John Dillon - Conciliation Unthinkable

Conciliation Unthinkable

Dillon played a decisive role in opposing O'Brien's “doctrine of conciliation” in Irish politics, especially during the 1902 Land Conference and after O'Brien won the subsequent Wyndham Land Purchase Act (1903). O'Brien was viciously attacked by Dillon, who bore an instinctive dislike of negotiations with landlords, unwilling to accommodate the landlord class, he never shedded his mistrust of dialogue with Unionists. His theory was that agrarian unrest better favoured achieving Home Rule by putting relentless pressure on landlords and the government. His attacks and those of the party's Freeman's Journal alienated O'Brien who left the Party in November 1903. O'Brien's engagement during 1904-5 with the Irish Reform Association was equally condemned by Dillon who despised all dealings with the "hereditary enemy". The ensuing breach never healed. Dillon subsequently gained control of the UIL through his protégé, its new secretary Joseph Devlin, MP for Belfast West, with whom Dillon always maintained a close alliance.

With the UIL and the IPP practically fused into a single body, Dillon later had MP members associated with O’Brien’s policy of conciliation, amongst them Thomas O'Donnell and D. D. Sheehan, expelled as “factionists” from the party. The Home Rule Movement, influenced very greatly by Dillon, reverted to a narrow traditional stand, which opposed any chance of an inclusive nationalism and failed to include new interests within Catholic society. His Home Rule Movement was largely a confessional ethnic body, sustained largely by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, an exclusively Catholic and secret fraternity, largely under control of his close associate Joe Devlin. Dillion's Home Rule Movement was characterised by permanent class war and did not facilitate the working of the Wyndham Land Act. Dillon and his followers wanted conflict above victory.

Dillon suffered occasional health incapacities causing irregular attendance at Westminster, particularly when his wife died in 1907 though after the Liberals returned to power in 1906, he was more often consulted. Between 1910 and 1914 the Irish Home Rule question re-emerged, introduced by Prime Minister Herbert Asquith. Dillon, in his approach to Irish self-government under Home Rule took a more uncompromising stand to Redmond's, who during the Ulster crisis of 1913 was prepared to concede a large measure of local autonomy to Ulster. This was unthinkable for Dillon, who put the integrity of Ireland foremost, and poured scorn on Edward Carson's Ulster Unionist Party and their Ulster Volunteers’ threat of civil war as being a gigantic bluff.

He likewise condemned O’Brien’s new All-for-Ireland League’s proposals for concessions to Ulster as encouraging their demands. He remained inflexible at various meetings, including the Buckingham Palace Conference’s endeavour to settle the problem of Ulster. He agreed only reluctantly to Redmond conceding to six counties temporarily opting out of the Home Rule Act 1914, which in September received Royal Assent but was suspended for the duration of World War I.