437.  438,  439. 

440,  441,  442,  443,  444,  445,  446, 

451,  459,  481,  482,  485,  486,  489, 

492,  493,  495,  496,  502,  504,  512, 
513,  522,  527,  528,  531,  534 

—  Lords,    4,     18,      103,     115,  139, 
157,   158,  189,  245,  381,  382,  384, 
389,  453,  457,  458,  459,  499 

—  Representatives,  309 

'  How  the  Crimes  Act  is  Administered,' 

504,  516,  556 
Hume,  Mr.,  114 
Hyde  Park,  313 
Hynes,  Francis,  505 

—  J.,  182 


INCHIQUIN,  Lord,  72,  172 
'  Incorruptible  Parnell,'  254 
Independent  opposition,  187 
Insurrection,  206,  207,  212 
—  Acts,  20,  21,  22,  24,.  108 
Intermediate  Education  Bill,  287 
Intimidation  Clauses,  535,  536 
Jnvincibles,  470,  489,  511,  514,  547 
Ireland,  troops  poured  into,   during 
Repeal    agitation,  7  ;   famines  in, 


IRI 


25,  26  ;  condition  of,  before  the 
famine  of  1846,  28,  29,  30,  31,  40  ; 
ditto  during  the  famine,  37,  41,  42, 
43.  44.  45,  46.  47.  49.  5°.  5*.  52, 
53,  54,  55.  56,.  57,  58,  59,  60,  61, 
62,  63  ;  increase  of  emigration,  64, 
65  ;  famine  of  1848,  78,  79,  80,  81, 
82  ;  evictions  (1847-9),  83,  84,  85, 
86,  87,  88,  89,  90,  91,  92,  93,  94, 
95,  96,  97,  98,  99,  ioo,  101,  102  ; 
exports  in  famine  years,  119,  120, 

J  121,  122  ;  change  in  Irish  life 
through  famine,  123,  124,  125  ; 
wholesale  clearances  in,  171,  172, 
173,  174,  175,  176,  177,  178,  179, 
180,  181,  182,  183  ;  emigration  and 
its  effects  (1841-70),  199,  200,  201, 
202,  203,  204  ;  state  of,  in  1876-8, 
292,  293,  294  ;  evictions  in  1876-9, 
296  ;  homicides  and  outrages  in 
(1844-1880),  414,  415 

'  Ireland  for  the  Irish,'  202 

'  Ireland  in  1862,'  175 

'  Ireland  in  1868,'  47,  52,  53 

Irish  Americans,  117,  202,  205,  206, 
208,  212,  282,  292,  293,  300,  301, 

3J9 

—  authorities,  381 
Irish  Bar,  131,  132,  330 

—  Bench,  405,  520 

1  Irish  Blanqui,'  The,  367 

Irish  Board  of  Works,  46,  51,  537 

'  Irish    Brigade.'    .S>£  '  Pope's    Brass 

Band' 
Irish  Catholics,  4 

—  Church  Disestablishment,  5,  217, 
224 

Missions,  170 

—  College  in  Rome,  140 
4  Irish  Committee,'  104 

'  Irish  Crisis'  (Trevelyan's),  117 
Irish  in  England,  489,  548,  549,  555 

—  Leader,   377,  384,   388,  397,  440, 
462,  497 

—  Liberals,  531 

1  Irishman'  (newspaper),  201 
Irish  members.    See  Irish  Parliamen- 
tary Party 

—  suspension   of,   441,  491,  492 
Irishmen,   9,    n,  38,   103,    107,   114, 

146,  184,  242,  282,  283,  296,  298, 
304,  313,  315,  318,  379,  399,  400, 
434,  524,  532,  540,  548,  553,  556 

—  nation,    6,    7,   48,   76,    116,   204, 
462 

—  National  League  of  Great  Britain, 
548,  549,  550,  555 

—  Parliament,  27,  33,  219,  280,  392 

—  Parliamentary  Party,  35,  129,  146, 
150,   187,  234,  239,  240,  244,  259, 
261,  265,  266,  273,  279,  280,  282, 
297,  318,  326,  332,  336,  369,  370, 
372,  373,  376,  379,  380,  381,  393, 
437,  438,  440,  443,  444,  445,  447, 
449-  452,  453,  456,  529.  530.  S31. 


566 


PARNELL    MOVEMENT 


IRI 

532.  534,  538,  539,  540,  545,  54^, 
547,  555,  557 

Irish  people,  their  gratitude  to 
O  Connell  for  emancipation,  i  ; 
their  support  of  Repeal  move- 
ment, 5  ;  effect  of '  Nation's'  teach- 
ing on,  10  ;  importance  of  potato 
crop  to,  30,  40  ;  sufferings  in 
famine  years,  51,  52,  53,  54,  55, 
56,  57,  58,  59,  60,  61,  62,  78, 
79,  80,  81,  82,  83,  84,  85,  86,  87, 
88,  89,  90,  91,  92,  93,  94,  95,  96  ; 
emigration  of,  63,  64,  65,  104,  125, 
199,  200 ;  eviction  of,  97,  98,  99  ; 
100,  101,  102,  103,  296  ;  attitude  of 
British  people  towards,  117  ;  change 
in  manners  through  famine,  123, 
124,  125  ;  the  English  press  on 
emigration  of,  200,  201,  202  ;  affec- 
tions of,  202,  203  ;  spread  of 
Fenianism  among,  207  ;  effect  of 
Manchester  executions  on,  214 ; 
rise  of  Land  League  among,  302, 
303,  373  ;  attitude  towards  obstruc- 
tion, 302,  303  ;  joy  at  return  of 
Gladstone  Ministry  to  power,  313  ; 
religious  toleration  of,  369 

1  Irish  People  '  (newspaper),  208,  210, 
260 

'  Irish  Times,'  224 

Irish  Tories,  526,  527,  531 

Irishtown,  181,  182,  302 

Irish  vote,  282,  543,  546,  547,  548, 
549,  .550,  55i,  552,  555 

'  Ironsides  Park,    256 

'  Is  Ireland  irreconcilable?  '  125,  190 


AGOE,  Rev.  Mr.,  522 
amaica,  362 
ames,  Sir  Henry,  227 
efferson,  Thomas,  368 
effries,  Judge,  211 
enkins,  Mr.,  273 
ingo,  282 
^  ohnston,  Attorney-General,  509 

—  Mr.  William,  248,  249 
Jones,  Colonel,  51 
journalism  of  England,  200 
'Journals,   &c.,   relating  to   Ireland,' 

