Enigma

by Paul Bew

  As Parnell emerged from the meeting he met the anxious Morley. Morley took the opportunity to read out Gladstone’s letter to him. In reply, Parnell refused to resign. ‘Of course,’ he said as he left Morley, ‘Mr Gladstone will have to attack me. I shall expect that. He will have a right to do that.’4

  Gladstone indeed had no choice but to attack Parnell if he was to secure his own following. Rapidly the Liberal leader had the text of his letter to Morley sent to the press. The time for discreet pressure—if there ever was a time for it—had passed. Everything was now set before the public.

  On the publication of the letter the members of the Irish Party were confronted with unmistakable evidence that the crisis would not just go away. Thirty-one members signed a requisition asking for a special meeting of the party. Parnell opposed this move but was overruled. This was a decisive moment: clearly the tide was beginning to turn unambiguously against him. Following this development, and further criticism in the press from Michael Davitt, Parnell attempted to go on the offensive by issuing a manifesto attacking Gladstone and a section of the Irish Party. The manifesto, which was published on 29 November under the title ‘To the People of Ireland’, was explicit. It stressed that a portion of the Irish Party had lost its independence. The Liberal alliance, Parnell claimed, had been desirable, but this alliance had evolved into a ‘fusion’. He then attempted to make damaging revelations about his visit to Gladstone at Hawarden in December 1889, when, he said, Gladstone had confided to him the details of the Home Rule proposals which the next Liberal administration would introduce.

  These included—according to Parnell—the reduction of the Irish representation in the imperial parliament from 103 to 32; reservation to the imperial parliament of power to deal with the land question; constabulary to be kept under imperial control for an indefinite period, judges for ten or twelve years. With so much reserved to the imperial parliament, Parnell was unwilling to consent to a reduction of the Irish representation at Westminster. Parnell had told Gladstone that he would try to ‘reconcile Irish opinion’ on the constabulary and judges, but he dissented from the reduction of the representation and from the absence of a land settlement. The feeble nature of the Liberal proposals had a definite implication. The Irish Party must retain its independence at all costs. Even if an ‘independent’ policy led to the defeat of the Liberals at the next general election, ‘postponement would be preferable to a compromise of our national rights by the acceptance of a measure which would not realise the aspirations of our race’.5

  All this, of course, was open to a damning objection. If the Liberals were so unreliable, why had Parnell himself preached the virtues of alliance in so many of his public statements in the past two years? Parnell attempted to explain this away:

  It was impossible for me to disclose by public speech or by private explanation the setback which the Hawarden communications had given to the cause of Home Rule and the perplexity with which they had filled my mind. The matter was still not definitely settled. Until all hope had been removed of arriving at a satisfactory undertaking upon these important subjects with Mr Gladstone it would have been highly improper for me in any way to have referred publicly to the matter, and it would have been difficult for me to have selected from amongst my colleagues for the purpose of a disclosure.6

  Only a minority were to be convinced by this special pleading. Most found Gladstone’s repudiation of Parnell’s version of the Hawarden interview to be crushingly explicit in detail. It seems fair to conclude that Parnell mixed up certain genuine concerns (for example, the difficulties which still faced the Liberal Party in producing a sufficiently generous land reform) with other very much more tendentious suggestions. It is highly improbable that Gladstone could have tied his hands by laying down precise details concerning such controversial legislation. At best, Parnell seems to have presented items for discussion as if they were hard and fast proposals.

  Following such an open breach with the Liberal Party, one thing was now clear. The cause of Home Rule was heavily damaged. The only question now was: were the other members of the Irish Party prepared to allow Parnell to continue this strategy, or would they split with him and thus divide the movement in Ireland as the price of the retention of the Liberal alliance?

  2

  Events turned sharply against Parnell. On 30 November a manifesto was issued by five of the six Irish MPs who happened to be in America (William O’Brien, John Dillon, T. P. O’Connor, T. P. Gill and T. D. Sullivan) asking the Irish Party to repudiate Parnell. (The sixth, Timothy Harrington, supported him, thus allowing Parnell to retain the National League apparatus which Harrington controlled.) Last-minute support for a change in the leadership came from Archbishops Walsh and Croke.

