Ireland and the Home Rule Movement   By: Michael F. J. McDonnell

by

MICHAEL F. J. McDONNELL

With a Preface by John Redmond, M.P.

1908

Matri dilectissimae

PREFACE

Without agreeing with every expression of opinion contained in the following pages I heartily recommend this book, especially to Englishmen and Scotchmen, as a thoughtful, well informed, and scholarly study of several of the more important features of the Irish question.

It has always been my conviction that one of the chief causes of the difficulty of persuading the British people of the justice and expediency of conceding a full measure of National autonomy to Ireland was to be found in the deep and almost universal ignorance in Great Britain regarding Irish affairs present and past an ignorance which has enabled every unscrupulous opponent of Irish demands to appeal with more or less success to inherited and anti Irish prejudice as his chief bulwark against reform. It was this conviction that led Mr. Parnell and his leading colleagues, after the defeat of the first Home Rule Bill in 1886, to establish an agency in England for the express purpose of removing the ignorance and combating its effects, and no advocate of Irish claims in England or Scotland has failed to find traces down to this day of the good effects of the propaganda thus set on foot, the discontinuance of which was one of the lamentable results of the dissensions in the Irish National Party between 1890 and 1900.

This book carries on the work of combating British ignorance of Irish affairs and the effects of that ignorance in a manner which seems to me singularly effective. The writer is no mere rhetorician or dealer in generalities. On the contrary, he deals in particular facts and gives his authorities. Nothing is more striking than the care he has obviously taken to ascertain the details of the subjects with which he has concerned himself and the inexorable logic of his method. It is perfectly safe to say that he neglected few sources of information which promised any valuable results, and that he has condensed into a few pages the more vital points of many volumes. It is not necessary to say anything of his style except that the cultured reader will most appreciate and enjoy it.

I shall not anticipate what the author has to say except in respect of one particular matter to which it seems to me expedient that particular public attention should be directed, especially by English and Scotch readers. The study of Irish history throws an inglorious light on the character of many British statesmen, and one of the salient facts brought into prominence in this little volume is that, even since the conversion of Mr. Gladstone to Home Rule, more than one leader of each of the two great political parties in Great Britain have displayed an utter lack of political principle in their dealings with Ireland, and especially with the Irish National question. I cannot but think that if the facts, as told by the author of this volume, were universally, or even widely, known amongst Englishmen and Scotchmen there would be much less heard in the future regarding Home Rule eventuating in Rome Rule or endangering the existence of the Empire.

This volume will, I hope, have a wide circulation not only in Great Britain, where such works are specially needed but in Ireland itself, where also it is well calculated to strengthen the faith of convinced Home Rulers and to bring light to the few who are still opposed to the Irish National demand for self government, and to other important, though minor, reforms.

J. E. REDMOND.

December, 1907.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER I THE EXECUTIVE IN IRELAND

CHAPTER II THE FINANCIAL RELATIONS BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND

CHAPTER III THE ECONOMIC CONDITIONS OF IRELAND

CHAPTER IV THE LAND QUESTION

CHAPTER V THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION

CHAPTER VI THE EDUCATIONAL PROBLEM

CHAPTER VII UNIONISM IN IRELAND

CHAPTER VIII IRELAND AND DEMOCRACY

CHAPTER IX IRELAND AND GREAT BRITAIN

CHAPTER X CONCLUSION

NOTES

ADDENDUM