John Redmond

“ This line of argument was to be dinned into the ears of Ireland during all the remaining years of Redmond's life. The only conclusive answer to it was to gain Home Rule. If, in the long run, it came to appear that the attackers had been right in their contention, and that Ireland had never received the expected return, the fault for that result lay with Ireland itself no less than with England; it most assuredly did not lie with John Redmond. A great weight of responsibility rests on those who from the first hour of Ireland's opportunity ingeminated distrust to an over-suspicious people. ”

“ His was not the magnetism which constrains allegiance almost in despite of reason—the power which was possessed by his first and only leader, Parnell. Redmond's appeal was to men's judgment and convictions, not to those instincts which lie deepest and most potent in the heart of man. That was the limitation to his greatness. He could lead only by convincing men that he was right. ”

“ In his defeat and ours, we accept no defeat; we shall endeavour to keep our will set, as his was, for a final triumph which can mean humiliation for no Irish heart. Tangled as are the threads of all his policy, he leaves the task far nearer to accomplishment than he found it; and if in the end freedom and prosperity come to a united Ireland, they will be found to proceed—however deeply overlaid by years and by events may be the chain of causation—from the action which John Redmond took in August 1914, and upon which his brother, with a legion like him, set the seal of his blood. ”

“ Balfour's coercive rule, Redmond had experience of jail, being sentenced to five weeks' imprisonment on a charge of intimidation. But while the prestige of Parnell and his party was at its height, John Redmond did not rank in popularity, fame, or notoriety with Mr. Sexton, Mr. Dillon, Mr. William O'Brien, Mr. Healy, or Mr. T. P. O'Connor. No man was ever less ambitious. He was contented to be a member of a strong and successful movement, useful in the team but not seeking to be foremost in anything. ”

“ It was the best service that had yet been rendered to John Redmond's policy. Everybody quite naturally and simply accepted the Nationalist Irishman as the spokesman for all the troops who were actually in the line. Mr. Walter Long, always a generous and candid human being, was quick to give voice to this feeling:
"The honourable and gallant member for East Clare has been in conflict, not only with one particular political party, but during the greater part of his career with every party in turn, and has engaged in bitter controversy with them. ”

“ His experience of political life and of English Ministers had rid him of any credulous faith in mankind; yet his instinct was always to perceive the best in men. The friend who knew him best in Convention, and who had seen him in his darkest hours then and long ago, said this of him: "He was always an optimist." The speaker did not mean—he could not have meant—that in those last months Redmond was sanguine. He meant, I think, that he had faith; that in a country where suspicion is the prevailing disease, he credited men with honest motives and with his own love of Ireland. ”

“ For more than a year now Redmond had lacked the moral support, the almost physical stimulus, which comes from the ready response of followers. Labour at no time came easy to him, there was much inertia in his temperament; and the part which he had laid out for himself in the Convention as merely an individual member did not impose on him the same unremitting vigilance as if he acted as leader. Yet, the leadership was his; if he did not exercise it, no one else could; and this incident shows that his abnegation of leadership was not a mere phrase. ”

“ Sorrow gave a strong grip to depression on a brooding mind which had always a proneness to melancholy, which was now linked with a sick body, and which lived among disappointments and grief and the sense of rancorous dislike in men who once thought it a privilege to cheer him on his passing.
Add to all this that Redmond's one hope for Ireland now lay in the Convention, and that he collated with good reason on his soldier brother's influence there—as no man could fail to do who had seen the effect which his last speech produced upon the House of Commons. ”

“ In these qualities of insight and foresight I have only seen one man approach him, the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, to whose credit stands the greatest work of Imperial reconciliation accomplished in our day. But Redmond had supremely what the wise old Scotsman lacked—the gift of persuasive speech, to win acceptance for his wisdom and his vision. ”

“ A writer in whom such a trust has been placed may well be at a loss how to express his gratitude, but can never convey the measure of his anxiety. From those who cherish Redmond's memory, and especially from those who were nearest to him in comradeship and affection, I must only crave the indulgence which should be accorded to sincere effort. ”

“ The choice—for it was a choice—was left to the Irish. To retain Parnell as leader in Gladstone's judgment made Gladstone's task impossible, and therefore indicated Gladstone's withdrawal from public life. To part with Parnell meant parting with the ablest leader that Nationalist Ireland had ever found.
A more heartrending alternative has never been imposed on any body of politicians, and John Redmond, unlike his younger brother, was not of those to whom decision came by an instinctive act of allegiance. ”

“ But if Lord Kitchener realized more clearly than other men in power how far-reaching would be the need for troops, Redmond realized also far more than the men in power how vital would be the need for America. He saw from the first, knowing the English-speaking world far more widely than perhaps any member of the Government, that the Irish trouble could not limit its influence to Ireland only. Greater forces could be conciliated for war purposes by reconciliation with Ireland—by bringing Ireland heart and soul into the war—than the equivalent of many regiments. ”

“ Running through them all is the tone of a soldier in authority who accepts assistance from a friendly, influential, well-meaning but imperfectly instructed civilian. There is no recognition of the fact that Redmond was the accepted leader of a Volunteer Force numbering over a hundred thousand men; no glimpse of any perception that morally, and almost officially, Redmond was the accredited head of the nation in whose name the division was being raised—a nation to which the statutory right of self-government had just been accorded. ”