  On 1 December the ‘requisitioned’ meeting of the party opened a new debate on the leadership in Committee Room 15 at Westminster. An early indication in the balance of forces was given when Colonel Nolan’s motion to postpone the issue was defeated by 44 votes to 29. During the first two days of the lengthy debate the standard of discussion was surprisingly high. There was, however, one symptomatic moment of bitter personal conflict when Tim Healy accused Parnell of misrepresenting the interview with Gladstone at Hawarden. ‘I will not stand an accusation of falsehood from Timothy Healy,’ Parnell exclaimed angrily, and Healy was prevailed upon to withdraw. Desperately, the party tried to achieve a compromise. It sought guarantees from Gladstone of a satisfactory Home Rule measure if Parnell were to retire. But Gladstone refused to be pressured in this way, and the party was thrown back on its own resources. These resources—of tolerance and goodwill, at least—were wasting away in the course of the long debate. Finally, when Parnell’s most prominent supporter, John Redmond, referred to ‘the master of the party’, Tim Healy could not resist the malevolent quip: ‘Who is to be the mistress of the party?’ Parnell, visibly enraged, retorted by describing Healy as that ‘cowardly little scoundrel . . . who dares in an assembly of Irishmen to insult a woman’. ‘I made no reply,’ Healy said later, ‘being contented with the thrust that will stick as long as his cry about Gladstone’s “dictation” continues.’

  After this there was no hope of any rapprochement. The majority of the party—45 members, led by Justin McCarthy—withdrew from Committee Room 15, leaving Parnell with 27 followers. Bitter words had been spoken, words which were to have a divisive effect in Irish politics for many years to come. Furthermore, on 3 December the Catholic hierarchy, with the support of the majority of the priests, called on the Catholic people of Ireland to repudiate Parnell. Now all eyes turned to Ireland.

  3

  On 10 December Parnell arrived in Dublin to a hero’s welcome. He was to retain the capital’s loyalty to the end. However, while he addressed his meeting, anti-Parnellite journalists loyal to William O’Brien took the opportunity to seize Parnell’s paper, United Ireland, and its offices. Parnell himself led the crowd which stormed and retook the building; white with fury, he himself smashed in the door with a crowbar and played a leading part in the vicious scuffle which then took place in the entrance hall. The violence and the excitement of the occasion seem to have been therapeutic. He told Katharine O’Shea later: ‘It was splendid fun. I wish I could burgle my own premises every day.’ But the high jinks did not stop his critics raising awkward questions. At this juncture Parnell was asked by a journalist:

  Q. What course will the Liberal Party be likely to take with regard to Home Rule?

  A. That is for Mr Gladstone to say. There is no doubt that the Liberal Party is bound to Home Rule, and cannot come into power without it. In proportion as the independence and integrity of the Irish Party is lost, so a measure of Home Rule is diminished, and the stronger and more independent we remain, the larger, better and more satisfactory will be the settlement.7

  This, of course, was the weak spot in Parnell’s case. The Liberal Party was not irrevocably committed to Home Rule in all circumstances; in particular, it was not committed if the Irish l
eader was tainted by scandal. Gladstone’s gloomy personal note of December 1890 is worth noting:

  The Irish question came up in a new and advanced form, and seeming to see my way to a settlement after the present Parliament I devoted myself to the pursuit of it. From 85 to 90 we have fought that battle with two fully organised parties, each of them compact and determined, allied together yet independent of each other. In Ireland the nationalists were to hold their ground; in Great Britain we were to convert on the first Dissolution our minority into a large majority and in the autumn of 1890 we had established the certainty of that result so far as an event yet contingent could be capable of ascertainment.

