William Hoey Kearney Redmond
Encyclopedia
William Hoey Kearney Redmond (15 April 1861 – 7 June 1917) (commonly known as Willie Redmond) was an Irish
nationalist
politician. He was a Member of Parliament
(MP) in the Irish Parliamentary Party
for 34 years, a land reform agitator imprisoned three times, a determined advocate of Irish Home Rule, a barrister
and a First World War fatality.
for seven centuries. His father, William Redmond
, was a Home Rule Party
MP
for Wexford Borough
from 1872 to 1880 and was the nephew of the elder John Edward Redmond
who is commemorated in Redmond Square near Wexford
railway station
. Willie Redmond's five year elder brother was John Redmond
who became leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, and he had two sisters. His mother was a daughter of General R.H. Hoey of the Wicklow Rifles and the 61st Regiment.
and his wife Mary, née Hoey of Protestant stock from County Wicklow
. William like his father was educated at Clongowes Wood College
from 1873–1876, previously attending the preparatory school at Knockbeg College and St. Patrick's, Carlow College
(1871–72). After school he first apprenticed himself on a merchant sailing ship, then took a commission in the Wexford militia the Royal Irish Regiment
on 24 December 1879 (Stephen Gwynn commenting “he was an instinctive soldier”) . At first contemplating a regular army career, he became a second lieutenant in October 1880, then resigned in 1881.
agitation. In February 1882 he was arrested in possession of seditious literature and sentenced under the Irish Coercion Act
and imprisoned for three months in Kilmainham Gaol
, Dublin, with Charles Stewart Parnell
, William O'Brien
and others. He never waived in his loyalty to Parnell even after the latter’s fall. He went to the United States
in June 1882 with Michael Davitt
to collect funds for the Land League He and his brother John Redmond then travelled to Australia
in February 1883 to raise funds, collecting £15,000 sterling for the nationalist cause. They developed close links with James Dalton
of Orange, New South Wales
, meeting two lady members of his wealthy and very influential family who later became their wives. They both then travelled to the United States where they collected a further £15,000 sterling, many others following their example in the next years (Davitt, O’Brien, John Dillon
, Eduard Blake).
, taking his seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
. When that constituency was abolished at the 1885 general election
, he was returned for Fermanagh North. In 1892
, he was elected MP for the Clare East constituency, from which he was returned unopposed from 1900
until his death.
His father was a typical member of the Catholic middle class who supported the Home Rule Movement and in his election address in 1874, he declared "Home Rule is absolutely essential to the good government of the country". At the centre of Willie Redmond's political philosophy stood the belief he had inherited from his father on Irish home rule. Home Rule was necessary he declared, because the Union has "depopulated our country, has fostered sectarian strife, has destroyed our industries, and ruined our liberties". He was an ardent, extrovert parliamentarian and like other Irish members "hated British Rule in Ireland with fierce intensity". He was ejected several times from the House of Commons for his verbal excesses and involved in several violent confrontations with Unionist MPs, but nevertheless remained popular even with his political opponents. On Irish platforms he often spoke of insurrection though he remained a constitutionalist at heart. For resisting a tenant’s eviction in 1888 he was imprisoned for three months.
On 24 February 1886 he married Eleanor Mary Dalton (died 31 January 1947), eldest daughter of James Dalton. They had one son who died early in 1891 at the age of five.
as a barrister in 1891, after obtaining a law degree from Dublin University, but never practised. For most of his career he lived on a salary from the Irish Parliamentary Party.
In condemning the South Africa
Boer War
in 1899 he joined with the younger nationalists such as Arthur Griffith
and Maud Gonne
. He was co-treasurer of the Irish Transvaal
committee. The United Irish League
(UIL) gave him opportunity to re-unite with the anti-Parnellites in the Irish Party under his brother’s leadership in 1900, when he again travelled to the United States with Davitt to announce the re-unification.
William was very different from his brother John, he was volatile, spontaneous, open-hearted and more radical on many social issues, such as female suffrage. A First World War colleague, Colonel Rowland Fielding, was to describe him as a "charming fellow with a gentle and very taking manner."
