The Irish Revolution and How It Came About

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LI, Issue 52, 31 December 1924, Page 7

The Irish Revolution and How It Came About

(By William O'Brien)

Sir Horace Plunkett, who was to be the Chairman of the Convention, did me the unusual honor of addressing to me two public letters couched in terms of high courtesy asking me to reconsider my decision, adding that, in his belief "if you could see your way to come in, you would bring a good many more than your own immediate followers." In my reply, I pointed out that in his letter he had forgotten "the objection which is the most fatal of all —namely, that at least 90 members of the 100 members of the Convention will be the nominees of the two Irish parties of politicians who only last year came to an agreement to form six Irish counties into an ' excluded area ' to be separately administered through departments responsible only to an English Secretary of State under an arrangement which could never he terminated without a new Act of the Imperial Parliament." My colleagues and myself had made it known that Ave were ready to go into the Convention to resist Partition against all odds, "if the august body of Bishops, Catholic and Protestant, who signed the recent manifesto, saw fit to delegate to the Convention representatives of their Order as to whose ' unrelenting opposition to Partition, temporary or permanent ' (to use the Bishops' own words) the bulk of I lie Convention could be left in no possible doubt," but 1 was obliged to add: "Unhappily their lordships have decided in a sense which has given rise to grave misunderstandings and for reasons which this is not the time to discuss but which have not lessened the anxieties of patriotic Irishmen." To Sir Horace's gentle reproach that, in refusing to participate, I was "casting off the mantle of National Unity," which had so long been mine, my reply was "Our small band have fought, not for a contemptible verbal victory, but for a practical agreement which would make Irishmen of all parties and creeds willing partners in the government of an undivided Ireland, and while nominally pursuing that object, the organisers of the Convention have so loaded the dice that, short of a miracle from Heaven, the only agreement likely to be arrived at is one for the permanent division of Ireland among the place-hunters of both factions." But his letter seemed to open one avenue by which our participation might still be possible. He made it an "essential point" that an agreement by the Convention should be "submitted for popular approval by Referendum) or otherwise," and intimated that this "would unquestionably" be done. "If he made this statement on official authority" I answered, a Referendum would still leave it possible for us to take part. Sir Horace Plunkett, in his second public letter, avowed that "unfortunately, I have no authority to make any official person responsible for the statement, but I did not speak without having the best of reasons for believing that what I said was true. If, lam able to give yon

CHAPTER XXl.—(Continued.)

my authority later, I will gladly do so." The "later" announcement of his authority was never made, and so that avenue to the reconsideration of our decision was closed as well. Manifestly, with Sir Horace as with myself, the Chief Secretary had inclined towards a Referendum for all Ireland, but was promptly put in his place by those who had Sir E. Carson to satisfy. A Referendum for all Ireland was now and had always been the terror of his life. For all that, the most trusted of my own advisers began to waver, under the influence of that cry of "Peace!" where there can be no peace which sometimes sweeps over Ireland with the weird pathos of a Banshee. With, perhaps, the most influential of them all, for his breadth of judgment, Lord Dunraven, I had been compelled to differ on Conscription, although with a, respect for one another's different points of view which was never diminished for an hour on either side. "I agree with you," he wrote, on the first disclosure of the Constitution. "If Redmond's majority can come to any agreement with Lonsdale, they can carry it. What I fear is same agreement involving carefully concealed Partition": but he eventually yielded to the argument that our absence would let judgment go against us by default, and accepted for himself the invitation of the Crown. I suspect that Mr. Ilealy's preference inclined in the same direction, although with the loyalty in which he never failed throughout these soul-trying years, he forbore to say so.* Mr. William Martin Murphy, the proprietor of the most widely circulated of the Irish newspapers, The Independent, had been all along a convinced believer in the policy of the All-for-Ireland League, but to Ireland's heavy loss he hesitated to enforce his opinions in his paper, acting, as he told me more than once, on the advice of Lord Northcliffe: "Never come out strong until you've first got your circulation once your circulation is there, you can say anything you like." His first impression of the Convention was my own: "Dartry, Dublin, May 28, 1917. "Dear Mr. O'Brien,—l agree with you about the danger of Partition. Bonar Law's reply to Ronald McNeill has turned the Convention which was intended as a trick into a farce. The Ulsterites will be able to say: 'Heads I win, tails you lose.' After Partition is repudiated by four-fifths of Ireland, it .is to be set up again at the Convention. My present feeling is to advise that the whole scheme should be ignored until Lloyd George repudiates Bonar Law's promise to the TJlsterites. I think I will write to Northcliffe and tell *Had I his leave to publish them, Mr. Healy's letters, teeming with diamondiferous wit, and laden with piquant items of secret information, would make a valuable addition to the inner history of the time.