196,  198 

Joyce,  Myles,  503,  504 
Judges,  Irish,  131,  132,  165,  186,  210 

—  partisan,   12,   70,  73,  210,  501,  509 
Judicial  offices,  Irish,  132 

—  rents,  537,  538 
Juries,  special,  535 
Jury-packing,  12,  70,  71,  73,  500,  501, 

504,  509,  511 


KEANE,  Mr.  Marcus*  173 
Keatinge,  Mr.  R.,  137,  148 
Kells,  182 
Kelly,  Colonel,  212,  213 


LAN 

Kenmare,  Lord,  226 

Kennedy,  Captain,  81,  82-90,  92,  93, 

101 

Kennington,  529 
Kenny,  Mr.,  M. P.,  529 
Kensington,  551 
Keogh,  Mr.  W.  (afterwards  Judge), 

129,   130,   131,  132,  133,  134,  135, 

136,  137,  138-  139,  140,  141,  142, 

143,   144,  145,  146,  148,  149,  150, 

151,  152,  153,  154,  155,  156,  157, 

158,   159,  160,  161,  162,  165,  166, 

168,  210,  215,  225,  227,  237,  241, 

250,  278,  312,  316,  353,  396,  510, 

529 

Kerr,  Mr.  M.,  523 
Kerry,  226,  261,  322,  336,  497,  517, 

537,  554 

'  Kerry  Sentinel,"  517 
Kettle,  Mr.  A.  J.,  308,  309 
Kildare  and  Leighlin,  Bishop  of,  156 
Kildare  County  Convention,  414 
Kilfinane,  515,  537 
Kilkenny,  215,  220,  554 
Killala,  Bishop  of,  153 
Killen,  Mr.  J.  B.,  309 
Kilmainham,   55,   56,  466,  476,  496, 

499 

—  Treaty,  484,  485 
Kilmallock,  449 
Kilmarnock,  552 
Kilmartin,  Bryan,  541 
Kilrush  Union,   evictions  in,  82,  83, 

84,  85,  86,  87,  88,  89,  90 
Kinahan,  Mr.,  224 
King-Harman,  Colonel,  224,  239,  240, 

332,  403,  404,  523 
King's  County,  424 
Kirk,  Miss,  474,  475 
Kirke,  Mr.,  271 
Kirk-Langley,  257 
Knatchbull-Hugessen,  Mr.,  275 
Knox,  Major,  224 
Kossuth,  309 


LAROUCHERE,  Mr.  H.,  29,  421,  425, 
426,  451,  475,  548 

Labour  Rate  Act,  46,  48,  49,  52,  63 

Labourers,  Irish,  182,  453,  515 

Ladies'  Land  League,  474 

Lahiff,  Mr.,  182 

Lalor,  Mr.  J.  F.,  367 

—  Mr.  R.,  367,  370,  372,  441,  492 

Lambeth,  North,  551 

Lambton,  Hon.  Mr.  ,  494 

Lancashire,  551,  552 

Land  Act  of  1870,  221,  222,  223,  231 
235>  236,  238,  268,  290,  291,  296, 
301,  306,  374,  381,  385,  409,  453, 


1881,  ;376,  382,  386,  409, 
;  446,  477,  451,  452,  453,  454, 
457,  458>  459,  461,  462,  463,  464, 
465,  468,  483,  485,  518,  537,  538 


INDEX 


567 


LAN 

Land  Acts  and  Bills,  23,  24,  25,  189, 
190,  191,  235,  374,  400,  402,  407, 
438,  446 

—  Bill  (Mr.  Redmond's),  485 

—  Commissioners  (Bessborough),  371, 
375-  384.  385.  386,  387 

—  Court,    196,  453,    456,   457.   459' 
460,  461,  462 

—  League,  236,  297,  301,  302,  308, 
309,   310,  311,  312,  333,  348,  350, 
SSL    352.  363.  364.  365-  373.  3^0, 
381,   382,  385,  405,  407,  410,  412, 
428,    429,  417,  451,  453,  454,  457, 
459,   461,  466,  467,  468,  471,  472, 
473,    478,  483,  484,  486,  498,  507, 
511,    513,  514,  521,  538,  540,   547 

—  meetings,  302,  306,  308 

—  Question,     Irish,  17,  19,     168, 
188,    189,  190,  191,  192,  193,   194, 
195,    219,  223,  234,  290,  291,  302, 
304,    310,  372,  374,  376,  377,  380, 
386,    387,  389,  390,  453,  483,  485, 

513.  538,  54° 
Landlordism,    Irish,    297,    298.    302, 

39°,  391.  392.  46L  5°°.  501 
Landlords,     Irish,    16,    17,    18,    19, 
26,  27,  37,  78,  82,  83,  84,  85,  86, 
87,    88,    89,    90,    91,   92,   102,   103. 
104,   123,  168,   169,   170,   171,  172, 
173,    174,  175,  176,   177,  178,  179, 
236,    291,  293,  294,  295,   302,   305, 
306,    307,  310,  378,  379,  384,  388, 
390,    391,  393,  4°3.  4°7,  4°9.  4IQ. 
412,   451,  453,  457,  458,  463,  468, 
470,    483,  488,  499,  501,  520,  523, 
527,    528,  540,  555 
'  Land  of  Eire,'  299 
Lansdowne,  Lord,  115   175,  176 
Larcom,  Sir  Thomas,  179,  191 
Larkin,  Michael,  213,  214,  215,  260 
'  Last  Conquest  of  Ireland,'  13 
Lavelle,  Father,  169,  171,  172 
Law,    Right  Hon.   Hugh,   350,   395, 

402,  454 
Lawson,  Judge,  132,  501,  504 

—  Sir  W.,  411 
Leadam,  Mr.,  25 
Ltahy,  Mr.,  372,  411,  492 

Leamy,  Mr.   E.,  330,  365,  366,  372, 

434,  441,  491,  554 
Leaseholders,  453,  485,  497 
Leatham,  Mr.  W.  H.,  429,  430 
Lecky,  26 

Leeds  speech  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  462 
Legislative  independence,  392 
Leinster,  Duke  of,  196 
Leitrim,  497 

—  Lord,  169,  171,  177 
'  Levant '  ship,  255 
Lever,  Mr.  J.  O.,  313 
Levinge,  Sir  R.,  148,  157 
Lewis,  Mr.  C,  250,  554 
Liberalism  in  Ireland,  188 
Liberals,  2,  3,  113,  188,  260,  264,  269, 

275,    277,  288,  289,  427,  431,  435, 


MAC 

458,    493,  519,   53°,  532,  534,  548, 
549,    550-  552,  554,  555 
Liberal  candidates,  313,  545 ,  546,  551, 
552,  5.54 

