Enigma

by Paul Bew

  What was the meaning of Parnell’s apparently unnecessary concession as to co-operation with the Liberal Party? Was it an expression of some inner essence of Parnell’s politics—solid proof, in short, that he was a constitutional reformer with a limited programme? Can it perhaps even be seen as an index of a truth about the Irish Party: that it had reached a workable and satisfactory compromise with Westminster? In reality, interpretations such as these place too much strain on the text.

  The explanation may be a rather more crude one. Captain O’Shea had seen in the situation of April 1882 some room for personal advantage. He established himself as an intermediary between Parnell and a member of the government, Joseph Chamberlain. However, on 25 April 1882 Parnell attempted to replace him with a more reliable member of his party, Justin McCarthy. Parnell’s ‘terms’ in his letter to McCarthy of that date deal with the obvious agrarian questions but contain no reference to cooperation with the Liberal Party. On 29 April an angry O’Shea visited Parnell who was now back in Kilmainham. The Spectator had a nice phrase for Captain O’Shea; it described him as not ‘just an intriguer but an intriguist’.16 They were closeted for six hours. O’Shea, who believed that possessing juicy titbits of inside information was the route to power, demanded that Parnell come up with some new offer not in the McCarthy letter. This would give the Captain a new prestige. Chamberlain, O’Shea’s patron, was looking for a ‘union’ with the Parnellites, and this was precisely what Parnell was forced to suggest. Parnell gave it on the condition—which the untrustworthy O’Shea broke—that the text of the letter should be shown only to Chamberlain. But such a statement, if leaked, as it eventually was, could prove highly embarrassing both to the government and to Parnell. No wonder it took so long for O’Shea to wring the compromising words out of Parnell. It seems possible that O’Shea was only able to get such a result by means of compulsion. It has been argued that O’Shea had only one method of compelling Parnell to do anything—blackmail. O’Shea may conceivably have given Parnell the alternative of the exposure of his relationship with Mrs O’Shea.17

  Having entered into this deal with O’Shea, Parnell had a double reason to make contact with his own left wing on release from jail. Firstly, he had to allay their fears that he had, in fact, dishonourably talked his way out of jail; secondly, he needed their co-operation to fulfil the bargain he had made in the process of talking his way out of jail.

  There is, therefore, no doubt that Parnell, immediately upon his release on 2 May, was most anxious to secure his left wing. He had, after all, been heavily influenced by the dictates of his private life: not only had he every reason to wish to be free with his lover again, but he had also had recourse to employing his lover’s husband as an intermediary in his negotiations with the government. He knew well that any evidence of such a story would infuriate his radical friends.

  The stakes were so high that Parnell resorted to a policy of outright lying. The day after his release he told the Irish World, the organ of the American extremists, that he had been totally surprised by his release and had indeed only the previous day been of the view that ‘he might be as useful in Kilmainham as outside’. The Irish World reporter then asked directly: ‘There is no truth in the reports of negotiations between you and the government?—No, not the slightest. There has been no communication between us, nor has there been any understanding.—Have you any conference with any member or agent of the government while absent on parole as has been insinuated?—None whatever.’18

  However, Parnell was on more firm and honest ground when he shifted the Irish World’s attention to new political realities: ‘The government appears to have changed their policy entirely. Their action evidently indicates that coercion is to be abandoned and fresh concessions of a valuable character are to be offered to the people.’ Even here Parnell overstated the case: there was no government decision to abandon coercion and rely on the ordinary law. But he was right to say that this was a ‘new departure’ for English government in Ireland and it pointed towards an implicit acceptance that the Irish should govern themselves. He also expected further land reform to deal with the arrears question: ‘Yes, it will affect at least 100,000 families and it will take only some three million. In many cases, it will enable the evicted tenants to go back to their holdings, thus lessening the demand upon the League funds.’19

  But did Parnell go a great deal further than the Irish World interview in order to win over his republican left? Later that claim was certainly made in republican quarters. An Phoblacht, on 8 March 1930, carried an article entitled ‘Memories of Kilmainham’. The essay contained an interesting anecdote based on a story recounted by P. J. Sheridan:

  It is not generally known that Parnell took the Fenian oath. Strolling through Dublin, one day immediately after the signing of the Kilmainham Treaty, he met a Land League organiser from the west [i.e. Sheridan]. They were on their way to Trinity College library to look up some dates on Griffith’s land valuation when their conversation turned to the question of physical force versus constitutionalism. They continued their talk in a quiet manner, then in that singularly incongruous setting, and at Parnell’s own suggestion, he was sworn a Fenian—with the promise that his doing so would be kept a secret during his lifetime. The man who swore Parnell in lies in far-off Colorado in an exile’s grave.20

  Such a story might easily have been concocted for a republican newspaper for pure propaganda purposes. P. J. Sheridan was, technically at least, an ex-Fenian21—as the IRB’s purist leadership had expelled Land Leaguers—but the event had, if it happened, an obvious symbolic and emotional significance. In fact this was not the case. The author of the article, T. J. Quinn, genuinely believed the story to be true. Quinn, a prominent radical Mayo Land Leaguer who was on the platform at the Irishtown meeting and whose brother was assistant secretary of the League, had written privately to William O’Brien about this incident—the source, it is clear, was none other than P. J. Sheridan himself. According to Quinn’s letter:

  He confided in me that, upon his return to Dublin from Paris, he happened by accident to meet Parnell on the street one day and the latter taking him by the arm, asked him to accompany him to Trinity College library, whither he [was] going to hunt up some data on Griffith’s valuation and that en route their conversation turned to physical force methods of freeing Ireland—and that by the time they both got seated in a quiet corner of the library, Sheridan, at Parnell’s own request, administered the IRB Oath to him, with the admonition to Sheridan that he was never to mention it while he—Parnell—lived. I am giving you the conversation as it passed between us—and for what it’s worth, for myself, I believe the statement, as I did not think Sheridan would make such a deliberate statement if it were untrue.22

  This is a remarkable story. It is greatly constrained, as Dr Maume points out, by the tight time-scales—this meeting had to be on either 2 or 3 May in Dublin when Parnell was largely out of the city. Nevertheless, the fact remains that Parnell found time to give an interview to the Irish World on 3 May with the purpose of reassuring his radical wing, so why is it inconceivable that he might also try to reassure P. J. Sheridan, a leading figure of that wing? Indeed, is it even possible that Sheridan, who within a year was working in the Irish World office in New York, was the Irish World’s Dublin reporter?

  In later years, when Parnell’s liaison with Mrs O’Shea was a matter of public knowledge, and when it also became known that the ambitious Captain had involved himself in some of the negotiations, Parnell’s critics made full use of the fact that Parnell had had a personal reason for getting out of Kilmainham and had used his mistress’s husband as an instrument. In fact the careerist O’Shea inserted himself into the negotiation process rather against the wishes of Parnell, who had already made clear his preference for Justin McCarthy as an intermediary.

  However, despite O’Shea’s murky role in the affair, there can be no question that the ‘Kilmainham Treaty’ had all the appearance of being a success. O
n 2 May Forster, the Chief Secretary, had resigned, and this more than anything else seemed to create a mood of optimism on both sides.

  Forster had few friends when he resigned. He was seen as a failure linked to a failed policy, who did not understand that a moment of great hope had arrived. On 5 May Captain O’Shea, who claimed to have been up all night, called upon Gladstone with the latest news of Parnell’s thinking. He made it clear that Parnell was not acting alone and was keeping his fellow prisoners informed of his strategy. Gladstone recorded the interview in his diary:

  He [Parnell] is greatly confident that the state of Ireland will have greatly improved in a short time. Among the instruments on whose aid he [Parnell] reckons, are Egan and Sheridan. In perfect keeping with what he had reported to Forster, he [O’Shea] told me that Sheridan was the man who organised the anti-legal agitation throughout Connaught, and who would now be an effectual agent for putting it down. . . . As nothing can be more clear than that he [Parnell] has used violence for his ends, so O’Shea’s statements tend to impress [?] the belief that he is now entirely in earnest about putting it down; but he feels himself in some danger of being supplanted by more violent men.23