The year 1902 saw him imprisoned again in Kilmainham for an inflammatory speech in support of the UIL, causing "social discord". He was unhappy at the renewed Party split with O’Brien in 1903. A strict teetotaller but committed smoker, he devoted much time to encouraging tobacco growing in Ireland. In the following years he travelled widely visiting Irish communities around the world. Impressed by the dominion status enjoyed by Canada and Australia, it influenced his concept of self-government for Ireland, for which he made impassioned speeches, canvassing for it in 1911 and 1912 across Britain. That William O’Brien’s independent All-for-Ireland League
party withheld voting for the third Home Rule Act 1914
was "of great sadness to him".
in World War I
, John Redmond
called on Irish Volunteers
to enlist in Irish regiments of the 10th and 16th (Irish) Divisions of the Kitchener's New Service Army
in the hope that this would strengthen the cause of later implementing the Home Rule Act, suspended for the duration of the war. This caused a split in the Volunteer movement and William Redmond was one of the first to volunteer for the army as a member of the National Volunteers
. He addressed vast gatherings of Volunteers, Hibernians
and the UIL, encouraging voluntary enlistment in support of the British and Allied
war cause. In November 1914 he made a famous recruiting speech in Cork when standing at the open window of the Imperial Hotel he spoke to the crowd below: " I do not say to you Go - but grey haired and old as I am, I say Come, come with me to the war”. He felt that he might serve Ireland best in the firing line – “if Germany wins we are all endangered”. He was one of five Irish MPs who served with Irish brigades, J. L. Esmonde
, Stephen Gwynn, William Redmond and D. D. Sheehan
being the others, as well as former MP Tom Kettle.
He was commissioned as a captain in the Royal Irish Regiment
, with whom he had served 33 years before, at the age of 53. He went to France
on the Western Front
with the 16th (Irish) Division in the winter of 1915–16 and was soon in action, winning a mention in dispatches from Sir Douglas Haig
. The Easter Rising
of 1916 shattered him, as he seemed to realise that the tide was turning away from constitutionalism. He gained his Major
ity on 15 July 1916 but this promoted him away from the action much to his displeasure.
Redmond was convinced that the shared experience of the trenches was bringing Protestant and Catholic Irishmen together and overcoming the differences between Unionists and Nationalists. In December 1916, he told his friend Arthur Conan Doyle
: "It would be a fine memorial to the men who have died so splendidly if we could, over their graves, build up a bridge between North and South. I have been thinking a lot about this lately in France - no one could help doing so when one finds that the two sections from Ireland are actually side by side holding the trenches!"
When on leave he made a moving parliamentary speech in March 1917 defending Ireland’s involvement and sacrifice in the war, demanding that England introduce the suspended Home Rule Act. The speech concluded: "In the name of God, we here who are about to die, perhaps, ask you to do that which largely induced us to leave our homes; to do that which our mothers and fathers taught us to long for; to do that which is all we desire; make our country happy and contented, and enable us, when we meet the Canadians and the Australians and the New Zealanders side by side in the common cause and the common field, to say to them: 'our country, just as yours, has self-government within the Empire'."
On 4 June 1917, three days before his death, at a dinner organised by officers of the 7th Leinsters, he made a speech in which he 'prayed for the consumption of peace between North and South'.
He was as obsessed as Pearse
with the idea of a blood sacrifice for Ireland, confiding to an old friend before he returned to the front "I’m going back to get killed". He believed that by serving together in the trenches the Unionist and Nationalist traditions could be reconciled and was convinced that Irish Protestants would thereby come to accept Home Rule.
for the Battle of Messines
Redmond, by now 56 years old, succeeded in obtaining special permission to join his battalion, returning to his beloved 'A' Company of the 6th Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment, the night before the planned assault of 7 June 1917. During that night Redmond visited every company of the 6th Battalion and, according to his commanding officer Major Charles Taylor, 'spoke to every man'.
The Irish troops of the 16th and 36th divisions advanced shoulder to shoulder in the great attack on the Messines Ridge towards the small village of Wytschaete (now Wijtschate) next to Messines. Upon going over the top Redmond, one of the first out of the trenches and leading his men, was hit almost immediately in the wrist and then, when hit in the leg, could do no more than urge his men on. Stretcher bearers of the 36th (Ulster) Division, notably Private John Meeke of the 11th Inniskillings
, who was himself wounded, brought him in and eventually he reached the Casualty Clearing Station at the Catholic Hospice at Locre (now Loker
) in Dranoutre
where he died that afternoon - almost certainly from shock.
