Chapter 14: I Join the Fight – 1891 Carlow By-election

I saw Parnell at Kingsbridge^[1] when he was going to Cork, but only for a moment, to warn him about his health.^[2] He pressed me to go with him, but I put him off, laughing, telling him he got me beaten the last time he had me in Cork (the Election of 1880).^[3] I went with J. F. Grehan to Kilkenny during the Election and we spent our time in the hottest spot about Castlecomer and Crettyard.^[4] One night in the hotel during the contest, Mr. Parnell came over and challenged Mr. Grehan (who was a great Davittite) and myself, to know what Davitt meant by attacking him the way someone told him he did at a meeting that day. I said I heard nothing about the attack, but that Davitt had lost touch with the Dublin men since he went to London. “The devil he has,” he says. “London is where we all go wrong.” When I saw that he meant to go on with the fight after the Kilkenny defeat, notwithstanding his poor health, I made up my mind to put my views before him.

I confess that I spent a peculiar two hours (the last hour of one year and the first of the next) in working out my political prospectus.^[5] I first inquired why I should interfere at all. Then I reasoned out the obligations every human being contracts by the very fact of his existence, towards the Creator, his neighbour, and his native land. I glanced back at my early surroundings and asked myself why did these things happen to me who had started as a small farmer’s son, without education or money. I was still a farmer, pure and simple, living absolutely by my profession, yet why was I brought into contact with all the living issues of Irish public life? I did not go out of my way to seek the friendship of all the great men of my time, yet I was brought into close contact with them.

I had opportunities of testing my opinions with many men, and the sequels proved that I was very often right. It never occurred to me to subordinate my judgement to any other mind on matters that I had opportunities of looking through and through. Without trying, my estimates of men and things were instinctively fairly true. I inherited a deeply religious mind, and I have been all my life, and am now, always trying to dispose myself to leave the results of all my endeavours, as Parnell said, to a Higher Power. I had my own private views of the probable outcome of the Parnell movement, which Mr. Parnell understood. I always smiled at the idea of England ever delegating the governing powers of Ireland into the hands of a class different from that ruling in England for the time being. The English classes might arrange with the Irish classes, as Randolph Churchill meant to work out in 1885, but I had no hope that such men as Parnell led before the split, would be made rulers in Ireland until the labourers would be ruling in England. In the years ’88 and ’89, when the Liberal Alliance was running, Mr. Parnell used to get uneasy like, when I would allow my tongue to run on, speculating on the improbabilities of the situation, repeating, “What will happen the next time?” He would rejoin, “What better can we do for the present?”^[6]

Harking back on my own old lines, that all men and all things were to be used to work out the redemption of Ireland, I made up my mind that perhaps even the secession misfortune might be turned to account. Having made a sketch of my conclusions, I determined to put them before Mr. Parnell. I sought and found him in Dr. Kenny’s dining with John Redmond,^[7] E. Leamy,^[8] Val Dillon,^[9] Mr. E. D. Gray, and a few others. The Freeman’s Journal was Parnell’s organ then.^[10] When I got an opportunity I told him I wanted to have a talk with him. “Well,” he says, “I am going over to Morrison’s now, and the doctor and I have arranged to go to Avondale on the night train. Come with me over in the cab and we can talk on the way.”

When we got started I said, “I see you have been at Boulogne.”^[11] “Yes,” he says. “I suppose you know,” I said, “that O’Brien is deeper and more diplomatic than any of the men who have declared against you.” “Oh,” he says, “I have O’Brien’s measure taken long ago, and I found him what you say.” He talked about some of the propositions discussed then, and when we got to Morrison’s I said, “I have deliberately kept away from you since you entered on this struggle. I was afraid to encourage you, lest your health would break down, but I have come now to put my views of the situation before you, and you can make what use you wish of them. The chief points are, you can never expect to overcome the Catholic clergy in a contention like the present, and if I thought you could, I believe I would help them. We will have a clerical party for a good long while now in Irish politics, perhaps always, or until England becomes Catholic. But I think you will be able to found an independent Irish party in alliance with the property classes in Ireland, which will in all likelihood exercise a deeper influence on the people of England and the British Conservative Party than all the representations which can be made regarding the danger of Home Rule.” I asked him to give no opinion on my views, but I told him why I sought the interview, but that I was still afraid that his health would break down. He made no answer to either point then, and we got on to discuss the men and things of the new situation so intently that he seemed to forget all about Avondale, and when the doctor came, dressed in winter travelling costume, he put off the visit altogether, and he said he would pay a visit to Meade,^[12] the Lord Mayor, instead. We sat on for a long talk after the doctor left, and, in reviewing the situation, I could not, and I did not, conscientiously spare him in the least. I told him he sinned very deeply from my standpoint, that he disqualified himself from leading a Catholic people, but that he seemed to be determined to suffer, in having his faults flung in his face at every turn of the road, and the mud of the street thrown in his eyes as a punishment, that I hoped he would offer those things as a penance for having transgressed so grievously, and for tempting God so long.^[13] “Ah,” he says, “that scandal will be forgotten as time goes by.” When he got up to brush down his hair before proceeding to the Mansion House, he says, “Well, Kettle, this conversation has been of great service to me. I have a lot of poor weak men around me. In fact I have more trouble with them than with the other fellows.”^[14] “With the exception,” I said, “of one or two (whom I named) I suppose they are tired of the fight.” “Oh,” says he, “so far as one of those is concerned he is gifted with enough cowardly common sense to ruin any cause. He is the worst of the lot.”^[15] Then he let his mind glance over the change, the upheaval would bring on the fortunes of some of the Party, and we indulged in some cynical smiling, I fear, about the dashing of the ambitions and the pretensions of a few.