  Then came the sin of Tristram with Isault and the discovery with this of much that they did not wot of. Then came the precipitate reacceptance of Mr Parnell in Ireland: the Liberal resistance in England; my announcement that if Mr Parnell continued to be leader, our army would be no longer available for carrying home rule; the retreat of the Irish from their false position, hampered by the skill and immeasurable immorality of the Parnell tactics; his violent resistance; and the picture of a divided Ireland, the two sections in fierce conflict together before a deriding foe.

  The case is not hopeless; but the probable result of so scandalous an exhibition will be confusion and perplexity in the weaker minds, and doubt whether while this conflict continues Ireland can be considered to have reached a state capable of beneficial self-government. The case is not that of Parnell as the accepted leader: he has been deposed. But his desperate struggles to regain the post and his pretended appeal to the people have received countenance sufficient to make him at the moment a formidable rebel against parliamentary government, supported by about as many members as he led in 1880. This is enough to introduce into our position a dangerous uncertain[ty]. We may if things do not go decisively well in Ireland lose hold of that margin which in the constituencies spans the space between victory and defeat. Home rule may be postponed for another period of five or six years. The struggle in that case must survive me, cannot be survived by me. The dread life of parliamentary contention reaches outwards to the grave. This change of prospect hits me hard.8

  Parnell’s effort to convince the Irish that he was a better judge of British Liberal sentiment than Gladstone was bound to fail. Few could believe that his retention of the leadership would not weaken the Home Rule cause. Even fewer could accept Parnell’s suggestion that his continued leadership would actually ensure a better settlement. Gladstone clearly believed that even a small Parnellite party would significantly endanger the cause.

  On 11 December Parnell came south to Cork. Cork city remained loyal to his cause and received him with great affection and enthusiasm. Privately, however, the Chief was beginning to show signs of stress. John J. Horgan later recalled: ‘He looked like a hunted fugitive, his hair dishevelled, his beard unkempt, his eyes wild and restless. My father made some vehement remark about those who had deserted him, and the hatred in Parnell’s face was terrible to look upon.’9

  There was a parliamentary vacancy in North Kilkenny. Parnell and his opponents vied for the constituency in a tense and bitter atmosphere. Parnell was said to have degraded a passing funeral by shouting out that it bore the opposing candidate’s political corpse. The Parnellites replied that Parnell’s words had been addressed only to an empty hearse. Frank Harris, however, who was present, records the incident as a genuine loss of self-control and the funeral as a real event.10 The campaign continued to be marked by incidents that grew steadily more ugly. Davitt, who continued to oppose Parnell, was attacked by Parnellites at the village of Ballinakill, Queen’s County. Parnell was hit by a bag of lime, some of which entered his eye and caused him extreme discomfort.

  There may, nevertheless, have been an element of exploitation of the famous incident. In public, Parnell wore a bandage, but when he received Harold Frederic and Frank Harris at his hotel, he removed the bandage and the eye seemed altogether uninjured. He was still, however, wearing the bandage in public a week later.11 (It might be noted, however, that Dr Hackett, a leading local supporter, later claimed to have personally licked the lime out of the eye.) There is no doubt, however, that Parnell was being ground down. John McDonald described Parnell at this juncture:

  Mr Parnell’s face was thinner than ever I had seen it. The lustre of the eyes was gone. They seemed tired and dazed. He smoked or rather half-smoked numbers of cigarettes, throwing one away and lighting another. His gesticulations, his familiarities with followers, were utterly different from anything I had seen in his demeanour before. The ‘uncrowned king’ is breaking down.12

  On 22 December 1890, by almost two to one, Parnell’s first direct appeal to a body of Irish electors was rejected. This sign was clear: although Parnell had much loyal support, it was only about one-third of the nationalist Irish.