“ He did not guess at the sway which might be exercised over men's minds by an almost mystical belief which disdained to count with practicalities, Redmond for fifteen years had been the leader, and for thirty-five years had been a member, of a party which presented itself—with great justification—as the winner for Ireland of many positive material advantages on the way to an ultimate goal. ”

“ Devlin. "Joe's loyalty in all this business has been beyond words," he said. "I know what it has cost him to do as he has done." He knew well that the younger man's influence had been more efficacious than the threat of his own resignation—which was not withheld. A man of other nature might have been jealous of the young and growing power: but such an element as this was so foreign to Redmond's whole being that even the thought of it never entered the most suspicious mind. ”

“ What Willie Redmond had foretold in his last speech was coming true: Irishmen brought into contact with one another in the Convention, as other Irishmen had been brought into contact in the trenches, and no longer kept apart by those unhappy severances which run through ordinary Irish life, came under the influence of that fundamental fellowship, deeper than all divergence of politics or creed, which draws our people into a sense of a common bond.
The desire to bring delegates together in friendly social intercourse had shown itself in many quarters. ”

“ He shows the man as he knew him and worked under him, traces his career through its triumphs to reverses, and through gallant recovery to final defeat. A great man is made familiar to the reader, in his 2 wisdom, his magnanimity, and his love of country. The tragic waste of great opportunities is portrayed in a story which has the quality of drama in it. Beside the picture of John Redmond himself there is sketched the gallant and sympathetic figure of his brother, who, after thirty-five years of parliamentary service, died with the foremost wave of his battalion at the battle of Messines. ”

“ Redmond's view was not limited to Ireland's interest. No man living in these islands felt more keenly for the great underlying principles at issue in the war. His mission, as he conceived it, was to lead Ireland to serve those principles. But it was futile to suppose that he could secure for England all that England expected of Ireland if he could obtain from England nothing of what Ireland asked. Redmond wanted recognition for the Volunteers chiefly as a basis upon which Ireland could feel that she was building an Irish army worthy of her record in arms ”

“ More especially now in the war, when the leader's wisdom in giving the lead which he had given began to be gravely questioned even by his own supporters, it was invaluable for him to have backing from one who had taken the war as part of his life's creed—who knew no hesitancies, no reserves in his conviction that the right course had been followed, for the right thing was to do the right. Finally and chiefly, Willie Redmond was the only man who could break through his brother's constitutional reserve and could force him into discussion. ”

“ Legally and theoretically, Redmond was a simple member of Parliament. Practically and morally, he was the head of Ireland, exactly as Botha was of South Africa; and he was trying to do without legal powers what Botha was doing by means of them. He was far more than the Leader of the Opposition in Great Britain; for in Ireland there really was no Government. Moral authority, which must proceed from consent of the governed, the Irish Government had not possessed for many a long day ”

“ It is fair to add that the Under-Secretary was in communication from time to time with other members of the party, who were of course in touch with Redmond. But the substantial accuracy of Redmond's statement is sufficiently evidenced by one fact. Everybody knew that Sir Roger Casement was in Berlin and had tried—most unsuccessfully—to recruit an Irish Brigade from among the Irish prisoners. But neither Redmond nor any Irish member knew that from April 17th Dublin Castle had warning that a ship was on its way from Germany with rifles. ”

“ The strength of Redmond's position lay in the fact that the vast majority of the enrolled men looked to him as their leader: his weakness, in that the committees under which enrolment had taken place were largely composed of the extremist section. He now determined to unite the Volunteers with the parliamentary party as the Ulster Volunteers were linked with Sir Edward Carson and his civilian organization. ”

“ It is certainly a most remarkable thing how John Redmond has lost the old Parnellite grip upon the younger life of the country, and it seems hardly credible that such an attitude should be due entirely to the perversity of youth and in no way to the natural consequence of tradition-loving age ”

“ The troubles which Nationalists brought on themselves by supporting Lord Midleton were answered by the troubles which his group met for supporting Nationalist demands. The men who refused to make the compromise possible have the laugh of us. Neither section of us who voted for agreement achieved anything by facing the risk of unpopularity. We had followed Redmond's policy and we shared Redmond's fate. We had done our best to help the British Government and that Government itself defeated us. ”

“ It was proposed that on the Wednesday Nationalists should meet and, if possible, concert joint action; if not, determine definitely each to go our own ways; for a painful part of the situation was that all of us had been used to act together, and none now felt himself free of some obligation. This had to be cleared up When we came down to Trinity College that morning, the news met us that Redmond was dead.
The Convention adjourned its work, although time pressed most seriously, till after the interment. Ireland is a country where a public man can always count on a good funeral. ”

“ The call which I am making is backed by the sympathy of your fellow-Irishmen in all parts of the Empire and of the world.... There is no question of compulsion or bribery. What we want, what we ask, what we believe you are ready and eager to give, is the freewill offering of a free people."
This was a double pledge as to Redmond's two objects. It promised, first, that every inducement should be given to join a corps distinctively Irish and having national cohesion and character; secondly, that the Volunteers should obtain recognition as part of the defensive forces of the Crown. ”

“ Knowing Ireland as he did, he knew that the acceptance of Sir Edward Carson as a colleague would be taken in Ireland to imply that the Government had abandoned its support of Home Rule. Ireland would assume that the Ulster leader would not come in except on his own terms. Redmond made the strongest representations that he could to the Prime Minister to exclude both Irish parties to the unresolved dispute. But Sir Edward Carson in those days was making himself very disagreeable in the House of Commons and Mr. Asquith, as usual, followed the line of least resistance. ”