—  Ministry,     238,     240,     315,    316, 

372,  373-  374-  375-  37$,  3?8,  379- 

382,  383,  384,  388,  389,  394,  395, 

407,  417,  434,  459,  461,  478,  483, 

489,  491,  494,  495,  526,  528,  529, 

53°,   53 i.  532,  534,  535,  538>  55o 

—  Party,    2,    188,    190,    240,     259, 
264,   273,  311,  313,  314,  383,  411, 
440,    494,  527,  531,  543,  544,  545, 

546,   547,  548,  549,  550 

—  Press,  308 

—  Whips,  240,  531 

'  Life  of  C.  S.  Purnell,'  255,  256,  257 
'  Life  of  Lord  George  Bentinck, '  68 
•  Life  of  M.  Davitt,'  298 
Limehouse,  551 
Limerick,  47,  124,  148,  280,  281,  450, 

477 

—  City  election,  226 
Lincoln,  Lord,  19 
Littleton,  Mr.  Secretary,  3 
Litton,  Mr.,  457 

Liverpool,  64,  107,  181,  321,  550,  555 
Live  stock,  Irish  (1847-49),  120,  121 
Lloyd,   Mr.   Clifford,   448,  449,  450, 

451,    473,  474.  475,  476.  47&,  4Sl* 

482 

Loan  fund,  529 
London,  31,  70,   150,  163,  184,  214 

227,    289,  299,  320,  321,  322,  335, 

353.    372,  393-  400.  488 
Longford,  218,  219,  225,  375,  389,  435, 

480 

Lonsdale,  North,  551 
Lord- Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  159,  186, 

248,  419,  475,  511,  524 
Lords'  Committee,  68 
Lough  Barra,  179 

—  Mask  murders,  501,  504 
Loughrea,  55,  171 

Lowe,  Mr.,  192,  104 

Lowther,  Mr.  J.,  297,  306,  310 

Loyalists,  Irish,  523,  524,  553,  554 

'  Loyalty  plus  Murder,'  522,  523,  524 

Luby,  Mr.  T.  C.,  208,  219 

Lucan,  Lord,  169,  171 

Lucas,  Mr.  F.,  127,  147,  151,  161, 

163.  323 

—  Mr.  S.,  323 
Lydon,  ].,  424 
Lynch,  Mr.,  18,  25 
Lyons,  Dr.,  433,  435 


MAAMTRASNA  Massacre,  503 
Macartney,  Mr.,  235 
Macaulay,  Lord,  70 
Macclesfield,  321 

MacDonnell,  Dr.  Robert,  208,  209 
Macfarlane,  Mr.,  372 
MacGahan,  Mr.  J.  A.,  358 


568 


"  THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


MAC 

Mackay,  Capt.,  506,  507 
MacKnight,  Dr.,  127 
MacManus,  Thomas  Bellew,  206 
'  Macmillan's  Magazine/  533 
MacNevin,  R.  C.,  159 
M'Award,  Widow,  179 
McCarthy,  Col. -Sergeant,  300 

—  Mr.  J.,    41,  61,  117,  187,  297,  315, 
316,  317,  320,  321,  322,  323,  324, 
325,  326,   327,  371,  372,  374,  375, 
398,  409,  435,  436,  441,  491,  493, 

554 

—  Mr.  J.  H.,  529 
McClure,  Sir  Thomas,  249 
McCoan,  Mr.,  371,  372,  441 
McCormack,  Miss,  imprisoned,  474 
McDonough,  Ellen,  479 

M'Gee,  Mr.  T,  D.,  72,  73 
McGrath,  M.,  404,  405,  406 
Mcliale,  Archbishop,   141,  153,   154, 

298 

McKenna,  Sir  J.  N.,  372 
McKie,  Major,  101 
M'Mahon,  Evor,  196 
McMahon,  Mr.,  M.P.,  529 

—  Michael,  173 
McMechan,  Mr.,  248 
Magan,  Capt.,  148 

Magistrates,  Coercion,  474,  475,  515, 

5i6 
.  Maguire,  John  Francis,  127,  147,  189, 

192,  193,  205 

—  Thos. ,  213,  214 
Mahdi,  The,  361 
Maher,  Father,  156 

Mahon,  The  O'Gorman,  367,  368,  372, 

441,  442 

Mail  service,  Transatlantic,  184 
Mallon,  Superintendent,  465 
Mallow,  505,  509,  510 
Mambi  Land,  358 
Manayunk,  300 
Manchester,   212,  213,   216,  217,  260, 

55° 
'Manchester    Examiner,'    467,    468, 

552 

'  Manchester  Review,'  202 
Mangan,  Curley,  404,  405 
Mansion  House  Relief  Committee, 

306,  370 

. '  Mark  Lane  Express,'  31 
Maryborough,  Duchess  of,  306,  310 

—  Duke  of,  310,  468 
'  Martin,  James,'  362 

Martin,  John,  214,  219,  225,  226,  251, 
252 

—  P.,  235,  372 

Marum,  Mr.,  367,  372,  441,  491,  492 

Marylebone,  East,  551 

Marwood,  504 

'  Mary '  of  the  Nation,  320 

Maryborough,  254 

Mathew,  Rev.  Theobald,  41,  42 

Mathews,  Acting-Constable,  516 

Mauritius,  317 


MUR 

Maximilian,  Emperor,  354 
Maynooth,  15 

Mayo,  42,  64,  78,  8r,  82,  124,  147, 
292,  298,  302,  369,  393,  497,  507, 

535,  554 
Mazzim,  3 

Meagher,  Thomas  Francis,  318,  366 
Meath,  147,  203,  226,  251,  289,  328 

—  Bishop  of,  153 
Mechanics'  Institutes,  328 
Melbourne,  293 

—  Lord,  17,  255 

—  Ministry,  4 

Meldon,  Mr,  C.,  240,  312,  372 

Metge,  Mr.,  369,  441,  491 

Mexico,  354 

Midlothian  campaign,  374,  375,  552 

Migratory  Labourers,  292,  293 

Milbank,  Mr.,  433 

Militia  Bill,  145 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  29,  322 

Millstreet,  477 

Milltown-Malbay,  172,  474 

Ministerial  party,  239,  401,  416,  431, 
491,  494,  495,  511 

Ministers,  289 

Mitchel,  John,  10,  n,  13,  14,  32,  33, 
35.  49-  So,  52,  69,  70,  71,  72,  251, 
317,  318,  365,  367,  401 

