THE STORY OF THE IRISH RACE

[Fairlie]

Catholic Emancipation

O’Connell now had complete control of the national mind. And his voice was the voice of Ireland. The unquestioning faith of his multitudinous following put in his hands a power which he unsparingly wielded to work out the peoples emancipation. The Catholic Board, under O’Connells direction of course, passed the celebrated "witchery" resolution, which gave to the scandal-mongering multitude the tid-bit that it was a bigoted anti-Catholic mistress who had compelled the Princes anti-Irish attitude. To cap the absurdity, O’Connell was not more delighted at lavishing servile homage upon his royal master than the royal master himself was childishly delighted to receive it. O’Connell in organising the reception so worked upon his faithful people with his lavish eloquence that, arising out to welcome George with wild delight, they seethed with enthusiasm during every day of his stay. So touched was George with his reception by his "beloved Irish subjects", that he bestowed on Lord Fingall, the ranking Catholic layman, the Order of St Patrick. And immediately after his return to England he sent to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland a message of gratitude, and hope for the bright future of his Irish people - which assured O’Connell and his followers, if assurance were needed, that their fondest hopes for religious freedom would now at length be satisfied. It is true that in ’21 the English House of Commons passed the Catholic Relief Bill which, while proposing to make Catholics eligible for Parliament and for offices under the Crown was again saddled with the impossible veto, and with another equally un-acceptable condition, namely, that the Roman Catholic clergy should take oath to elect only bishops who were loyal to the British Crown. He found it a particularly good time for agitation because it was a particularly bad time for the country. The year ’22 and again ’23 brought with them much want and hardship to the nation. Richard Lalor Shiel, orator and Catholic leader, who had differed with and separated from O’Connell, now consented to join forces with him. So O’Connell founded a new Catholic Association and resolving to bring into politics a new great power that had never before been systematically enlisted, namely, the priests, organised the Association by parishes with the priest in each case as natural leader. The Association, too, was more virile and determined in its demands. So dangerous became the peoples attitude that the English Government was forced to take a decisive step. The Catholic Association was suppressed, and an Emancipation Bill brought in. O’Connell, nothing daunted, started to build anew. Hen the Catholic Association was suppressed, he penned a valedictory, wherein, still strong with irrepressible loyalty he urged upon the people ‘attachment to the British Constitution, and unqualified loyalty to the king’. Though the general election in England went very happily for the n-popery party, the new no-popery Government was frightened to discover that the election in Ireland had gone entirely the other way. The mighty power of combined priest and people was taking form, and the Irish nation now realise the solidity of their power more surely and more boldly than ever before. Lecky says that this election of ’26 won Emancipation. But with far more force, it can be said that Emancipation was won by the epoch making Clare election. That was the first truly golden milestone met by the Irish people upon their weary march from the centurys beginning. The Clare election was to Ireland a joyful surprise and a fearful one to England. County Clare had conquered England. The Emancipation Bill was brought in - and passed - but not without fierce opposition. The Emancipation Bill was passed, the commonest citizen rights from which Irish people had hitherto been debarred, because they were heretics and idolaters, were now permitted by law. And civil offices from which they had been, for their crime, shut out, were supposedly thrown open to them. But practically speaking Irish Catholics continued, for many decades after, to labour under their former disability. And in many parts of Ireland, even down to a short generation ago, they were in practice still shut out from all offices except the most menial.

