Part 1 (1/2)
Ireland Since Parnell.
by Daniel Desmond Sheehan.
FOREWORD
The writer of this work first saw the light on a modest farmstead in the parish of Droumtariffe, North Cork. He came of a stock long settled there, whose roots were firmly fixed in the soil, whose love of motherland was pa.s.sionate and intense, and who were ready ”in other times,” when Fenianism won true hearts and daring spirits to its side, to risk their all in yet one more desperate battle for ”the old cause.” His father was a Fenian, and so was every relative of his, even unto the womenfolk. He heard around the fireside, in his younger days, the stirring stories of all the preparations which were then made for striking yet another blow for Ireland, and he too sighed and sorrowed for the disappointments that fell upon n.o.ble hearts and ardent souls with the failure of ”The Rising.”
He was not more than seven years of age when the terrible tribulation of eviction came to his family. He remembers, as if the events were but of yesterday, the poignant despair of his mother in leaving the home into which her dowry was brought and where her children were born, and the more silent resignation, but none the less deeply felt bitterness, of his father--a man of strong character and little given to expressing his emotions. He recalls that, a day or two before the eviction, he was taken away in a cart, known in this part of the country as ”a crib,” with some of the household belongings, to seek a temporary shelter with some friends. May G.o.d be good to them for their loving-kindness and warm hospitality!
He wondered, then, why there should be so much suffering and sorrow as he saw expressed around him, in the world, and he was told that there was nothing for it--that the lease of the farm had expired, that the landlord wanted it for himself, and that though his father was willing to pay an increased rent, still out he had to go--and, what was worse, to have all his improvements confiscated, to have the fruits of the blood and sweat and energy of his forefathers appropriated by a man who had no right under heaven to them, save such as the iniquitous laws of those days gave him.
It was something in the nature of poetic justice that the lad whose family was cast thus ruthlessly on the roadside in the summer of 1880, should, after the pa.s.sage of the Land Act of 1903, have, in the providence of things, the opportunity and the power for negotiating, in fair and friendly and conciliatory fas.h.i.+on, for the expropriation for evermore from all owners.h.i.+p in the land of the cla.s.s who cast him and his people adrift in earlier years.
The writer has it proudly to his credit that, acting on behalf of the tenants of County Cork, he individually negotiated the sales of more landed estates than any other man, or combination of men, in Ireland, and that with the good will and, indeed, with the grat.i.tude of the landlords and their agents, and by reason of the fact that he applied the policy of Conference, Conciliation and Consent to this practical concern of men's lives, he secured for the tenants of County Cork a margin of from one and a half to two years' purchase better terms than the average rate prevailing elsewhere.
For the rest he devoted himself during the better part of a quarter of a century to the housing and the social betterment of the workers in town and country, with results which are reflected in their present vastly improved condition.
But his greatest effort, and what he would wish most to be remembered for is that, with a faithful few and against overwhelming odds, he took his stand for Mr William O'Brien's policy of National Reconciliation, which all thoughtful men now admit would have saved Ireland from countless horrors and England from a series of most appalling political blunders if only it had been given fair play and a fair trial.
It is no use, however, in a very sordid and material world, sighing for the might-have-beens. What the writer seeks in the present work is to give, fairly and dispa.s.sionately, a narrative of what has happened in Ireland since Parnell appeared upon the Irish scene and the curtain was rung down upon the tragedy that brought the career of the one and only ”Uncrowned King of Ireland” to a close--and until, in turn, the downfall of Parliamentarianism was accomplished by means which will, in due course, appear in these pages.
IRELAND SINCE PARNELL
CHAPTER I
A LEADER APPEARS
There are some who would dispute the greatness of Parnell--who would deny him the stature and the dignity of a leader of men. There are others who would aver that Parnell was made by his lieutenants--that he owed all his success in the political arena to their ability and fighting qualities and that he was essentially a man of mediocre talents himself.
It might be enough to answer to these critics that Parnell could never hold the place he does in history, that he could never have overawed the House of Commons as he did, nor could he have emerged so triumphantly from the ordeal of _The Times_ Commission were he not superabundantly endowed with all the elements and qualities of greatness. But apart from this no dispa.s.sionate student of the Parnell period can deny that it was fruitful in ma.s.sive achievement for Ireland. When Parnell appeared on the scene it might well be said of the country, what had been truly said of it in another generation, that it was ”as a corpse on the dissecting-table.” It was he, and the gallant band which his indomitable purpose gathered round him, that galvanised the corpse into life and breathed into it a dauntless spirit of resolve which carried it to the very threshold of its sublimest aspirations. To Isaac b.u.t.t is ascribed the merit of having conceived and given form to the const.i.tutional movement for Irish liberty. He is also credited with having invented the t.i.tle ”Home Rule”--a t.i.tle which, whilst it was a magnificent rallying cry for a cause, in the circ.u.mstances of the time when it was first used, was probably as mischievous in its ultimate results as any unfortunate nomenclature well could be, since all parties in Ireland and out of it became tied to its use when any other designation for the Irish demand might have made it more palatable with the British ma.s.ses. Winston Churchill is reported to have said, in his Radical days, to a prominent Irish leader: ”I cannot understand why you Irishmen are so stupidly wedded to the name 'Home Rule.' If only you would call it anything else in the world, you would have no difficulty in getting the English to agree to it.”