Mitchel's  '  History  of  Ireland,'  49,  108 

Mitchelstown,  537 

Moate,  148,  158 

Moderate  Home  Rulers.  See  Nomi- 
nal Home  Rulers 

Molesworth  Hall,  289,  365 

Monaghan,  County,  242,  250,  518,  520, 
521,  532 

Monaghan,  Judge,  178 

Monk,  Mr.,  273 

Monroe,  Mr.  J.  (Q.C.),  519 

Monsell,  Mr.     See  Lord  Emly 

Monteney,  354 

Moore,  George  Henry,  147,  151,  189 

-  Mr.,  235 

—  Mrs.,  474,  475 
Morales,  General,  359 
Moriarty,  Bishop,  227 
Morley,  Mr.  John,  533 

'  Morning  Star,'  322,  323 

Moroney,  Mrs.,  474 

Morrisson's  Hotel,  300 

Mostyn,  Sir  P.,  537 

Mountjoy  Prison,  208,  209 

Mount  Nugent,  173 

Mulgrave,  Lord,  3 

Mulhall's   'Dictionary  of    Statistics,' 

199,  200 

Mulholland,  Mr.,  235 
Mullingar,  517 
Municipal  Councils,  4 

—  elections,  Ireland,  482 

—  reform,  4 
Munster,  127 

Murders  in  Ireland  (1844-1880),  415 
Murphy,  Mr.  N.  D.,  312,  313 


INDEX 


569 


MUR 

Murphy,  Serjeant,  186 

'  Murty  Hynes,'  349,  350,  352 

Mutiny  Bill,  267,  272 

'  My  Enemy's  Daughter,'  324 


NAAS,  464 

—  Lord  (Earl  of  Mayo),  159,  162 
Nagle,  Alderman,  507 

Naish,  Attorney-General,  510 

Napier,  Sir  J.,  188 

'Nation'  (newspaper),  10,  66,  128, 
129,  142,  143,  155,  157,  165,  166, 
167,  187,  200,  201,  279,  280,  328, 
330.  331-  S32,  346,  347.  348,  397. 

.    4°r 

National  Convention  (1881),  447,  460 

—  Education  Commissioners,  196 

—  League,  293 

—  meetings  in  Ulster,  521,  522,  523, 

524.  525 

—  party,   33,    68,   70,   140,    188,  252, 
261,  279,  316,  372,  377 

—  schools,  196 

Nationalists,  218,  219,  246,  253,  265, 
299,  301,  302,  313,  372,  390,  519, 
520,  521,  530,  535,  542,  548,  554, 

Neligan,  Mr.  J.  C.,  517 
Nelson,  Rev.  Isaac,  369,  441,  531 
Newcastle,  398,  548 

—  Duke  of,  158,  162 
Newdegate,  Mr.,  139 

'  New  Departure,'  301 

Newgate,  212 

'New  Ireland'  (quoted),  40,  44,  45, 
50,  51,  124,  127,  137,  146,  147,  151, 
163,  164,  165,  178,  180,  253,  270, 

273.  343.  36a 
New  Orleans,  318 
Newport,  Sir  John,  17 
New  Ross,  147,  389,  390 
New  Rules,  276,  335 
Newry,  521 
Newtown,  551 
New  York,  184,  255,  300,  311,  352, 

355.  356 

'  New  York  Herald,'  356,  357,  358 
New  York  '  Irish  People,'  347 
New  Zealand,  293 
Nicholls,  Mr.  F.,  182 
Nicholson,  Mr.,  171,  182 
Nimmo,  Mr.  Alexander,  28 
Nolan,  Colonel,  227,  250,  271 
Nominal  Home  Rulers,  263,  379,  528, 

529-  53i 

4  No  Popery,   130,  249,  545 
'  No  Rent,'  69,  367 
'  No-Rent '  Manifesto,  453,  461,  471 
Normanby,  Lord,  3 
N orris,  Mr.  (solicitor),  164 
Northampton,  426 
North  and  South  League,  126,  127 
Northcote,  SirS.,  240,  273,  274,  275, 

333-  433.  435.  4^8,  524,  526 


o'co 

'  Northern  Times,'  321 
'  Northern  Whig,'  519 
Norton,  Mr.  Thomas,  154,  155 
Notices  to  quit,  151 
Nulty,  Bishop,  173 


O'BEIRNE,  William,  136 
O'Brien,  Mr.  Barry,  18,  190 

—  Judge,  501 

—  M.  (alias  Gould),   213,  214,  215, 
260 

—  Mr.  Peter,  350 

—  Mrs. ,  505,  508 

—  Sir  Patrick,  232,  239,  372 

—  William,   487,  488,  505,  506,  507, 
508,  509,  510,  511,  554 

—  William  Smith,   18,  25,  70,  72,  73 
205,  316,  318,  345 

Obstruction,  243,  261,  268,  273,  275, 
287,  288,  304,  432,  433,  434,  496 

Obstructive  policy,  277 

Obstructives,  268,  269,  272,  275,  277, 
283 

O'Connell,  Daniel,  his  work  for  the 
Irish  people,  i,  2 ;  disappointed 
with  Emancipation,  2  ;  starts  Repeal 
agitation,  2  ;  opposed  by  Liberals, 
2,  3  ;  prosecuted,  3  ;  reviles  Whigs, 
3  ;  his  Repeal  motion  defeated,  3  ; 
works  for  redress  of  minor  griev- 
a/nces,  3  ;  is.  elected  Lord  Mayor  of 
Dublin,  4  ;  supports  Melbourne 
Ministry,  4  ;  again  starts  Repeal 
agitation,  4  ;  carries  Repeal  motion 
in  Dublin  Corporation,  5  ;  effect  on 
agitation,  5  ;  his  action  after  Tara 
meeting,  6,  7  ;  habits  and  daily 
life  at  this  time,  7  ;  character  of 
speeches,  8,  9  ;  his  attitude  towards 
Young  Irelanders,  10,  n  ;  his  action 
atClontarf,  n,  12  ;  effect  on  Repeal 
movement,  12  ;  prosecuted  and  im- 
prisoned, 12  ;  is  released,  13  ;  'a 
broken  man,'  13;  popular  opinion, 
14  ;  decay  of  his  power,  15  ;  calls 
attention  of  Government  to  im- 
pending famine,  31  ;  his  proposals 
for  relief  of  distress,  33  ;  split  with 
Young  Irelanders,  67  ;  his  great 
speech  on  Land  Question,  68  ;  his 
death,  69  ;  character  of  his  Parlia- 
mentary supporters,  73,  74,  75,  76  ; 
his  attitude  towards  the  Russell 
Ministry,  no 

—  John,  9,  69,  77,  78,  in 
O'Connor  and  Malone,  Messrs.,  171, 


,173 
'Co 


O'Connor,  Mr.  Arthur,  335,  336,  337, 

338.  339.  340.  34L  342,  343.  372, 
441,  471,  492 
O'Conor,  Don,  The,  362,  519 