[Fairlie]

O’Connell’s Power and Popularity

Though it was in his character as political leader that he was greatest to his people, it was undeniably in his capacity as lawyer that Daniel O’Connell - "Dan" as they affectionately called him - got nearest to their hearts. They who had always been condemned before they were heard, were accorded human rights in the courts of law after O’Connell had successfully stormed those citadels of injustice. To the regular Crown prosecutors he made his name a name of fear. And indeed it was not much less a terror to those irregular Crown prosecutors who, on the Bench, masqueraded as judges. He was one of the most powerful pleaders that the Bar ever knew. His enemy, Peel, once said that if he wanted an efficient and eloquent advocate, he would readily barter all the best of the English Bar for the Irish O’Connell. In conducting an important case he called into play all of his wonderful faculties. He went from grave to gay, from the sublime to the ludicrous. He played with ease upon every human feeling. He carried away the judge, the jury, the witness that he was handling, and the very prisoner himself in the dock. He could in a few minutes cross-examination tear the ablest witness to shreds, and show the pitying court the paltry stuff he was made of. He might at first play his man, go with him, blarney him, flatter him, convince him that Dan O’Connell had become his most enthusiastic admirer and dearest friend. And when he had thus taken him off his guard, led him by hand into a trap, the Counsellor would come down upon his man with a crash that stunned and shattered him and left him a piteous victim at the great cross-examiners feet. And to judge and jury and the whole court it was now the witness, not the prisoner in the dock who was on trial for his life.
In the years when he was in his climax his word was to the Irish people electric, and his power was invincible. With joyous thrill these long-suffering ones felt that when Dan spoke there was fearful trembling in the seats of the mighty. In him the nation that was dumb had found a voice. The despised had found a champion and the cruelly wronged an avenger. He was to them in the ranks of the gods. After Emancipation was won O’Connell abandoned his law practice to devote himself entirely to the peoples cause.

[Fairlie]

Through the ‘Thirties

When Emancipation was won, Repeal of the false and corruptly purchase "Union" of Ireland with England was the great issue that the Leader started. In 1810, the grand jurors of Dublin, all of them of course Tories and British-Irish, tried to start the Repeal movement. Now that Dan was free to throw himself into the repeal movement, and the Catholics almost to a man were behind him, no support could be got from their Protestant fellow-countrymen. There were two reasons for this - the fierceness of the fight for Emancipation had embittered the Protestants against their Catholic fellows; and besides all the offices and patronage of the country which had been securely theirs in pre-Emancipation days were getting shaky in their grasp now that Catholic disabilities were by law removed, Repeal of the Union would finally break their monopoly; so the overwhelmingly body of the Protestant population was henceforth as bitterly anti-Repeal as they had formerly been anti-Union - and more bitterly than they had been anti-Emancipation. To help the English Whigs in their great fight for Parliamentary Reform, O’Connell much against the wish of many wise ones, slackened the Repeal fight, while he let the popular fight against tithes forge to the front. And he cast all his weight to the English Whigs in their Reform struggle.
The established Protestant Church was supported in Ireland by the farmers of all religions paying to it tithes, a tenth of their products. The tithe war spread like wildfire. The people refused to pay the iniquitous imposition. Thousands of troops were poured into the country to protect the tithe proctors and process-servers. The Protestant clergy, unable to collect the tithes, were now in such real distress that the Government had to provide a Relief Fund for them. O’Connell wanted the tithe reduced two-fifths. The tithe-war dragged on, in varying intensity, till in ’38 was passed the Act which reduced the tithe by a fourth, and shifted it to the landlord. In his desire to help the English Whigs in their Reform struggle, O’Connell had put Parliamentary Reform temporarily before Repeal, worked for it with might and main, and with his Irish following finally gave the Whigs the margin of majority that carried the Reform Bill. When in ’31 he had been warned against abandoning Irish Repeal for British Parliamentary Reform, he said to the people: ‘Let no one deceive you and say that I have abandoned anti-Unionism. It is false. But I am decidedly of opinion that it is only in a reformed Parliament that the question can properly, truly, and dispassionately, be discussed’. Throughout the ‘Thirties O’Connell seemed to work in complete forgetfulness of the one big fact which the agitation of the ‘Twenties should have stamped indelibly on his mind, namely, that an Ireland lulled by the opiate of English friendship always proved to be an Ireland fooled; while an Ireland rebellious was an Ireland successful. It was little wonder that in the late ‘Thirties the Whig-befooled Dan found his popularity waning, got down-hearted, depressed, discouraged and in ’39 made retreat in Mt Melleray to regain his calm.
He came out of his Mount Melleray retreat - with a mind much calmed - able collectedly to review his position and make his plans. But only a miracle could rehabilitate him.

