MONEY AND NATIONALIST POLITICS IN NINETEENTH CENTURY IRELAND: FROM O’CONNELL TO PARNELL by MICHAEL J. KEYES THESIS FOR THE DEGREE OF PHD DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND MAYNOOTH Supervisor of Research: Professor R.V. Comerford April 2009 CONTENTS: Page Acknowledgements iii List of abbreviations iv Introduction v Part One: I. The political significance of the Catholic Rent, 1824-9 1 II. Testimonial, Tribute and ‘Justice for Ireland’, 1830-40 52 III. Agitation anew and the Repeal Rent, 1841-7 95 Part Two: IV. The rise of Parnell and the emergence of nationalist 157 cohesion, 1879-82 V. Parnell and the political machine, 1883-6 205 VI. Land agitation, expense and division, 1886-91 254 Conclusion 292 Bibliography 331 ii Acknowledgements The completion of this thesis could not have happened without the support and assistance of a great many people. Foremost of these is my supervisor, Professor R. V. Comerford. His deftness of touch on the tiller kept the vessel on course when it might otherwise have ended up on the rocks. His kindness, wisdom and encouragement sustained me throughout, and I am eternally grateful to him for his assistance in bringing the project safely to harbour. More practical support came in the form of a three year research scholarship which I was lucky enough to have been awarded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences. I wish to express my gratitude to the council for providing me with means to devote myself to fulltime research and my thanks also go to another council, my employer, South Dublin County Council, who were generous enough to grant me leave of absence for the duration of my research. It would be impossible to list all the fine people in libraries and archives who were helpful to me in my quest for sources but I would like to say a general and genuine thank you to the staff in the department of history and the library staff at N.U.I. Maynooth for their friendly assistance, to the staff of the National Library of Ireland, the National Archives of Ireland for their help and advice, to those who assisted me in Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, University College Cork, and in the many branches of the Dublin public libraries. My thanks to Noelle Dowling, and to her predecessor, David Sheehy, at the Dublin Diocesan Archives, and finally, acknowledgement must go to my wife and family for giving me the space, time, and encouragement to complete the work. iii List of Abreviations Bew, Land and the national question Paul Bew, Land and the national question in Ireland, 1858-1882 (Dublin, 1978) C.S.O.R.P. Chief Secretary’s Office, Registered papers, National Archives of Ireland Davitt, Fall of feudalism M. Davitt, The fall of feudalism in Ireland (London and New York, 1904) D.D.A., C.P. Dublin Diocesan Archives, Catholic proceedings D.E.M. Dublin Evening Mail D.E.P. Dublin Evening Post F.J. Freeman’s Journal Hoppen, Elections, politics, and society K. T. Hoppen, Elections, politics and society in Ireland 1832-1885 (Oxford, 1984) Jackson, Ireland Alvin Jackson, Ireland 1798-1998 (Oxford, 1999) Lyons, Parnell F. S. L. Lyons, Charles Stewart Parnell (London, 1977) Macintyre, The Liberator MacIntyre, Angus, The Liberator: Daniel O’Connell and the Irish party 1830-47 (London, 1965) N.A.I. National Archives of Ireland N.Y.T. New York Times O’Brien, Parnell and his party Conor Cruise O’ Brien, Parnell and his party, 1880-90 (London, 1968) O’Connell corres. O’Connell, M. R., (ed.), The correspondence of Daniel O’Connell (8 vols, Shannon, 1972-1980) O’Ferrall, Catholic emancipation O’Ferrall, Fergus, Catholic emancipation: Daniel O’Connell and the birth of Irish democracy 1820 - 1830 (Dublin, 1985) Shields, Irish Conservative Party Shields, Andrew, The Irish Conservative Party, 1852-68 (Dublin, 2007) Special Comm. Proc. Special Commission Act 1888; reprint of the shorthand notes of the speeches, proceedings and evidence taken before the commissioners appointed under the above named Act (12 vols, London, 1890) U.I. United Ireland Wyse, Historical sketch T. Wyse, Historical sketch of the late Catholic Association of Ireland (2 vols, London, 1829) iv Introduction: Any analysis of politics in the modern era will give due cognisance to the functional aspects of political mobilisation, recognising that it is very much the resources available to promulgate the message, as well as the message itself that can have a bearing on success. One only has to look to contemporary America - the pioneer of democracy in the modern era - to see the critical relationship between financial backing and political success. By contrast, when historians look to the formative years of democracy in the nineteenth century, there is a tendency to see political mobilisation only in terms of the ideas and allegiances that drove it. This thesis aims to redress this imbalance and will explore the idea that political