parnell and his party, 1880-90by conor cruise o'brien

Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd

Parnell and His Party, 1880-90 by Conor Cruise O'BrienReview by: F. S. L. LyonsIrish Historical Studies, Vol. 11, No. 41 (Mar., 1958), pp. 64-69Published by: Irish Historical Studies Publications LtdStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/30005940 .

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64 Reviews

availability and interests as by the initial editorial blue-print. Nothing said here in this respect modifies the opinion expressed earlier in the review. The great famine may be justly described as a pioneer work, amply documented, careful in its examination of evidence, exact, at times even austere in style and presentation, and cumulative in its impact upon the reader. If it has much diversity in topic and treatment it is true to say-and it is not always the case in collective studies of this kind- that the whole is more than the sum of the parts, and that further, to return to a question posed earlier in this review, it deepens levels of perception almost as much by its revelations of the knowledge required for a full understanding of the famine as by its own record and analysis of it. In sum, this is a work which reflects much credit on contemporary Irish historical scholarship and holds out much promise for the future of Irish historical studies.

NICHOLAS MANSERGH

PARNELL AND HIS PARTY, I 88o-9o. By Conor Cruise O'Brien. Pp. xii, 373. Uxford : Clarendon Press. 1957. 45s.

IN death Parnell has remained, as he was in life, one of the most elusive and shadowy figures in the modem history of Ireland. On the face of it this may seem odd, for the period of his ascendancy is exceptionally well documented and a great many books have been devoted to his career. With very few exceptions, however, these books have been disappointing, since most of them are either violently partisan, or deliberately sensational, or both. This may perhaps be due, at any rate in part, to the fact that Parnell's own inclinations and the pressure of events combined to make him a man of mystery; but partly also, no doubt, it derives from the simple circumstance that his history is after all very recent history and that certain passages in it-notably his fall-are scarcely even yet removed from controversy. The result has been that not only is there still no biography remotely to compare with the Life which Barry O'Brien produced in 1898 (despite the obvious limitations implicit in that date) but-apart from a few scattered articles-there has been no serious attempt to study his impact upon Irish politics or upon Anglo-Irish, and more especially liberal-nationalist, relations.

Dr Cruise O'Brien can, therefore, fairly claim to have broken new ground and not least among the reasons for welcoming his admirable book is the fact that he has managed to cut clean away from the jumble of reminiscence and recrimination which in the past has been the hall-mark of so much of the literature on this theme. But being a pioneer has its difficulties as well as its opportunities-in this instance, primarily, the fact that there is really more to be done than can be contained in a single volume. Recognizing this, Dr Cruise O'Brien has wisely concentrated upon certain well-defined aims which he explains as follows :



Reviews 65 The object of the present study is to restore him [Parnell] to his

immediate political context and to describe that context; to examine how the Irish party at Westminster in the eighties was made up; how it developed and what it did; how it was led and how, finally, it and its leader destroyed each other.

Even this is a complicated programme and it can in fact be further simplified, since nearly everything of importance in the book falls under one or other of three main heads-an analysis of the party membership and of the party machinery; a study of the party in action, especially at Westminster; and finally, an enquiry into the nature of Parnell's ascendancy over his followers and of the way in which he and they reacted when that ascendancy was first threatened, and then shattered, by the crisis of 1890.

In developing the first of these topics Dr Cruise O'Brien has very skilfully accomplished a difficult task. He has traced the evolution of the party throughout the period with which he is concerned and has produced a wealth of information-much of it summarised in useful tables-upon such matters as the changing personnel of the party, the evolution of aids to discipline like the pledge, the connection between the party and the constituencies, and the salaries paid to the poorer men to enable them to attend the house of commons regularly. In dealing with these subjects he has combined a shrewd eye for significant detail with an enviable faculty for handling large masses of facts without any loss of clarity or of accuracy-and just how considerable a feat this is only those who have experienced the dubious pleasures of 'namierization' will fully appreciate.

The picture which emerges from this analysis is of a party which, avoiding extremes of right and left, became increasingly the preserve of the middle class, on the whole conservative in its approach to social and economic questions (though retaining a persistent streak of agrarian radicalism) and, as the years passed, more and more wedded to constitutional politics-but, at the same time, so well organised and disciplined as to be able not merely to make the maximum impact in parliament, but also to dominate the entire nationalist movement in Ireland in a way it had never done before and was never quite to do again. It may be said, of course, that the party which Dr Cruise O'Brien anatomizes so minutely for us turns out to be very much what we should have supposed it to have been. But there is a world of difference between supposing and knowing and it is a great thing to have at least this aspect of Parnellite history placed beyond the reach of argument.

It is not so easy, however, to say that Dr Cruise O'Brien's second major theme-the development of Parnell's policy and especially of his attitude towards the two great English parties-is also beyond argument, because here he runs counter to many long-accepted ideas. His thesis. as he states it in his ' Epilogue' (p. 349), is this:

His [Parnell's] whole course of action from the time of his election as chairman of the party was-though few of his

F



66 Reviews

contemporaries recognized it as such-a course of reconciliation. He assumed the leadership of Davitt's semi-revolutionary 'New Departure' and, with his parliamentary colleagues, turned that movement into a completely constitutional one. He and his party accepted Gladstonian home rule-essentially a compromise between Irish national and English imperial traditions-as a final settlement and they obtained the approval of the Irish people for this acceptance . . . He sought not to break the connexion with England, but to make it more flexible, more efficient, more acceptable.

