Willie Redmond, 1861 - 1917

1917 was an awful year for the leader of the Irish Party, John Redmond. 

The year began with Ireland still feeling the after-effects of a troubled 1916 when the Easter Rising and the execution of its leaders began the transformation of Irish politics, posing an obvious threat to the ascendancy of Redmond and his party. The Irish regiments at the Battle of the Somme had also suffered significant casualties during 1916 which must have spread great gloom around the country. Redmond's spirits cannot have been boosted by Lloyd George's abortive attempt to introduce Home Rule in the months immediately after the Rising. The failure of this initiative struck a blow to Redmond's political standing in Ireland. 

Still, John Redmond must have harboured hopes that 1917 would bring better fortune for the political party he headed up. They had, after all, won a by-election in November 1916, the first to be held since the Rising. Surely, the party's experienced politicians, who had been dominant for decades would be able to see off the challenge from the political upstarts of Sinn Féin.

As it happened, things went from bad to worse for Redmond and his party. They lost two crucial by-elections in North Roscommon (February 1917) and South Longford (May 1917) to candidates who claimed political descent from the men of 1916. Then on the 7th of June 1917, on the first day of the Battle of Messines, his brother, Willie Redmond, was struck by shrapnel and died of his wounds later that day. Thus an ailing John Redmond lost a devoted sibling and his closest political confidante. 

The younger of the two Redmond brothers was born in Liverpool in 1861 and grew up at the Redmond family home in County Wexford. Having worked briefly as a merchant sailor and an army officer, Willie Redmond was elected an MP for the first time in 1883, a position he held, in three different Irish constituencies until his death in 1917.

A staunch supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell (he shared a prison cell with Parnell at Kilmainham Gaol in the 1880s), Willie Redmond was more radical than his brother, John, sympathising with the Boers and campaigning against Irish enlistment for service in the Boer War. He espoused such causes as old-age pensions and suffragism about which many of the more conservative members of the Irish Party had their doubts. He was also a passionate speaker and was several times suspended from the House of Commons. He has been described by a biographer as 'volatile, indiscreet, impetuous, garrulous and generally mirthful'. 

1914 was a great watershed in Irish history with the passage of the Home Rule Act and its delayed implementation on account of the outbreak of the First World War. The war split nationalist Ireland and Willie Redmond, despite his anti-recruitment stance during the Boer War, sided with his brother in staunchly advocating Irish participation in the 1914-18 war.  He was convinced that the battle of Ireland was to be fought in France and Flanders. He was determined not just to encourage enlistment but to enlist himself. As he told one recruitment rally, 'Don't go, but come with me.' 

Perhaps because of the time he spent representing County Fermanagh at Westminster, Redmond considered that there was a 'fundamental fellowship' between Ireland's nationalist and unionist communities. He hoped that wartime service together would cement that fellow feeling between Irishmen of different creeds. 

In 1915, at the age of 53, an unfit, overweight Redmond became a captain in the Royal Irish Regiment and served on the Western Front from December 1915 onwards. While serving in France, Redmond continued to make appearances in the House of Commons including in March 1917 just weeks before his death when, dressed in military uniform, he called for the Irish people, North and South, who were united in their commitment to the war effort, to 'make a new start.'

The Battle of Messines began early in the morning of the 7th of June 1917. It was a significant day in Ireland's military history for the 36th Division, associated primarily with the Ulster unionist tradition, and the 16th Division, drawn mainly from nationalist Ireland, fought on the same battlefront for the only time during the war. The symbolism of the two traditions in Ireland fighting side by side was powerful. 

A wounded Willie Redmond was carried back from the battlefield by two members of the Ulster Division. A message he left behind stated that in going to France he 'sincerely believed, as all Irish soldiers do, that I was doing my best for Ireland in every way.'

Redmond's death sparked widespread sympathy across the Irish political divide. Unionist leader Edward Carson described him as a 'much lamented, esteemed and lifelong opponent' with whom he had never had 'one bitter word' in public or in private. The Irish Times hoped that his death would aid the cause of reconciliation, coming as it did on the eve of the Irish Convention set up in what turned out to be an unsuccessful attempt at an agreed settlement between nationalist and unionist Ireland. The nationalist Freeman's Journal believed that Redmond’s death had 'brought North and South more closely together' than at any time since the 18th century. An officer of the Ulster Division wrote in the Belfast Telegraph that hesaw Messines as 'a great day for Ireland' which could serve 'to patch up the Irish question.' Willie Redmond would no doubt have been pleased by the cross community response to his passing. 

The poet George Russell (AE), writing some months after Redmond's death, praised his commitment to Ireland.

You too, had Ireland in your care,

Who watched o'er pits of blood and mire

..

Your memory would ever stray 

To your own isle. Oh, gallant dead-

This wreath, Will Redmond, on your clay. 

This was part of a poem in which AE paid tribute to the 1916 leaders and those like Redmond who had died in British uniform, viewing their sacrifice as:

.. the confluence of dreams,

That clashed together in our night. 

Redmond would have been less pleased, but possibly not surprised, to find his seat in East Clare being captured by Sinn Féin leader Eamon de Valera. Such a symbolic defeat was part of the death knell of the Irish Party, which was effectively wiped out in the General Election of 1918. 

This year, on the centenary of Willie Redmond's death, the Irish and UK Governments are jointly organising a major commemoration of the Irish involvement in the battle of Messines to which people from all parts of Ireland have been invited. These joint ceremonies are seen as ‘an opportunity to remember all those who took part in the Battle and all those who lost their lives, to reflect on the journey of reconciliation in the century since and to highlight the positive relationship that exists between Ireland and the United Kingdom.’

Willie Redmond's grave in the village of Locre will feature prominently in this year’s commemoration, for he was probably the best-known of the 35,000 or so Irishmen who died during the First World War. His grave, which was visited by Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Prime Minister David Cameron in December 2013, has become symbolic of a new understanding in Ireland of the First World War and its Irish dimension. 

 

Daniel Mulhall is Ireland's Ambassador in London.