Enigma

by Paul Bew

  Parnell felt compelled to reply. He had been trying to convey his conviction that ‘moonlight’ outrages were undertaken by the ‘smaller tenantry on the estates who were unable to pay their rent, and who were attempting to intimidate or coerce the larger tenantry who were able to pay’, on the basis that, if the landlords were not receiving any rents, they would be forced to come to terms. If the government conceded an arrears act, the smaller tenantry would have no need to engage in acts of violence. He had no reason to believe that Sheridan was a man of the character described by Forster. It was an excellent, logical reply, given in very difficult circumstances. The Liberal government, of course, had every reason to treat it with scepticism: the government, after all, believed that rent issues had now little to do with the cause of agrarian crime and that crime was carried out to punish the government for its policy of coercion. This was precisely why it was trying to launch a ‘new departure’; thus the government had every reason to collude in Parnell’s reasoning, even though privately they did not accept it. The real basis of the deal was unspeakable but also essential: it was this dark realpolitik which condemned Forster to isolation even in the wake of the Phoenix Park murders. And so the Parnellite–Liberal consensus moved from strength to strength.

  The Roscommon MP Jasper Tully later commented on this moment:

  The situation was extremely awkward and complex for all the parties concerned. It had not come to light at that moment that the knives used in Phoenix Park had actually lain for some days in the offices of the English Branch of the Land League in Westminster Chambers, and that the secretary of the organisation, Mr Frank Byrne, as he afterwards avowed in the United States, had sent over by his wife those knives to James Carey in Dublin. In many respects this was an appalling situation for the Parliamentary leaders, and everything must have looked very black indeed, to those who had any inkling of the true position. Yet, it was the genius of Parnell found a way out. He had compromised Gladstone, the head of the Government, by the Treaty. Gladstone dare not move hand or foot in a hostile direction. He was at the mercy of Parnell.31

  It might be added that the Parnellites were helped by poor police work in London in the immediate aftermath of the Park murders. The London police sent to arrest Mrs Byrne, entirely unnecessarily, failed to achieve a proper identification. The result was to allow a lapse of time before key embarrassing details came out.32 The arrest of the Invincibles in early 1883, Carey’s subsequent confession and also the boasting of those who successfully escaped (like Mrs Byrne) to the USA gradually generated an unattractive (to English eyes) picture of conspiracy—including, apparently, its connections to Land League notables such as P. J. Sheridan and, for a while at least, Patrick Egan. The delay also allowed those senior Land Leaguers with links to the Invincibles to escape. P. J. Sheridan became an unsuccessful rancher in Colorado; Patrick Egan was a successful businessman in America and later became US Ambassador to Chile 1889–93; Thomas Brennan worked for Egan in Omaha, Nebraska; while Frank Byrne became a brewery worker in Providence, Rhode Island.33 (Byrne’s death in 1894 sparked a wave of speculation about his exact role in the Phoenix Park murders; his son’s education was paid for by a local Irish-American tycoon, Joseph Banigan, and in 1899 a thousand Irishmen attended the unveiling of a monument at Byrne’s grave.)34 It is worth reflecting on Jasper Tully’s point: if this had all come out earlier, it would have been explosive. The Parnellite–Gladstone understanding owed a lot to poor police work.

  The Phoenix Park assassinations, which at first glance seemed likely to destroy the Gladstone–Parnell new departure, actually strengthened it: it did so because to Gladstone a contrite Parnell appeared to be a considerably more malleable figure. Gladstone’s wife, Catherine, firmly believed that Parnell’s incarceration had been eminently justifiable. He was forced to contemplate the nature of the men who were his allies at close quarters. This, she believed, had had a sobering effect. ‘He came out of prison a changed man,’ she said, ‘and I have always thought it was a providential experience for him.’35 While some in the cabinet fondly believed that Gladstone was now in a position to ‘escape’, the alliance with Parnell was, in fact, placed on a more stable basis. The emergent Parnellite–Gladstonian consensus did, however, sustain some damage.36

