In writing this book, I have had access to my late leader's papers for the period beginning with the war. These were placed at my disposal by his son, Major William Archer Redmond, D.S.O., M.P. I had also the consent of Mrs. Redmond to my undertaking the task. But for the book and for the opinions expressed in it I am solely responsible. No condition having been imposed upon me, it seemed best, for many reasons, that it should be written, as it has been written, without consultation. A writer in

The time has not yet come to write the biography of John Redmond. Not until the history of the pledge-bound Irish Parliamentary party can be treated freely, fully and impartially as a chapter closed and ended will it be possible to record in detail the life of a man who was associated with it almost from its beginning and who from the opening of this century guided it with almost growing authority to the statutory accomplishment of its desperate task; who knew, in it and for it, all vicissitudes

The Parliament of 1892-5 was barren of results for Ireland, being consumed by factious strife, at Westminster between the Houses and in Ireland between the parties. With Gladstone's retirement it seemed as if Home Rule were dead. But thinking men realized that the Irish question was still there to be dealt with, and approach to solution began along new lines. When Lord Salisbury returned to power in 1895, Land Purchase was cautiously extended with much success: the Congested Districts Board, ori

The year 1912, in which the straight fight on Home Rule was to begin, opened stormily. Mr. Churchill was announced to speak under the auspices of the Ulster Liberal Association in the Ulster Hall at Belfast. It was the hall in which his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, had used the famous phrase "Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right." Belfast was determined that the son should not unsay what the father had said in this consecrated building; it would be, as an Ulster member put it in the Ho

The first stir of a new movement in Nationalist Ireland outside the old political lines came from Labour—from Irish Labour, as yet unorganized and terribly in need of organization. On August 26, 1913, a strike in Dublin began under the leadership of Mr. Larkin. It had all the violence and disorder which is characteristic of economic struggles where Labour has not yet learned to develop its strength; it opened new cleavages at this moment when national union was most necessary: it was fought with

The week which began on Monday, July 27th, was feverish and excited. Formal discussion on the occurrences at Clontarf and Bachelor's Walk was confined to the Monday; but each day had a stormy scene during question-time arising out of it. The Amending Bill from the Lords was to have been taken on Tuesday, but Mr. Asquith postponed it till Thursday, to get a calmer atmosphere. When Thursday came, it was postponed again and indefinitely. "We meet," said the Prime Minister, "under conditions of grav

At the ending of the long session of Parliament in 1914 there was a curious scene in the House of Commons, where members were crowded to assist at the formal passing of the Irish and Welsh Bills. On the adjournment, Mr. Will Crooks, from his seat on the front bench below the gangway, called out, "Mr. Speaker, would it be in order to sing 'God save the King'?" and without more ado uplifted his voice and the House chimed in. There must have been strange thoughts in the minds of Redmond, of Mr. Dil

The facts of the Irish rebellion are too generally familiar to need more than the briefest restatement—and perhaps too little known for an attempt at detailed analysis. Broadly, a general parade of the Irish Volunteers all over the country was ordered for Easter Sunday. On the night before Good Friday a German ship with a cargo of rifles was off the Irish coast. This ship, the Aud , was a few hours later captured and taken in convoy by a British sloop, so that the arms were never landed. Emissar

The Longford election had in reality been not merely a symptom, but an event of great importance. It was a notice of dismissal to the Parliamentary party. There was no reason to suppose anything specially unfavourable to us in the local conditions. Neither candidate made a special appeal to the electors; nor was the constituency in any sense a stronghold of Sinn Fein. The fact was that the country as a whole had ceased to believe in the Parliamentary party as an efficient machine for obtaining t