If it be objected that this view of Parnell's policy is many times belied by his own words-and that even before the split-Dr Cruise O'Brien answers that in order to bridge the gulf between English and Irish public opinion, Parnell and his party were forced 'by sheer historical necessity' to use duplicity. 'For English audiences they had to sound more "loyal" than they really were, while on Irish, and especially Irish-American audiences, they had to make a semi-revolutionary or conspiratorial impression.' Obviously, this is not a question capable of any final answer. In a world of double-talk who can say where truth lies? Ultimately everything depends on whether, when Parnell accepted the modest home rule bill of 1886 as a 'final settlement' he really meant what he said and would have been content to settle down within the empire as another Cecil Rhodes, or whether, having got home rule, he would have pressed on towards the goal of complete independence. Since he never had to decide this himself we can scarcely decide it for him, but at least it must be said that Dr Cruise O'Brien has produced impressive evidence of Parnell's consistency in following out a moderate course designed not to disrupt the empire but to fit Ireland (and all Ireland at that) into it. Those who look on Parnell as the precursor of the modern separatist movement may find this theory distasteful, but they will be hard put to it to disprove it.

The third of Dr Cruise O'Brien's objectives-to investigate the nature of Parnell's ascendancy and to describe how it ended-is, like the second, a matter about which there has been, and still can be, much controversy, but here again it is impossible not to admire his sureness of touch and the subtlety of his approach to the central problem confronting every student of the period-the problem of Parnell's endlessly fascinating, endlessly complex personality. Dr Cruise O'Brien's thesis is that Parnell ended as the victim of a legend which in part he created and in part was thrust upon him. That there was a legend is indisputable, though it might be argued that from the time of the Galway election (February I886) onwards it paid him a diminishing return in the inner circle of the party. There is even, indeed, something to be said for the view that the famous battle with The Times, which at one stage seemed to threaten him with disaster, in fact gave his reputation a fillip it badly needed. Yet, although we may admit this, and although it can be shown that his long absences from the centre of the stage allowed his lieutenants a larger share of the limelight than formerly (especially after the launching of



Reviews 67 the Plan of Campaign), what strikes one most forcibly about him, even in his years of semi-eclipse, is the immense reserve of power he seemed to be able to draw on at will. However discontented individuals may have been in the later years of the regime, his leadership was not seriously questioned until the very end, and it is significant that when, in 1889, Gladstone wanted to have the Irish viewpoint on matters relating to home rule, it never seems to have entered his head to deal with anyone other than Parnell. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that right up to the final catastrophe the Irish leader should have gone on believing in his own indispensability and that this belief should in itself have become an integral part of the legend which, as Dr Cruise O'Brien suggests, contributed to his downfall.

When he comes to consider the details of the split Dr Cruise O'Brien very properly stresses that what might be called the Joycean view-that Parnell was hounded down by the priests--is a gross over-simplification, or rather a distortion of the facts. The tragedy, when it came at last, had many different causes and although the church had an important part to play when the struggle shifted to Ireland, there were other forces besides clerical pressure working on men's minds in Committee Room Fifteen-personal loyalty to Parnell himself, or detestation of him; anxiety for the agrarian movement and especially for the evicted tenants; fears for home rule and for the future of the liberal alliance if Parnell persisted in his leadership in face of the shock to English opinion of the divorce-court 'revelations'

All these different threads existed, crossing and re-crossing as the debate went on day after day, and Dr Cruise O'Brien has unravelled them for us very skilfully. It is in fact only when he comes to speak of liberal-nationalist relations that his usual accuracy deserts him. Gladstone, as is well known, was much concerned about the effect upon English liberals if, in spite of the divorce, the Irish party re-elected Parnell as their leader at their meeting at the opening of the parliamentary session on 25 November i89o. On November 24, therefore, not only did he see the vice-chairman of the Irish party (Justin McCarthy) and ask him to convey his views to Parnell, but he also wrote a letter which has become celebrated. Ostensibly to John Morley, it was intended to be shown to Parnell and it stated among other things that if the latter remained leader of the Irish party then Gladstone's own leadership of the liberal party would become 'almost a nullity'. Dr Cruise O'Brien asserts (p. 298) that Gladstone 'believing that the Irish party had decided to ignore his letter to Morley-of which it had not in fact been aware-released that letter to the press on the evening of 25 November', This, however, is not what Gladstone himself recollected when writing three days later:

When we found that Mr McCarthy's representation had had no effect, that the Irish party had not been informed, and that Mr Morley's making known [i.e. to Parnell] the material parts of my letter was also without result, it at once was decided to publish my letter (John Morley, Life of Gladstone, iii. 444-5).