  As knowledge of the ‘Kilmainham Treaty’ began to filter out, Parnell tried to amend his story for the American press. He argued that, confronted with a rising rate of evictions, he had felt compelled to arm O’Shea with his views on the arrears question. There had been absolutely no discussion of any possible release. In Paris Patrick Egan also talked to American reporters: he saw no need to repudiate the Phoenix Park murders which had nothing to do with the Land League but were rather the work of isolated fanatics.37

  Whether T. J. Quinn’s anecdote concerning Parnell and Sheridan and the Fenian oath is true or not, the indisputable truth is scarcely less remarkable. The British government made a deal with Parnell on the basis that he would employ men like P. J. Sheridan, Patrick Egan and Thomas Brennan to put down agrarian outrages; this, despite the fact that the government believed that this elite had sponsored financially and organisationally the commission of many such outrages. Within a few days of making this deal, the Chief Secretary for Ireland was murdered by assassins also believed—by senior police and intelligence sources—to have been in the pay of this same revolutionary elite.38 Despite this assassination, the deal with Parnell was made to hold. It helped that the Lord Lieutenant, Earl Spencer, was unconvinced by his intelligence and police chiefs.39 Sheridan swearing Parnell into the IRB is entirely consistent with the other developments documented here. Parnell would have been more than happy to enter into a private arrangement of this sort in order to gain Sheridan’s support. It would have been a classic confidence-building measure. It is also the case that, having been so close to the hard men, Parnell now had to separate himself radically. But even here there was some element of ambiguity, even if it is clear that a clean break did take place within the next year.

  It has to be pointed out, moreover, that Patrick Egan returned to Ireland in late December 1882 and lived in Dublin for several months before emigrating permanently to the United States. In this period Egan seems to have dissuaded the Invincibles, who felt the net closing in on them, from a murder attack on Mallon, and, in return, Mallon may have protected Egan as his investigations proceeded.40 (Against this theory, it should be noted that Mallon always insisted, in private and in public, on Egan’s guilt as a funder of the Invincibles.) Similarly, Thomas Brennan was released in mid-June 1882. He specifically thanked Parnell for putting on the pressure to secure his release.41

  In early 1883 Brennan, on his own account, was still planning to carry on working for Parnell. However, circumstances changed and he had to leave quickly for America. On 16 February 1883, walking down the Strand in London with Thomas Sexton MP, he saw a newspaper hoarding drawing attention to the evidence given by the Invincibles’ informer, James Carey, against himself.42 Brennan immediately went down a side alley and collected his suitcase. Sexton brought a ticket to Calais at Charing Cross station, then proceeded on to London Bridge station, where, by prearrangement, he met and handed the Calais ticket over to Brennan. Brennan landed that night in Calais and from there made his way to the United States. Once safely in America, he told the Irish World that ‘He was not afraid of being tried on the charge of connection with the Invincibles, but he believed that a jury of “Dublin genteel dastards” would convict him of having stabbed Julius Caesar.’43

  Privately, however, Parnell was working to move his movement away from the Egan–Brennan nexus. Two reports of Parnell’s conversation, prepared by Labouchere for Chamberlain, are of particular interest. On 22 May Labouchere wrote to Chamberlain after a further interview with Parnell:

  He says that he is most anxious for a modus vivendi and believes that if the present opportunity for establishing one be let pass, it is not likely to recur. He and his friends, he says, are incurring the se
rious risk of assassination in their efforts to bring it about, and he thinks that his suggestions ought to be judged on their merits, but that, with the Coercion Act as it is, there will be so much anger and ill-feeling in Ireland, that an alliance with the Liberal party will be impossible.