His death caused grief worldwide and made more international impact than any other British Empire fatality in the Great War. Almost all the newspapers in Britain and Ireland, both local and national, reported his death. His wife and his brother John Redmond
received over 400 messages of sympathy from all parts of the British Empire and beyond. Among the people who paid tribute to his memory were the Unionist MP Sir Edward Carson and the poet Francis Ledwidge
. Irish Major-General William Hickie
paid the tribute that Redmond's "presence within the Division and his affection for it were a great asset to me". Lloyd George introduced the Irish Convention
on 11 June quoting Redmond's sacrifice.The French Government posthumously awarded him the Legion of Honour.
The local people of Loker continue to attend to his symbolic grave with great respect, organising Commemorations, the last in 1967 and 1997, refusing to allow the grave to be moved. Redmond's Bar, an 'Irish' pub in Loker is named after him.
In the town of Wexford
there is a bust of him in Redmond Park which was formally opened as a memorial to him in 1931 in the presence of a large crowd including many of his old friends and comrades and political representatives from all parts of Ireland. It was relaunched by the Wexford County Council in 2002.
All Irishmen who died in the war are commemorated at the Irish National War Memorial Gardens
in Dublin and the Island of Ireland Peace Park
, Messines, Belgium.
was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
in 2005. It is a historical novel dealing with the experiences of a private in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the First World War. Although Willie Redmond does not appear in it as a character, he is referred to several times. Part Three of the novel includes the reactions of the characters to his final speech in Parliament, his presence with the soldiers in the front line and the shock of the news of his death in action.
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
nationalist
Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...
politician. He was a Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MP) in the Irish Parliamentary Party
Irish Parliamentary Party
The Irish Parliamentary Party was formed in 1882 by Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish nationalist Members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons at...
for 34 years, a land reform agitator imprisoned three times, a determined advocate of Irish Home Rule, a barrister
Barrister
A barrister is a member of one of the two classes of lawyer found in many common law jurisdictions with split legal professions. Barristers specialise in courtroom advocacy, drafting legal pleadings and giving expert legal opinions...
and a First World War fatality.
Family background
He came from a Catholic gentry family of Norman descent associated with County WexfordCounty Wexford
County Wexford is a county in Ireland. It is part of the South-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Wexford. In pre-Norman times it was part of the Kingdom of Uí Cheinnselaig, whose capital was at Ferns. Wexford County Council is the local...
for seven centuries. His father, William Redmond
William Archer Redmond (1825-1880)
William Archer Redmond sat for Wexford as a member of the Home Rule Party led by Isaac Butt from 1872 to 1880, and was the father of the Irish Parliamentary Leader John Redmond....
, was a Home Rule Party
Home Rule Party
The Home Rule Party may refer to:*Home Rule Party *Home Rule Party of Hawaii*Home Rule Party of Iceland*Home Rule League...
MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for Wexford Borough
Wexford Borough (UK Parliament constituency)
Wexford Borough was a United Kingdom Parliament constituency, in Ireland, returning one Member of Parliament . It was an original constituency represented in Parliament when the Union of Great Britain and Ireland took effect on 1 January 1801....
from 1872 to 1880 and was the nephew of the elder John Edward Redmond
John Edward Redmond (1806-1865)
John Edward Redmond was a banker and magistrate, Liberal M.P. for the city of Wexford from 1859-1865.- Family :John Redmond was the son Walter Redmond Esq. of Newtown Lodge and afterwards Ballytrent House, Co. Wexford. Walter and his brother John Redmond were well known in banking and shipping...
who is commemorated in Redmond Square near Wexford
Wexford
Wexford is the county town of County Wexford, Ireland. It is situated near the southeastern corner of Ireland, close to Rosslare Europort. The town is connected to Dublin via the M11/N11 National Primary Route, and the national rail network...
railway station
Wexford railway station
Wexford railway station serves the town of Wexford in County Wexford, Ireland. The station consists of a single platform, and up until April 2008 the station was devoid of a passing loop, although sidings existed, used in recent years by occasional permanent way trains...
. Willie Redmond's five year elder brother was John Redmond
John Redmond
John Edward Redmond was an Irish nationalist politician, barrister, MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party from 1900 to 1918...
who became leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, and he had two sisters. His mother was a daughter of General R.H. Hoey of the Wicklow Rifles and the 61st Regiment.
