William O'Brien
Encyclopedia
William O'Brien was an Irish
nationalist
, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher, author and Member of Parliament
(MP) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
. He was particularly associated with the campaigns for land reform in Ireland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well as his conciliatory approach to attaining Irish Home Rule.
, County Cork
, as second son of James O'Brien, a solicitor's clerk, and his wife Kate, the daughter of James Nagle, a local shopkeeper. On his mother's side he was descended from the distinguished Norman
family of Nagles, long settled in the vicinity of Mallow giving their name to the nearby Nagle Mountains. He was also linked through his mother with the statesman Edmund Burke
's mother's family, as well as with the poet Edmund Spencer's family. The Nagles however, no longer held the status or prosperity they once had. In the same month thirty-eight years earlier Thomas Davis
was born in Mallow. O'Brien's advocacy of the cause of Irish Independence was to be in the same true tradition of his esteemed fellow-townsman.
O'Brien shared his primary education with a townsman with whom he was later to have a close political connection, Canon Sheehan of Doneraile. He enjoyed his secondary education at the Cloyne diocesan college, which resulted in his being brought up in an environment noted for its religious tolerance. He greatly valued having had this experience from an early age, which strongly influenced his later views for the need of such tolerance in Irish national life.
. A year later his father died, and the illness of his elder and younger brother and his sister resulted in him having to support his mother and siblings. Always a prolific writer, it quickly earned him a job as newspaper reporter, first for the Cork Daily Herald. This was to be the primary career which first attracted attention to him as a public figure. He had begun legal studies at Queen's College, later University College Cork, but although he never graduated, he held a lifelong attachment to the institution, to which he bequeathed his private papers.
movement and the plight of the Irish tenant farmers, his elder brother having participated in the rebellion of 1867. It resulted in O'Brien himself becoming actively involved with the Fenian brotherhood, resigning in the mid-1870s, because of what he described in 'Evening Memories' (p. 443-4) as "the gloom of inevitable failure and horrible punishment inseparable from any attempt at separation by force of arms".
As a journalist his attention was attracted in the first place to the suffering of the tenant farmers. Now on the staff of the Freeman's Journal, after touring the Galtee Mountains
around Christmas 1877 he published articles describing their conditions, which later appeared in pamphlet form. With this action he first displayed his belief that only through parliamentary reform and with the new power of the press that public opinion could be influenced to pursue Irish issues constitutionally through open political activity and the ballot box. Not least of all, responding to the hopes of the new Irish Home Rule movement.
In 1878 he met Charles Stewart Parnell
MP at a Home Rule meeting. Parnell recognised his exceptional talents as a journalist and writer, influencing his rise to becoming a leading politician of the new generation. He subsequently appointed him in 1881 as editor of the Irish National Land League
's journal, The United Irishman. His association with Parnell and the Irish Parliamentary Party
(IPP) led to his arrest and imprisonment with Parnell, Dillon, William Redmond
and other nationalist leaders in Kilmainham Gaol
that October.
During his imprisonment until April 1882 he drafted the famous Land War No Rent Manifesto – a rent-withholding scheme personally led by O'Brien, escalating the conflict between the Land League
and Gladstone
's government. He was persecuted nine times in the course of years.
. Following the abolition of that constituency he represented Tyrone South from 1885 to 1886, North East Cork from 1887–1892, and Cork City
from 1892–1895 and from 1901–1918, in the House of Commons. There were three periods of absence: 1886-7, from 1895–1900, and eight months in 1904. Amid the turmoil of Irish politics in the late 19th century he was frequently arrested and imprisoned for his support for various Land League protests.
In 1887 O'Brien helped to organise a rent strike
during the Plan of Campaign
at the estate of Lady Kingston near Mitchelstown, County Cork. On 9 September, after an 8,000-strong demonstration led by John Dillon
MP, three estate tenants were shot dead, and others wounded, by police at the town's courthouse where O'Brien had been brought for trial on charges of incitement under a new Coercion Act. This event became known as the Mitchelstown Massacre
. Later that year, thousands of demonstrators marched in London to demand his release from prison, and clashed with police at Trafalgar Square
on Bloody Sunday
(November 10).
Even in prison, O'Brien continued his protests, refusing to wear prison uniform in 1887. Being left without cloths, a Blarney
tweed suit was smuggled in. He occasionally wore this much publicised suit in the Commons when confronting his incarcerator, Arthur Balfour
. His imprisonment also inspired protests – notably the 1887 'Bloody Sunday' riots in London. In 1889 he escaped from a courtroom but was sentenced in absentia for conspiracy. He fled to America accompanied by Dillon who was on bail, then to France where both held negotiations with Parnell at Boulogne-sur-Mer
over the leadership of the party. When these broke down, both returned to Folkestone
giving themselves up, subsequently serving four months in Clonmel
and Galway
gaols. Here O'Brien began to reconsider his political future, using the time to write an acclaimed novel, a Fenian
romance with a land reform theme set in 1860: When We Were Boys, which was published in 1890.
and the economist Arthur Raffalovich
, and daughter of the Russian Jewish banker, Hermann Raffalowich, domiciled in Paris. It was to mark a major turning point in O'Brien's personal and political life. His wife brought considerable wealth into the marriage, enabling him to act with political independence and providing finances to establish his own newspapers. His wife (1860–1960) who survived him by over 30 years, gave him considerable moral and emotional support for his political pursuits. Their relationship added an abiding love for France and attachment to Europe to his life, where he often retired to recuperate.