  He points out, not as a matter of bargain, but as a fact, that the Liberals may—if only there be consensus on the Coercion Bill, a few modifications of the Land Bill—count on the Irish vote, as against the Conservatives, and suggests that this will make the government absolutely safe, even though there be Whig defections.44

  On 9 June the same writer reported:

  Egan and his section of the League are furious at the idea of the League being converted into a moderate tenant right association with its headquarters in Dublin. This he desires. Parnell indicated that he would rather withdraw from politics than allow Egan’s line to win—but added that once he withdrew, his ‘own life will not be worth a day’s purchase’ and that ‘the Fenians will be masters of the situation’.45

  From this time onwards Parnell seems to have regularly carried a pistol in his coat pocket. It may be worth noting that when P. J. Gordon had to face police charges that he played a role in the murder of Colonel Walter Bourke in the summer of 1882, he was left on his own and did not receive financial assistance to mount his defence.46 Earl Spencer, the Lord Lieutenant (now presiding over a vigorous crackdown on agrarian violence which was denounced by the nationalist press as not being over-scrupulous about the guilt or innocence of some of those executed in the process) regarded the murder of Bourke as a rather worrying example of the violence connected with the Parnell movement, and it seemed wise to keep a certain distance.

  3

  Parnell now had every incentive to separate himself from the ‘hard men’. National conditions were certainly ripe for such a development. There was a widespread resentment against extremist violence. The series of bomb and dynamite outrages in English cities during 1883 and 1884, planned by Irish-Americans, did nothing to minimise the feeling. It has been argued that this new atmosphere merely allowed Parnell to reveal what he had always sought. This is only partly the truth. It is certainly true that he was tired of a mass movement which—in a moment of exasperation—he described to Mrs O’Shea as hollow and wanting in solidarity. But it is also true that Irish militants in the separatist tradition, either by their violence or, less obviously, by their non-cooperation, had pushed Parnell in a particular direction: that of a rapprochement with the Catholic clergy, who, under the rules of the new organisation, to be named the Irish National League, were given a voice in the selection of MPs. It is not the case that such an association, however politically necessary it may have been, reflected the essence of Parnell’s aspirations.

  The banning of the Land League in October 1881 made the setting up of a new body of the Irish National League type foreseeable. Nevertheless, Parnell showed hesitation before consenting to its inauguration in Dublin in October 1882. His caution was due to the possibility that the new organisation might disrupt the ‘Kilmainham Treaty’. Consequently every effort was made to stress its constitutional and legal character. It was closely tied in with the political party, and its objectives were primarily national rather than agrarian. It was intended to integrate the entire population, not just the farmers. Despite appearances to the contrary, the organisation was to have a small centralised leadership.

  In the days before the formation of the Irish National League there was a certain unease in the tone of public debate. At the western pre-conference meeting in Loughrea, Matthew Harris had to accept that Archbishop McEvilly of Tuam had successfully instructed his priests not to attend. The people, he said wistfully, would have to rely on their own intellects. The Irish Times noted that Parnell’s clear intention was to put the entire affairs of the nation in the hands of effectively thirty politicians in the executive of the national council of the body. Above all, this was to empower the ‘parliamentary knot’—why should Dublin artisans, for example, ignored completely by the Irish Party, accept this?47 The scorn rose when the Conservative and Unionist Irish Times got sight of the new programme which included old and tried Liberal issues such as the abolition of the post of Lord Lieutenant,48 easily dismissed by the Irish Times as redundant ‘Whiggery’, alongside conventional national themes on land and self-government. At the 800-strong conference itself, including several prominent priests, the agrarian left exerted some pressure. Davitt said that he could not follow Parnell’s policy of trying to improve the 1881 Land Act, as that act could not be improved. Matt Harris and J. B. Walshe both argued that all landlord–tenant agreements involving reduction of tillage should be abolished, while grazing farmers should be taxed more highly. Parnell responded calmly and sympathetically to these western themes—he was, after all, to display a consistent interest in the problems of small farmers. Davitt, not for the last time, expressed his opposition to Parnellism in theory but withdrew it in practice. But the real storm lay elsewhere. Harold Rylett, Davitt and others were uneasy about the idea of giving so much power to the parliamentary elite. The parliamentarians felt that Davitt’s idea of a more democratic thirty-two-county-based representation was a trick; in part this was because Davitt and his ideas were so strong among northern nationalists who were themselves, however, a relatively weak and small group compared to the southern counties. T. P. O’Connor became very heated and passionate on the topic. The ‘responsibility’ of the movement must ‘rest with the MPs’: ‘You have no right to give them responsibility without power.’ Parnell was heard to cry out ‘Hear, hear’.49 Davitt, in the end, backed down, and a new nationalist organisation was created; disciplined, indeed, but with a cult of the leader so intense that, in the end, after a certain permitted ritual display of dissent, it always defined and controlled the final outcome in broad policy. A pattern was set which was to last for seven years: a particularly Irish mode of repressive tolerance. In December 1882 Parnell seemed to set the seal on all this by a further definitive refutation of Davitt’s agrarian radicalism in a major Cork speech.