[Fairlie]

The Great Repeal Fight

In 1840 O’Connell founded the National Association of Ireland for repeal. The name of the Association was in ’41, improved into the Loyal National Repeal Association.
The Repeal movement was undoubtedly popularised, and materially stimulated by a couple of big happenings in the Dublin Corporation in these years. In ’41 was elected, for the first time in history, a Nationalist corporation in Dublin Corporation, citadel of ultra-Orangeism, was wiped out and replaced by one that was five-sixths Nationalist. And to the frenzied delight of Dublin, and all Ireland, Dan O’Connell was elected the first Nationalist Lord Mayor. The second stimulus was the great Repeal debate in the Dublin Corporation, where the new Lord Mayor made a Repeal speech, which, to the eager people who in every corner of the land devoured the report of it, was one of the most wonderful of his career. By overwhelmingly majority was carried a resolution to present a Repeal petition to Parliament. Now the Repeal movement was in full swing. And O’Connell filled the land with the agitation. In wonderful speech after speech bristling with urge, ringing with hope, and thundering with defiance, he fostered the ferment in which the populace found itself. The climax of the great Repeal fight came in ’43. That was the year of the Monster meetings, the year of the sublime hope and the undaunted resolve, of the mighty welding of two million men into one solid bulwark of freedom. And yet, alas, it was the sad year of real defeat ! The fighting spirit which stirred the hearts of the people that year expressed itself at those wonderful gatherings, unique in the cult for Irishmen. A quarter of a million people in attendance came to be considered moderate. But the greatest and most memorable of all the great meetings was that at Tara - when his eye swept over that human sea O’Connell himself must have marvelled at the spirit that animated the nation. "What", he said, "could England effect against such a people so thoroughly aroused, if, provoked past endurance, they rose out in rebellion". The government, now aroused to the imminent danger of these meetings, forbade the Clontarf meeting. Five regiments of soldiers, with canon and all the appliances of war, were stationed at vantage points. The gauntlet was thrown down to O’Connell. The country stood on tip-toe awaiting "the word" from O’Connell - whatever that word might be. And tens of thousands of eager ones prayed that it might be a bold one. But, Peace was the word given by the leader. The people implicitly obeyed. Yet time proved that on the day of Clontarf was dug the grave of O’Connell’s Repeal.

[Fairlie]

The End of O’Connell

But the movement and the man had an Indian summer.
But Clontarf and its sequel, the trial and imprisonment, had marked a great turning point in Dan’s career. He studiously avoided any statements of future policy. And without giving the country a lead he went home to Derry, nane to rest and recuperate - to forget politics for a period. He was nevermore the old Dan, the bold Dan, whose magnetic power had gifted him to lead a nation. The Nation party, the Young Ireland party were rebelling against him and the Association and seeking an antidote to the Whigs’ opiate, were preaching revolution to the country. And henceforward to the sincerely grieved Daniel O’Connell and his lieutenants in the Association, the Young Ireland party, more than England were Irelands enemy.
Famine now fastened its clutch on the country. The potato crop of ’46, which was eagerly expected to cure the acute distress produced by the ’45 failure, was blighted. And the harvest of ’47 was yet to plunge the people in far deeper distress. The dreadful sufferings of the poor people now helped to complete the Liberators mental breakdown. The heart of him sank down into sadness. In the beginning of ’47, though feeling sick and worn both in body and soul, he set out upon the sore weeks journey to London to plead, this time, the material cause of the people. He made his last appearance, and last speech in Parliament, in February of that year. He was ordered by his physicians to go on a pilgrimage to Rome. At Genoa, he could go no further. The great mans end came, calm and painless, on May 15th 1847. Having been accorded the greatest funeral that Dublin had ever witnessed, the remains of Daniel O’Connell were laid under the earth in Glasnevin cemetery.
By his intimate and personal friend, O’Neill Daunt, it was truly said of O’Connell: "Well may his countrymen feel pride in the extraordinary man, who, for a series of years, could assail and defy a hostile and powerful government, who could knit together a prostrate, divided, and dispirited nation into a resolute and invincible confederacy; who could lead his followers in safety through the traps and pitfalls that beset their path to freedom; who could baffle all the artifices of sectarian bigotry; and finally overthrow the last strongholds of anti-Catholic tyranny by the simple might of public opinion".

