Chapter 7: The Ladies’ Land League and My Imprisonment in Kilmainham Jail

On the evening of the Paris meeting, William O’Brien^[1] joined the party in Paris on his way from Egypt,^[2] and Parnell soon after put him to work to cover the retreat.^[3] When Parnell left the meeting room, I followed him to his bedroom and asked him to close the door as I had a few words to say to him. “Mr. Parnell,” I said, “I never remember kneeling to anyone but Almighty God and my own mother, but if necessary, I will now kneel to ask you to come and show yourself in Ireland, to enable you to retain the confidence of the people.” He seemed taken aback a little at my earnestness, and after a pause he said, “When do you want me to go?” “Next Sunday to a meeting in Clara, in the King’s County.^[4] I shall meet you at the Broadstone^[5] and go with you.” “Yes, I’ll go,” he said, and I said: “God bless you,” and left him. Dillon and Harris, myself and some others left for Dublin the next day, and I scarcely know how the week passed I was so disappointed, but I went to the railway station on the next Sunday morning, and true to his word, Parnell turned up with Dr. Joe Kenny,^[6] but the doctor did not come to the meeting. We travelled to Moate, and had to drive to Clara. On our way down we reviewed the situation. There were a lot of evictions pending on several estates at the time, and I said that I thought that where the people were going out they should be advised to plough and tatter about some of their land to prevent the landlords from utilising it in a hurry. Someone Parnell knew joined the train before we had time to discuss the pros and cons of the ploughing idea, and we had no opportunity of referring to it again. This turned out to be the only faulty idea I ever remember putting in Parnell’s way. He publicly recommended this procedure in his speech at the meeting, and brought himself within the scope of the Whiteboy Act of which, not being a lawyer, I was unaware.^[7] Pat Martin, M.P.,^[8] drew Parnell’s attention to this mistake, and Parnell withdrew the advice to the people publicly in the House of Commons a few days afterwards, and he and I were at cross purposes for several months following. But we had one interesting day before the coldness. When we got to Moate there was a splendid pair of cobs hitched to a kind of very long low, phaeton^[9] belonging to Mr. Andrew Bermingham,^[10] a great Tenant Righter, and well known to Mr. Parnell and myself, waiting for us. Mr. Parnell and I sat in front, and Mr. Bermingham and another friend behind. It was such a convenient yoke for talking – and Bermingham was a great slow talker – that one or other of them kept him in conversation nearly all the journey. When we got out of the town we were joined and surrounded by about 200 mounted men of a bodyguard which Parnell was simply charmed with. I never heard him indulge in so many exclamations of satisfaction as he did on the six miles drive to Clara. I think Mr. Parnell would have shone as a military man, or as a lawyer, equally as a statesman. The day was splendid, and the Clara meeting was a record affair, and Mr. Parnell seemed to enjoy it more than usual. When we started to drive back, the phaeton was manned like the morning, but the crowd was so dense in the street that the driver could not get on with the cobs, which were becoming excited. Everyone in the place wanted to touch Parnell’s hand, and so many people held on to the phaeton that when the cobs got near the edge of the crowd they made a dash forward with the result that the unfortunate phaeton snapped in two, and poor Bermingham and his friend went back heels over head like a shot from a mortar. The cobs were simply flying at a full gallop, and Mr. Parnell turned nearly round in his seat and broke into the only fit of hearty laughter I ever saw him indulge in. “Poor Bermingham!” he exclaimed more than once on the drive, “how disappointed he must be.” Our stopping for the owner of the phaeton was simply out of the question as we were racing for the train and besides, if we got him we had, as the witty driver said, no place to put him.

About the last thing Mr. Davitt did before his arrest was to start the Ladies’ Land League. He and Miss Anna Parnell^[11] gathered around the ladies’ centre in a short space, a surprising number of really talented women. At the same time I was somewhat dubious about the wisdom of the move in such a rough and tumble business as an agrarian combination necessarily must be when run on business revolutionary lines. I was not alone in that view, as most of the Executive were opposed to it, but Mr. Davitt was the leading spirit in the movement up to this, and no one thought of opposing him, especially as they had nothing better to propose.

