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Parnell and the I.R.B. oath
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
Extract
The clandestine contacts between Parnell and the Irish Republican Brotherhood as he rose to national leadership in the first years of the land war provoked political controversy in his lifetime and have aroused speculation ever since. Michael Davitt and John Denvir both tried to recruit Parnell into the I.R.B. in 1878 and were told that he was determined never to join a secret society; but some years ago Paul Bew drew attention to a different allegation contained in an anonymous article published in 1930 in An Phoblacht. The writer claimed that as a youth he was one of the Land League organisers imprisoned in Kilmainham jail under Forster’s administration, and recollected a few incidents ‘for the benefit of the younger generation who stand face to face with the same authorities—under a new disguise today’. He described, among other things, the drafting of the ‘no-rent manifesto’ by William O’Brien and I.R.B. recruitment among the prisoners. The article then stated that soon after Parnell’s release from Kilmainham in 1882 he met a Land League organiser from the west while on his way to consult the records of Griffith’s valuation in Trinity College library, that they walked to the library together discussing constitutionalism and physical force, and that in the library Parnell at his own request took the I.R.B. oath, having first pledged the organiser to secrecy for as long as Parnell lived. (The article then casually continues for several paragraphs of reminiscence and reflection.)
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- Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1995
References
1 Davitt, Michael, The fall of feudalism in Ireland (London, 1904) pp 111-13Google Scholar; Denvir, John, Life story of an old rebel (Dublin, 1910) p. 201 Google Scholar.
2 Bew, Paul, Conflict and conciliation in Ireland, 1890–1910 (Oxford, 1987) p. 2nGoogle Scholar; ‘Memories of Kilmainham’ in An Phoblacht, 8 Mar. 1930.
3 Among other things, the writer claims that the journalist and member of parliament T. P. O’Connor (1848-1929), ‘who afterwards became such an avowed Imperialist’, was sworn into the I.R.B. while he was a student at Queen’s College, Galway; ‘the Oath was administered to him one night in Abbey Street by a Corkman’. This is of some interest; O’Connor’s latest biographer casts doubt on a police report claiming that O’Connor took the I.R.B. oath while fighting the Galway seat in 1880 (he was elected with I.R.B. support against clerical opposition) because the biographer knew of no other evidence linking O’Connor with the I.R.B. ( Brady, L.W., T. P. O’Connor and the Liverpool Irish (London, 1983), app. 1, p. 258 Google Scholar).
4 T. J. Quinn to William O’Brien, n.d., annotated in pencil by Bull, Philip ‘(Feb.-March 1928) found among letters of sympathy to Sophie O’Brien at time of O’Brien’s death’ (University College, Cork Google Scholar, William O’Brien papers, AU 204–6).
5 The following account of Sheridan’s career is based on N.A.I., C.S.O., R.P., 1887/2257/91, which contains several earlier files, notably 1881/35696, on the warrant for his rearrest; 1882/165249, reports on his clandestine activities in Ireland; 1883/B234, material relating to the attempted extradition, including interview in the Irish World, 3 Mar. 1883; 1883/26358, copy of Carey’s deposition, and evidence of a London gunsmith identifying Sheridan as purchaser of a gun used by Invincibles; 1883/7949, report of Philadelphia lecture; 1884/42384/W/900, on abortive trial in 1884 of I.R.B. leader P. N. Fitzgerald and others accused of establishing a branch of the Invincibles in Tubbercurry in association with Sheridan; copy of circular given by Sheridan to prospective recruit in Galway, 8 Apr. 1879, and account of associated circumstances. See also Bew, Paul, Land and the national question in Ireland, 1858–82 (Dublin, 1978), pp 243–5 Google Scholar.
6 Davitt to Devoy, 5 Oct. 1880 ( Devoy’s post bag, 1871–1928, ed. O’Brien, William and Ryan, Desmond (2 vols, Dublin, 1948-53), i, 555Google Scholar).
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10 T. J. Quinn should not be confused with Thomas Quinn (1828-97), M.P. for Kilkenny 1886–92, activist in the Land League of Great Britain and member of the delegation which met Parnell at Willesden junction on 10 April 1882 after his temporary release on parole ( Stenton, Michael and Lees, Stephen (eds), Who’s who of British members of parliament, 1885–1918 (Hassocks, 1975), p. 295 Google Scholar) or the Belfast Catholic businessman Thomas Quinn, who contested Leitrim in the 1880 general election ( Domhnall Mac an Ghalloglaigh, ‘The Land League in Leitrim, 1879–83’ in Breifne, vi, no. 22 (1983-4), pp 162-8Google Scholar).
