Ireland Since Parnell

Ireland Since Parnell

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Title: Ireland Since Parnell
Author: Daniel Desmond Sheehan
Release Date: November 5, 2004 [EBook #13963]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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SINCE PARNELL ***

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IRELAND SINCE PARNELL
BY CAPTAIN D.D. SHEEHAN
BARRISTER-AT-LAW LATE M.P. FOR MID-CORK

LONDON
DANIEL O'CONNOR 90 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, W.C.1
1921

CONTENTS

FOREWORD
CHAPTER I
. A LEADER APPEARS II. A LEADER IS DETHRONED! III. THE
DEATH OF A LEADER IV. AN APPRECIATION OF PARNELL V.
THE WRECK AND RUIN OF A PARTY VI. TOWARDS LIGHT
AND LEADING VII. FORCES OF REGENERATION AND THEIR
EFFECT VIII. THE BIRTH OF A MOVEMENT AND WHAT IT
CAME TO IX. THE LAND QUESTION AND ITS SETTLEMENT X.
LAND PURCHASE AND A DETERMINED CAMPAIGN TO KILL
IT XI. THE MOVEMENT FOR DEVOLUTION AND ITS DEFEAT
XII. THE LATER IRISH PARTY--ITS CHARACTER AND
COMPOSITION XIII. A TALE OF BAD LEADERSHIP AND BAD
FAITH XIV. LAND AND LABOUR XV. SOME FURTHER
SALVAGE FROM THE WRECKAGE XVI. REUNION AND
TREACHERY XVII. A NEW POWER ARISES IN IRELAND XVIII.
A CAMPAIGN OF EXTERMINATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
XIX. A GENERAL ELECTION THAT LEADS TO A "HOME
RULE" BILL! XX. THE RISE OF SIR EDWARD CARSON XXI.
SINN FEIN--ITS ORIGINAL MEANING AND PURPOSE XXII.
LABOUR BECOMES A POWER IN IRISH LIFE XXIII. CARSON,
ULSTER AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS XXIV. FORMATION
OF IRISH VOLUNTEERS AND OUTBREAK OF WAR XXV. THE
EASTER WEEK REBELLION AND AFTERWARDS XXVI. THE
IRISH CONVENTION AND THE CONSCRIPTION OF IRELAND
XXVII. "THE TIMES" AND IRISH SETTLEMENT XXVIII. THE
ISSUES NOW AT STAKE

FOREWORD
The writer of this work first saw the light on a modest farmstead in the
parish of Droumtariffe, North Cork. He came of a stock long settled
there, whose roots were firmly fixed in the soil, whose love of
motherland was passionate and intense, and who were ready "in other
times," when Fenianism won true hearts and daring spirits to its side, to
risk their all in yet one more desperate battle for "the old cause." His
father was a Fenian, and so was every relative of his, even unto the
womenfolk. He heard around the fireside, in his younger days, the

stirring stories of all the preparations which were then made for striking
yet another blow for Ireland, and he too sighed and sorrowed for the
disappointments that fell upon noble hearts and ardent souls with the
failure of "The Rising."
He was not more than seven years of age when the terrible tribulation
of eviction came to his family. He remembers, as if the events were but
of yesterday, the poignant despair of his mother in leaving the home
into which her dowry was brought and where her children were born,
and the more silent resignation, but none the less deeply felt bitterness,
of his father--a man of strong character and little given to expressing
his emotions. He recalls that, a day or two before the eviction, he was
taken away in a cart, known in this part of the country as "a crib," with
some of the household belongings, to seek a temporary shelter with
some friends. May God be good to them for their loving-kindness and
warm hospitality!
He wondered, then, why there should be so much suffering and sorrow
as he saw expressed around him, in the world, and he was told that
there was nothing for it--that the lease of the farm had expired, that the
landlord wanted it for himself, and that though his father was willing to
pay an increased rent, still out he had to go--and, what was worse, to
have all his improvements confiscated, to have the fruits of the blood
and sweat and energy of his forefathers appropriated by a man who had
no right under heaven to them, save such as the iniquitous laws of those
days gave him.
It was something in the nature of poetic justice that the lad whose
family was cast thus ruthlessly on the roadside in the summer of 1880,
should, after the passage of the Land Act of 1903, have, in the
providence of things, the opportunity and the power for negotiating, in
fair and friendly and conciliatory fashion, for the expropriation for
evermore from all ownership in the land of the class who cast him and
his people adrift in earlier years.
The writer has it proudly to his credit that,