But although Isaac b.u.t.t was a fine intellect and an earnest patriot he never succeeded in rousing Ireland to any great pitch of enthusiasm for his policy. It was still sick, and weary, and despondent after the Fenian failure, and the revolutionary leaders were not p.r.o.ne to tolerate or countenance what they regarded as a Parliamentary imposture. A considerable body of the Irish landed cla.s.s supported the b.u.t.t movement, because they had nothing to fear for their own interests from it. They were members of his Parliamentary Party, not to help him on his way, but rather with the object of weakening and r.e.t.a.r.ding his efforts.
It was at this stage that Parnell arrived. The country was stricken with famine--the hand of the lord, in the shape of the landlord, was heavy upon it. After a season of unexampled agricultural prosperity the lean years had come to the Irish farmer and he was ripe for agitation and resistance. b.u.t.t had the Irish gentry on his side. With the sure instinct of the born leader Parnell set out to fight them. He had popular feeling with him. It was no difficult matter to rouse the democracy of the country against a cla.s.s at whose doors they laid the blame for all their woes and troubles and manifold miseries. b.u.t.t was likewise too old for his generation. He was a const.i.tutional statesman who made n.o.ble appeal to the honesty and honour of British statesmen.
Parnell, too, claimed to be a const.i.tutional leader, but of another type. With the help of men like Michael Davitt and John Devoy he was able to muster the full strength of the revolutionary forces behind him and he adopted other methods in Parliament than lackadaisical appeals to the British sense of right and justice.
The time came when the older statesman had perforce to make way for the younger leader. The man with a n.o.ble genius for statesman-like design--and this must be conceded to Isaac b.u.t.t--had to yield place and power to the men whose genius consisted in making themselves amazingly disagreeable to the British Government, both in Ireland and at Westminster. ”The Policy of Exasperation” was the epithet applied by b.u.t.t to the purpose of Parnell, in the belief that he was uttering the weightiest reproach in his power against it. But this was the description of all others which recommended it to the Irish race--for it was, in truth, the only policy which could compel British statesmen to give ear to the wretched story of Ireland's grievances and to legislate in regard to them. It is sad to have to write it of b.u.t.t, as of so many other Irish leaders, that he died of a broken heart. Those who would labour for ”Dark Rosaleen” have a rough and th.o.r.n.y road to travel, and they are happy if the end of their journey is not to be found in despair, disappointment and bitter tragedy.
Parnell, once firmly seated in the saddle, lost no time in a.s.serting his power and authority. Mr William O'Brien, who writes with a quite unique personal authority on the events of this time, tells us that there is some doubt whether ”Joe” Biggar, as he was familiarly known from one end of Ireland to the other, was not the actual inventor of Parliamentary obstruction. His own opinion is that it was Biggar who first discovered it but it was Parnell who perceived that the new weapon was capable of dislocating the entire machinery of Government at will and consequently gave to a disarmed Ireland a more formidable power against her enemies than if she could have risen in armed insurrection, so that a Parliament which wanted to hear nothing of Ireland heard of practically nothing else every night of their lives.
Let it be, however, clearly understood that there was an Irish Party before Parnell's advent on the scene. It was never a very effective instrument of popular right, but after b.u.t.t's death it became a decrepit old thing--without cohesion, purpose or, except in rare instances, any genuine personal patriotism. It viewed the rise of Parnell and his limited body of supporters with disgust and dismay. It had no sympathy with his pertinacious campaign against all the cherished forms and traditions of ”The House,” and it gave him no support. Rather it virulently opposed him and his small group, who were without money and even without any organisation at their back.
Parnell had also to contend with the princ.i.p.al Nationalist newspaper of the time--_The Freeman's Journal_--as well as such remnants as remained of b.u.t.t's Home Rule League.
About this time, however, a movement--not for the first or the last time--came out of the West. A meeting had been held at Irishtown, County Mayo, which made history. It was here that the demand of ”The Land for the People” first took concrete form. Previously Mr Parnell and his lieutenants had been addressing meetings in many parts of the country, at which they advocated peasant proprietors.h.i.+p in subst.i.tution for landlordism, but now instead of sporadic speeches they had to their hand an organisation which supplied them with a tremendous dynamic force and gave a new edge to their Parliamentary performances. And not the least value of the new movement was that it immediately won over to active co-operation in its work the most powerful men in the old revolutionary organisation. I remember being present, as a very little lad indeed, at a Land League meeting at Kiskeam, Cork County, where scrolls spanned the village street bearing the legend: ”Ireland for the Irish and the Land for the People.”
The country people were present from far and near. Cavalcades of hors.e.m.e.n thronged in from many a distant place, wearing proudly the Fenian sash of orange and green over their shoulder, and it struck my youthful imagination what a das.h.i.+ng body of cavalry these would have made in the fight for Ireland. Michael Davitt was the founder and mainspring of the Land League and it is within my memory that in the hearts and the talks of the people around their fireside hearths he was at this time only second to Parnell in their hope and love. I am told that Mr John Devoy shared with him the honour of co-founder of the Land League, but I confess I heard little of Mr Devoy, probably because he was compulsorily exiled about this time.[1]
In those days Parnell's following consisted of only seven men out of one hundred and three Irish members. When the General Election of 1880 was declared he was utterly unprepared to meet all its emergencies.