Early life
Redmond grew up at Ballytrent, County Wexford, the second son of William Archer RedmondWilliam Archer Redmond (1825-1880)
William Archer Redmond sat for Wexford as a member of the Home Rule Party led by Isaac Butt from 1872 to 1880, and was the father of the Irish Parliamentary Leader John Redmond....
and his wife Mary, née Hoey of Protestant stock from County Wicklow
County Wicklow
County Wicklow is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Mid-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Wicklow, which derives from the Old Norse name Víkingalág or Wykynlo. Wicklow County Council is the local authority for the county...
. William like his father was educated at Clongowes Wood College
Clongowes Wood College
Clongowes Wood College is a voluntary secondary boarding school for boys, located near Clane in County Kildare, Ireland. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1814, it is one of Ireland's oldest Catholic schools, and featured prominently in James Joyce's semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the...
from 1873–1876, previously attending the preparatory school at Knockbeg College and St. Patrick's, Carlow College
St. Patrick's, Carlow College
St Patrick's, Carlow College, founded in 1782 by Dr James Keefe, then Roman Catholic Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, and his co-adjutor Bishop Daniel Delany, and opened in 1793, is a college in Carlow, Ireland. Initially he attempted to open a seminary in Tullow, but instead took out a 999 year...
(1871–72). After school he first apprenticed himself on a merchant sailing ship, then took a commission in the Wexford militia the Royal Irish Regiment
Royal Irish Regiment (1684-1922)
The Royal Irish Regiment, until 1881 the 18th Regiment of Foot, was an infantry regiment of the line in the British Army, first raised in 1684. Also known as the 18th Regiment of Foot and the 18th Regiment of Foot, it was one of eight Irish regiments raised largely in Ireland, its home depot in...
on 24 December 1879 (Stephen Gwynn commenting “he was an instinctive soldier”) . At first contemplating a regular army career, he became a second lieutenant in October 1880, then resigned in 1881.
Land agitation
He immediately joined in the Irish National Land LeagueIrish National Land League
The Irish Land League was an Irish political organization of the late 19th century which sought to help poor tenant farmers. Its primary aim was to abolish landlordism in Ireland and enable tenant farmers to own the land they worked on...
agitation. In February 1882 he was arrested in possession of seditious literature and sentenced under the Irish Coercion Act
Irish Coercion Act
The Protection of Person and Property Act 1881 was one of more than 100 Coercion Acts passed by the Parliament of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland between 1801 and 1922, in an attempt to establish law and order in Ireland. The 1881 Act was passed by parliament and introduced by...
and imprisoned for three months in Kilmainham Gaol
Kilmainham Gaol
Kilmainham Gaol is a former prison, located in Kilmainham in Dublin, which is now a museum. It has been run since the mid-1980s by the Office of Public Works , an Irish Government agency...
, Dublin, with Charles Stewart Parnell
Charles Stewart Parnell
Charles Stewart Parnell was an Irish landowner, nationalist political leader, land reform agitator, and the founder and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party...
, William O'Brien
William O'Brien
William O'Brien was an Irish nationalist, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher, author and Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
and others. He never waived in his loyalty to Parnell even after the latter’s fall. He went to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in June 1882 with Michael Davitt
Michael Davitt
Michael Davitt was an Irish republican and nationalist agrarian agitator, a social campaigner, labour leader, journalist, Home Rule constitutional politician and Member of Parliament , who founded the Irish National Land League.- Early years :Michael Davitt was born in Straide, County Mayo,...
to collect funds for the Land League He and his brother John Redmond then travelled to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
in February 1883 to raise funds, collecting £15,000 sterling for the nationalist cause. They developed close links with James Dalton
James Dalton (Orange, Australia)
James Dalton was a wealthy merchant and pastoralist that lived during the 19th and 20th centuries in Orange, New South Wales, Australia...
of Orange, New South Wales
Orange, New South Wales
Orange is a city in the Central West region of New South Wales, Australia. It is west of the state capital, Sydney, at an altitude of . Orange has an estimated population of 39,329 and the city is a major provincial centre....
, meeting two lady members of his wealthy and very influential family who later became their wives. They both then travelled to the United States where they collected a further £15,000 sterling, many others following their example in the next years (Davitt, O’Brien, John Dillon
John Dillon
John Dillon was an Irish land reform agitator from Dublin, an Irish Home Rule activist, a nationalist politician, a Member of Parliament for over 35 years, and the last leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party....
, Eduard Blake).
