target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_6f2a9bfc-5963-5942-b4bc-62b93c9cced0">74For a full account of the Irish Reform Association proposals, see F.S.L. Lyons, ‘The Irish unionist party and the devolution crisis of 1904–5’, I.H.S., vi, 21 (Mar. 1948), pp. 1–22.
75F.J., 31 Aug., 5 Sep., 3 Oct. 1904.
76Lyons, ‘The Irish unionist party’, pp. 7–10.
77Ibid., pp. 10–13; F.J., 18 Nov. 1904.
78Lyons, ‘The Irish unionist party’, pp. 14–15.
79Ibid., pp. 15–17; Hansard, 141, 324–6, 16 Feb. 1905.
80Hansard, 141, 622–632, 20 Feb. 1905.
81Hansard, 141, 646–663, 20 Feb.1905.
82F.J., 22 Feb. 1905. The Government’s majority on Redmond’s amendment was fifty.
83The letter was found seven years later by Wyndham’s private secretary. Lyons, ‘The Irish unionist party’, p. 9.
84Hansard, 141, 964–985, 991–6, 22 Feb. 1905.
85Dillon to Redmond, 5 Mar. 1905, RP Ms. 15,182 (7).
86Hansard, 145, 1352–5, 9 May 1905.
87F.J., 20 Mar. 1905.
88Ibid., 15 Sep. 1905.
89Ibid., 20 Mar. 1905.
90Ibid., 6, 7 Apr., 19 May 1905.
91Ibid., 6 Apr. 1905.
92Ibid., 1, 14, 18 Jul. 1905; Hansard, 149, 893–9, 17 Jul. 1905.
93F.J., 22 Jul. 1905. There was near-success on 13 July, when the Government’s majority was twenty-six: only poor Nationalist and Liberal attendance (twenty-three of the Irish Party were unaccounted for in spite of an urgent whip) prevented its defeat. A week later, success came when the Government lost a vote on the administration of the Land Act by three votes.
94F.J., 14 Apr. 1905.
95Ibid., 23 Jul. 1904. Davitt, replying to O’Brien, estimated that the latter had lapsed into a ‘silence’ of some 50,000 words of ‘bitter and personal criticism’ of former friends and colleagues since his supposed ‘self-effacement’ nine months previously.
96Dillon to Redmond, 7, 14 Jul. 1904, RP Ms. 15,182 (6).
97F.J., 5, 19, 20 Aug. 1904.
98Ibid., 14 Oct. 1904.
99O’Brien, Olive Branch, p. 333; F.J., 17 Oct. 1904.
100O’Brien, Olive Branch, pp. 341–5.
101F.J., 7 Nov. 1904.
102O’Brien, Olive Branch, pp. 341–5.
103F.J., 12 Dec. 1904.
104Ibid., 7, 17, 21, 25 Jan., 3 Feb. 1905.
105The Freeman on 10 May wrote: ‘The most urgent question in Ireland at the present moment is the unsettlement of this so-called settlement.’
106F.J., 17 Mar. 1905.
107Ibid., 28 Apr. 1905.
108Redmond to O’Brien, 19 Apr. 1900, OBP Ms. 10,496 (2).
109Healy to Moreton Frewen, 10 May 1899, RP Ms. 15,188 (1).
110F.J., 13, 14, 15, 16 Jun. 1905.
111Ibid., 30 Jun. 1905.
112Ibid., 10 Jul. 1905.
113Ibid., 15 Jul. 1905.
114Ibid., 16 Aug. 1905. Nothing in Dillon’s speech, or in Davitt’s letter to the Freeman, 5 Aug. 1905, or in the Freeman editorial, 9 Oct. 1905, suggests that the ‘plot’ was anything more than the hopeful attempt by the Irish Reform Association, through its manifesto of 31 August 1904, to attract members of the Irish Party, among others, to join with them in promoting a devolution scheme. Davitt, who claimed the plot was ‘hatched in Dublin Castle’, had warned at Clonmacnoise a year earlier that the Reform Association were ‘… trying to divide the National ranks’, F.J., 5 Sep. 1904.
115O’Brien to Redmond, 15, 18, 19 Jul. 1905, Redmond to O’Brien, 17, 18 Jul. 1905, Newscuttings of 1905, RP Ms. 7437. Maume writes of ‘intrigues’ by Wyndham during the 1903 passage of the Land Bill in offering rewards to nationalists to encourage adoption of the conciliation policy, but does not mention it in the context of the autumn of 1904. Maume, Long Gestation, p. 68.
116Dillon