—  Miss  Mary,  474,  476 

—  Mr.  John,  529 

—  Mr.  T.  P.,  370,  372,  441,  491 


570 


THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


O'DO 

O'Doherty,  Kevin  Izod,  318 
O'Donnell,  Mr.  F.  H.,  271,  272,  273, 

297,  326,  440,  491 
O'Donoghue,  The,  235,  374,  441 
O'Donovan   (Rossa),  Jeremiah,  205, 

208,  218 

1  Office  Rules,1  169,  175 
O'Flaherty,  Anthony,  137,  148 

—  Edmund,  137,  143,  150,  160,  161, 
163,  165,  166 

O'Gorman,  James,  173 

—  Major,  271,  366 

—  Mahon.     See  Mahon,  O'Gorman 
O'Grady,  Hon.  Michael,  181 
O'Hagan,  Mr.  Justice,  457 
O'Kelly,  James,  224,  353,   354,   355, 

356,  357,  358,  359,  36°-  36l>  362, 
363-  370.  372,  4"«  471,  492,  547 
O'Leary,  John,  208,  319 

—  Dr.,  265 
Oldham,  550 

'  Old  Ironsides,'  256 

Omagh,  522 

O'Neill,  Edmund,  450 

Opposition,  239,  289 

Orangeism,  194,   248,  249,   318,  372, 

378,  521,  522,  524,  525,  526 
Orange  juries,  535 
Orange  Press,  393,  524 
Orange  meetings,  525 
Orange  Toryism,  229 
Ormsby  estate,  169 
O'Rourke,  Father,  32,  35,  42,  44,  45, 

47,  48,  49,  51,  52,  56,  107,  108 
Osborne,  Mr.  Bernal,  19,  191,  366 
O'Shaughnessy,  Mr.,  529 
O'Shea,  Captain,  372,  496,  497,  531 
O'Sullivan,  D.,  477 

—  W.     H.     309,     372,     441,     450, 
492 

1  Our  Vow,'  350 

Outrages,  agrarian  (1880),  412,  413, 

414,  416,  417 
(1844-80),  414.  415 

—  • —  (1880  and  1 88 1  compared),  480 
(1882),  487 


PACIFIC  Railway,  323 

Paddington,  North,  551 

Palace  Yard,  238,  324 

Palles,  Chief  Baron,  250 

Pall  Mall,  336,  337 

'  Pall  Mall  Gazette,'  278,  443,  467, 
468,  471,  500,  502,  519,  540,  552 

Palmerston,  Lord,  145,  160,  166,  168, 
169,  190,  192,  193,  194 

Papal  Aggression,  130 

Paris,  356 

Parliament  (British),  3,  4,  6,  14,  16, 
20,  22,  23,  24,  28,  32,  33,  34,  38, 
74,  78,  80,  83,  89,  91,  92,  94,  102, 
104,  105,  106,  107,  108,  113,  114, 
115,  118,  137,  140,  154,  183,  215, 
217,  218,  223,  236,  239,  261,  264, 


PAR 

268,  271,  280,  288,  297,  302,  305, 
306,  310,  312,  315,  316,  342,  343, 
362,  368,  371,  373,  375,  379,  380, 
382,  383,  401,  407,  409,  411,  424, 
425,  427,  429,  432,  437,  440,  446, 
447,  451,  452,  453,  454,  455,  457, 
458,  461,  472,  480,  493,  494,  496, 
510,  511,  525,  526,  527,  528,  529, 

^  53.0,  531,  540,  545 

Parliamentarians,  187,  237 

Parliamentary  agitation,  69,  241,  278, 
312 

'  Parliamentary  History  of  the  Irish 
Land  Question,1  18,  150 

Parnell,  Mr.  C.  S.,  i,  215,  237, 
245,  251  ;  contests  Dublin  County, 
252  ;  rep  ignance  to  speaking,  253  ; 
history  of  his  family,  254,  255,  256, 
257  ;  his  early  years,  257  ;  lessons 
of  youth,  258-9,  260;  hatred  of 
cruelty,  259  ;  turning  point  of  life, 
260  ;  country  life,  261  ;  how  he  took 
up  Obstruction,  261-2  ;  first  efforts 
in  the  House,  262,  263,  267,  268, 

269,  270  ;  nucleus  of  his  party,  271  ; 
wrath  of  the  House,   272  ;  motion 
to  suspend  him,  274,  275  ;  opposes 
South  Africa   Bill,    273,  276,  277 ; 
policy    approved   in   Ireland,    278, 
303,  304  ;  explains  it  at  Home  Rule 
Conference,  281  ;  elected  President 
of  Home    Rule    Confederation    of 
Great   Britain,  283  ;  appointed   on 
Obstruction  Committee,  288  ;  fights 
flogging   clauses  of  Army  Regula- 
tion Bill,  289  ;  opinion  of  London 
papers   about  him,  289,   290  ;  how 
he  became   a    |.nn<i  I  .pagner.  ^^ 
304;   at    \Vestport,   306,    307  ;  de- 
clares    for    'Peasant    Proprietary.' 
307  ;_jidvises  farmers   '  to  keep  a 
firm  "grip  oTttielrnTornesteads  '  307. 
3o8T"eflUil    of    hlsjoinjpff-Land 
rfftrrcnfiont, — 36TTJ Cand    League 
founded,  308,  309 ;  visits  America, 
309  ;  founds  American  Land  League, 
311  ;  prepares  for  Election  of  1880, 
311  ;    his    difficulties   as    to  funds 
and  candidates,   312  ;  returned  for 
Cork  City,  313  ;  his  view  as  to  sup- 
porting     Liberals,      314 ;     elected 
leader  of  Parliamentary  party,  372  ; 
speaks  on  Amendment  to  Queen's 
Speech,    377 ;    obtains    concession 
from   Government,    380  ;    difficulty 
as  to  policy,   385  ;  advises  fanners 
not  to  give  evidence  before  Land 
Commission,  386,  387  ;  recommends 
boycotting,    387';    his  justification, 
388  ;   his  attitude  towards   Shaw's 
party,    389 ;    opinion     on     '  Three 
FV    and    'Peasant    Proprietary,' 
390 ;    on    '  compensation  to  land**'*' 
lords,'  391  ;  on  Irish  legislative  in- 
dependence,   391,    392  ;     trial  for 