  On Christmas Day he called on Canon Dunphy, a visit which was recollected in the Waterford Star in 1895:

  He was totally worn out and asked Father Dunphy for something to eat and drink. ‘Yes,’ said Father Dunphy, ‘you will always have them from me. I am sorry to meet you in this way,’ continued the Canon to Parnell, ‘sorry for yourself. Where was your brain? Why did you not get three sensible men to advise you? You went through most stormy times and you were able to meet your enemies, The Times and the Pigottites.’ To this Parnell replied that he was getting old like Canon Dunphy and would get sense, and went on, ‘In less than three months we will be together again and will get the blessings of Ireland and the Archbishop of Cashel.’13

  Yet despite his setbacks, Parnell’s course was one of resolute refusal to compromise. In the early weeks of 1891 first William O’Brien and then John Dillon, both speaking at meetings in France, attempted to link his withdrawal with the concession by the Liberals of the kind of guarantees about Home Rule which Parnell himself had sought in the Committee Room 15 debate. (O’Brien and Dillon could not return to Ireland because they had fled bail and were facing prison sentences for land agitation; they tried to make use of this position to hold the balance between Parnell and the increasingly strident anti-Parnell campaign being waged by Healy.) The Nation, aligned with Healy, which did not believe in temporising with Parnell, noted tersely: ‘To ask an army which has won its first battle over its defeated foe, to stay its march until some friendly third party can persuade the fugitive to accept favourite terms is, no doubt, unusual in war.’ It is worth noting that even at this moment of crisis Parnell was concerned about the fate of his fellow landlords. O’Brien has made it clear that Parnell was determined that the imperial parliament should resolve the land question before the implementation of Home Rule.14 Far from wanting the landlords to be at the mercy of a Dublin parliament—as Dillon was later to desire—Parnell felt that it was wrong that ‘the Irish parliament [should be] loaded with so intolerable a responsibility’. But despite the fact that considerable advance was made in the business of obtaining these guarantees, Parnell broke off the negotiations. He simply could not bring himself to surrender. ‘If I go, I go forever,’ seems to have been his view. For a man whose appetite for politics had at times in the late 1880s seemed to be rather jaded, his desire to cling on to power—once it had been threatened—is most striking. Once Katharine pleaded with him to relent, but his reply was adamant as ever:

  ‘I am in your hands, Queenie, and you shall do with me what you will; but you promised . . .’

  ‘You mean I promised that I would never make you less than—’

  ‘Less than your King,’ he interrupted, ‘and if I give in now I shall be less than that. I would rather die than give in now—give in to the howling of the English mob.’15

  J. M. Tuohy speculated about Parnell’s conduct during these negotiations:

  It may have been that his uninterrupted course from victory to victory for sixteen years had imbued a mind somewhat susceptible to occult influence with something of a fatalistic tinge, and that he had become convinced that fate had appointed him its spec
ial instrument to secure for his countrymen the fulfilment of their aspirations. It required some such hypothesis to account for the impassive resolution with which he argued down all suggestions, from whatever source they proceeded, which had for their object the real conversation of his influence and position by bringing about his temporary retirement.16

  Parnell was thus launched on the final phase of the most bitter struggle of his life. The struggle was waged with an obscene verbal cruelty and frequent physical violence on both sides. It was war to the knife, with no holds barred—a mode of conflict which inevitably told more heavily on the weaker party.

  4

  Two more seats fell vacant—unluckily for Parnell. In April an election became necessary in North Sligo, and another in Carlow in July. A victory at the polls was vitally necessary if any popular confidence in Parnell’s leadership was to be restored. In North Sligo, where clerical influence was exerted for as well as against him, it seemed for a time that he might be successful, but in the outcome his candidate was defeated by a fairly narrow margin. The result may well have been a decisive setback in Parnell’s campaign to regain his lost ascendancy: thereafter his popularity waned rapidly, and the result at Carlow, where his reluctant candidate, Andrew Kettle, was heavily defeated, was for many observers a foregone conclusion. Nothing daunted, on 25 June 1891 he married Katharine O’Shea at the registry office in Steyning and provoked the defection from his side of the unctuously Catholic Freeman’s Journal. The Orange Tory Lord George Hamilton, however, admired his loyalty to Mrs O’Shea and spoke of ‘an element of great tenderness in his character’. Two days later he celebrated his forty-fifth and last birthday. In his heart he cannot have been a happy man. The experience of abuse must have been an excruciating one for a man of Parnell’s disposition.