mobilisation and political progress in nineteenth century Ireland owed as much to functional, as to ideological factors. Irish nationalist movements of the nineteenth century did not come about as a result of a spontaneous up welling of a sense of common grievance and fellow feeling. There was grievance a-plenty, but it was sectoral and divided. Catholic peasants did not have the same aspirations as the emerging Catholic middle class. In truth, movements were created by inspirational leaders. Those leaders created a message that appealed to the widest possible audience, but the key element for their success was an organised, practical structure that spread that message and enabled the movement to grow, to be controlled and disciplined. Such a model of political organisation was fuelled by money, and could not exist without money. v Those who came to realise that the means of spreading the message was as important as the message itself, and that the structures developed to spread the message could also be used to control the movement, were to prosper politically. That realisation occurred in Ireland before it happened almost anywhere else, and to study the political funding of Catholic nationalism is therefore to examine the catalyst that facilitated the emergence of popular democracy and provided the fuel for its progress through the century. The period I have chosen is significant in two ways. Firstly, it was a period that saw a seismic shift in the fortunes of Irish Catholics, who moved from political exclusion to political dominance during this period. Secondly, liberal reforms were at the same time changing the very nature of politics. These two facts are, I believe, linked. Wider franchise and the advance of parliamentary democracy created the opportunity for Catholics to flex their political muscle provided they had the resources and organisation to do so. In Ireland, ahead of Britain, a political system that was dominated by landed wealth came under simultaneous attack from popularly funded politicians as well as liberal reforms. In my examination of this period, I hope to show that there is a direct correlation between levels of political funding, advancing electoral reform, and political progress made. Focusing in particular on the national political movements orchestrated by Daniel O’Connell, and later by C. S. Parnell, it will posit that their success was a function of the practical, structural and organisational framework that sustained their national organisations, more so than their promotion of a coherent political agenda. It is therefore only by exploring the hitherto ignored functional aspects that we can come to fully vi understand how political success was achieved during this period. By showing how flows of money into and out of political organisations shaped the relationship between those organisations and the electors, the Catholic Church, newspapers, activists and politicians themselves, it will be illustrated that money was the lifeblood flowing through the body politic. It will also be shown how - with politics being the art of the possible - financial resources became a central determinant of what was possible. It cannot be said that the history of constitutional nationalism in nineteenth century Ireland has been subject to historiographical neglect. The primary sources used for this thesis have in the main been worked and reworked by many scholars of high repute, but while most analyses of the O’Connell or Parnell eras have made reference to the funding of their organisations, they have tended to do so obliquely. Few, if any, have looked at money as a political agent in itself, and I believe that none have considered its relevance to political change in Ireland over the span of this study. When one speaks of span, one does well to remember and acknowledge one particular work in this area, which is not alone broad in its span, but is also encyclopaedic in its detailing of the minutiae of nineteenth century Irish politics. K. T. Hoppen in Elections, politics and society in Ireland, 1832-1885 (Oxford, 1984) provides insightful analysis on many aspects of mid- century politics. Particularly relevant to this study were his findings on the impact of electoral reform. He makes the point that O’Connell was politically hamstrung by the nature of the electorate and that it was only after the franchise reforms of 1850 that Catholic nationalism had the potential to make serious inroads into political representation. Hoppen points out that the post-1850 electorate differed chiefly in that it was less susceptible to landlord influence. It could therefore be argued that it was not the vii electorate that held O’Connell, back but the costs associated with convincing them to defy their landlord. Hoppen also provides a wealth of illustrative detail on topics such as political corruption, which provided signposts to a wealth of primary source material.