INDEX 


PAR 

conspiracy,  395,  396,  397  ;  his 
amendment  to  Queen's  Speech 
(1881),  409 ;  misquoted  by  Glad- 
stone, 428  ;  moves  that  Gladstone 
be  no  longer  heard,  440  ;  '  named,' 
ib.  ;  suspended,  441  ;  proposes  ab- 
stention from  debates,  452  ;  attitude 
towards  Land  Courts,  456,  457, 
458,  459  ;  adopts  Test  Case  policy, 
460-1  ;  attacked  by  Gladstone  at 
Leeds,  462,  463  ;  replies  to  him  at 
Wexford,  463,  464  ;  is  arrested  and 
lodged  in  Kilmainham,  465,  466  ; 
Gladstone  on  his  arrest,  466,  467  ; 
comments  of  British  Press  and 
politicians,  467,  468  ;  Irish  feeling, 
468,  469,  470 ;  Coercion  regime 
during  his  imprisonment,  473,  474, 
475,  476,  478,  479 ;  his  victory 
over  Government  in  the  Kilmain- 
ham treaty,  484,  485  ;  Mr.  Forster's 
testimony,  486  ;  suspension  of  Irish 
members  for  opposing  Crimes 
Bill,  491  ;  his  anxiety  as  to  Arrears 
Question,  497  ;  speech  on  the  sub- 
ject, 497 ;  drafts  Mr.  Redmond's 
Land  Bill,  499  ;  Mr.  Forster's  great 
speech  against  him,  513  ;  its  effect 
on  the  Irish  people,  514  ;  National 
Tribute  started,  514,  515  ;  declares 
for  Legislative  independence,  543  ; 
master  of  the  situation,  555 
Parnell,  Tohn,  254,  260 

—  Henry,  255 

—  Miss  Fanny,  260,  276 

—  Mrs.,  260 

—  Sir  Henry,  254 

—  Sir  John,  254 

—  Thomas,  254 
Parnell  Tribute,  514,  515 
Parnellites,   370,  372,  376,  380,  381, 

382,   431,  440,  445,  493,   496,  507, 

529,  555 

Party  Processions  Act,  248 
Patterson,  Colonel,  26 
Patton,  Dr.,  523 
'  Paul  Massey,"  323 
Paymaster  of  Forces,  255 
Peace    Preservation     (Ireland)     Bill, 

443 
Peasant   proprietary,    301,  307,    372, 

390,  453,  461,  483,  497 
Peel,  Mr.  F.,  144 

—  Sir  Robert,   4,  6,  8,  9,  15,  22,  24, 
33.  35.  38-  46,  70,  71,  94.  ioi,  103, 
no,  113,  114,  191,  192,  193,  154, 
408 

Peelites,  144,  149,  150,  160,  162,  163, 

301,  307 

Pennefather,  Judge,  12 
Pennsylvania,  300 
'  Pere  Goriot,'  246 
Perraud,  M.,  175 
Phelan,  Mr.,  93,  94 
Philadelphia,  352 


QUE 

Phoenix  Park  murders,  488,  489,  490, 

491,  511,  512,  540,  547 
Phoenix  Society,  347 
Pigott,  Chief  Baron,  177 

Plague  of  1846-7,  53,  54,  55,  56,  57, 

58,  59,  60 
Playfair,  Dr.  L.,  432,  433,  435,  454, 

492,  496 

Plunket,  Hon.  Mr.,  226 

—  Lord,  170 

—  Lord  Chancellor,  3 
Pochin,  Mr.  H.  F.,  537 
Polish  patriots,  211 
Political  prisoners,  299 
Pollock,  Mr.  Allan,  171 
Pomeroy,  521 

Poor  law,  37,  197 

Poor  Law  Commissioners'  Report  of 

,  1846,  57 

Poor  Law  inquiry  of  1835,  29 

Pope,  The,  161 

'  Pope's  Brass  Band,'  The,    140,  142, 

145,  147,  150,  155,  161,  162,  167 
Poplar,  313 
Portlaw,  329 
Potato   crop,  The,   30,  40,  79,  282, 

293,  294,  305,  306 

—  blight,  30,  31,  32,  41,  78,  79 
Power,  Dr.  Maurice,  137,  145 

—  Mr.   John    O'Connor,     245,    271, 
272,  273, 279,  297,  302,  437,  441,  550 

—  Mr.  Richard,  234,  239,  271,   365, 
366,  372,  491,  492 

Presbyterians,  126,  127,  520,  521,  522 
Prince  of  Wales,  249,  263 

—  Regent,  255 
Pringle,  Mr.,  519 
Prior,  Mr. ,  17 

Prisoners,  Treatment  of,  208,  209,  269 
Prisons  Bill,  268,  269 
Prisons,  Death  in  (in  1846),  58 
'  Privilege !   Privilege  ! '  436 
Procedure  Rules,  485 
Protectionist  Conservatives,  149 

—  party,  38,  70,  230 

Protection  of    Person  and  Property 

Bill,  490 
Protestant   Irish  Church,  2,  190,  191, 

193,  215,  216,  217,  222,  225 

—  jurors,  71,  500 

Protestants,    4,    135,    170,    224,  393, 

519,  521,  522,  523,  524 
Prussia,  307 
Purchase  Clauses  of  Land  Act,  483, 

497 
Purdon,  Mr.,  224 


QUEEN,  The,  210,  249,  250,  318,  379 
'  Queens.  Parnell,'  169,  171,  172,  182, 

350 
Queen's  Bench  (Ireland),  254,  396 

—  County,  177,  335,  367,  480 

—  Letter  re  Famine,  117 

—  Speech  (Session  of  1845),  34 


572 


THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


QUE 

Queen's   Speech,    Session    of    1880, 

376,  380,  577 
Session  of  1881,  407,  409,  410, 

4iS.  4i6 
Queenstown,  206,  311,  365 


RABAGAS,  204,  232,  237,  529 
Rack-renting,   17,   116,  290,  291,  309, 

382,  408,  455,  456,  459,  460,  478 
Radicals,  139,  259,  276,  288,  378,  383, 

407,  410,  429,  528,  544,  545,  550 
Raikes,  Mr.,  273,  275,  288 
Rathdrum,  258 
Rathmines,  523 
Reading,  551 

'  Realities  of  Irish  Life,'  174,  197 
Recess  of  1880,  385 

—  of  1882,  500 

'  Record  of  Traitorism,'  144,  145, 146, 
147,  154,  156,  157,  158,  159,  165, 
166,  167 

Redistribution  Bill,  335,  528,  532 

'  Red  List,'  254 

Redmond,  Mr.  J.  E.,  441,  485,  491, 

499 

—  Mr.  W. ,  405 

—  Mr.  W.  H.  K.,  519 
Reform  Act  of  1832,  2 
Reginald's  Tower,  366 
Registration  of  voters,  341 