By 1891 he had become disillusioned with Parnell's political leadership, although emotionally loyal to him he tried to persuade him to retire after the O'Shea
divorce case. On Parnell's death that year and the ensuing IPP split, he remained aloof from aligning himself with either side of the Party, either the rump pro-Parnellite Irish National League (INL) led by John Redmond
MP or with the anti-Parnellite Irish National Federation
(INF) group under John Dillon
, although he saw the weight of strength in the latter. O'Brien worked hard in the 1893 negotiations leading to Parliament passing Gladstone's Second Home Rule Bill , which the Lords however rejected. (Gladstone's speech on the First Home Rule Bill had beseeched parliament not to reject it).
, which enabled him to experience at first hand from his Mayo retreat the distressed hardship of the peasantry in the West of Ireland, trying to eke out an existence in its rocky landscape.
Believing strongly that agitational politics combined with constitutional pressures were the best means of achieving objectives, O'Brien established on the 16. January 1898 the United Irish League
(UIL) at Westport, with Michael Davitt
as co-founder and John Dillon
present. It was to be a new grass-roots organisation with a programme to include agrarian agitation, political reform and Home Rule. It coincided with the passing of the revolutionary Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898
which broke the power of the landlord dominated "Grand Juries", passing for the first time absolute democratic control of local affairs into the hands of the people through elected Local County Councils.
The UIL was explicitly designed to reconcile the various parliamentary fragments existing since the Parnell split, which proved very popular, its branches sweeping over most of the country organised by its general secretary John O'Donnell
, dictating to the demoralised Irish party leaders the terms for reconstruction, not only of the party but the nationalist movement in Ireland. The movement was backed by O'Brien's new newspaper the Irish People (Sept. 1899 -Nov. 1903 and Sept. 1905 -Mar. 1909).
Around 1900 O'Brien, an unbending social reformer and agrarian agitator, was the most influential and powerful figure within the nationalist movement, although not formally its leader. His UIL was by far the largest organisation in the country, comprising 1150 branches and 84,355 members. The result of the rapid growth of his UIL as a national organisation in achieving unity through organised popular opinion, was to effect a quick defensive reunion under John Redmond
of the discredited IPP factions of the INL and the INF
, largely fearing O’Brien’s return to the political field. This unity disturbed O’Brien as it resulted in most of the ineffective party candidates being re-elected in the 1900 general election
, preventing the UIL from using its power in the pre-selection of candidates. Within a few years the IPP was however, to tactically adjunct the UIL under its wing manoeuvering it out of O'Brien's control.
, an initiative by moderate landlords led by Lord Dunraven for a settlement by conciliatory agreement between landlord and tenant. The tenant representation was led by O'Brien, the others were John Redmond, Timothy Harrington and T. W. Russell for the Ulster tenants. After six sittings all eight tenant’s demands were conceded (one with compromise), O’Brien having guided the official nationalist movement into endorsement of a new policy of "conference plus business". He followed this by campaigning vigorously for the greatest piece of social legislation Ireland had yet seen, orchestrating the Wyndham
Land Purchase Act (1903) through parliament, which effectively ended landlordism
, solving the age old Irish Land Question
.
This masterful strategy of bringing about agreement on land purchase between tenants and landlords under the Act, though supported by Redmond, was condemned by a Dillon led campaign backed by his ally Thomas Sexton and the party's newspaper, the Freeman's Journal
, against O’Brien, ferociously attacking him for putting Land Purchase and Conciliation before Home Rule, Michael Davitt
on the grounds that the Act did not espouse land nationalisation. Severely in disagreement with all adversaries, O’Brien left the Irish Parliamentary Party in November 1903 for five years, retiring his parliamentary seat. His Cork electorate however, insistently pushed through his re-election eight months later. O’Brien’s intention of shocking the party to its senses, failed.,
He then embarked on advancing full scale implementation of the Act in alliance with D. D. Sheehan
MP’s Irish Land and Labour Association
(ILLA), which by 1904 had become the new organisational base for O’Brien’s political activities. This aggravated the Dillonite section of the IPP further. Determined to destroy both "before they poison the whole country", they published regular denunciations in the Freeman's Journal, then coupéd the UIL by means of its new secretary, Dillon’s chief lieutenant, Joseph Devlin
MP, Grandmaster
of the Ancient Order of Hibernians
, Devlin eventually gaining organisational control over the entire UIL and IPP organisations.