[Fairlie]

The Great Famine

The Great Famine, usually known as the famine of ’47, really began in ’45, with the blighting and failure of the potato crop, the peoples chief means of sustenance. It is calculated that about a million people died - either of direct starvation, or of the diseases introduced by the famines, and about another fled to foreign lands between ’46 and ’50. To relieve the acute situation, their first step was to send over a shipload of scientists to study the cause of the potato failure. Their second step was to bring in a new Coercion Bill for Ireland. The third step was - after they had voted two hundred thousand pounds to beautify Londons Battersea Park - to vote one hundred thousand pounds for the relief of the two million Irish people who were suffering keen distress. The simple reader, who knows not the way of Britain with Ireland, would here naturally come to the conclusion that the tenderhearted gentlewoman, full of sympathy for the thousands who were dying of starvation was directing her Parliament to try to save a multitude of lives. But this would be a mistaken conclusion. She was here referring to the handful of Anglo-Irish landlords and agents, whose lives must be solicitously protected whilst in trying times, they were endeavouring to hack and hew their usual pound of flesh from the walking skeletons in the bogs and mountains of Ireland. Public committees had been formed in various countries and hundreds of thousands of pounds were collected for the relief of Irish distress. With the money thus collected, shiploads of Indian corn were imported to Ireland from America. As there were in the country hundreds of thousands of people in want of food, who yet would not accept it in charity, it was proposed that imported corn should be sold to these people at reduced price - but the paternal Government forbade the irregular procedure. At length when conditions reached their most fearful stage, in ’47, and that the uncoffined dead were being buried in trenches, and the world was expressing itself as appalled at the conditions, the Government advance a loan of ten million pounds, on half to be spent on public works, the other half for outdoor relief. And this carried with it the helpful proviso that no destitute farmer could benefit from that windfall unless he had first given up to the landlord all his farm except a quarter of an acre. As the famine sufferings increased, the Government met the more acute situation by proposing a renewal of the Disarming Act, increase of police and several other British remedies. True, the Government now shipped in Indian corn. But there was more corn went out of the country in one month than the Government sent in, in a year. In those terrible years the people began flocking from the stricken land in tens and hundreds of thousands - to America, and to the earths end.

[Fairlie]

The Passing Of The Gael

They are going, going, going from the valleys and the hills,
They are leaving far behind them the heathery moor and mountain rills,
All the wealth of hawthorn hedges where the brown thrush sways and thrills.

They are going, shy-eyed cailins, and lads so straight and tall,
From the purple peaks of Kerry, from the crags of wild Imaal,
From the greening plains of Mayo, and the glens of Donegal.

They are going, going, going, and we cannot bid them stay,
Their fields are now the strangers, where the strangers cattle stray,
Oh! Kathaleen Ni Houlihan, your ways a thorny way!