Political career
In his absence in 1883, he was elected as MP for his father's old constituency of Wexford BoroughWexford Borough (UK Parliament constituency)
Wexford Borough was a United Kingdom Parliament constituency, in Ireland, returning one Member of Parliament . It was an original constituency represented in Parliament when the Union of Great Britain and Ireland took effect on 1 January 1801....
, taking his seat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
. When that constituency was abolished at the 1885 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1885
-Seats summary:-See also:*List of MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1885*Parliamentary Franchise in the United Kingdom 1885–1918*Representation of the People Act 1884*Redistribution of Seats Act 1885-References:...
, he was returned for Fermanagh North. In 1892
United Kingdom general election, 1892
The 1892 United Kingdom general election was held from 4 July to 26 July 1892. It saw the Conservatives, led by Lord Salisbury, win the greatest number of seats, but not enough for an overall majority as William Ewart Gladstone's Liberals won many more seats than in the 1886 general election...
, he was elected MP for the Clare East constituency, from which he was returned unopposed from 1900
United Kingdom general election, 1900
-Seats summary:-See also:*MPs elected in the United Kingdom general election, 1900*The Parliamentary Franchise in the United Kingdom 1885-1918-External links:***-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987**...
until his death.
His father was a typical member of the Catholic middle class who supported the Home Rule Movement and in his election address in 1874, he declared "Home Rule is absolutely essential to the good government of the country". At the centre of Willie Redmond's political philosophy stood the belief he had inherited from his father on Irish home rule. Home Rule was necessary he declared, because the Union has "depopulated our country, has fostered sectarian strife, has destroyed our industries, and ruined our liberties". He was an ardent, extrovert parliamentarian and like other Irish members "hated British Rule in Ireland with fierce intensity". He was ejected several times from the House of Commons for his verbal excesses and involved in several violent confrontations with Unionist MPs, but nevertheless remained popular even with his political opponents. On Irish platforms he often spoke of insurrection though he remained a constitutionalist at heart. For resisting a tenant’s eviction in 1888 he was imprisoned for three months.
On 24 February 1886 he married Eleanor Mary Dalton (died 31 January 1947), eldest daughter of James Dalton. They had one son who died early in 1891 at the age of five.
Singular stand
When the Irish Party split after Parnell’s fall and death in 1891, Redmond who had supported Parnell entirely, though a devout Catholic voiced deep grievance at the opposition of his Church to Parnell, which necessitated changing his constituency from Fermanagh to Clare. He was called to the Irish Law barKing's Inns
The Honorable Society of King's Inns , is the institution which controls the entry of barristers-at-law into the justice system of Ireland...
as a barrister in 1891, after obtaining a law degree from Dublin University, but never practised. For most of his career he lived on a salary from the Irish Parliamentary Party.
In condemning the South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
Boer War
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...
in 1899 he joined with the younger nationalists such as Arthur Griffith
Arthur Griffith
Arthur Griffith was the founder and third leader of Sinn Féin. He served as President of Dáil Éireann from January to August 1922, and was head of the Irish delegation at the negotiations in London that produced the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921.-Early life:...
and Maud Gonne
Maud Gonne
Maud Gonne MacBride was an English-born Irish revolutionary, feminist and actress, best remembered for her turbulent relationship with William Butler Yeats. Of Anglo-Irish stock and birth, she was won over to Irish nationalism by the plight of evicted people in the Land Wars...
. He was co-treasurer of the Irish Transvaal
South African Republic
The South African Republic , often informally known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer-ruled country in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century. Not to be confused with the present-day Republic of South Africa, it occupied the area later known as the South African...
committee. The United Irish League
United Irish League
The United Irish League was a nationalist political party in Ireland, launched 23 January 1898 with the motto "The Land for the People" . Its objective to be achieved through agrarian agitation and land reform, compelling larger grazier farmers to surrender their lands for redistribution amongst...
(UIL) gave him opportunity to re-unite with the anti-Parnellites in the Irish Party under his brother’s leadership in 1900, when he again travelled to the United States with Davitt to announce the re-unification.
William was very different from his brother John, he was volatile, spontaneous, open-hearted and more radical on many social issues, such as female suffrage. A First World War colleague, Colonel Rowland Fielding, was to describe him as a "charming fellow with a gentle and very taking manner."