O'Brien saw its prime importance and negotiated during 1905, which, after the January 1906 general election
, was to become the Bryce
Labourers (Ireland) Act (1906), and during the course of the next five years financed the erection of over 40,000 commodious cottage homes, each on an acre of land. This unique social housing programme unparalleled anywhere in Europe brought about an unprecedented agrarian revolution, changing the face of the Irish countryside,
Renewed publication of O'Brien's newspaper The Irish People (1905–1909) exalting the cottage building, its editorials equally countermanding the IPP's Dublin "bosses" attempts to curtail the program, fearing settled rural communities would no longer be dependent on Party and Church. Munster took full advantage, erecting most of the cottages, additional funding following under Birrell's Labourers (Ireland) Act 1911 .
In the interest of united, O'Brien rejoined the Parliamentary Party in 1908. During negotiations that year for additional funding of land purchase under an amending bill, Redmond called a UIL convention for December in Dublin, claiming the bill over-burdened the British Treasury and the rate payers. Over 3000 delegates attended. Devlin had the hall filled in advance with 400 of his militant Mollies
, so that when O'Brien and his followers tried to speak in favour of the bill, they were battoned into silence. The bill eventually passed as Birrell's Land Purchase Act (1909) , falling far short in its financial provisions.
1904-5, he firmly believed all moderate unionists could still be won over to All-Ireland Home Rule. For many nationalists on the other hand, the adoption of a conciliatory approach to the "hereditary enemy" involved too sharp a deviation from traditional thinking.
In March 1909 he inaugurated the All-for-Ireland League
(AFIL) in Kanturk
with James Gilhooly
MP as Chairman and D. D. Sheehan
Hon. Secretary. The AFIL’s political objective was the attainment of an All-Ireland parliament with the consent rather than by the compulsion of the Protestant
and Unionist community
, under the banner of the "Three Cs", for Conference, Conciliation and Consent as applied to Irish politics. The League was supported by many prominent Protestant gentry, leading landlords and Munster business figures. The political activist Canon Sheehan of Doneraile was also a founder member.
Ill-health striking O’Brien, he departed for Florence
, Italy
to recuperate, returning for the January 1910 general election, in which the Cork electorate returned eight "O'Brienite" MPs. Throughout 1910 his AFIL movement was opposed an Irish Party supported by the Catholic clergy. It returned eight independent AFIL MPs in the December 1910 general election to be O'Brien's new political party. From July 1910 until late 1916 O’Brien published the League’s newspaper, the Cork Free Press
. Election results published by it showed Independents throughout Ireland had won 30% of votes cast.
O’Brien saw it opportune for a co-operative understanding with Arthur Griffith
's moderate Sinn Féin movement, having in common – attaining objectives through "moral protest" – political resistance and agitation rather than militant physical-force. Neither O’Brien nor Griffith advocated total abstentionism
from the Commons, and regarded Dominion Home Rule, modelled on Canada or Australia, as acceptable. Although Griffith favoured co-operation, a special Sinn Feín executive council meeting called to consider co-operation regretted it was not possible because its constitution would not allow it. In the following years O’Brien and his party continued to associate themselves with Griffith's movement both in and out of parliament. In June 1918 Griffith asked O’Brien to have the writ moved for his candidacy in the Cavan-east
by-election (moved by AFIL MP Eugene Crean
) to which Griffith was elected with a sizable majority.
In 1911 O'Brien proposed Dominion Home Rule in a letter to Asquith
as the only viable solution to the "Irish Question". Home Rule became technically assured after a new Home Rule bill was introduced in 1912 with the IPP holding the balance of power at Westminster
. During the 1913–14 parliamentary debates on the Third Home Rule Bill, O'Brien, alarmed by Unionist resistance to the bill, opposed the IPP's coercive "Ulster must follow" policy, and published in January 1914 specific concession which would enable Ulster join a Dublin parliament "any price for an United Ireland, but never partition". The Ulster Volunteers armed to resist likely "Rome Rule
" , Redmond's Irish Volunteers
armed likewise to ensure enactment of all-Ireland self-government. Rejecting O'Brien's initiatives, the Redmond-Dillon-Devlin hardline alliance remained uncompromising – "no concessions for Ulster".