Of a certain ninety thousand only, of the emigrants to Canada in ’47, of which accurate account was kept, it is recorded that 6100 died on the voyage, 4100 died on arrival, 5200 died in hospital and 1900 soon died in the towns to which they repaired.
And thus was the flower of one of the finest nations on the face of the earth in swarths mowed down, and thus in wind-rows did they wither from off earth’s face - under the aegis of British rule

[Fairlie]

The Fenians

Fenianism began in Ireland at the end of the ‘Fifties - and at the same time in America. James Stephans who had been a very young man in the ’48 movement, and who had since been a tutor both in Paris and in Kerry, was the founder and great organiser of Fenianism. And from that modest beginning sprang, at first slowly, but after a few years with a rapidity that was magical, one of the greatest of Irish movements, with far reaching consequences. The Irish People, the Fenian organ, was founded in ’63 with John O’Leary as the editor. The Irish People obtained a large circulation - but not so great as did The Nation of Young Ireland days. In autumn ’65 the Government suddenly delivered a great coup - seizing The Irish People, its editors, Stephans and many of the leading figures in the movement in various parts of the country. This was truly a disaster, removing as it did from the direction of the movement some of the wisest heads that guided it. And every one of the hundreds of thousands of the rank and file severely felt the sad blow - from which indeed the movement never recovered - even though Stephans was given back. The other Fenian leaders were tried in December on a charge of high treason and sentenced to penal servitude. The invasion of Canada, which would undoubtedly have been a successful action of the American Government, which, having tacitly encouraged the scheme, and permitted the plans to be ripened, stepped in at the last moment to prevent it. In Ireland, where Stephans had been superseded by Colonel John Kelly, the Rising, arranged for March 5th, ’67, was frustrated by a combination of circumstance. The informer, Corydon, betrayed the plans; and, strangely, a great snow storm, one of the wildest and most protracted with which the country was ever visited made absolutely impossible not only all communications but all movements of men. One of the greatest Irish movements of the century ended apparently in complete failure. Apparently only, for though there was not success of arms, other kinds of success began to show immediately. Within two years after, that terrible incubus upon Ireland, the Established (English) Church was disestablished, and within three years the first Land Act of the century, the Act of ’70 was made law. And Prime Minister Gladstone afterwards confessed that it was the healthy fear instilled in him by the astonishing spirit of the Fenian movement, which forced him to these actions.
Moreover, the spirit begotten by Fenianism went forward for future triumph.

[Fairlie]

Charles Stewart Parnell

From 1865-1870 the English courts in Ireland were kept busy with the trial of Fenian Prisoners. The leading counsel for the defence of the prisoners was Issac Butt QC, one of the most able and eloquent lawyers at the Bar. True, Butts definition of independence was not that of the Fenians. He invented a new term "Home Rule". The first meeting of the "Home Government Association" afterwards re-named the "Home Rule League" was held in a Dublin hotel in 1870. A resolution was passed "that the true remedy for the evils of Ireland is the establishment of an Irish Parliament with full control over our domestic affairs". Charles Stewart Parnell was the squire of Avondale, County Wicklow. To get elected to Parliament he made two trials - one in Wicklow, another in Dublin, and was on both occasions defeated. Then in 1875 he replaced John Martin in Meath. He was regarded as a nice, gentlemanly fellow, who would create no sensation in the House of Commons, - who might make one speech, but never another. Parnell remained a while a spectator, not quite sure which course to pursue. After consideration he decided to adopt Biggars. But Parnells obstruction was of a new brand. It was not just wanton like Biggars; it was scientific. The system was this : propose an amendment to practically every clause of every measure introduced by the Government, and then discuss each amendment fully, his friends forming relays to keep the discussion going. In 1877 Issac Butt was called into the House to remove Parnell. He did so. Parnell disposed of him in one short sentence. Parnell and Butt were obviously coming to blows. On September 1st 1877, the Home Rule Federation of Great Britain held their annual meeting at Liverpool. Parnell was elected president over Butt. Butt was annoyed and made no secret of the fact. In 1880, he was elected leader of the Irish Party. Explanations of his rise to power are somewhat contradictory. There are two words common to all explanations of his election - character and personality. Parnell had only a limited belief in the efficiency of parliamentarianism. He was of opinion that without a well organised public opinion in Ireland his power in Parliament would be slight. He publicly advised the Irish people to keep a keen watch on the conduct of their representatives in the House of Commons. He publicly stated that long association with the House of Commons would destroy the integrity of any Irish Party. He saw nothing but disaster in the policy of conciliating the English. Parnells wish for an energetic movement at home was gratified in an unexpected manner. Michael Davitt was released from prison. The name of Michael Davitt brings up the Land Question. Even in Ireland today, it is difficult to understand the condition of affairs in bygone days. During the year ‘76-’79 the distress of the Irish tenantry touched the line of famine. The rents were not reduced. The landlord demanded payment for land which the land never earned. England Parliament would do nothing to remedy matters. Between 1870 and 1876 fourteen attempts to amend the Land Laws failed. What wonder that the Irish people got restive. By 1876 their patience was giving out. That year a land agent was shot at in County Cork. In 1878 Lord Leitrim, whose reputation for rack-renting was notorious was shot in Donegal. His slayers were never discovered, though the whole population was supposed to know who they were. A great public meeting was held at Irishtown. The keynote of the speech was "the land for the people". The speakers in advocating peasant proprietary broke away notably from the more moderate land policy of Butt, "the three F’s" ie Fixity of Tenure, Fair Rents and Free Sale. A land revolution was in progress. Parnell was naturally, interested in this new movement. Butt had already warned him against the dangers latent in widespread organisations. He decided to take the risk. The ‘National Land League" was established at Castlebar. Parnell finally agreed to recognise the "National Land League" and to become its president. He did not interfere in the plans of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, neither did he give himself away. He had espoused Parliamentarianism and was determined to see what could be got out of it. Any outside help was all to the good.