1 ‘For the career of John O’Connor Power ( 1846–1919), member of I.R.B. Supreme Council 1868–77, M.P. for Mayo 1874–85, see Jordan, Donald, ‘John O’Connor Power, Charles Stewart Parnell and the centralisation of popular politics in Ireland’ in I.H.S., xxv, no. 97 (May 1986), pp 46-66Google Scholar.
12 John Ferguson (1836-1906), Glasgow publisher and radical land reformer, of Ulster Protestant origin. Member of Land League central committee; remained prominent in nationalist organisations until his death. Leader of the first labour group on Glasgow Corporation.
13 Subsequently Ladies’ Land League activist; wife of Patrick J. Gordon, early Land League organiser and one of the ‘traversers’ charged with Parnell and Sheridan in 1880–81 (see Moody, T.W., Michael Davitt and Irish revolution, 1846–82 (Oxford, 1981), pp 361, 427–8Google Scholar). Paul Bew is currently researching Gordon’s links with the Knock apparition.
14 Warwick-Haller, Sally, William O’Brien and the Irish land war (Dublin, 1990), pp 57-8Google Scholar.
15 Presumably Canon Geoffrey Burke (or Bourke) (1823-90), whose dealings with tenants on the family estate are traditionally regarded as the cause of the Irishtown meeting (Moody, Davitt, pp 292–5).
16 N.A.I., Police and Crime Records, no. 5: Protection of Person and Property Act, carton no. 1: VIII Centre—County of Mayo, District of Claremorris:’List of persons whose arrest is recommended under the provisions of the bill... 1881’.
17 Healy, T.M., Letters and leaders of my day (2 vols, London, 1929), i, 172-86Google Scholar; Callanan, Frank, The Parnell split (Cork, 1992), pp 179-80Google Scholar.
18 The collected letters of Yeats, W. B., ed. Kelly, John (Oxford, 1986- ), i, 303n, 361n, 379Google Scholar; The Gonne-Yeats letters, ed. White, Anna MacBride and Jeffares, A. Norman (London, 1992), pp 194, 197, 494Google Scholar.
19 T. J. Quinn, letter to Irish World, 1 Apr. 1882, quoted in Special Commission Act, 1888; reprint of the shorthand note of the speeches, proceedings and evidence taken before the commissioners appointed under the above named act (popular ed., 34 vols, London, 1890), xvi, 110–11Google Scholar.
20 A Fenian looks back—Land League days’ in An Phoblacht, 5 Apr. 1930. (An Phoblacht inserted an editorial note saying that the contributor’s views were not necessarily those of the paper and were published only as the opinions of a Fenian who had given a lifetime to the cause.)
21 Devoy’spost bag, ii, 202–13.
22 E.g. ‘Account of the Tallaght rising by a survivor’ in An Phoblacht, 23 Nov. 1929; ‘The story of the Manchester rescue from narratives of participants’, ibid., 30 Nov. 1929; P. J. P. Tynan, ‘The true story of the Phoenix Park murders’, ibid., Christmas issue, 1929.
23 For Davitt’s contacts with the Mayo organisers of the Irishtown meeting, most of whom were Fenians, see Moody, Davitt, pp 283, 285, 289. Details are understandably scanty, and the formal pact described by Quinn is not mentioned elsewhere.
24 Lyons, F.S.L., Parnell (London, 1977), pp 204–5 Google ScholarPubMed.
25 O’Brien, R. Barry, Life of Charles Stewart Parnell (2 vols, London, 1899), i, 361–4Google Scholar; Lyons, Parnell, p. 214.
26 Lyons, Parnell pp 202, 206; Special Commission proceedings, ii, 57 (O’Shea’s testimony); ibid., xx, 63–4 (Parnelľs testimony).
27 Special Commission proceedings, ii, 63–4.
28 Callanan, Parnell split, p. 199.
29 I wish to thank Dr Paul Bew and Dr Margaret O’Callaghan for their advice and to acknowledge the help given by my mother, Mrs Máiréad Maume, who supplied me with the Special Commission references.