In May 1914 O'Brien and his followers abstained from the final vote passing the Home Rule Act 1914
, denouncing it as a "partition deal", after Sir Edward Carson leader of the Ulster Unionist Party
forced through an amendment mandating the partition of Ireland
, the Nationalist's confrontation course with Ulster ending in fiasco.
in August as an opportunity to undertake a last crusade to preserve at any price the unity of Ireland, by uniting the Green and Orange in a common cause, declaring himself on the side of the Allied
and Britain's European war effort. O'Brien was the first Nationalist leader to call on Irish Volunteers
for the front. Towards the end of August he had an interview with Lord Kitchener, Secretary of State for War, and laid before him a scheme for raising an Irish Army Corps embracing all classes and creeds, South and North. Kitchener favoured the idea. O’Brien immediately summoned a meeting held in the Cork
Town Hall under the auspices of the All-for-Ireland League on the 2nd September, the hall packed with an enthusiastic audience of men and women. In a speech that far exceeded Redmond’s in favour of its adherence to England cause, he said:- :
O'Brien later wrote: "Whether Home Rule is to have a future will depend upon the extent to which the Nationalists
in combination with Ulster Covenanters, do their part in the firing line on the fields of France". He stood on recruiting platforms with the other National leaders and spoke out encouragingly in favour of voluntary enlistment in the Royal Munster Fusiliers
and other Irish regiments.
, in which however Sinn Féin were not involved. He was forced to cease publication of his Cork Free Press in 1916 soon after the appointment of Lord Decies
as Chief Press Censor for Ireland. Decies warned the press to be careful about what they published. Such warnings had little effect when dealing with such papers as the Cork Free Press. It was suppressed after its republican editor, Frank Gallagher
, accused the British authorities of lying about the conditions and situation of republican prisoners in the Frongoch internment camp
.
O'Brien accepted the Rising and the ensuing changed political climate in 1917 as the best way of ridding the country of IPP and AOH stagnation. Home Rule had been lost in 1913, an inflexible IPP long out of touch with reality, reflected by Britain's two failed attempts to introduce Home Rule in 1916 and again in 1917. O'Brien refused to participate in the Irish Convention
after southern unionist
representatives he had proposed were turned down. The Convention ended as he predicted in failure when Britain attempted to link the enactment of Home Rule with conscription.
During the anti-conscription crisis in April 1918 O'Brien and his AFIL left the House of Commons and joined Sinn Féin and other prominentaries in the mass protests in Dublin. Seeing no future for his conciliatory political concepts in a future election, he believed Sinn Féin in its moderate form had earned the right to represent nationalist interests. He and the other members of his All-for-Ireland League party stood aside putting their seats at the disposal of Sinn Féin, its candidates returned unopposed in the December 1918 general elections. In an address to the election he had said:
O'Brien disagreed with the establishment of a southern Irish Free State
under the Treaty
, still believing that Partition of Ireland
was too high a price to pay for partial independence. Retiring from political life, he contented himself with writing and declined Éamon de Valera
's offer to stand for Fianna Fáil
in the 1927 general election. He died suddenly on 25 February 1928 while on a visit to London with his wife at the age of 75. His remains rest in Mallow, and one of the principal streets in the town bears his name to this day. His head-bust overlooks the town Council's Chamber Room and one of his finest portraits hangs in University College Cork.
In 1920 Arthur Griffith
said of O'Brien:
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...
, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher, author and 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 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....
. He was particularly associated with the campaigns for land reform in Ireland during the late 19th and early 20th centuries as well as his conciliatory approach to attaining Irish Home Rule.
Family, education
William O'Brien was born at Bank Place in MallowMallow, County Cork
Mallow is the "Crossroads of Munster" and the administrative capital of north County Cork, in Ireland. The Northern Divisional Offices of Cork County Council are located in the town....
, County Cork
County Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...
, as second son of James O'Brien, a solicitor's clerk, and his wife Kate, the daughter of James Nagle, a local shopkeeper. On his mother's side he was descended from the distinguished Norman
Normans
The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...
family of Nagles, long settled in the vicinity of Mallow giving their name to the nearby Nagle Mountains. He was also linked through his mother with the statesman Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
's mother's family, as well as with the poet Edmund Spencer's family. The Nagles however, no longer held the status or prosperity they once had. In the same month thirty-eight years earlier Thomas Davis
Thomas Osborne Davis (Irish politician)
Thomas Osborne Davis was a revolutionary Irish writer who was the chief organizer and poet of the Young Ireland movement.-Early life:...
was born in Mallow. O'Brien's advocacy of the cause of Irish Independence was to be in the same true tradition of his esteemed fellow-townsman.
O'Brien shared his primary education with a townsman with whom he was later to have a close political connection, Canon Sheehan of Doneraile. He enjoyed his secondary education at the Cloyne diocesan college, which resulted in his being brought up in an environment noted for its religious tolerance. He greatly valued having had this experience from an early age, which strongly influenced his later views for the need of such tolerance in Irish national life.
Early journalism
Financial misfortune in 1868 caused the O'Brien family to move to Cork CityCork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
. A year later his father died, and the illness of his elder and younger brother and his sister resulted in him having to support his mother and siblings. Always a prolific writer, it quickly earned him a job as newspaper reporter, first for the Cork Daily Herald. This was to be the primary career which first attracted attention to him as a public figure. He had begun legal studies at Queen's College, later University College Cork, but although he never graduated, he held a lifelong attachment to the institution, to which he bequeathed his private papers.