[Fairlie]

The Land Struggle Begins

The following is a list of acts "at once liberal and prudent" which the British Parliament, with "almost unanimous sanction", did bestow upon Ireland in those years :

1830 Importation of Arms Act
1831 Whiteboy Act
1831 Stanleys Arms Act
1832 Arms and Gunpowder Act
1833 Suppression of Disturbance
1833 Change of Venue Act
1834 Disturbances Amendment and Continuance
1834 Arms and Gunpowder Act
1835 Public Peace Act
1836 Another Arms Act
1838 Another Arms Act
1839 Unlawful Oaths Act
1840 Another Arms Act
1841 Outrages Act
1841 Another Arms Act
1843 Another Arms Act
1843 Act Consolidating all Previous Coercion Acts
1844 Unlawful Oaths Act
1845 Unlawful Oaths Act
1846 Constabulary Enlargement
1847 Crime and Outrage Act
1848 Treason Amendment Act
1848 Removal of Arms Act
1848 Suspension of Habeas Corpus
1848 Another Oaths Act
1849 Suspension of Habeas Corpus
1850 Crime and Outrage Act
1851 Unlawful Oaths Act
1853 Crime and Outrage Act
1854 Crime and Outrage Act
1855 Crime and Outrage Act
1856 Peace Preservation Act
1858 Peace Preservation Act
1860 Peace Preservation Act
1852 Peace Preservation Act
1862 Unlawful Oaths Act
1865 Peace Preservation Act
1866 Suspension of Habeas Corpus Act
1866 Suspension of Habeas Corpus
1867 Suspension of Habeas Corpus
1868 Suspension of Habeas Corpus
1870 Peace Preservation Act
1871 Protection of Life and Property
1871 Peace Preservation Con.
1873 Peace Preservation Act
1875 Peace Preservation Act
1875 Unlawful Oaths Act

[Fairlie]

