Ireland Since Parnell

Ireland Since Parnell

Project Gutenberg's Ireland Since Parnell, by Daniel Desmond Sheehan This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
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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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, acting on behalf of the tenants of County Cork, he individually negotiated the sales of more landed estates than any other man, or combination of men, in Ireland,