Political origins
From an early age O'Brien's political ideas, like most of his contemporaries, were shaped by the FenianFenian
The Fenians , both the Fenian Brotherhood and Irish Republican Brotherhood , were fraternal organisations dedicated to the establishment of an independent Irish Republic in the 19th and early 20th century. The name "Fenians" was first applied by John O'Mahony to the members of the Irish republican...
movement and the plight of the Irish tenant farmers, his elder brother having participated in the rebellion of 1867. It resulted in O'Brien himself becoming actively involved with the Fenian brotherhood, resigning in the mid-1870s, because of what he described in 'Evening Memories' (p. 443-4) as "the gloom of inevitable failure and horrible punishment inseparable from any attempt at separation by force of arms".
As a journalist his attention was attracted in the first place to the suffering of the tenant farmers. Now on the staff of the Freeman's Journal, after touring the Galtee Mountains
Galtee Mountains
The Galtee Mountains or Galty Mountains are a mountain range in Munster, located in Ireland's Golden Vale across parts of counties Limerick, South Tipperary and Cork. The name "Galtee" is thought to be a corruption of the Irish "Sléibhte na gCoillte" - "Mountains of the Forests" in English,...
around Christmas 1877 he published articles describing their conditions, which later appeared in pamphlet form. With this action he first displayed his belief that only through parliamentary reform and with the new power of the press that public opinion could be influenced to pursue Irish issues constitutionally through open political activity and the ballot box. Not least of all, responding to the hopes of the new Irish Home Rule movement.
United Ireland Editor
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...
MP at a Home Rule meeting. Parnell recognised his exceptional talents as a journalist and writer, influencing his rise to becoming a leading politician of the new generation. He subsequently appointed him in 1881 as editor of the Irish National Land League
Irish 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...
's journal, The United Irishman. His association with Parnell and 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...
(IPP) led to his arrest and imprisonment with Parnell, Dillon, William Redmond
William Hoey Kearney Redmond
William Hoey Kearney Redmond was an Irish nationalist politician. He was a Member of Parliament 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.-Family background:He...
and other nationalist leaders 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...
that October.
During his imprisonment until April 1882 he drafted the famous Land War No Rent Manifesto – a rent-withholding scheme personally led by O'Brien, escalating the conflict between the Land League
Irish 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...
and Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...
's government. He was persecuted nine times in the course of years.
Agitator and MP
From 1883–1885 O'Brien was elected MP for MallowMallow (UK Parliament constituency)
Mallow was a United Kingdom Parliament constituency, in Ireland, returning one MP. It was an original constituency represented in Parliament when the Union of Great Britain and Ireland took effect on 1 January 1801.-Boundaries:...
. Following the abolition of that constituency he represented Tyrone South from 1885 to 1886, North East Cork from 1887–1892, and Cork City
Cork City (UK Parliament constituency)
Cork City was a parliamentary constituency in Ireland, represented in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. From 1880 to 1922 it returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
from 1892–1895 and from 1901–1918, in the House of Commons. There were three periods of absence: 1886-7, from 1895–1900, and eight months in 1904. Amid the turmoil of Irish politics in the late 19th century he was frequently arrested and imprisoned for his support for various Land League protests.
In 1887 O'Brien helped to organise a rent strike
Rent strike
A rent strike is a method of protest commonly employed against large landlords. In a rent strike, a group of tenants come together and agree to refuse to pay their rent en masse until a specific list of demands is met by the landlord...
during the Plan of Campaign
Plan of Campaign
The Plan of Campaign was a stratagem adopted in Ireland between 1886 and 1891, co-ordinated by Irish politicians for the benefit of tenant farmers, against mainly absentee and rack-rent landlords. It was launched to counter agricultural distress caused by the continual depression in prices of dairy...
at the estate of Lady Kingston near Mitchelstown, County Cork. On 9 September, after an 8,000-strong demonstration led by 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....
MP, three estate tenants were shot dead, and others wounded, by police at the town's courthouse where O'Brien had been brought for trial on charges of incitement under a new Coercion Act. This event became known as the Mitchelstown Massacre
Mitchelstown
Mitchelstown is a town in County Cork, Ireland with a population of approximately 3300. Mitchelstown is situated in the valley to the south of the Galtee Mountains close to the Mitchelstown Caves and is 28 km from Cahir, 50 km from Cork and 59 km from Limerick...
. Later that year, thousands of demonstrators marched in London to demand his release from prison, and clashed with police at Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square is a public space and tourist attraction in central London, England, United Kingdom. At its centre is Nelson's Column, which is guarded by four lion statues at its base. There are a number of statues and sculptures in the square, with one plinth displaying changing pieces of...
on Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday (1887)
Bloody Sunday, London, 13 November 1887, was the name given to a demonstration against coercion in Ireland and to demand the release from prison of MP William O'Brien, who was imprisoned for incitement as a result of an incident in the Irish Land War. The demonstration was organized by the Social...
