Parnellism and Crime (1887-8)

Chapter XXII*

“Parnellism and Crime” *(1887-8)

By the time I was able to return to London the situation had been straightened out. Arthur Balfour had refused to make good his promise to grant an appeal from sentences of one month by Removable Magistrates, but this was the only instance in which he failed to fulfil an undertaking. The strength of the pressure against him by extremists cannot now be realized. A quarter of a century later under the Bill of Mr. McKenna, Home Secretary, I succeeded in getting an appeal from all sentences by magistrates.

I wrote my brother:

House of Commons,

*27th August, *1887.

“With regard to the Bantry Abbey cross, I gave the order for it. The design was a Celtic cross about 10 feet high, I think, and I have not considered the inscription, which must be unobjectionable to Payne [Lord Bantry’s agent]. I know the delay is mere obstruction, and that there is no trustee question involved. When they give the site I will direct the cross to be hewn…

Barry tells me T. P’s paper project is practically off, as last night Williamson [afterwards Lord Asliton], who was to give £10,000, would only do so on condition that the directors had full power of dismissal, and that T.P.’s salary should be £800 a year, and that he should surrender all other work. The Echo could be bought for £100,000, **and they are thinking of this now. I hope T.P. may be able to get matters patched up afresh. H. Frederic has been writing a sketch of us in the *New York Times, *but is hard on T.P.”

T.P. surmounted all difficulties and edited the *Star *for years. Afterwards a cabal was got up against him, and he appealed to me to overcome it, saying Biggar was his principal opponent. Joe nourished resentment against him over the Galway election. T.P. had married a beautiful, amiable and cultured Texan lady, Bessie Paschal, and Biggar transferred some of his dislike of T.P. to her, which was undeserved and unjust. Critics of their management of the *Star *secured Biggar’s sympathy, and T.P. begged me to persuade him to cease attack. I thought Biggar wrong in joining the Liberals who financed the paper against a colleague, and yielded to T.P.’s appeal to try to blunt Joe’s comments.

The best time to take him was after dinner. His only luxury in the 24 hours was half a glass of whisky at that meal. We dined together nightly, and I watched for the moment when he placed his knife and fork crosswise on his plate to signify that he had finished. Then I began. “Joe, you are being blamed for injuring an old colleague? ” “Which one, misther?” “T. P.,” said I. “I’ll continue to criticize him, sir, and give him worse!” was the answer. I remonstrated, “Why should you do this before English friends, even if you think he deserves it? ” “I’ll not stand him,” he retorted. After a pause I replied sorrowfully,” I’m afraid, Joe, there must be a break in our friendship.” “Not at all, misther! ” he answered. “Yes,” I said, “It must come, Have I ever made a request to you before? ” “No,” he agreed. “Then you refuse me the first time I ask you a favour? ” “I can’t grant it, misther,” he firmly replied. “Joe, must I bid you good-bye?

“I can’t yield, sir,” he blurted out. I rose from the table, saying, “Good-bye, Joe.” The next moment he called out, “Come back, Tim,” and drew me near him again. He burst forth, “I’ll consent on one condition.” “Well,” I assured him, “T.P. will agree to any condition you make.” “I’m not so sure of that, misther.” “Now, Joe,” said I, “this is a serious business, and you have only to name your terms.” He laughed and launched this sally, “My terms are simple, misther. Let him send Bessie back to Texas! ” In other words that an admirable wife, attractive in every way, should be abandoned at his whim. The drollery in his eyes left me without argument. To convey this to T.P. was impossible, and Biggar’s hostility was maintained to the end.

Afterwards a tragedy was enacted that stirred Biggar. May Carroll, whose jilting of T.P. led to the Galway fight over O’Shea, committed suicide in an hotel in Chicago. A paper which was sent us depicted the poor girl laid out a corpse in her ball dress. She had turned on the gas flares, cut a square out of her bodice and fired a “derringer” at her heart. I showed Biggar the gruesome picture. His extraordinary comment was, “Hang that Bessie, misther. I prefer May.”

Yet Mrs. O’Connor never had wronged him, or meddled in our affairs, and was always helpful. The trail of “Galway” was over it all. I told Biggar bluntly that my sympathies were with Bessie and her husband, despite his unfounded prejudices.

My letters to Maurjce continued:

House of Commons,

2*nd September, *1887.

“I shall meet you in Dublin to discuss the Labourers Bill. I don’t mind what the Tories say about Pamell’s arguments… .

