John Redmond - Leader of The Parnellite Party

Leader of The Parnellite Party

Having belatedly become a barrister by completing his terms at the King's Inns, Dublin, being called to the Irish bar in 1887 (and to the English bar a year later), Redmond busied himself with agrarian cases during the Plan of Campaign. In 1888, following a strong and conceivably intimidatory speech, he received five weeks’ imprisonment with hard labour. A loyal supporter of Parnell, Redmond like Davitt was deeply opposed to the use of physical force and was committed to political change by constitutional means, campaigning constitutionally for Home Rule as an interim form of All-Ireland self-government within the United Kingdom.

When the Irish Parliamentary Party split over Parnell's long-standing family relationship with Katharine O'Shea, the previously separated wife of a fellow MP, whom he later married, Redmond stood by his deposed leader in the dispute. After Parnell's death in 1891, Redmond took over leadership of the Parnellite rump of the split party, the Irish National League (INL), where he soon demonstrated both his organisational ability and his considerable rhetorical skills. He also raised funds for the Parnell Monument at the northern end of Dublin's O'Connell Street, choosing the American Augustus Saint Gaudens to sculpt the statue, which was eventually completed in 1911.

The larger anti-Parnellite group formed the Irish National Federation (INF) under John Dillon. During this period, he supported the Unionist Irish Secretary Gerald Balfour programme of Constructive Unionism, while assuring the Tory Government that its self-declared policy of "killing Home Rule with kindness" would not achieve its objective. Redmond dropped all interest in agrarian radicalism and, unlike the mainstream nationalists, worked constructively alongside Unionists, such as Horace Plunkett, in the Recess Committee of 1895 which led to the establishment of a department of agriculture in 1899. He further argued that the land reforms and democratisation of elected local government under the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 would in fact stimulate demands for Home Rule rather than dampen them, as was the case.