(November 10).
Blarney
Blarney is a town and townland in County Cork, Ireland. It lies north-west of Cork and is famed as the site of Blarney Castle, home of the legendary Blarney Stone.-Tourism:Blarney town is a major tourist attraction in County Cork...
tweed suit was smuggled in. He occasionally wore this much publicised suit in the Commons when confronting his incarcerator, Arthur Balfour
Arthur Balfour
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC, DL was a British Conservative politician and statesman...
. His imprisonment also inspired protests – notably the 1887 'Bloody Sunday' riots in London. In 1889 he escaped from a courtroom but was sentenced in absentia for conspiracy. He fled to America accompanied by Dillon who was on bail, then to France where both held negotiations with Parnell at Boulogne-sur-Mer
Boulogne-sur-Mer
-Road:* Metropolitan bus services are operated by the TCRB* Coach services to Calais and Dunkerque* A16 motorway-Rail:* The main railway station is Gare de Boulogne-Ville and located in the south of the city....
over the leadership of the party. When these broke down, both returned to Folkestone
Folkestone
Folkestone is the principal town in the Shepway District of Kent, England. Its original site was in a valley in the sea cliffs and it developed through fishing and its closeness to the Continent as a landing place and trading port. The coming of the railways, the building of a ferry port, and its...
giving themselves up, subsequently serving four months in Clonmel
Clonmel
Clonmel is the county town of South Tipperary in Ireland. It is the largest town in the county. While the borough had a population of 15,482 in 2006, another 17,008 people were in the rural hinterland. The town is noted in Irish history for its resistance to the Cromwellian army which sacked both...
and Galway
Galway
Galway or City of Galway is a city in County Galway, Republic of Ireland. It is the sixth largest and the fastest-growing city in Ireland. It is also the third largest city within the Republic and the only city in the Province of Connacht. Located on the west coast of Ireland, it sits on the...
gaols. Here O'Brien began to reconsider his political future, using the time to write an acclaimed novel, a Fenian
Fenian
The Fenians , both the Fenian Brotherhood and Irish Republican Brotherhood , were fraternal organisations dedicated to the establishment of an independent Irish Republic in the 19th and early 20th century. The name "Fenians" was first applied by John O'Mahony to the members of the Irish republican...
romance with a land reform theme set in 1860: When We Were Boys, which was published in 1890.
Marriage, reorientation
In 1890 he married Sophie Raffalovich, sister of the poet Marc André Sebastian RaffalovichMarc-André Raffalovich
Marc-André Raffalovich was a French poet and writer on homosexuality, best known today for his patronage of the arts and for his lifelong relationship with the poet, John Gray.-Early life:...
and the economist Arthur Raffalovich
Arthur Raffalovich
Arthur Germanovich Raffalovich was a Russian financier and economist.-Life:Raffalovich was born in Odessa in 1853, the son of a wealthy merchant, Hermann Raffalovich, but the family moved to Paris when he was a child. Arthur lived most of his life in Paris, where he died December 24, 1921...
, and daughter of the Russian Jewish banker, Hermann Raffalowich, domiciled in Paris. It was to mark a major turning point in O'Brien's personal and political life. His wife brought considerable wealth into the marriage, enabling him to act with political independence and providing finances to establish his own newspapers. His wife (1860–1960) who survived him by over 30 years, gave him considerable moral and emotional support for his political pursuits. Their relationship added an abiding love for France and attachment to Europe to his life, where he often retired to recuperate.
By 1891 he had become disillusioned with Parnell's political leadership, although emotionally loyal to him he tried to persuade him to retire after the O'Shea
Katherine O'Shea
Katharine O'Shea, also known as Katie O'Shea, Kitty O'Shea or, following her second marriage, Katharine Parnell was an English woman of aristocratic background, whose family relationship over many years with Charles Stewart Parnell eventually caused his political downfall.-Background:She was born...
divorce case. On Parnell's death that year and the ensuing IPP split, he remained aloof from aligning himself with either side of the Party, either the rump pro-Parnellite Irish National League (INL) led by 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...
MP or with the anti-Parnellite Irish National Federation
Irish National Federation
The Irish National Federation was a nationalist political party in Ireland. It was founded in March 1891 by former members of the Irish National League who had left the Irish Parliamentary Party in protest when Charles Stewart Parnell refused to resign the party leadership as a result of his...
(INF) group under 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....
, although he saw the weight of strength in the latter. O'Brien worked hard in the 1893 negotiations leading to Parliament passing Gladstone's Second Home Rule Bill , which the Lords however rejected. (Gladstone's speech on the First Home Rule Bill had beseeched parliament not to reject it).