—  associations,  521 
Relief  Act,  61,  310 

—  Committees,  306,  309,  310,  373 

—  of  Distress  Bill,  380,  384 

—  works,  46,  50,  51,  52,  62,  63 
Remittances  of  Irish  exiles,  293 
Renan,  M. ,  317 

Rent  question,  113,  196,  294,  305, 
306,  409,  417,  452,  453,  456,  457, 
458,  459,  460,  472,  473,  474,  478, 
484,  497,  498,  536,  537,  538,  541 

Repeal,  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  7,  8,  9,  10,  13, 
15.  67,  77,  105,  115,  116,  215,  229 

Returns  of  Irish  Crime,  421,  422,  423, 
424,  425,  426,  430,  432 

Reynolds,  Miss,  imprisoned,  474 

Ribbonmen,  148,  157 

Rio  Grande,  354 

Rio  Janeiro,  361 

'  Road  Fever,'  53 

Roche,  Mr.  (Lord  Fermoy),  149 

Roebuck,  Mr.,  192 

Rogers,  Mr.  Thorold,  547,  550 

Rome,  69 

Ronayne,  Mr.,  261,  265 

Roscommon,  99,  497 

Rosslea,  521 

Rossmore,  Lord,  522 

Rotherhithe,  551 

Rotunda,  252,  261,  278 

Routh,  Sir  R.,  48 

Royal  Agricultural  Society,  31,  199 

—  Palace,  342 
Royalty,  264 


SIC 

Rules  of  Procedure,  485,  496 

—  of  the  House,  267,  342 

—  of  Urgency,  436,  442,  444 
Russell,  Mr.  C.,  431 

—  Mr.  George,  550 

—  Lord  John,  32,  33,  38,  39,  46,  47, 
48,    70,   71,   76,  94,   105,   106,   107, 
108,    109,  no,   in,   112,   113,   114, 
115,  117,  129,  130,  139,  145,  149 

Russell-Gladstone  Ministry,  216 
Russia,  299,  307 


SADLEIR,  James,  148,  163,  167 

—  John,  131,  137,  138,  139,  140,  141, 
142,  143,   145,    147,   148,  150,  151, 
I53>   I5S>  I6o«   161,  162,  163,   164, 
165,  166,  210,  219,  278,  353 

Sadleir's  Bank,  137,  161,  163,  164 
St.  George's  Club,  342 

—  in  the  East,  551 

St.  Stephen's  Green,  364 
Salford,  213,  214,  550 
Salisbury,  Lord,  116,  496 
Sandeau,  M.  Jules,  63 
San  Francisco,  207 
1  Saturday  Review, '  202 
'Saunders'  News  Letter,'  82 
Saunderson,  Major,  522 
Scotch  landlords,  103 

—  press,  467 

—  tenants,  196,  197  ' 
Scotchmen,  48,  311,  553 
Scotland,  103,  107,  282,  292,  300,  305 

313,  315,  468,   536,  537,  543,  549, 

5S.I..  555 

• —  division  of  Liverpool,  555 
'  Scotsman,'  471 
Scrope,  Mr.  Poulett,  18 
Scully,  Mr.  Frank,  137,  148 

—  Mr.  Vincent,  137,  145,  148 

—  Mr.  William,  220,  221 
Secret  societies,  206 
Selborne,  Lord,  458 

Senior,    Mr.    Nassau,   195,   196,    197, 

198 

Sergeant-at-Arms.     See  Gosset 
Sexton,   Mr.  Thomas,   244,   326,  327, 

328,  329,   330,   331,   332,  333,  334, 

335.   366,   372,  395.  401,  434.  44*. 

471,  482,  491,  493,  495 
Shaw-Lefevre,  Mr.,  434,  551 
Shaw,   Mr.    William,   287,    313,    365, 

37°.  37L  372,  373.  376,  378,  379-  4" 
Shea,  Mary,  175 
Shee,  Serjeant,  189,  191 
Sheehy,  Father,  450,  460 
Sheerin,  James,  169 
Sheil,  Mr.,  M.P.,  231,  271,  492 

—  Richard  Lalor,  76,  no 
Sheridan,  General,  356,  357 

—  H.  B.,  269 

Sherlock,  Mr.  T.,  255,  256,  257 

—  Serjeant,  235 
Sickles,  General,  361 


INDEX 


573 


SIM 

Simon,  Serjeant,  429 

Sinclair,  Mr.,  M.P.,  533 

Sioux  Indians,  361 

Sitting  Bull,  361 

Skibbereen,  44,  52,  61,  64,  205 

Sligo,  160,   331,   332,  437,  480,  427, 

510 

—  Marquis  of,  171 

Smith,  Mr.  W.  H.,  483,  486,  540 

Smithwick,  Mr.,  372,  441 

Smyth,  Mr.  P.  J.,  226,  235,  372,  529 

Solicitor-General  for  Ireland,  159 

Somerville,  SirW.,  109,  in 

'  Song  from  the  Backwoods, '  347 

Soudan,  260 

'Soupers,'  170 

'  Soup  Kitchen  Act,'  62,  63,  107,  122 

South  Africa,  268,  272,  273,  276,  277, 

376 

Southwark  School  Board,  341 

Speaker,  The  (Sir  H.    Brand),   242, 

243,   274,  275,  276,  288,  334,  335, 

338,    342,   353,  377,  380,  420,  428, 

432,   433,  435,  436,  437,  438,  439 

Special  magistrates.    See  Magistrates 

Spencer,  Lord,   475,   500,    509,    517, 

518,   524,  525,  526,  532,  534,  535, 

S36.   537.  540.  546 
•Standard,'  467,  536,  537,  552 
Stanley,  Lord,  17,  18,  25,  35 

—  Mr.  Lyulph,  550 

State  trials,  212,  223,  230,  395,  396 
Statistical  Society  of  Dublin,  209 
Stephens,  Mr.  James,  205,  208,  212 
Stevens,  Mr.,  164 
Stewart,  Commodore,  255,  256,  257 

—  Miss,  255 
Stockport,  550 
Storey,  Mr.,  M.P.,  548 
Straide,  298 

Strangers'  Gallery,  433,  495 

Sub-Commissioners  under  Land  Act, 
458 

Sub-letting  Act,  19 

Sullivan,  A.  M.,  40,  42,  44,  45,  50, 
124,  150,  164,  169,  181,  187,  215, 
221,  224,  232,  251,  252,  264,  270, 
271,  297,  330,  343,  346,  353,  362, 

439.    440.  44i 

—  D.  B.,  330 

—  Sir  Edward,  510 

—  T.  D.,   144,   145,    146,    149,   154, 
156,    157,   158,   159,   165,   166,   167, 
187,   214,  332,  345,  346,  347,  348, 