I am going to defend Tim Harrington on Monday, and therefore cannot go to Cork to defend Hooper. I don’t like the job, yet what can I do? Still less should I like defending Hooper, as he has no possible defence, whereas Harrington had nothing whatever to say to the offence with which he is charged, yet doubtless he also will follow his brother to jail. Ned, I believe, has donned prison garb, and evidently Tim regards him as an “enfant terrible.”

Ned Harrington was witty, and so was his wife. When I came to Tralee to defend him he said, “I hear that when I am convicted the name of this street will be changed from Denny Street to Harrington Street.” “Yes,” said his wife, who was childless, “It’s time there was a christening in the street! ” The Gaelic locution was merry. Before evening closed, poor Ned got six months’ imprisonment. In these days Coercion and Fair Rents were the chief topics of interest, and I wrote Maurice:

Dublin,

“22nd *December, *1887.

John Sullivan’s Habeas Corpus case, and the prisoner’s release, is a bad stick for the Crown. Every barrister in the Library advised me that it was hopeless, but I went on and won, My descent on the Castle to-day” fluttered the dovecots, and I also warned the three Dublin jails against taking in Blacksmith Sullivan, so he lay in an hotel.”

This referred to an application I made to the Exchequer Division (having been refused by Chief Justice Morris in the Queen’s Bench) for a writ of Habeas Corpus in the case of the conviction of a Kerry blacksmith named Sullivan by Resident Magistrates. The quashing of Sullivan’s conviction fettered the Coercion “Removables,” who until then could inflict sentences of a month’s imprisonment at their whim without appeal.

In 1888 the enforcement of Coercion led to much controversy in the British Press and in Parliament. A sample of the style in which Irish members were described is clipped from the London correspondence of the *Sheffield Telegraph *(29th February, 1888):

“On the Irish benches it seemed as if a nest of cobras had been roused to sudden anger. Such writhing and squirming, such cobra rattling and splutter and angry passions, such flushings of faces, such spasmodic jerking forward of heads hooded with alarm and hate, such snaky sibilations sharpened into spiteful scoffs, had rarely been known in the House, even among the reptile-brood introduced to Parliament and there self-exhibited - by grace of American dollars - uncaged.”

The owner of the *Sheffield Telegraph *had just been given a baronetcy by the Government, and the abuse was “propaganda” - a curtain-raiser for what was soon to be staged.

In July, 1888, O’Donnell’s action against *The Times *was tried before Lord Coleridge. The plaintiff did not go into the witness-chair to explain how he was aggrieved by *Parnellism and Crime. *His counsel called no witnesses nor tendered any evidence save *The Times *publications. Thereupon, according to settled practice, the defendants should have applied for a “direction” to the judge, as no libel against O’Donnell had been proved. Instead of acting on this rule of procedure, Sir Richard Webster (Attorney-General) began a speech in which for three days he hurled against the Irish Party (who were not cited or represented) terrible charges. He read nearly a dozen fresh-forged letters, but offered no evidence in their support) and only when he had bespattered the Irish Party with vile accusations did he ask for a “direction.”

In this mock trial, therefore, neither plaintiff nor defendants called witnesses! Yet Webster’s speech was made the basis of an Act of Parliament. For the highest law officer of the Crown, in broadcasting forgeries against absent men, was engaged in no reckless manoeuvre. His strategy was well considered. He was drawing up the framework of an indictment against opponents to which he intended to compel them by statute to plead, or else to lie prostrate and shamed before the world.

The dismissal of O’Donnell’s suit was not the object of the speech, for that could have been had for the asking. It was solely directed to buttress The Times’ allegations against Parnell and his followers.

O’Donnell’s bona fides may be judged by the fact that 13 years after Parnell’s death he unloosed a torrent of bitterness against him in a pamphlet purporting to analyse Mrs. O’Shea’s Love Story. It was published in 1914 by Murray and Co., 180 Brompton Road, S.W., price 6d. Therein he invented a charge never before made, viz.: “We know that £5,000 were granted to found the Invincible Society” (page 8).

This fabrication was emitted a quarter of a century after The Times had failed to connect Parnell or his colleagues with the crimes of the Invincibles.

O’Donnell’s vanity is displayed by a less harmful fiction: “In 1877-9 I taught Parnell all that he was ever able to understand of the active policy which I alone had first explained in the Home Rule Conference, 1873.” He afterwards wrote a volume (unread by most people) assailing Parnell and his Party.

To bring a libel action against The Times required means, and O’Donnell had none. The reader must, therefore, make up his mind as to whether, in provoking this bogus trial under the pretence that he had been attacked, O’Donnell was merely spiteful, or was an agent for (or in collusion with) an undisclosed principal.