United Irish League
Distancing himself from the party turmoils, he retired from parliament in 1895, settling for a while with his wife near Westport, County MayoWestport, County Mayo
Westport is a town in County Mayo, Ireland. It is situated on the west coast at the south-east corner of Clew Bay, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean....
, which enabled him to experience at first hand from his Mayo retreat the distressed hardship of the peasantry in the West of Ireland, trying to eke out an existence in its rocky landscape.
Believing strongly that agitational politics combined with constitutional pressures were the best means of achieving objectives, O'Brien established on the 16. January 1898 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) at Westport, 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,...
as co-founder and 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....
present. It was to be a new grass-roots organisation with a programme to include agrarian agitation, political reform and Home Rule. It coincided with the passing of the revolutionary Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898
Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898
The Local Government Act 1898 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that established a system of local government in Ireland similar to that already created for England, Wales and Scotland by legislation in 1888 and 1889...
which broke the power of the landlord dominated "Grand Juries", passing for the first time absolute democratic control of local affairs into the hands of the people through elected Local County Councils.
The UIL was explicitly designed to reconcile the various parliamentary fragments existing since the Parnell split, which proved very popular, its branches sweeping over most of the country organised by its general secretary John O'Donnell
John O'Donnell (politician)
John O’Donnell was an Irish journalist, Nationalist politician and Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom House of Commons from 1900 to 1910....
, dictating to the demoralised Irish party leaders the terms for reconstruction, not only of the party but the nationalist movement in Ireland. The movement was backed by O'Brien's new newspaper the Irish People (Sept. 1899 -Nov. 1903 and Sept. 1905 -Mar. 1909).
Around 1900 O'Brien, an unbending social reformer and agrarian agitator, was the most influential and powerful figure within the nationalist movement, although not formally its leader. His UIL was by far the largest organisation in the country, comprising 1150 branches and 84,355 members. The result of the rapid growth of his UIL as a national organisation in achieving unity through organised popular opinion, was to effect a quick defensive reunion under 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...
of the discredited IPP factions of the INL and the INF
Irish National Federation
The Irish National Federation was a nationalist political party in Ireland. It was founded in March 1891 by former members of the Irish National League who had left the Irish Parliamentary Party in protest when Charles Stewart Parnell refused to resign the party leadership as a result of his...
, largely fearing O’Brien’s return to the political field. This unity disturbed O’Brien as it resulted in most of the ineffective party candidates being re-elected in the 1900 general election
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**...
, preventing the UIL from using its power in the pre-selection of candidates. Within a few years the IPP was however, to tactically adjunct the UIL under its wing manoeuvering it out of O'Brien's control.
Land Act architect
O'Brien next intensified the UIL agitation for land purchase by tenant farmers, pressurising for compulsory purchase. It resulted in the calling of the December 1902 Land ConferenceLand Conference
The Land Conference was a successful conciliatory negotiation held in the Mansion House in Dublin, Ireland between 20 December 1902 and 4 January 1903. In a short period it produced a unanimously agreed report recommending an amiable solution to the long waged land war between tenant farmers and...
, an initiative by moderate landlords led by Lord Dunraven for a settlement by conciliatory agreement between landlord and tenant. The tenant representation was led by O'Brien, the others were John Redmond, Timothy Harrington and T. W. Russell for the Ulster tenants. After six sittings all eight tenant’s demands were conceded (one with compromise), O’Brien having guided the official nationalist movement into endorsement of a new policy of "conference plus business". He followed this by campaigning vigorously for the greatest piece of social legislation Ireland had yet seen, orchestrating the Wyndham
George Wyndham
George Wyndham PC was a British Conservative politician, man of letters, noted for his elegance, and one of The Souls.-Background and education:...
Land Purchase Act (1903) through parliament, which effectively ended landlordism
Absentee landlord
Absentee landlord is an economic term for a person who owns and rents out a profit-earning property, but does not live within the property's local economic region. This practice is problematic for that region because absentee landlords drain local wealth into their home country, particularly that...
, solving the age old Irish Land Question
Irish Land Acts
The Land Acts were a series of measures to deal with the question of peasant proprietorship of land in Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Five such acts were introduced by the government of the United Kingdom between 1870 and 1909...
.
This masterful strategy of bringing about agreement on land purchase between tenants and landlords under the Act, though supported by Redmond, was condemned by a Dillon led campaign backed by his ally Thomas Sexton and the party's newspaper, the Freeman's Journal
Freeman's Journal
The Freeman's Journal was the oldest nationalist newspaper in Ireland. It was founded in 1763 by Charles Lucas and was identified with radical 18th century Protestant patriot politicians Henry Grattan and Henry Flood...