Fall of Parnell and of Parliamentarianism

Parnell was now the man of the hour. He had triumphed over all who had crossed his path. He had broken Forster; he had humbled even Gladstone. Captain O’Shea who had given what was meant to be damaging proof against him at the Times Commission, filed a petition for divorce against his wife, naming Parnell as co-respondent. There was no defence, and no appearance for the defence. Parnell ignored the whole business as if it were of no importance, whatever. When the decree was made absolute he promptly married Mrs O’Shea. If others had taken matters as coolly as Parnell, it might have been better. But a meeting of the party was called and a resolution of confidence in Parnells leadership was passed. The Irish Party met. Parnell simply asked them not to sell him without getting his value. Envoys of the party called on Mr Gladstone and they learned the nothing which deputation’s learn of Cabinet Ministers. It was a duel between Parnell and Gladstone. The latter won. Then came the Kilkenny election and Parnell crossed over to Ireland. That night, Parnell spoke a sentence that lived for ever in the hearts of those who heard it, and ought to live in the hearts of their descendants. He said :
"I don’t pretend that I had not moments of trial and of temptation, but I do claim that never in thought, word, or deed, have I been false to the trust which Irishmen have confided in me".
Irishmen are kind to the memory of Parnell. He sinned and he was punished. No other man - not even O’Connell - always excepting men who had sealed their allegiance to Dark Rosaleen with their blood - was more dearly beloved by the Irish Catholic people than this Protestant. The people of Ireland were all Parnellite at heart. They did not wish to oppose him. If he had only bowed for a time before the storm he would have come back in triumph. But Parnell was too proud for compromise. He would lead or break the Irish Party. He tried diplomacy. But in Ireland, at least, there is a greater force, which sometimes becomes powerful. It is truth.
Parnells last meeting was at Creggs, County Galway. He was warned by his medical advisors not to go. This was on September 27th 1891. There was death in his face, as he delivered his speech. On October 6th, he died at Brighton. He was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, close beside O’Connell.
Shortly after Parnells death there was a General Election. Gladstone had a working majority of about forty-two. The Home Rule Bill of 1893 was passed in the House of Commons by a majority of forty-three. It was rejected by the House of Lords. Next year the "Grand Old Man" resigned and was succeeded by Lord Rosebery. John Redmonds party (the Parnellites), Dillons party, O’Briens party and Healys party, floundered rather hopelessly for years, disputing plenty, achieving little.
During the Boer war which broke out in 1899 the sympathies of the Irish people were, of course, on the side of the Boers, and no attempt was made to dissemble the delight in Ireland when the Boers scored a victory over the English. Major John MacBride held command of an Irish Brigade fighting with the Boer forces.
In 1902 on the initiative of Captain Shawe-Taylor, representatives of landlords and tenants met in conference to investigate the possibility of an agreed solution of the Land Question. An agreement was reached on the basis of long term purchase which would secure the landlords against loss, and while making the purchase money of their farms higher to the tenants would enable them to secure money at a low rate of interest, and secure them their land at a fixed annuity which would be lower than the actual rent. Mr George Wyndham, Chief Secretary, proceeded to give effect to these recommendations and the result was the Land Act of 1903.
In 1906, Mr Davitt passed away. He succeeded; and dear to Irish hearts is that grave in Mayo, which encloses the mortal remains of a man whose spirit could not be broken.
In 1914 a so-called "Home Rule" Act was passed - empowering the Irish people to play at a "Parliament" in Dublin, whose enactment’s could be vetoed by either the British Lord Lieutenant or the British Parliament. The Irish Parliamentary Party grasping at any straw that might save it from being finally engulfed, begged Ireland to believe that this was the nations "great charter of liberty". When the "Home Rule" Bill became law, it was postponed on the plea that the war was on - in reality because Sir Edward Carson forbade its application. The British Government kept postponing it period after period, till eventually it never went into force. The Irish people most of whom had at first been deceived into regarding it as a desirable step toward larger liberty, eventually disillusioned, would not in the end accept it. In the English House of Commons John Redmond in 1914, unreservedly offered the services of the manhood of Ireland in one of Englands wars. The Parliamentary leaders, Redmond, Dillon, Devlin and O’Connor, came out openly as Englands recruiting sergeants - and their followers in the country, the scales at length fallen from their eyes, began a wholesales desertion - which in startlingly short time left the leaders looking in vain to find any followers. They were to be formally wiped out in the next general election. The Parliamentary Party, having compromised Irelands every claim to nationhood, and touched the depths of disgrace, then disappeared from history. And Ireland severed itself from the bad tradition of British Parliamentarianism.