The year 1902 saw him imprisoned again in Kilmainham for an inflammatory speech in support of the UIL, causing "social discord". He was unhappy at the renewed Party split with O’Brien in 1903. A strict teetotaller but committed smoker, he devoted much time to encouraging tobacco growing in Ireland. In the following years he travelled widely visiting Irish communities around the world. Impressed by the dominion status enjoyed by Canada and Australia, it influenced his concept of self-government for Ireland, for which he made impassioned speeches, canvassing for it in 1911 and 1912 across Britain. That William O’Brien’s independent All-for-Ireland League
All-for-Ireland League
The All-for-Ireland League , was an Irish, Munster-based political party . Founded by William O'Brien MP, it generated a new national movement to achieve agreement between the different parties concerned on the historically difficult aim of Home Rule for the whole of Ireland...
party withheld voting for the third Home Rule Act 1914
Home Rule Act 1914
The Government of Ireland Act 1914 , also known as the Third Home Rule Bill, was an Act passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom intended to provide self-government for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.The Act was the first law ever passed by the Parliament of...
was "of great sadness to him".
First World War
With Ireland's involvementIreland and World War I
During World War I , Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which entered the war in August 1914 as one of the Entente Powers, along with France and Russia, when it declared war to halt the military expansion of the Central Powers, consisting of the German Empire, the...
in World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, John Redmond
John Redmond
John Edward Redmond was an Irish nationalist politician, barrister, MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party from 1900 to 1918...
called on Irish Volunteers
Irish Volunteers
The Irish Volunteers was a military organisation established in 1913 by Irish nationalists. It was ostensibly formed in response to the formation of the Ulster Volunteers in 1912, and its declared primary aim was "to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to the whole people of Ireland"...
to enlist in Irish regiments of the 10th and 16th (Irish) Divisions of the Kitchener's New Service Army
Kitchener's Army
The New Army, often referred to as Kitchener's Army or, disparagingly, Kitchener's Mob, was an all-volunteer army formed in the United Kingdom following the outbreak of hostilities in the First World War...
in the hope that this would strengthen the cause of later implementing the Home Rule Act, suspended for the duration of the war. This caused a split in the Volunteer movement and William Redmond was one of the first to volunteer for the army as a member of the National Volunteers
National Volunteers
The National Volunteers was the name taken by the majority of the Irish Volunteers that sided with Irish Parliamentary Party leader John Redmond after the movement split over the question of the Volunteers' role in World War I.-Origins:...
. He addressed vast gatherings of Volunteers, Hibernians
Ancient Order of Hibernians
The Ancient Order of Hibernians is an Irish Catholic fraternal organization. Members must be Catholic and either Irish born or of Irish descent. Its largest membership is now in the United States, where it was founded in New York City in 1836...
and the UIL, encouraging voluntary enlistment in support of the British and Allied
Allies of World War I
The Entente Powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The members of the Triple Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire; Italy entered the war on their side in 1915...
war cause. In November 1914 he made a famous recruiting speech in Cork when standing at the open window of the Imperial Hotel he spoke to the crowd below: " I do not say to you Go - but grey haired and old as I am, I say Come, come with me to the war”. He felt that he might serve Ireland best in the firing line – “if Germany wins we are all endangered”. He was one of five Irish MPs who served with Irish brigades, J. L. Esmonde
Sir John Esmonde, 14th Baronet
Sir John Lymbrick Esmonde, 14th Baronet was an Irish nationalist politician who served as Member of Parliament in the Parliament of the United Kingdom and later as a Teachta Dála in Dáil Éireann....
, Stephen Gwynn, William Redmond and D. D. Sheehan
D. D. Sheehan
Daniel Desmond Sheehan, usually known as D. D. Sheehan was an Irish nationalist, politician, labour leader, journalist, barrister and author...
being the others, as well as former MP Tom Kettle.
He was commissioned as a captain in the Royal Irish Regiment
Royal Irish Regiment (1684-1922)
The Royal Irish Regiment, until 1881 the 18th Regiment of Foot, was an infantry regiment of the line in the British Army, first raised in 1684. Also known as the 18th Regiment of Foot and the 18th Regiment of Foot, it was one of eight Irish regiments raised largely in Ireland, its home depot in...
, with whom he had served 33 years before, at the age of 53. He went to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
on the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...
with the 16th (Irish) Division in the winter of 1915–16 and was soon in action, winning a mention in dispatches from Sir Douglas Haig
Douglas Haig
Douglas Haig, 1st Earl Haig was a British soldier and senior commander during World War I.Douglas Haig may also refer to:* Club Atlético Douglas Haig, a football club from Argentina* Douglas Haig , American actor...
