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‘Parnellism And Crime’, 1887–901

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

F. S. L. Lyons
F. S. L. Lyons
Affiliation:
University of Kent at Canterbury
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Extract

The Home Rule crisis of 1885–86 is generally held to mark a water-shed in the history of Anglo-Irish relations. This it undoubtedly does, though not necessarily for the reasons commonly advanced. The crisis was certainly important in the sense that it obliged the Liberal and Conservative parties to define their attitudes towards Irish self-government and thus to demonstrate to the Irish nationalist party in the House of Commons that their main hope for the future lay with Mr Gladstone and those Liberals who had remained faithful to him after his declaration in favour of Home Rule. But the course of events during 1886 demonstrated just how far the Irish demand still was from being met. The inadequacies of the Home Rule Bill itself, the split in the Liberal party, the firm negative of the Conservatives, the violence of the Ulster Protestant reaction, the veto of the House of Lords which had not even to be deployed in 1886 but was there for future use when necessary—all these things suggested that Home Rule, if it came at all, would not happen overnight at the waving of any Parnellite wand, but would require years, perhaps decades, of labour before it came within sight of achievement.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 24 , January 1974 , pp. 123 - 140
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1974

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References

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8 Henry Matthews to ‘My dear Sir’ (if not Macdonald, then probably either John Walter (the proprietor) or George Buckle (the editor)), 14 Feb. and 12 Apr. 1887 (Printing House Square Papers).

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34 John Morley to W. E. Gladstone, 10 Aug. 1888 (British Museum, Add. MS. 44,255. fos. 252–55).

35 W. E. Gladstone to John Morley (copy), 11 Aug. 1888 (ibid., fos. 256–59).

36 John Morley to W. E. Gladstone, 24 Aug. 1888(ibid., fos. 264–65).

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42 These various devices are well summarized in Moody, T. W., (The Times versus Parnell and Co., 1887–1890), pp. 159–65Google Scholar. Much (though by no means all) of this evidence of government involvement depends on documents collected by Joyce, of which only copies of some remain, and on a memorandum written by him in 1910 when he was a disappointed and embittered man (N.I..I. MS 11, 119); these materials form the basis of Ó Broinn, The Prime Informer. For the interacting roles of Anderson and Le Caron, see Caron, H. Le, Twenty-five Years in the Secret Service (9th ed., London, 1893), pp. 60Google Scholaret seq; R. A. Anderson, Sidelights on the Home Rule Movement, chap. 15, and The Lighter Side of my Official Life (London, 1910)Google Scholar, passim. The government's resolve to help The Times is dealt with in Curtis, L. P., Coercion and Conciliation in Ireland, pp. 284–91Google Scholar. A hitherto unpublished letter from Balfour to the Home Secretary (in the J. S. Sandars Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford), with the request that he would ask Anderson to co-operate with Joyce on all relevant matters is further evidence in the same direction (A. J. Balfour to Henry Matthews, 24 Mar. 1889).

43 The key event in these transactions—Pigott's ordeal in the witness-box— is documented in Special Commission Act, 1888, reprint of the short-hand notes of the speeches, proceedings and evidence taken before the commissioners appointed under the above act (hereafter cited as Spec. Comm. Proc), V, pp. 443–576 (20–22 Feb. 1889).

44 O'Brien, R. B., The Life of Charles Stewart Parnell (2nd edn., London, 1899), ii, p. 233Google Scholar. The judges' findings are in Report of the Special Commission, 1888 [C 5891], H. C. 1890, xxvii, pp. 477–640Google Scholar.

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54 Lyons, F. S. L., The Fall of Parnell, 1890–91 (London, 1960)Google Scholar, chap. 2.