  2

  Then, on 6 May, came the most dramatic political assassination in the United Kingdom since the assassination of Prime Minister Spencer Perceval in 1812. The newly arrived Chief Secretary, Lord Frederick Cavendish, and Thomas Henry Burke, the permanent Under-Secretary, were stabbed to death by members of the ‘Invincibles’ secret society in Phoenix Park, Dublin. It was not immediately known that the knives had been stored in the offices of the English branch of the Land League in Westminster Chambers, and that the secretary of that organisation, Frank Byrne, as he afterwards declared in the United States, had sent by his wife those knives—apparently hidden in her skirts—to the Invincibles’ leader, James Carey, in Dublin. Even so, the mere fact of the assassination promoted an immediate rush of press sympathy back to Forster’s position. Perhaps he had been right after all; perhaps these Parnellites could not be trusted?

  Keen observers of Parnell—for example, T. P. O’Connor and James Bryce—all agree that he was more shaken by the Phoenix Park murders than any other event in his public life. But why? His customary coolness was quite destroyed; ironically, this rather helped the House of Commons to hear him sympathetically. He offered to resign; Gladstone quickly told him to drop the idea. Some viewed all this with cynicism. Patrick Egan told Luke Dillon that Parnell had had foreknowledge of the Phoenix Park murders and neither approved nor disapproved the plan.24

  Parnell was lucky that he had friends who were prepared to work the pro-Liberal press. Frank Hugh O’Donnell sought out the Spectator editorial leader-writers and his influence was soon apparent. On 13 May the Spectator immediately devoted two articles to the crisis: in both articles Parnell was defended in strong terms. In ‘The Tragedy of the Week’ the key passage declared: ‘In the first place, it was the first instance in Irish history of a genuinely political assassination. In the next place, it was a most violent blow struck at the leaders of the Land League, and evidently intended to convince them they should not be permitted to make terms of any kind with English statesmen.’ In ‘The Remedial Policy of the Government’ a similar passage appeared: ‘The Land Leaguers had nothing to do with the murders, which were palpably directed against them as much as against the government, and were intended to make conciliation and compromise between Ireland and Britain impossible.’25

  As part of the Irish Party’s fight back a statement was prepared, and a young Fleet Street journalist—J. Hall Richardson, of the right-wing Telegraph—was given the scoop. He was called to that dismal caravanserai, the Westminster Palace Hotel—much employed by the Irish Party—to meet the recently released Michael Davitt and Tim Healy and shown the statement, which, he reported, ‘represented Davitt’s work. At the last minute, “in walked a commanding figure with a cold, passionless manner, a penetrating eye, reserved and emanating an aura commanding respect”. The bearded Parnell declared: “Let that be posted all over Ireland,” said he with a magnificent wave of the arm. It was a fine gesture. I am not sure that he did use the word “proclaimed”. At all events, at that moment he was exercising the royal prerogative and was, indeed, what he was afterwards styled, “the uncrowned King of Ireland”.’ The statement read as follows:

  To the People of Ireland

  On the eve of what seemed a bright future for our country, that evil destiny which has apparently pursued us for centuries, has struck at our hopes another blow which can not be exaggerated in its disastrous consequences. In this hour of sorrowful gloom we venture to give expression to our profoundest sympathy with the people of Ireland in this calamity which has befallen our cause through this horrible deed, and with those who were determined at the last hour, that a policy of conciliation should supplant that of terrorism and national distrust. We earnestly hope that the attitude and action of the Irish people will show to the world that this assassination which has befallen us has led almost to the abandonment of hope in our country’s future, is deeply and religiously abhorrent to their every feeling and instinct. We appeal to you, to show by every manner of expression, that amid the universal horror which the assassination has excited, no people feel so deep a sympathy with those hearts which must be seared by it, as the nation upon whose prosperity and reviving hopes it may entail consequences, more ruinous than those that have fallen to the lot of unhappy Ireland during the present generation. We feel that no act that has ever been perpetrated in our country during the exciting struggles of the last fifty years has so stained Ireland as this cowardly and unprovoked assassination of a friendly stranger, and that until the murderers of Cavendish and Burke are brought to justice that stain will sully our country’s name.26