. The Easter Rising
Easter Rising
The Easter Rising was an insurrection staged in Ireland during Easter Week, 1916. The Rising was mounted by Irish republicans with the aims of ending British rule in Ireland and establishing the Irish Republic at a time when the British Empire was heavily engaged in the First World War...
of 1916 shattered him, as he seemed to realise that the tide was turning away from constitutionalism. He gained his Major
Major
Major is a rank of commissioned officer, with corresponding ranks existing in almost every military in the world.When used unhyphenated, in conjunction with no other indicator of rank, the term refers to the rank just senior to that of an Army captain and just below the rank of lieutenant colonel. ...
ity on 15 July 1916 but this promoted him away from the action much to his displeasure.
Redmond was convinced that the shared experience of the trenches was bringing Protestant and Catholic Irishmen together and overcoming the differences between Unionists and Nationalists. In December 1916, he told his friend Arthur Conan Doyle
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
: "It would be a fine memorial to the men who have died so splendidly if we could, over their graves, build up a bridge between North and South. I have been thinking a lot about this lately in France - no one could help doing so when one finds that the two sections from Ireland are actually side by side holding the trenches!"
When on leave he made a moving parliamentary speech in March 1917 defending Ireland’s involvement and sacrifice in the war, demanding that England introduce the suspended Home Rule Act. The speech concluded: "In the name of God, we here who are about to die, perhaps, ask you to do that which largely induced us to leave our homes; to do that which our mothers and fathers taught us to long for; to do that which is all we desire; make our country happy and contented, and enable us, when we meet the Canadians and the Australians and the New Zealanders side by side in the common cause and the common field, to say to them: 'our country, just as yours, has self-government within the Empire'."
On 4 June 1917, three days before his death, at a dinner organised by officers of the 7th Leinsters, he made a speech in which he 'prayed for the consumption of peace between North and South'.
He was as obsessed as Pearse
Patrick Pearse
Patrick Henry Pearse was an Irish teacher, barrister, poet, writer, nationalist and political activist who was one of the leaders of the Easter Rising in 1916...
with the idea of a blood sacrifice for Ireland, confiding to an old friend before he returned to the front "I’m going back to get killed". He believed that by serving together in the trenches the Unionist and Nationalist traditions could be reconciled and was convinced that Irish Protestants would thereby come to accept Home Rule.
Death
During preparations in BelgiumBelgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
for the Battle of Messines
Battle of Messines
The Battle of Messines was a battle of the Western front of the First World War. It began on 7 June 1917 when the British Second Army under the command of General Herbert Plumer launched an offensive near the village of Mesen in West Flanders, Belgium...
Redmond, by now 56 years old, succeeded in obtaining special permission to join his battalion, returning to his beloved 'A' Company of the 6th Battalion, Royal Irish Regiment, the night before the planned assault of 7 June 1917. During that night Redmond visited every company of the 6th Battalion and, according to his commanding officer Major Charles Taylor, 'spoke to every man'.
The Irish troops of the 16th and 36th divisions advanced shoulder to shoulder in the great attack on the Messines Ridge towards the small village of Wytschaete (now Wijtschate) next to Messines. Upon going over the top Redmond, one of the first out of the trenches and leading his men, was hit almost immediately in the wrist and then, when hit in the leg, could do no more than urge his men on. Stretcher bearers of the 36th (Ulster) Division, notably Private John Meeke of the 11th Inniskillings
Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers
The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers was a Irish infantry regiment of the British Army formed in 1881 by the amalgamation of the 27th Regiment of Foot and the 108th Regiment of Foot...
, who was himself wounded, brought him in and eventually he reached the Casualty Clearing Station at the Catholic Hospice at Locre (now Loker
Loker
Loker is a small village in the Belgian province of West Flanders, and a part of the municipality of Heuvelland....
) in Dranoutre
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
where he died that afternoon - almost certainly from shock.
His death caused grief worldwide and made more international impact than any other British Empire fatality in the Great War. Almost all the newspapers in Britain and Ireland, both local and national, reported his death. His wife and his brother John Redmond
John Redmond
John Edward Redmond was an Irish nationalist politician, barrister, MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party from 1900 to 1918...
received over 400 messages of sympathy from all parts of the British Empire and beyond. Among the people who paid tribute to his memory were the Unionist MP Sir Edward Carson and the poet Francis Ledwidge
Francis Ledwidge
Francis Edward Ledwidge was an Irish war poet from County Meath. Sometimes known as the "poet of the blackbirds", he was killed in action at the Battle of Passchendaele during World War I.-Early life:...