When I had an opportunity of making Miss Anna Parnell’s acquaintance, I became even more enthusiastic about the move than Mr. Davitt. I found she had a better knowledge of the lights and shades of Irish peasant life, of the real economic conditions of the country, and of the social and political forces which had to be acted upon to work out the freedom of Ireland than any person, man or woman, I have ever met. It was a knowledge that reminded me very much of that of my own mother. It was simple, masterful, and profound.^[12] Ignorance of the ethics of the real condition of Ireland has, in my opinion, been the chief cause of the failure of all our movements and our leaders in their efforts to work out the redemption of the country. Anna Parnell would have worked the Land League revolution to a much better conclusion than her great brother.^[13] On our drive back to Moate, I introduced the subject and told him about my doubts and what removed them. “Oh, yes,” he said, “my sister knows all about Irish politics. She is never at a loss and never is mistaken in her judgement. It was she who hung on to Power and myself and the other people, and gave us no peace until we had to move to get Davitt liberated. She saw some of Davitt’s work, his plans and projects for the future of the Irish national movement, and she determined if possible, to get a man who could think and plan under such circumstances restored to the sphere of action. You see how true her conceptions were.” We had some time to spare at the railway station and the people were as usual, anxious for oratory. Mr. Parnell pressed me as he never did before to address a few words to the crowd, but I declined to speak either at Clara or Moate. My mind was seething with the effects of the breakdown at Paris, and I was afraid I might collide with Parnell or seem to endorse his present policy. A lot of people travelled up to the next two stations to get autographs from Parnell. I never saw him indulge in such a weakness before. When we reached Dublin, he dined in Dr. Kenny’s, and left by the night mail for London. The doctor was savage because I did not turn in to dinner, but the fact was I did not care to talk, even privately then, as it was always my business not to decry but to utilise Parnell’s and every other man’s genius to work out the redemption of the race. I was satisfied when I silenced the quidnuncs^[14] running away from Coercion. The unlucky Whiteboy business about ploughing the land was nearly putting him in the way of becoming the first “suspect.” I lost Mass that Sunday morning, and the remembrance troubled me all day. The nucleus of what was afterwards called the “Kilmainham Party” was formed at the meeting in Paris. The minority there became the centre of the new party.

The Coercion was soon in full swing. Dillon and Boyton and Father Sheehy^[15] were amongst the first batch of leaders.^[16] Brennan and myself lost patience with the effects of the breakdown policy and we commenced to preach a general rent strike on our own account. Brennan was arrested in May, and was the last of the first set of officials who gave their whole time to the business and were, of course, paid a salary. Someone had to be appointed in Dillon’s and Brennan’s places, and a meeting of the Executive was called in London, to which I was invited by Pat Egan. Parnell presided at the meeting, but never looked in my direction. The proposal was that Kettle and Sexton were to be appointed, but Mr. Parnell moved that Sexton should represent the Paris policy, and I should represent the London policy.

He was beaten on a division, and I was sent to Ireland in full command of the organisation. But of course Mr. Sexton was instructed to work in unison with his own House of Commons policy. I held my salaried appointment for about a fortnight, when I raised the No Rent cry and was sent to prison, for the notorious satisfaction of some of the Paris men.^[17] But the end was not yet.

I reached Naas jail after a rather exciting experience. I was fairly well known to the Naas people, and I had been up in the forenoon at the prison on a visit to Brennan and Father Sheehy. I was “pulled” on my return at Kingsbridge.^[18] I met my new-made friend John Clancy in Naas, and we came back together and he was present at my arrest. He came with me to the Castle Yard, and got me some luncheon and an overcoat and came back to Naas with me. John Mallon^[19] and another officer were my escort. We had to drive from Sallins to Naas and Mr. Mallon selected the mail car. When we reached the town the car pulled up at the post office just as the work people, who seemed to be in great numbers, were returning from their work. It ran round like wildfire that the detectives were taking me to prison, and someone cried out, “We won’t let them.” Mr. Mallon asked me to get down and walk, and that it was only a short distance. The people rushed around us and knocked the hat off Mr. Mallon, and kicked and mauled both detectives, but the crux came when we got on the bridge over the canal with the low parapet. Someone called out to throw them in and drown them. By tremendous exertions they rushed for the prison door which was ready to admit them, and got in hatless and almost headless with their clothes rather badly torn, and bleeding from a good many wounds. Mr. Mallon and his man had to remain in the jail all night, as the crowd stoned the doors and kept up ructions for a long time. Late in the evening the band came out and played round the place in spite of the police.^[20] I spent only a fortnight in Naas. I applied to be transferred to Dublin to give me a chance to manage in some way my big farming business, and James Grehan got Lord Monk,^[21] whose acquaintance I had made at the ploughing match thirty years before, to get Mr. Forster to let me come to Kilmainham.

I found Dillon and Boyton there, and we were joined soon after by Brennan and Father Sheehy. We were the “Kilmainham Party,” William O’Brien was so puzzled about when he came into the conflict.