68 Reviews

The point, though technical, is not unimportant. The publication of that letter had a most serious effect upon the situation, for it made it enormously more difficult for those in the Irish party who felt that Parnell ought to retire to go on insisting that he should, without appearing to have yielded to what Parnell's supporters very soon began to call 'liberal dictation'. If Gladstone had published his letter in the belief that the Irish party had known of it and had decided to ignore it, then his action, though still open to criticism, would at least have been excusable. But if he knew that the party had not been informed then the whole transaction takes on a very different complexion and it is easy to see why Parnell and his followers felt themselves on sure ground when they accused their Irish opponents of truckling to the English leader.1

It is not, however, merely in this one detail that Dr Cruise O'Brien's account of the liberal-nationalist alliance seems defective. One has the impression that he has not quite as full a grasp of the complexities of English as of Irish politics in the 'eighties, and especially between 1886 and I890. In particular, he does not seem to allow enough for the shock the liberal party had received from the first home rule crisis or for the extreme difficulty its leaders had in agreeing upon an Irish policy thereafter. Home rule, yes. But what degree of home rule, and home rule with or without a settlement of the land question? On such questions as these the liberals were deeply divided and though Gladstone himself preferred not to come down one way or the other until his hand was forced, some of his colleagues were both more dogmatic and less reticent. Dr Cruise O'Brien has indeed used the Gladstone Papers, and to some extent the Dilke and Campbell-Bannerman Papers, but these tell only a part of the story. It is the correspondence between Gladstone's principal lieutenants-Harcourt, Spencer and Granville chiefly-which is the main source of information on that topic and this correspondence is only to be found in the private papers of the men themselves.

It may be readily admitted that this is off the main line of Dr Cruise O'Brien's enquiry, but all the same it does affect, or should affect, the history of the split. Parnell's manifesto, for instance, disastrous document as it was in so many ways, is almost inexplicable if we fail to realise

1 Perhaps at this point mention should be made of what appears to be one other error of fact in this part of Dr Cruise O'Brien's book. On p. 285 he states that at the first large meeting to be held in Dublin after the divorce-a meeting of the central branch of the Irish National League on November 18-T. M. Healy was among those present and declared that he had 'as much trust (in Parnell) as in I880 '. Dr Cruise O'Brien's account of the meeting is based (p. 285 n. 2) on the Freeman's Journal, 19 November 89go, but I have found no mention of a speech by Healy, or even of his having attended the meeting, in the relevant file of that newspaper in the National Library. It is odd that Healy's opponents, who lost no opportunity of taunting him with his support for Parnell at the Leinster Hall meeting on November 20, should have neglected to throw this speech in his teeth also.



Reviews 69 that his account of the conversations he had had with Gladstone at Hawarden in 1889 was very cleverly designed to present in the most controversial light possible the two topics--the settlement of the land question and the future of Irish representation at Westminster-which above all others bedevilled the liberals at that time. Indeed, so nearly did he succeed in dividing his enemies that there was a moment, in January 1891 and therefore outside the limits of Dr Cruise O'Brien's period, when the liberal leaders were actually toying with the idea of taking up for the time being some other subject--such as electoral reform or the conditions of agricultural labourers-which might be more profitable from the electoral point of view than the thorny question of home rule. The mood soon passed, but if it had persisted Parnell's Irish opponents would have been in grave difficulty and the subsequent history of Parnellism itself might have been very different.

It would, however, be unfair to end this review with an adverse comment upon one small corner of the vast field which Dr Cruise O'Brien has covered with such outstanding ability. Certainly, it cannot affect the final verdict which must surely be that this is incomparably the best book we have upon the subject-alike for its scholarship, for its insight and for the quality of the writing. It is seldom enough nowadays that the paths of history and literature intersect, but when they do-as in this instance they clearly have done-it is only right that we should recognize the fact and congratulate the author upon a notable achievement.

F. S. L. LYONS

A POLITICAL MEMOIR, 1880-92. By Joseph Chamberlain. Edited from the original manuscript by C. H. D. Howard. Pp. xx, 340. London: Batchworth Press. 1953. 2Is.

IN November 1882, at the instance of Gladstone, Joseph Chamberlain, like other members of the British cabinet, drafted a memorandum on the release of Parnell and others from Kilmainham jail. The occasion was one when a house of commons committee of enquiry was under consideration, when the cabinet was under fire over the circumstances of the releases. Chamberlain's memorandum assumed something of the nature of a vindication from allegations of intrigues behind the backs of his colleagues. The committee proposal was dropped, but Chamberlain was to make use of his draft on a later occasion.

In I891 Chamberlain, who had since I886 been a leading opponent of Gladstone and the majority of the liberal party on the issue of home rule, composed a detailed statement of his political activities since I880, when he first took office under Gladstone in a liberal administration, until the failure in 1887 of the attempt to heal the breach over the home rule bill. Into this framework he introduced the I882 memorandum on the Kilmainham treaty, adding in I892 a final section on his part in the organisation of a liberal unionist group from 1888



parnell and his party, 1880-90by conor cruise o'brien

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