him that all confidence in the bona fides of the Convention was knocked on the head by \| Bonar Law's statement. It is evident that he expected statement. It from Dillon to he expected some question from Dillon to ; \ which he referred. Sincerely yours, Wat. M. Murphy. Wm. O'Brien, Esq., M.P., Bellevue, Mallow." Later on, however, Mr. Murphy confessed, i he was a little shaken by the disgraceful cry M that his object was to wreck the Convention, * with which he was assailed in public and in private. He now wrote that "I have no doubt whatever the three of us" (Mr. Healy, himself, and myself) "would dominate the show with the combinations which I think could be got together and the fear of public opinion outside acting on the Co. Council Chairmen, and he too ended by accepting the invitation of the Chief Secretary, adding: "If I cannot do any good there, I may be some check to those who would do mischief." One of the entreaties it was most difficult to resist was a secret message I received (June 26) from a member of the Cabinet for whom I entertained a sincere respect, and the difficulty of resistance was all the greater that the message came through one whose single-minded services as an intermediary in the highest quarters were of priceless value to Ireland throughout these years, although they were rewarded with the usual brutal injustice by Irish politicians. This was the communication of the Minister to my excellent friend: "Go over and see O'B.; don't give him messages from me direct; but move him. I \know so much more than he can know of the North East people. I know how hard and almost impossible it is for them to confer with R. or he with them. . . O'B. has got very near the Northerners. He, if anyone can bridge the last gap. Will he not do it? If he knew all that is in the wind and how much importance attaches to his attitude he would." It can scarcely be necessary to accentuate the historical value of this testimony from a Cabinet Minister of exceptional authority with "the Northerners," both as to the transformation our conciliatory labors might have wrought in them, had we received even common toleration from our own side while there was still time, and as to the evil effect on the mind of "the Northerners' 'of the Hibernian ascendancy. It was too late to think of all this except with a sigh. In an Hiber- • nian-ridden and an Orange-ridden Convention, neither we, nor, as it turned out, the sober Conciliationist Northerns could do any- , thing but wring our ineffectual hands in presence of an artificially constructed majority whose programme was: "Either Partition or nothing." \ r My friend received my answer with sorrow, N gently and most diffidently expressed; but his next communication contained a startling confirmation of my prognostication that Partition, in even a more offensive , form than I had suspected, was up to that time the settled purpose of the projectors of the Convention:

“The forces that are gathering in this connection are very interesting, and complicated and frankly not to my liking. I will throw out the idea as I get it from very high up. There is a lot being said about a Federal Commission, and the idea is not merely Home Rule all round but Partition all round —that England is to be broken up into two States, Scotland, two; Ireland, two; and Wales one! Then also .it is believed that Smuts and Borden have dealt a death-blow to Empire Federation; that what we are asked to work on now is a lot of local Federal Units —the B. Isles, Canada, Australia, S. Africa, N.Z. —and that these scattered federations are to be loosely united under the Crown in what I suppose will be called a ‘ Confederacy of States.’ . . .

I feel that the —that a score of vast whether they emerge for better or for worse hangs on the toss of a coin.”

My indomitable friend worked on for a manageably-sized Conference as the true remedy, but reported: “No, their minds run on big battalions and noise! They think that a small Convention w 7 ill be described in the U.S. as ‘ hole and corner,’ and that the columns given to it over there will be in direct proportion to what Jones of Nevada used to call “base Roman numerals’”; he struggled for at least a- Referendum of all Ireland and could only get as far as dim understandings that the Convention itself might order a Referendum —a Referendum which, ex hypothesi, would be one to destroy their own guilty (but successful) conspiracy! They were still harping on “the U.S. and the big battalions and noise!”

