that was ever seen at Clongowes’. A writer of ‘Parliamentary Portraits’ for the English Western Daily Mercury remarked on the theatricality of his parliamentary performances. Other Members, Sir William Harcourt excepted, were merely ‘speakers – debaters without style, appealing neither to the heart nor the passions, but addressing themselves to our material instincts’, while Redmond was:
… endowed with melodramatic powers of expression that exalt him above the greatest of our existing debaters… In his personal appearance Mr Redmond… walks with the measured stride of the well-graced actor… is senatorial in habit and carriage… Self-composed, and without heat of expression or hurry of movement, he now assists to preserve the illusion of greatness….56
Another English sketch-writer found in Redmond’s oratory:
… rarely an unnecessary phrase, and in this self-repression we see the real John Redmond – purposeful and strong… he has a superb gift of silence… Mr Redmond may appear pompous at times; he is always impressive….57
His transatlantic audience had been given the excitement they craved, and his cable of 15 March to the New York World drove home the point: they had shown that ‘a united, determined, active Irish Party, enabled to maintain constant attendance at Westminster, has the British Parliament at its mercy, the first and most important step towards compelling it to grant National self-government to Ireland.’58 The rising stock of the Irish Party contrasted with the poor standing of the British parties. Healy wrote to his father in February of his low opinion of both Government and Opposition: the first was merely ‘a Balfour–Chamberlain duet in debating power’, while the Liberal front bench, apart from Harcourt, was ‘not worth a curse’. The Irish had an abler team in proportion to their numbers than any of the others. Of Redmond, he wrote ‘the O’Brienites would not now tolerate an intrigue to unship Redmond, who will gradually consolidate his position’.59
With Liberals speaking in different voices on the South African war and other matters, the Irish Party was increasingly spoken of as the only real opposition in Parliament, its leader regarded by Ministers as the only person in the House with whom they could treat.60 By general consent, Redmond’s was the most important Opposition speech on the Budget; the following night he took the lead in opposing Balfour’s plan to take more days for Government business. In short, wrote the Independent enthusiastically, he had taken over the role of the recently elected Liberal leader Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman:
Looking back on the matter now… one can only wonder that there was ever any hesitation in a reunited party placing Mr Redmond at the helm… during the last couple of months he has manifested such industry, such unflagging attention to the onerous duties of his position, such dignity in demeanour, such eloquence in debate, and such political instinct, as would do credit to any leader of any political party, and which must have effect on an assembly like the House of Commons.61
The Manchester Guardian’s Irish correspondent wrote in May of the return of confidence and pride in the Irish representatives, while of Redmond’s leadership he wrote:
I hear from all sides of Mr Redmond’s tact and eloquence, as to which I had never had any misgiving; but I am agreeably surprised to hear of his strength and firmness as well – qualities which are essential in the success of his task.62
Redmond gave his own assessment to O’Callaghan in April. The UIL was now present in practically every county, even in places such as Wexford, which had previously been hostile, and ‘since Parliament opened, Mr Healy has carefully abstained from saying or doing anything of a hostile character’.63 Healy, on the other hand, was convinced that, behind the public appearances, the split lived on. One night during the following January in the Commons dining-room, he saw Dillon pass over a vacant seat at Redmond’s table. ‘He took a table by himself, where he was joined by T.P.’ According to Healy, Dillon ‘never made up the breach with Redmond’, but caucused continually with T.P. O’Connor, Irish Party MP for Liverpool, and:
… treated Redmond as a makeshift. So he was, no doubt, but this did not justify the constant projection of a rival to the Chair….64
Dillon would have pleaded his innocence of any such intentions. In the first of several tributes he would make at intervals right to the end of Redmond’s life, always careful to distinguish between a personal friendship he did not feel and the political partnership he valued, he thanked Redmond publicly at Coalisland in September for kind words he had spoken of his services to the party, and went on:
Whether he [Mr Dillon]liked his leader or not, he would feel it a sacred duty to be loyal to the leader in the face of the common enemy. Mr Redmond had made that duty a light and pleasant duty for those who served under him by his constant courtesy and by the determination which he had exhibited throughout the whole of the session to consult every member of the party and to allow every member of the party the full weight of his opinion… he had set an example to them of steady, persisting, untiring attention to duty….65
Healy expected O’Brien’s fanaticism to cause further dissension, which was likely to lead to O’Brien’s ultimate isolation within the party in the face of Redmond’s increasing strength. But O’Brien, worn out by his epic struggle against Healy and his tireless organizing work, could take no further part in political life after the first few weeks of the session. He would not return to the House until April 1902. He publicly offered to resign his seat, but Redmond would not hear of it, hoping solicitously that, ‘by keeping worry of all sorts at arms length’ he would soon be himself again.66 Nor was Redmond himself exempt from the strains of the work. He confided to O’Brien in May: ‘I intend at Whitsuntide to lie low for a week or ten days. Twelve hours a day here takes it out of me.’67
At the close of the session in August, by which time there had been further stormy scenes and the suspensions of Willie Redmond and Pat O’Brien from the House, the Liberal Morning Leader wrote:
This session has been a triumph for the Irish members, and they seem to like a fight to the finish, as last night’s debate goes to prove… More than once they have damaged [the Government] directly in a fair fight; oftener they have forced it into extravagances which were only confessions of its own weakness and irritation. The invasion of the House by the police, and the voting of Supply en bloc are the two crowning instances.68
The trustees of the parliamentary fund summed it all up in their address to the Irish people on 19 August: ‘Once more an Irish Party is respected and feared in the British Parliament.’69
IV
Success at home was one thing; in America quite another. The party’s parliamentary fund had turned in more than £8,000 by the end of the session, almost all of it raised in Ireland, a sum just sufficient to meet the needs of that year.70 Much of it was needed to pay allowances to members removed from their regular occupations by attendance at Westminster, or by extra-parliamentary League work, in an era before the payment of salaries to MPs. It was no surprise that Redmond