349.    350.  3Si.  352,  353.  372,  395- 

441,   491,  492 
Suspects,  497 
Suspension  of  Evictions  Bill,  379,  380, 

382,  383 

—  of  Irish  Members,  441,  491 
Sweeney,  209 

Swift,  Dean,   'Modest  Proposal,'  17, 

—  Mr.  Richard,  162 
Synan,  Mr.,  372 


TYR 

'  TABLET,'  147 
Talbot,  T.  R.,  423 
Tara,  5,  6 
Taylor,  Colonel,  252,  253 

—  Mr. ,  235 

Tenant  League,  127,   128,   129,  130, 

142,  145,  147,  149,  151,  152,  153, 
161,   187,   191,  215 

—  right,  5,  33,    106,  109,  no,  in, 
126,  127,  130,  138,  139,  142,  149, 
192,  210,  520 

—  Right  Bills,  188,  189,  194,  235 
Tenants,  Irish,  17,  18,  19,  28,  29,  40, 

64,  108, 194,  225,  291,  292,  295,  301, 

306,  307,  372,  379,  381,  384,  388, 
390.  39L  395.  407,  412,  445.  45i. 
453.  454.  455.  456,  457,  458,  459, 
460,  461,  474,  478,  483,  485,  488, 
497,  498,  499,  536,  537,  554 

Test-case  policy,  459,  460,  461,  463 
Texas,  355 

Thomasson,  Mr.,  550 
Thomond,  Marquis  of,  72 
Thompson,  T.  C. ,  432,  548 
Thorn's  Almanac,'  119,  120,  122,  292 
1  Three  F's,'  The,  127,  222,  301,  304, 

307,  389,  390,  409 
Thurles,  164 

'Times, 'The,  104,  200,  201,  255,  321, 

375.  394.  488,  489,  513,  523,  536, 

539.  545,  546 
Tipperary,  81,  82,  124,  137,  148,  164, 

218,  219,  221,  251,  365,  418,  422, 

423,  477,  481 

—  Bank,  136,  137,  161,  163,  164 
Tithes,  i,  447,  456 

Tone,  Theobald  Wolfe,  207 

Tories,  70,  147,   238,  240,   250,  275, 

310,  3T3,  381,  519,  526,  540,  548, 

552.  555 

Torrens,  Judge,  106 
Tory  Ministry,  425 

—  Opposition,  381 

—  papers,  467 
Townley,  Mr.,  160 
Traill,  Major,  448,  449,  451 
Tralee,  374 

Tramway  scheme,  245,  246 
Transvaal,  268,  273 
Traversers,  395 
Treason  Felony  Act,  114 
Treasury,  46,  51,  76,  343,  537 

—  Bench,  244,  265,  272,  379,  407,  434 
Treaty  of  Ghent,  255 
Trelawney,  Mr.,  112 

Trench,  Mr.  F.,  196 

—  Mr.  S.,  175,  176,  196,  197,  227 
Trevelyan,   Mr.    (afterwards  Sir  C.), 

Si,  "7 

—  Mr.   G.  O.,   328,    475,  476,  495, 
496,  498,  516,  517,  518,  525,  526, 
S36.  537,  540,  546 

Trinity  College,  229 
Tuke,  Mr.,  44,  56 
Tyrone,  554 


574 


THE   PARNELL   MOVEMENT 


ULS 

ULSTER,  82,  126,  127,  290,  474,  518, 
519,  520,  521,  523 

—  Custom,  112,  126,  189,  389 

—  Nationalists,  521 

—  Presbyterians,  251,  520 

—  tenant  right,  191,  235,  457 
Union,  Act  of,  20,  26,  27,  116,  117, 

185,  188,  292,  455,  556,  557 
'  United  Ireland,'  247,  312,  477,  507, 

508,  509,  513,  514.  537,  538,  555 
United  Irishmen,  520 

—  States,  355,  357,  361 
Unlawful  Oaths  Act,  25 

Urgency  resolutions,  439,   442,   443, 
444 


VATICAN,  15,  514 
Victorian  Parliament,  367 
Votes  of  Censure,  532,  533 


WALSH,  J.  W.,  405 
War  Office,  272,  336,  337,  339 
Warton,  Mr.,  379 
Washington,  255,  309 
Waste  lands,  17,  18,  25,  106 
Water  Bill,  310 
'  Waterdale  neighbours,'  323 
Waterford,   55,   137,    328,   329,   330, 
33L  365,  366,  476 

—  and  Limerick  Company,  327 
'  Weekly  Dispatch,'  555 

'  Weekly  Irish  Times,  469,  470 
'  Weekly  News,'  361 
Wellington,  Duke  of,  6,  8,  17 
Westby,  Mr.,  172 
'  Western  Morning  News,'  538 
Westmeath,  148,  157,  226,  243,  351, 
515,  517,  518 

—  Lord,  157,  159 
Westminster,  218,  292,  406 

—  Duke  of,  544 

'  Westminster  Review,'  322 
Westport,  43,  56,  306 


ZUL 

Wexford,  400,  405,  463 

'  Wexford  People,'  167 

Whalley,  Mr. ,  276 

Whately,  Archbishop,  104,  123,  195 

198 

Whiggery,  249,  313,  510,  519,  520 
Whigs,  3,  38,  70,  71,  75,   147,  148, 

226,   238,  239,  240,  250,  316,  493, 

Si8,  544 

White,  Father,  173 
Whiteboy  Act,  24,  403,  406,  477 
Whitworth,  Mr.,  449 

—  Mr.  B.,  313,  449,  530 
Whyte, — ,  209 
Wicklow,  252,  258,  261,  368 
Widnes,  551 

Wilde,  Sir  W.,  124 
Wilkinson,  Mr.,  163,  164 
Wills,  Mr.  W.  H.,  545,  546 
Wilson,  Mr.  A.  J.,  119 

—  Mr.  John,  299 
Wiseman,  Cardinal,  130 
Wishaw,  Rev.  Mr.,  257 
Wolseley,  General,  361 

Women,  treatment  of,  under  Coercion 

Acts,  473,  474,  475,  476 
Woodward,  Bishop,  17 
'World'  (Dublin),  70 
'  World,'  The  (London),  289,  290 
Wrangel,  Field-Marshal,  256 
Wynne,  Captain,  42 


YEO,  Colonel,  258 
Yeovil,  257 
Yorkshire,  South,  429 
'  Young  Ireland'  (book),  5,  9,  13 
'  Young  Ireland'  (periodical),   330 
Young  Ireland  Party,  10,  n,  15,  67, 
69,  70,  72,  73,  76,  79,  no,  in,  138, 
261,   317,  318,  345,   364,  369,  505 


ZULU  difficulty,  310 


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