Parnell, on the 9th July, 1888, renewed the demand for a Select Committee of the Commons to inquire into the forgeries. W. H. Smith, on 12th July, knowing the havoc wrought in the public mind by Webster’s arraignment, refused, but said the Government would appoint a Statutory Commission to inquire into the charges against the M.P.’s named in ” O’Donnell v. Walter.” This revealed the basis of Webster’s tactics. Smith carefully limited the scope of the proposed Bill to charges against “M.P.’s,” but when his offer met with acceptance, additional effrontery was displayed. The measure as introduced by the Government applied to “M.P.’s and other persons” - an inclusion nation-wide.

Gladstone vainly protested. The extension involved Irish members in the crimes of every outlaw whose offences could be raked up by *The Times. *It was wholly beyond the scope of the charges against Parnell and his friends. Moreover, it threw a burden of investigation and expense on men without access to official records, and without a staff of exploration or means of organizing one. The period even of Titus Oates affords no precedent for such a process. Yet the poison-gas of the forgeries enabled the Government to carry into the lobbies the entire body of their supporters. What Burke declared impossible a century earlier, “an indictment against a nation,” was begun. The Commission was designed to blast Parnell’s reputation and that of his followers. “Other persons” were added to blast Ireland’s hopes of liberty, whether Pigott’s letters were genuine or false.

On the 16th July, 1888, the Bill to constitute the Commission was read a first time. On 24th July, Parnell allowed it to be read a second time without a division, after the names of the Judges (Hannan, Smith, and Day) were announced.

Apparently, when *The Times *was befooled by Pigott, the Government was persuaded that the “Thunderer” would not have accepted the forgeries without evidence. They, therefore, scourged John Walter into accepting the Commission. Walter had “chanced his arm” against Parnell, believing that he could not, owing to the O’Shea scandal, go into court.

Yet Walter disliked the procedure of the Government. Indeed, his solicitor, Soames, wrote denouncing the appointment of the Commission. Later on, Soames complained of the treachery of Dublin Castle in leaving him to prove, without the help he looked for, the allegations put forward by his clients. The British Cabinet, however, gave him ample assistance.

In accepting the tribunal, Parnell was misled by a suggestion thrown out by Chamberlain and a minor M.P., that the Judges would be bound to bring first to a head, the question of the forgeries, and that the words “or other persons” were negligible. Parnell, therefore, did not oppose the second reading. His followers were enraged at this acquiescence, but the spells of Queen O’Shea bemused him.

The strain through which he had gone told on his health and judgment. His disdain, as a gentleman, of attack tended to lead him to belittle the efforts to besmirch him. Pigott’s forgery outraged his pride and self-respect. He conceived that it was concocted to compel him to bring an action for libel against *The Times, *wherein his relations with Mrs. O’Shea would be exposed in cross-examination. This led him to underestimate its public effect which bulked large in the politics of the time. His failure to bring a libel action determined the Salisbury Government to strike, and to appoint judges to inquire into Pigott’s concoction. Parnell was then unable to come to decisions with his former masterfulness, and in the feebleness of that period he believed Captain O’Shea to be the forger. He used to lurk outside Peter Cowell’s hostelry in Holborn and another tavern in the Seven Dials with a coster’s cap over his eyes to trace some connection between O’Shea and the extremists. The diseases of the great often shape the course of history

The debates on the Parnell Commission Bill were said by Lord Courtney, then Chairman of the Commons, to be the stormiest he had ever known. When all was over and the bubble burst, Lord Randolph Churchill remarked, “The Irish Party naturally shrank from an inquiry so tremendous and extensive.” Lord Randolph had, in 1885, “discovered” Webster, and made him M.P. and Attorney-General.

When the names of the Judges who were to investigate the Pigott forgeries were made known, Dick Adams, who had sat with one of them (Judge Day, a Catholic) on the Belfast Riots Commission of 1886, wrote to John Morley describing him as a “Torquemada” and anti-Irish. Morley read his letter to the House of Commons withholding the writer’s name. Angry cries of “Name” burst forth. Morley wilted and divulged that Adams was the writer. This drove Dick into a mental home. The breach of confidence on Morley’s part was inexcusable. When Adams recovered, and Morley again became Irish Secretary in 1892, Dick was made County Court Judge for Limerick.

After the Pigott Bill became law orders were obtained by *The Times *for “discovery of documents” against 80 Irish members. We were required, despite the vagueness of the Statute, and the still greater vagueness of the “form” in which “discovery” was sought, to produce for the benefit *of The Times, *letters and documents in our possession “relevant to the issues to be tried.” I amended my affidavit by adding after “Issues to be tried” the words “so far as I am acquainted with the same,” and declared I had no documents appertaining thereto. What the “issues” were no one knew, except the genuineness of letters forged by Pigott. *The Times *advisers evidently hoped that scandals might come to light through the disclosure of Private correspondence, but this drag-net when hauled in, did not empouch a minnow.