I attended all his principal meetings, after this, and I laboured to keep the political issue fairly before the people in short speeches and in public letters. At a meeting of the League in Dublin, at which Mr. Parnell, and, I think, the well-known writer Katherine Tynan,^[16] and her father were present, I inquired what could any Irishman do but stand where we were standing in this contention. “The poor panic-stricken men who called upon Mr. Parnell to stand by the Irish centre and the Irish flag have fled to the tail of an English party at the call of an Englishman. Do they expect the men and women of Ireland to fly there, too? Now my standpoint is that if it pleased God to take Mr. Parnell to Heaven tomorrow the men and women of Ireland would have to stand where they are standing. Not alone that, but if Ireland had her freedom today, and if all her aspirations were realised, the men and women of Ireland would still have to rally round the Irish centre where we are standing to guard and perpetuate her rights.” After the meeting, Mr. Parnell said quietly to me, “Kettle, why don’t you speak oftener? You are the only one who treats this controversy on its merits.” At some meeting soon after he used the same idea in his sad and memorable words, “If I were dead and gone tomorrow.”^[17]

At a meeting he attended in Kells, Co. Meath, Parnell told me he was fast asleep sitting on the platform when he was called on to speak. Isaac Butt in one of his last cases was found asleep in court when it came his turn to speak, and poor James Grehan was found asleep in the chair at a meeting, discussing Balfour’s Land Bill of 1896,^[18] shortly before his death. Three master minds, each in his own way, faded alike and died in harness.^[19] Mr. Parnell was not in Ireland when the Carlow vacancy occurred.^[20] I think it was about that time he got married.^[21] I was busy with my farming, and just paid a chance visit to the League rooms when Dr. Joe Kenny came in, in a state of distress about the impossibility of finding a candidate. He said that he was afraid there would be no contest. “Oh,” I said, “that is out of the question. Parnell might give up the fight, but we could not without dishonour. The seat will have to be fought.” “Well,” he says, “will you fight it?” “Well,” I said, “if no one else can be found, I will, on certain conditions.” “What are the conditions?” he says. “That it is not to cost me a penny stamp, and that I am to be free to go or stay from Parliament as I wish. I can take a man’s part and pay a man’s share, but I have such large responsibilities that I cannot honestly spend money on an election of any sort.” “Well,” he says, “I agree to the terms. Will you come to Carlow in the morning?” We went to Carlow and found as staunch a body of men as Ireland could produce. It would be invidious to name names, but they were all up to the highest possible standard at the start and at the finish.^[22] Poor Parnell’s sudden death^[23] left me legally liable for a large sum of expenses, but John Redmond and the faithful few redeemed Dr. Kenny’s promise, and this was facilitated by the leading Carlow men drawing their pens across most of the accounts. Thus ended my connection with Parnell’s last battle.

An incident occurred during this contest that shows Mr. Parnell’s views of religion, morality, and the Catholic clergy. A Protestant clergyman, a Rev. McCree, called at Parnell’s hotel and asked for an interview. Mr. McCree laid siege to Parnell and pressed him to retire from the contest. Mr. Parnell said, “Mr. McCree, I must deny your right to interfere in this matter at all. When I was at college I had opportunities of seeing men of your Church and of your cloth, preparing for their profession, and I must say they were no better than they should be, morally or otherwise. But it is altogether different with the Catholic clergy. A Catholic clergyman has to undergo a most severe and searching course of discipline. He has to take a vow of celibacy, and deny himself gratifications that are freely indulged in by Protestant clergymen. I do not blame the Catholic clergy for the part they are taking in this disagreeable dispute, but I altogether deny your right to interfere. Good day, Mr. McCree.”

He rebuked me at this election for some remarks I made about some of the bishops who seemed to be lowering the tone of the controversy, and he always seemed particularly pleased if any clergyman referred to him in fair language.^[24]

I lunched with Mr. Parnell at Morrison’s the day of the Cabinteely meeting, and amongst many things he said, “How is it, Kettle, that you have always been fighting in the minority, and when the tide turns you drop out?” “Well,” I said, “you know I have no taste for public work, but when I believe that certain things should be done for the benefit of the cause I try and get others to do them. I seem to have no personal ambition.” “How much better would it have been,” he said, “had we taken your advice in ’81. It would have been all over and won long ago.”^[25] “Not much use in looking back,” I said, “unless to gather wisdom. I suppose if the land question had been settled then you would have most of the property people in your movement before this, but you must only try and get them now.” “Kettle, you men are terribly handicapped in this conflict by my misfortune, but I suppose I must only try and atone for it some way.” “Well,” I said, “so far as the fight is concerned it must and will go on so long as these seceders from the flag persist in their cowardly policy of hanging on to the tail of an English party. Those men must either come back to the flag, or bring Home Rule to Ireland, before the strong men of the country will tolerate them.”^[26]