It must be plain to even the casual reader that I had views of my own on every phase of the struggle, quite apart from the views of the men I was working with. This was the chief reason why Mr. Parnell and I understood each other so well. Although I missed getting a purchase transfer by the failure of the Party,^[22] I felt the advisability of making the best of the 1881 bill (based on Butt’s work in the Tenant Right movement) which Gladstone had to fall back on when the League leaders failed to give him pressure to pass their programme.^[23] It seems to be a fundamental weakness amongst Irish leaders of every movement to expect statesmen to legislate on their lines without pressure. This is simplicity of the first order. When I looked through the Land Bill I wrote to Tim Healy to dash on and amend the bill by securing as much exemption from rent on the tenant’s improvements as possible. Parnell and the Party refused to accept any responsibility for such a lame settlement as the Land Bill offered,^[24] but I expected that Healy could be counted on to ignore the Party and display his ability in the discussion on the bill. In his reply he said he felt greatly strengthened by having my support in the course he meant to adopt. The clause known as the “Healy Clause” in the Land Act of 1881, was the result.^[25] As a matter of fact it was Hugh Law, the Attorney-General, who drafted the clause in the form in which it passed, but it was under Healy’s pressure. Law refused to take Healy’s work which was only present and prospective, and in Law’s form it had 40 years of a retrospect. Mr. Sexton was doing the League work in Dublin, and James Grehan was doing most of the Sheriff’s sales and county work at this time. Nearly all the other leading men were put in prison.

I should here mention that, for all our differences at this time, it was Parnell who questioned Forster in the usual way about my arrest. Joe Cowan, M.P.,^[26] whose acquaintance I made at the Richmond Commission, spoke on the subject also. I was so obnoxious to the “Home” Party at the time that no one but Parnell would touch me. After the Land Bill passed, the Party had no excuse for remaining in Parliament and had to come to Ireland. The constitutional work of fighting the seat in Tyrone made vacant by the appointment of the new Land Commissioner, Mr. Litton, was seized upon to keep them employed. I was fairly well posted in Ulster politics, through my Tenant Right connections, that Dickson could not be beaten just then. I sent word to Mr. Parnell not to risk the rebuff of a defeat as it would have a bad effect on his popularity and prestige, and it was, amongst a large circle, low enough at this time. But he was in the toils and committed to the fight before he got my message, so it went on and his man was beaten. The Rev. H. Rylott was an able, but a new man and not a good candidate just then.^[27] I was so disgusted at this setback that I allowed my own name to go forward for Monaghan a few days afterwards as I was informed through Dan McAleese^[28] and others that my connection with the land agitation would tell to great advantage in Monaghan. I was anxious to save Parnell’s prestige, and to bring all the parties together, now that the Land Bill was through and that the breakdown could not be recalled. It happened that the last run I took through the country before my arrest was attending a meeting with Healy at Carrickmacross, with O’Kelly at Brookboro, with Jordan at Enniskillen and Clones, and with Dillon in the town of Monaghan. I always thought afterwards that the defeat in Tyrone, of which the English press made so much, drove Parnell to favour the wild demonstrations that followed.^[29] The Monaghan election did not come off as the seat was not vacated. But my consent to stand brought Mr. Parnell on a visit to Kilmainham a few days afterwards.

Father Sheehy, Brennan, Boyton, and I were at some game in the ball court when he entered by a corner door; and so strained were the feelings of the Party at the time, that none of the men moved one inch to meet him.^[30] He had to walk the full way to where we were standing. The greeting was courteous enough on both sides, and when it was over he says, “Kettle, I want to speak to you.” “All right,” I said, “My quarters are here.” So we stepped in and when the first half-hour was up, he sent to the governor for an extension of the visit and when the next was up, he got a further extension. “Well, Kettle,” he says, “what are we going to do now?” “I suppose,” I said, “you have nothing to do unless to carry through the second section of the original programme. The first is drifted for the present, and there is no use in grieving about it.” “I was sorry about Tyrone,” he replied. “I did not get your message in time, so it had to go on.” I was expecting the visit and I had a written sketch of what I thought should be the next move, and I read it for him. I told him that I offered land for labourers on the Tenant Right platform, and that the future of the country would depend upon the housing and placing of the labour power, that legislation would be required for this, but in the meantime the farmers should be urged to give the labourers a decent way of living on fair terms. But the great work before the Land League organisation was the industrial question. I told him I remembered before the Famine when the people were fed and clothed on Irish manufacture, and I saw no reason why the present powerful combination should not be used to put Swift’s advice into operation to a large extent. “To burn everything that comes from England but the coal.”^[31] The written sketch was, that the League should establish a great Central Bureau in Dublin with as many committee rooms as might be required for the use of Irish manufactures; that they should publicly canvass and invite everyone who manufactured anything in Ireland to come and form committees; and that the League would undertake to secure the home market to the utmost for Irish goods; and, as he said a few days later in Cork, when the Irish supply would be exhausted to fall back on the American in preference to the British. I said I saw no reason why he should not go on quietly and govern Ireland by combination until the time came for legislation.