A letter of Mr. Gladstone shows that he thought Our Counsel were to be the Scottish ex-Law Officers;

Hawarden Castle, Chester,

14*th August, *1888.

Dear Mr. Healy,

“My sole motive in proposing that Hawarden should be taken on the way to Dublin was that I thought you and your friends would be able to make the excursion without the trouble of a journey ad *hoc, *which I fear would not be worth your and their while. The Channel has still terrors for many - I for one among them.

But if you find it can be conveniently arranged a little later pray let me know.

I* *hardly like to name November just before the adjourned meeting, as the season will be so far gone; but if you like that time I have no doubt I could arrange for it just before going to Birmingham.

Do not take the trouble of writing until you see your way.

I hope and think that Mr. Parnell’s case will be in good hands with Messrs. Balfour and Assher.

Believe me,

Faithfully yours,

W. E. Gladstone.

Messrs, Balfour and Assher were not retained, and I never heard why Mr. Gladstone thought they would be, though they were learned and devoted men.

The Irish Party now had a battle to fight on “two fronts ” in London against *The Times, *abetted by all the Power of the Government; and in Ireland against the Government itself. Parnell took little interest in the non-London side of the Campaign, so the Struggle at home had to be kept up by local men.

The Coercion Act of 1888 made it illegal to print reports of meetings of “associations” declared suppressed by Vice-Regal proclamation. T. D. Sullivan defied this ukase in the *Nation *and was, while Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1887, sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. To separate him from his family he was transferred from Richmond Prison, Dublin, to Tullamore Jail, where he wrote amusing verses on prison life, The cupboard in which his food was kept he styled the “Holborn Restaurant,” and addressed it floridly in rhyme.

A more prosaic journalist convicted for a like offence was Ned Walsh of the *Wexford People. *He served six months’ hard labour for publishing reports of meetings of local branches of the League. His conversation was embellished by a stutter. On release from Kilmainham he called on me for a meal. I inquired as to his treatment there. Instead of complaining he cheerily said, “The s-s-salt was splendid!”

In 1887-8 William O’Brien’s refusal to wear prison garb led to his clothes being taken away at night. A storm raised by this treatment blew hard against Arthur Balfour (Chief Secretary) who brought from Liverpool a Doctor Barr to Tullamore Jail, to report on O’Brien’s health. In debate Balfour quoted in the House of Commons a line from Barr’s report, whereupon I took the point that a Minister could not quote from a document without producing it in its entirety. The Speaker upheld me and ruled that the whole report must be laid on the table. That night when the House rose, as I was going away, the Conservative Whip, Akers Douglas, ran after me. He said to my amazement that the Chief Secretary wished to see me. I had never spoken to Mr Balfour and our relations were hostile, so I refused. The Whip was not be rebuffed and plied the argument, “Mr. Balfour’s wish to see you is due to anxiety about one of your friends, Mr. O’Brien and he begs you to meet him.” Struck by this earnestness I hesitated, and in the end said I would go to the outer door of the Chamber and await Mr. Balfour there. An other members had left and the place was almost in darkness. The Chief Secretary came to the door-keepers’ mat, at the entrance to the House and earnestly said “I ask you not to press the point which the Speaker ruled in your favour an hour ago. Dr. Barr’s report on Mr. O’Brien’s health has embarrassing phrases, and I leave it to you to say whether its full production may not vex Mr. O’Brien. Dr. Barr did not write for publication and employed a technical term common in life-assurance as he never dreamt that his report would see the light. My slip; in quoting from it, and your insistence on the production of the full report, may hurt Mr. O’Brien’s sensitiveness.” “What is the phrase, ” I asked, “that could offend him? ” “Well,” he answered sadly, “the report states he has ‘a bad family history,’ and this may seem offensive.” “Surely not,” I retorted. “O’Brien knows and weighs the value of words as well as you or me.” “Then you don’t think he will feel hurt?” “No, Mr. Balfour.” “Thank you,” he answered, “you have relieved my mind.” So we parted, and for a dozen years I had no further parley with him. Owing to O’Brien’s struggle, political prisoners were then allowed to wear their own clothes.