Finally, on the eve of the sitting of the Convention, the Prime Minister came to the charge once more, in a manner probably without a precedent in the usages of Prime Ministers, by addressing to me a second public letter (dated from Downing Street, 20th July) asking me would I not withdraw my refusal ? ? He had nothing better to offer than these anodyne generalities: “The Convention is a. sincere effort to see if Irishmen in Ireland can agree on a settlement which will make for better relations between the different parties in Ireland and happier relations between Ireland and Great Britain. With the object in view, I know that you are in full sympathy, and I most earnestly hope that you will respond to this appeal, which I understand, has come also from many other quarters, to give your help toward securing the success of the Convention.”

The controversy was wound up in a letter in which I repeated that “the type of Convention selected by you defeats its stated object with fatal certainty by leaving the great mass of Nationalist opinion all but wholly unrepresented and conferring the power of decision upon a majority of politicians who have notoriously lost the confidence of the Irish people,” and begged of him to persevere no further with a Convention hopelessly out of touch with Irish public opinion, but to fall back upon a friendly conference of the most potential friends of peace in all parties as the only means —a

forlorn one enough by this time— finding a way out. «

Unluckily this latter advice was now a counsel of perfection. An event had just happened which put an end to the last chance of negotiating otherwise than with weapons of steel. At the battle of "Messines on June 7th, Major "Willie" Redmond, like the "vera parfait, gentil knight" he was, insisted "on going over the top" at the head of his men and met his death. His only complaint, we may be sure, was that he could but repeat the dying cry of Sarsfield at Landen: "0 that this were for Ireland!" For his constituency in East Clare, Mr. de Valera offered himself as a candidate on the straight issue of an Irish Republic. The Hibernians made a supreme effort to rehabilitate their fortunes and, what, with the sympathies enkindled by the young soldier's fate, the high expectations created by the Convention, and a candidate of widespread local influence, they were fatuous enough to count upon an easy victory. To their stupefaction, the Irish Republic carried the day with a majority of five thousand votes. Had the figures been reversed, a Partition scheme must have been carried through the Convention with not more than half a dozen dissenting voices. East Clare put an end to the danger of the Convention coming to a criminal agreement for Partition, but it was only to create a new danger for the uprise of the Republic forbade the possibility of any other agreement, since if it were to meet acceptance by the country in its present mood, it would not have the smallest chance of acceptance either by Ulster or by the British Parliament. The Irish people are too ready to make idols and too ready to break them. It was by men too little known to excite either; idolatry or animosity that the ways were to be in the long run straightened out. But for the next four years, at all events, Mr. de Valera, with his Republican Tricolor, was the National idol, and Mr. Griffith and his peaceful penetrationists were laid up in lavender. The presence of Sinn Fein at an amicable Conference-table was no longer practical politics. Elated with what seemed the cleverness of a paltry electioneering dodge, Mr, Lloyd George and his Hibernian counsellors released Mr. de Valera and established the Irish Republic. CHAPTER XXII.— DEATH OF MR, REDMOND. None the less, the joint Convention of the Hibernians and Covenanters assembled in Dublin on July 25th, amidst decorative surroundings that might well give a goodnatured people like the Irish the impression that some great work of peace was on foot. The Convention held its sittings within the historic walls of Trinity College amidst the finest stage scenery the genial Provost, Dr. Mahaffy, could provide; a President of respectable neutrality was found in Sir Horace Plunkett; not a few single-minded Irishmen, with a nobler gift for peace and goodwill than for the mean realities of politics, were induced to join in attempting to elevate the assembly above the normal man-

oeuvres of the politicians; for months the country was permitted to hear of nothing but patriotic junketings and speeches, "passed by the Censor," overflowing with the k raptures of "the Black Northerns" at the ■discovery of the charms of "the Sunny South to the advances of the dour men of the Black North—all purely for exportation to "the U.S." As a precaution against any premature disclosure of the truth, the business meetings of the Convention were held J in private, and any report of their secret m sittings, any comment or even any "refer- ™ ence" to them in speech or newspaper was declared a crime under the Defence of the Realm Act. The impatience of the country was sought to be allayed by not over-candid

assurances from Sir Horace Plunkett in his banquetting speeches from time to time that all was going well. "The U.S." had to be kept amused by such romantic scene-paint-ing and by the band for many months before the curtain could finally be lifted and then only to exhibit the actors scurrying off the stage, like as many poor ghosts at cockcrow. The realities of the drama were going on in America itself, where England was playing for the soul of President Wilson. In the Ireland of real life the Volunteers were silently arming and drilling their battalions, paying but a contemptuous attention to the love-feasts of the politicians in Mr. Lloyd George's "Irish Convention." (To be continued.)