In 1957 I revisited Cork with my father for the first time since I briefly holidayed with his parents there in 1945. We walked around some ofthat beautiful city and, by Blackrock Castle on the South Banks of the Lee he recalled hearing John Redmond’s brother William, alsoa “Nationalist” MP, extolling the virtues of the Home Rule Bill before the First World War. My father would have been fifteen years old at the most. Redmond had used the words “From the Imperial point of view” indicating that that point of view, far from being contended by his own party was identical with it. My father had not heckled Redmond, though he had immediately recalled the words of Henry Grattanover a century earlier – “Perish the Empire; Live Ireland!”
William Redmond lived by his principles and perished serving his Empire and wearing its uniform in June 1917. The by-election caused inEast Clare was contested by a candidate from his party and another candidate who wore a different uniform at the hustings undera banner carrying the legend “Soldiers are we….”.
The man in that uniform had fought wearing it and had been sentenced to death for his efforts by a British Court Martial barely a year before. His life had been spared because of Imperial calculations, not humane concern. Irish recruitment to the Imperial Forces might dry up with more executions than those already carried out. Furthermore a Britain was using foul means and fouler to entrap or persuade the United States into fighting its war. The “rebel” Eamon de Valera won the election in East Clare in 1917. Indeed he won every subsequent election in that constituency up to and including 1957, after which he had 16 further years in an elected office.
Lord Wimbourne, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, wrote confidentially to the British Cabinet telling them that Redmondism was a spent force and had been beaten fairly and squarely.The letter remained a State Secret until 1967 when De Valera was in the second year of his second seven-year term as President of Ireland.The insurgents of 1916 and their followers swept the boards in Irish elections until the collapse of Fianna Fail in 2011. Even today, Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein and Labour, however robustor dilapidated or debased you may now consider them, have their roots in the movement that demonstrated that Redmondism was an irrelevance.
By 1914 it seems Redmondism offered Irish men a future of becoming fodder for German, Turkish and Austrian guns. It offered Irish women the prospect of knitting socks or weaving shrouds for those men, or handing white feathers to Irishmen not wearing Imperial livery.
Some Irish ladies, admirers of the Redmonds, embroidered a green silken flag with an Irish harp and presented it to a Division of the British Army comprised of Irishmen. Other Irish ladies, admirers of Sir Edward Carson, embroidered another silken flag with the Red Hand of Ulster and presented it to a Division largely drawn from his UVF. Both Divisions accepted the flags with good grace. But Lord Kitchener insisted the Green Flag be returned to the ladies.
The Redmonds carried on doing the bidding of an Empire and its ruling class which hated or despised most Irish people. John Redmond and John Dillon were completely opposed to women’s suffrage and said so. No revisionist, perhaps not even Ruth Dudley Edwards,would have the cheek to claim otherwise. I’ve not heard of any of their parliamentary followers or candidates advocating votes for women.
Redmond’s party were not champions of free speech. At one of their conventions their stewards were supplied with batons to crack the heads of anyone speaking in support of William O’Brien. In Cobh some of their toughs beat up James Connolly for daring to write a defence of Socialism from an attack by a Jesuit. Electoral malpractices including intimidation and bribery resulted in Redmondites having their victories deemed void when discovered.
There are calls for today’s students to learn about John Redmond. I endorse the call and trust they might find my modest contribution helpful.
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