Conybeare, M.P. for Camborne, Cornwall, with Lord Charnwood (afterwards member for Oxfordshire), as a looker-on, came to help tenants on the Olphert estate in Donegal in 1888. Conybeare was arrested, and with him a Land League organizer, John Kelly of Bantry, and charged with conspiracy. They had fed tenants about to be evicted by throwing loaves of bread into their cabins over the cordon of police. For this, Resident Magistrates sentenced them to three months’ imprisonment with hard labour. An appeal was taken, and I was asked to fight it. When I reached the hotel in Letterkenny, Judge Webb, the County Court Judge, to whom the appeal lay, sent for me. In his bedroom he imparted the information that I might argue till I was tired, but he would not shorten the sentence. Webb was an old acquaintance of mine, and we could speak freely. I said this was” discouraging to advocacy.” “Well” he mused, “I will do something for you. I will take off the hard labour.” Burthened by this confidence I got his leave to tell the accused. The news cheered Conybeare, but Kelly growled, “That’s very awkward for me, as I had made all my arrangements in Derry Jail with the hard labour division.” Kelly was a man full of fun. He had often been in prison during the Land Agitation, and knew the Derry warders.

Sir John Ross’s Memoirs suggest that Judge Webb prepared beforehand a warrant for my committal for contempt. Webb was an English gentleman and had presented me with his translation of Goethe. I was on friendly terms with him and he was incapable of foul play. Possibly some Crown lawyer may have brought down such a warrant in his brief-bag, but Webb knew nothing about it. Sir John Ross prosecuted Conybeare.

In earlier days, Webb’s defence of Joe Poole, a prisoner hanged for a murder under the railway arch at Seville Place, Dublin, made a great impression. The crime arose out of a dispute between two factions, and although the victim was killed by a bullet, no drop of blood flowed. He was hit in the spine, and died of shock. Webb came to me often in the Four Courts Library to register his opinion of Poole’s innocence. The priests and nuns who consoled Poole in prison and on the scaffold took the same view.

In 1888 the late Canon McFadden, P.P., Gweedore, Co. Donegal, was consigned to Derry Prison for an agrarian speech. After his release the local Resident Magistrate ordered him to be again arrested. His parish was the most barren and hunger-stricken I ever visited. He had been refused a site for a chapel by the landlord, and therefore built one across a stream in a glen on a selvage of No Man’s Land. A few summers later the brook swelled to a torrent, and on a Sunday during Mass flooded the chapel, drowning several of the congregation. No vestry or sacristy was attached to it, and Father McFadden had to put on his vestments in his own cottage near by, and disrobe there after Mass. Inspector Martin, a “ranker” in the R.I.C., was deputed to re-arrest him after his next Mass. The priest in his vestments and biretta, bearing the chalice in his hand after the Holy Sacrifice, was proceeding from the chapel to unvest at home when Martin rushed at him with a drawn sword. Some of the dispersing congregation shouted in Gaelic, “Wul shay an sogart lesh an claiv! (He struck the priest with the sword) and fell on Martin as the perpetrator of a sacrilege. Rooting up the palings from the priest’s garden, they battered in Martin’s skull. The Constabulary escort took to their heels and did not return until long after the crowd melted away. Then they came back and made Father McFadden prisoner, accused of” illegal assembly.” Other alleged participants in the tragedy were also arrested. To try them the venue was changed, under the Coercion Act of 1887, from Donegal to Queen’s County, a hundred miles south. There special juries, from which every Catholic was excluded, were impanelled in Maryborough, the Assize town. The first prisoner arraigned was convicted. His defence was conducted by the MacDermot and Dr. Houston, Q.C., seniors of experience.

On the trial of the second prisoner the MacDermot asked me to reply to the Crown case. I did so, and stressed the fact which impressed Judge Gibson, that as it is “high treason” to strike a judge in his robes, the indiscretion committed by Martin in raising his sword over the head of a vested priest with the sacrificial chalice in his hand, was to the Donegal peasantry a treason to religion. The judge was affected, his charge was clement, and the jury disagreed. The Prosecution then told MacDermot that, if the prisoners would plead “guilty,” mild sentences would be passed, and we met to consult on this offer. I had only been four years at the Bar, and opposed the plea. My seniors were men of over 20 years experience, and I was overruled. The late Father McFadden was present, and consented to plead guilty on a minor count. Next day the plea was put in and the priest was set free under a rule of bail, while the other accused received sentences of varying degree.

When the Parnell Split occurred, two years later, I was accused by the *Freeman *of accepting a bribe from the Crown to induce the accused to plead guilty, although I had resisted the surrender. No slander against my seniors appeared.

The libel on me was first launched at a meeting in Parnell’s favour in Dublin on 2nd December, 1890, while the debates on his deposition were going on in “Room 15.” It was subsequently fathered by Parnell himself in Kilkenny after his downfall. This, however, anticipates events.

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