THE 90TH anniversary of the death of John Redmond passed unremarked earlier this month, writes Tom Fewer.
Redmond was born in 1856, a member of an ancient family which had arrived in this country with the Norman invasion in the 12th century and settled in Co Wexford. Devout Catholics, the Redmonds had fought against Cromwell, and many of them joined the Catholic armies of France and Spain rather than take the English oath of allegiance.
John Redmond's forebears were gradually restored to their position as significant landowners in Wexford. The Catholic Relief Act of 1829 meant Catholics could be elected to parliament, and Redmond's father, William Archer Redmond, became an MP in 1872. In his election address he said: "I will at once declare my conviction that Ireland possesses the indefeasible right to be governed by an Irish Parliament."
William died in October, 1879. In 1881 his son was elected unopposed, to the vacant New Ross seat. For the next nine years Redmond honed his parliamentary skills, though in 1888 he was jailed for five weeks - dressed in convict clothes, with his hair sheared - for so-called intimidation of a landlord. At Parnell's suggestion, he toured the US and Australia giving speeches and collecting £30,000 for his party. In 1891, aged 35, he became MP for Waterford, a position he held for almost 27 years until his death.
After Parnell's affair with Katherine O'Shea, the Irish Parliamentary Party all but disintegrated because of internal bickering and the influence of the Catholic Church (Bishop Nulty of Meath, for example, said: "No man can remain a Catholic as long as he elects to cling to Parnellism"); but Redmond remained loyal.
After Parnell's death in 1891, Redmond held the much reduced party together, while gaining respect in the Commons, until the "rebels", including William O'Brien, John Dillon and the sycophantic Tim Healy, distrusting each other, asked him to chair the revived Parliamentary Party in 1900.
Some credit for the Land Act of 1903 must be given to Redmond, who worked carefully with the Chief Secretary for Ireland, George Wyndham. The latter described the Act as "an epoch in Irish history", which indeed it was. At long last tenants could buy their farms from landlords with a loan from the government at a rate of 3½ per cent, over a period of 68½ years. To encourage landlords to start selling immediately, the Act included a bonus of 12 per cent paid for by the British treasury. Dillon had opposed the Act, fearing "national bankruptcy", but Redmond rightly described it as "the most substantial victory gained for centuries".
The establishment of elected county councils and the abolition of the landlord-dominated grand jury was another enormously significant transfer of power to the people. Again rejected by a suspicious Dillon, it was fully supported by Redmond.
Home Rule had been Redmond's ambition since he was first elected. Independence seemed impossible, whereas Home Rule and membership of a Commonwealth of Nations would be of great financial and social benefit to Ireland, then one of the poorest countries in Europe.
British Liberal Party prime minister William Gladstone spent much of the late 19th century seeking Home Rule for Ireland. He succeeded in disestablishing the Church of Ireland, but foundered on the rocks of the House of Lords which continually exercised its veto against Home Rule. Prime minister H. H. Asquith, supported by Redmond, in 1911 passed the Parliament Act, which ended the Lords' veto but gave them a two-year delay clause on future Acts. In September 1914 the Home Rule (Ireland) Act was finally passed, just weeks after the outbreak of the first World War on August 4th, but the Act was then suspended by Asquith until the end of the war.
Asquith (who would lose a son in the war) and Redmond (who would lose his brother Willie, aged 56) were anything but warmongers, but they were shocked by the atrocities committed by the Germans in Belgium, where Redmond's niece was a nun. Redmond believed that, once committed to war, the Allies must put as many soldiers as possible into the field to ensure victory. Like almost everyone else, he thought they would be home by Christmas. All the Irish volunteers who went to France did so of their own volition, as Redmond had prevented the British from imposing conscription on Ireland, though it was imposed on England, Scotland and Wales. Many young Irishmen joined up because they thought it their duty, others because they though the war might be an opportunity for adventure, and would give them a break from their humdrum lives. It turned out to be hell, and more than 35,000 Irish volunteers died.
Stress played a large part in Redmonds death, by heart failure, on March 6th, 1918, aged 62. He had represented Ireland at different levels for 37 years, and through his great parliamentary skills had played an important part in dragging this "most distressful country" out of the mire of poverty and colonial government. He had won the battle to acquire Home Rule - by peaceful means. But the Irish Parliamentary Party was gone, and his competitors on the Irish political scene blamed him for the Irish losses in the world war.
If we now consider ourselves to be a civilised, peaceful, democratic country, it is surely time we gave due credit to his life's work.