  British commentators increasingly insisted that Parnell’s real position was far more moderate than that of his party, and that when he took the party line, as for example in denouncing the repressive Crimes Act legislation, his heart was not in it. The error made by Gladstone at Leeds in October 1881—picking out a piece of Parnell’s more radical rhetoric and treating it as a fundamental truth of his position—was not repeated. On the contrary, it became conventional wisdom to dismiss any apparently radical statement as designed merely to retain his hold on the extreme faction of his party.50

  The Irish National League was in practice controlled by a three-man executive whose powers were never defined. Timothy Harrington became general secretary—a post to which the rules made no reference! The development of the League was essentially Harrington’s task, which he carried out, insofar as it was possible, in such a manner as to leave little room for local initiative. Harrington’s extant papers give numerous examples of branches being dissolved or threatened with dissolution for excesses involving boycotting, using the League for self-interest or for other activities that could bring the League into disrepute.51 As with the Land League so with the National League, there is a strong sense of an independent body outside Parnell’s ability to mould and shape it to his taste, particularly in local matters. Parnell after 1882 publicly admitted that boycotting had often degenerated into a form of unattractive local bullying, but it does not appear that many branches of the National League actually agreed with him. As for the selection of MPs, he put it rather sourly some years later: ‘I have not chosen eight members of the Parliamentary Party. Everybody has chosen my colleagues except myself.’52

  This claim would have surprised many contemporary commentators. ‘An Irish Nationalist’, for example, wrote that, all Davitt’s requests for democratisation having been ignored, ‘Parnell himself is in truth and fact the National League.’53 The fact is that Parnell himself
exercised undoubted sway, but he often did not choose to interfere in important elements of the day-to-day running of the organisation in Ireland, if not Westminster. In some ways this enhanced his power—because he was not drawn into the inevitable messy compromises—but in other ways it clearly limited it.

  For all the fact that it was an over-centralised, hierarchical body, there is no doubt that the National League played a major role in the widening and deepening of modern Irish national consciousness. It was soon to be faced with an important test in this regard.

  It became known early in 1883 that Parnell was in financial difficulties and that his Co. Wicklow estates were heavily mortgaged. This was by no means simply on account of his involvement in the Irish cause. Parnell was in debt long before his entry into politics. However, the sentiment developed that the Irish people ought to reimburse Parnell for his troubles. By May the papal attitude of disapproval for this scheme was announced. The result was the opposite of that intended. Subscriptions soon flooded in, influential leaders of the Irish church such as Archbishop Croke ignored the papal prohibition, and Parnell received in December a huge cheque for over £37,000 from the Lord Mayor of Dublin. The sum is a remarkable index of Parnell’s personal popularity.

  The source of the money is of some interest. Mayo, the radical stronghold of the Land League, offered a mere £174 4s 3d, while the more prosperous Meath offered £1,454; Connacht managed £1,796, while Leinster and Munster each gave under £12,000—clear proof of how Parnell had become, in Serjeant Sullivan’s classic phrase, ‘by a dispensation hard to understand . . . the hero of the bourgeoisie’.54