. Irish Major-General William Hickie
William Bernard Hickie
Sir William Bernard Hickie was an Irish born Major General of the British Army and an Irish nationalist politician....
paid the tribute that Redmond's "presence within the Division and his affection for it were a great asset to me". Lloyd George introduced the Irish Convention
Irish Convention
The Irish Convention was an assembly which sat in Dublin, Ireland from July 1917 until March 1918 to address the Irish Question and other constitutional problems relating to an early enactment of self-government for Ireland, to debate its wider future, discuss and come to an understanding on...
on 11 June quoting Redmond's sacrifice.The French Government posthumously awarded him the Legion of Honour.
A lonely grave
He was buried nearby in a single grave which stands on its own outside the Locre Hospice Cemetery where men of his brigade are buried. The men of the Ulster Division made a donation of £100 to a memorial fund for him and formed a Guard of Honour at his grave. Willie Redmond was the 'Grand Old Man of the Irish Division' and the most typical representative figure of the Irish nationalists who fought in the 1914-18 war. His 'lonely grave' is emblematic of the distance and alienation most Irish Catholics continue to feel for their fellow countrymen who chose to take part in the war.The local people of Loker continue to attend to his symbolic grave with great respect, organising Commemorations, the last in 1967 and 1997, refusing to allow the grave to be moved. Redmond's Bar, an 'Irish' pub in Loker is named after him.
In the town of Wexford
Wexford
Wexford is the county town of County Wexford, Ireland. It is situated near the southeastern corner of Ireland, close to Rosslare Europort. The town is connected to Dublin via the M11/N11 National Primary Route, and the national rail network...
there is a bust of him in Redmond Park which was formally opened as a memorial to him in 1931 in the presence of a large crowd including many of his old friends and comrades and political representatives from all parts of Ireland. It was relaunched by the Wexford County Council in 2002.
All Irishmen who died in the war are commemorated at the Irish National War Memorial Gardens
Irish National War Memorial Gardens
The Irish National War Memorial Gardens is an Irish war memorial in Islandbridge, Dublin dedicated "to the memory of the 49,400 Irish soldiers who gave their lives in the Great War, 1914–1918", out of over 300,000 Irishmen who served in all armies....
in Dublin and the Island of Ireland Peace Park
Island of Ireland Peace Park
The Island of Ireland Peace Park and its surrounding park , also called the Irish Peace Park or Irish Peace Tower in Messines, near Ypres in Flanders, Belgium, is a war memorial to the soldiers of the island of Ireland who died, were wounded or are missing from World War I, during Ireland's...
, Messines, Belgium.
Fictional Reference
The novel 'A Long Long Way' by the Irish author Sebastian BarrySebastian Barry
Sebastian Barry is an Irish playwright, novelist, and poet. He has been shortlisted twice for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction and has won the 2008 Costa Book of the Year....
was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
Man Booker Prize
The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe. The winner of the Man Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and...
in 2005. It is a historical novel dealing with the experiences of a private in the Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the First World War. Although Willie Redmond does not appear in it as a character, he is referred to several times. Part Three of the novel includes the reactions of the characters to his final speech in Parliament, his presence with the soldiers in the front line and the shock of the news of his death in action.
Writings
- W. H. K. Redmond, Through the New Commonwealth, Dublin, 1906
- William Hoey Kearney Redmond, Trench pictures from France, A. Melrose, 1917
Great War Memorials
- Irish National War Memorial GardensIrish National War Memorial GardensThe Irish National War Memorial Gardens is an Irish war memorial in Islandbridge, Dublin dedicated "to the memory of the 49,400 Irish soldiers who gave their lives in the Great War, 1914–1918", out of over 300,000 Irishmen who served in all armies....
, Dublin. - Island of Ireland Peace ParkIsland of Ireland Peace ParkThe Island of Ireland Peace Park and its surrounding park , also called the Irish Peace Park or Irish Peace Tower in Messines, near Ypres in Flanders, Belgium, is a war memorial to the soldiers of the island of Ireland who died, were wounded or are missing from World War I, during Ireland's...
Messines, Belgium. - Menin Gate Memorial Ypres, Belgium.