John Redmond - Defeat and Decease

Defeat and Decease

An Irish Convention of around one hundred delegates sat from July and ended in March 1918. Up until December 1917 Redmond used his influence to have a plan which had been put forward by the Southern Unionist leader Lord Midleton, accepted. It foresaw All-Ireland Home Rule with partial fiscal autonomy (until after the war, without customs and excise). All sides, including most Ulster delegates, wavered towards favouring agreement. Already ailing while attending the Convention, his health permanently affected by an accident in 1912, Redmond also suffered assault on the street in Dublin by a crowd of young Sinn Féin supporters on his way to the Convention, which included C.S. 'Todd' Andrews. On 15 January, just when he intended to move a motion on his proposal to have the Midleton plan agreed, some nationalists colleagues, the prominent Catholic Bishop O'Donnell and MP Joseph Devlin expressed doubts. Rather than split the nationalist side he withdrew his motion. A vital chance was lost.

He ended his participation by saying that under the circumstances he felt he could be of no further use to the Convention in the matter. His final word in the Convention was the tragic one – Better for us never to have met than to have met and failed. Late in February the malady from which he was suffering grew worse. He left Dublin for London knowing that a settlement from the Convention was impossible. An operation in March 1918 to remove an intestinal obstruction appeared to progress well at first, but then he suffered heart failure. He died a few hours later at a London nursing home on 6 March 1918. One of the last things he said to the Jesuit Father who was with him to the end, was, Father, I am a broken hearted man. At the Convention, his last move was an adoption of O’Brien’s policy of accommodating Unionist opposition in the North and in the South. It was too late. Had he joined O’Brien ten years before and carried the Irish Party with him, it is possible that Ireland’s destiny would have been settled by evolution.

Condolences and expressions of sympathy were widely expressed. After a funeral service in Westminster Cathedral his remains were interred, as requested in a manner characteristic of the man, in the family vault at the old Knights' Templars' chapel yard of Saint John's Cemetery, Wexford town, amongst his own people rather than in the traditional burial place for Irish statesmen and heroes in Glasnevin Cemetery. The small, neglected cemetery near the town centre is kept locked to the public – his vault, which had been in a dilapidated state, has been only partially restored by Wexford County Council.