  The tone of this statement pleased British public opinion. It was not just the heartfelt feeling it conveyed. It seemed, above all, to be a promise that the Irish leaders would, in future, ask their supporters to inform on assassins. In Ireland, of course, this was precisely the difficulty. Patrick Egan was infuriated by such an idea; he was infuriated also by the apparent acceptance of some type of responsibility by Parnell, Dillon and Davitt. It soon became well known in Dublin that Egan thought the Parnellite ‘proclamation’ was an act of faulty judgment. But at this moment Parnell was more concerned with British sentiment. Anyway, he was quite prepared to give different impressions to different people. T. D. Sullivan declared in his memoirs that Parnell ‘regarded the tone of the statement as being too defensive and conceding ground to English opinion. There is reason to believe that Mr Parnell never liked the terms of the document, which he thought were too emotional; but in this, as in various other matters, this man of strangely intermixed qualities had to give way to the pressure put upon him by some of his political associates.’27 There is, of course, no hint of this in J. Hall Richardson’s account.

  The Spectator was an important journal because it, unlike the Pall Mall Gazette, had always retained sympathy for Forster. Forster was perceived (correctly) as wanting to see the government win something like a triumph over the lawless party before he released the leaders of that party from Kilmainham. But Liberals could not see their way to keeping people in prison simply because their release might lead to political consequences which Liberals disliked: in other words, if Irish nationalism became stronger rather than weaker in the countryside in the face of a perceived government climbdown. As soon as it became clear that a free Parnell was more likely to promote the restoration of order than a Parnell in prison, the government was clearly bound to release Parnell. Even in the light of the Phoenix Park murders, this conclusion could not be resisted.

  Parnell later claimed that ‘if my projects had not been interfered with by the terrible tragedy of the Phoenix Park’,28 he would have obtained major benefits for Ireland. There is no reason to doubt him. The murders led to the passing of the crimes bill which Forster had prepared before he left office; had it not been for th
e murders, that particular crimes bill—an extremely severe one—would not have been introduced.29

  Ireland now faced rigorous coercion again. The Irish leaseholders had to wait five long years before they were brought within the ambit of the 1881 land reform. It is incorrect to suggest, as Michael Davitt did, that the ‘cyclonic sensation’ of the murders rescued Parnell from the perils implicit in the compact with Gladstone. Perils there certainly were—thanks largely to Captain O’Shea—but the advantages would have far outweighed them.

  Forster, however, was to have one last bite at the Parnell cherry. A fortnight after his resignation he was to force Parnell’s hors d’oeuvre on the attention of a stunned House of Commons. Parnell, unsurprisingly, had attempted to suppress this offer to Gladstone, but Forster, equally unsurprisingly, refused to let him off the hook. O’Shea, all too tactlessly, had urged Forster to focus on the hopes of the future rather than the aggravations of the past with great pretentiousness. Forster was infuriated by this and now, in reply, read from the memo he had made of his conversation with O’Shea in his house on 30 April. He recalled that O’Shea had told him that the Parnellite conspiracy would now be used to put down rather than generate outrage.

  The word conspiracy ‘echoed around the chamber like a thunderclap’.30 O’Shea insisted that he had merely used the word ‘organisation’, but Forster dismissed him. He then went on to recount how O’Shea had told him that Parnell proposed to guarantee peace in the west of Ireland by using P. J. Sheridan as his enforcer. Sheridan, Forster observed, was a wanted man: a man he believed to be ‘engaged in these outrages’ was clearly ‘so far under the influence of the hon. member for the city of Cork that, upon his release, he would get the assistance of that man to put down the very state of things which he had been promoting’. This in return for action on the question of arrears.