[Fairlie]

Sinn Fein

The world is witnessing in Ireland an extraordinary national renaissance which expresses itself in literature, art, industry, social idealism, religious fervour and personal self-sacrifice. Deprived of the means of learning, impoverished and ground down, the Irish people for 200 years have not known culture or freedom, and their history for that period is gloomy reading. In the closing years of the 19th century the untilled field was ploughed up and sown in by the Gaelic League. From this educational movement which began in 1893 the whole revival of Irish Ireland may be dated. Recovering some measure of strength at last after the exhaustion of the famine years, but disheartened and confused by the collapse of the Parnell movement, Ireland welcomed the Gaelic League as a new and hopeful means of exerting her national energies. The League spread like fire. The centre of gravity in national life changed from the anglicised towns to the rural population, sturdy, unspoilt, patriotic, virile, the offspring and living representatives of the traditional Gael. Hence Irish politics began forthwith to reflect the mind of the real Irish race. Extraordinary little newspapers and magazines began to appear. The most important was the United Irishman edited by Mr Arthur Griffith. In 1905 Mr Griffith and his friends put before the nation a new political movement. In a newly founded weekly, Sinn Fein (succeeding the United Irishman) Mr Griffith proceeded to show how the nation could thus conduct its won affairs even while the national parliament was denied recognition by outside powers. Thus, through the Harbour Boards, difficulties could be imposed in the "dumping" of foreign goods, which would amount to a system of protection for Irish industries. The public could be organised for the support of native industry, and capital could be encouraged by the offer of rate-free sites etc. Arbitration Courts could be set up everywhere, superseding the British courts in civil matters. National insurance could be undertaken. National banks could divert from foreign field the Irish money which could so much more profitably be invested in buying up Irish land, financing Irish developments and extending Irish control of home resources. A national mercantile marine could be co-operatively bought and set to carrying Irish produce to those Continental markets which offered so much better prices than the English markets to which English ships carried Irish cattle and manufactured goods. Irish commercial agents - consuls - could be sent to the great foreign trade centre. Though he alone could not have made Sinn Fein the power in Ireland that it is, yet those brilliant minds, those fighters and doers, who brought his movement to its present position, would without him have been disunited and perhaps conflicting forces. When Easter Week was over, and the insurgents were crushed, the country was not broken as after ’98 or ’48 or ’67, because the large fabric of the comprehensive Sinn Fein policy remained, and the sacrifice of Pearse and his comrades served but as a stimulus to the masses to carry on the work of industrial revival, language-restoration etc. When in 1910 Mr Redmond secured the Balance of Power in the British Parliament, Mr Griffith suspended the organising of Sinn Fein as a political party, giving the Parliamentary leader a free hand to achieve whatever he could achieve for Ireland with the parliamentary weapon. Unhappily Redmond allowed himself to be coerced by the threats of Sir Edward Carson, and early in 1914, accepted the principle of Partition. In Ireland, there was horror and almost despair. Meanwhile, Nationalists had organised a Volunteer force numbering up to 200,00 to repel the threat of Sir Edward Carson’s Volunteers, who were armed with the connivance of English military authorities and at the expense of the English Unionists. But the Great War found the Irish situation under the influence of another element than Unionism, Parliamentarianism and Sinn Fein - Fenianism or Republicanism. A Physical Force party, aiming at an independent Irish Republic exerted an influence on public opinion that was far from being negligible. The Fenians adopted from Fontana Lalor the motto : "Repeal not the Union, but the Conquest". These were lean years for Sinn Fein, but these two small parties of enthusiasts worked side by side without acrimony. Each was equally devoted to the full Irish-Ireland program of a Gaelicised nation. The Fenians were the active element in the Volunteers when that extraordinary armed movement came into being: but they did not at fist control the new development. Such, then, were the factors in the Irish situation on which the Great War descended in August 1914.