, against O’Brien, ferociously attacking him for putting Land Purchase and Conciliation before Home Rule, 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,...
on the grounds that the Act did not espouse land nationalisation. Severely in disagreement with all adversaries, O’Brien left the Irish Parliamentary Party in November 1903 for five years, retiring his parliamentary seat. His Cork electorate however, insistently pushed through his re-election eight months later. O’Brien’s intention of shocking the party to its senses, failed.,
He then embarked on advancing full scale implementation of the Act in alliance with 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...
MP’s Irish Land and Labour Association
Irish Land and Labour Association
The Irish Land and Labour Association was a progressive movement founded in the early 1890s in Munster, Ireland, to organise and pursue political agitation for small tenant farmers' and rural labourers' rights. Its branches also spread into Connacht. The ILLA was known under different names—Land...
(ILLA), which by 1904 had become the new organisational base for O’Brien’s political activities. This aggravated the Dillonite section of the IPP further. Determined to destroy both "before they poison the whole country", they published regular denunciations in the Freeman's Journal, then coupéd the UIL by means of its new secretary, Dillon’s chief lieutenant, Joseph Devlin
Joseph Devlin
Joseph Devlin, also known as Joe Devlin, was an Irish journalist and influential nationalist politician...
MP, Grandmaster
Grand Master (order)
Grand Master is the typical title of the supreme head of various orders of knighthood, including various military orders, religious orders and civil orders such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Orange Order...
of the Ancient Order of 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...
, Devlin eventually gaining organisational control over the entire UIL and IPP organisations.
Housing Acts
Britain had two bills to pay for past wrongs. After financing tenant land purchase, tenant farmers were now proud proprietors largely in control of local government. The next bill to pay was for extensive rural housing of the tens of thousands of migrant farm labourers struggling to survive in stone cabins, barns or mud hovels. A long standing demand by the ILLA branches and D.D. Sheehan.O'Brien saw its prime importance and negotiated during 1905, which, after the January 1906 general election
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**...
, was to become the Bryce
James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce
James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce OM, GCVO, PC, FRS, FBA was a British academic, jurist, historian and Liberal politician.-Background and education:...
Labourers (Ireland) Act (1906), and during the course of the next five years financed the erection of over 40,000 commodious cottage homes, each on an acre of land. This unique social housing programme unparalleled anywhere in Europe brought about an unprecedented agrarian revolution, changing the face of the Irish countryside,
Renewed publication of O'Brien's newspaper The Irish People (1905–1909) exalting the cottage building, its editorials equally countermanding the IPP's Dublin "bosses" attempts to curtail the program, fearing settled rural communities would no longer be dependent on Party and Church. Munster took full advantage, erecting most of the cottages, additional funding following under Birrell's Labourers (Ireland) Act 1911 .
In the interest of united, O'Brien rejoined the Parliamentary Party in 1908. During negotiations that year for additional funding of land purchase under an amending bill, Redmond called a UIL convention for December in Dublin, claiming the bill over-burdened the British Treasury and the rate payers. Over 3000 delegates attended. Devlin had the hall filled in advance with 400 of his militant Mollies
Molly Maguires
The Molly Maguires were members of an Irish-American secret society, whose members consisted mainly of coal miners. Many historians believe the "Mollies" were present in the anthracite coal fields of Pennsylvania in the United States from approximately the time of the American Civil War until a...
, so that when O'Brien and his followers tried to speak in favour of the bill, they were battoned into silence. The bill eventually passed as Birrell's Land Purchase Act (1909) , falling far short in its financial provisions.
All-for-Ireland League
As an outcome of the "Baton Convention" O’Brien felt himself again driven from the party. He foresaw that the IPP, undermined by the AOH, was on a fatal radical path which would frustrate any All-Ireland Home Rule settlement. As a counter measure he established a new League, which was to build on the success his combined "doctrine of conciliation" with "conference plus business" achieved during the 1902 Land Conference with landlords and the ensuing 1903 Land Purchase Act. Following his engagement with the Irish Reform MovementIrish Reform Association
The Irish Reform Association was an attempt to introduce limited devolved self-government to Ireland by a group of reform oriented Irish unionist land owners who proposed to initially adopt something less than full Home Rule...
1904-5, he firmly believed all moderate unionists could still be won over to All-Ireland Home Rule. For many nationalists on the other hand, the adoption of a conciliatory approach to the "hereditary enemy" involved too sharp a deviation from traditional thinking.
In March 1909 he inaugurated the 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...
(AFIL) in Kanturk
Kanturk
-Transport:*Kanturk railway station opened on 1 April 1889, closed for passenger traffic on 27 January 1947 and finally closed altogether on 4 February 1963. Kanturk is however served by the nearby Banteer railway station.-People:...
with James Gilhooly
James Gilhooly
James Gilhooly was an Irish nationalist politician and MP. in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland as member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, from 1910 the All-for Ireland Party, who represented his constituency from 1885 for 30 years until his death, retaining...
MP as Chairman 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...
Hon. Secretary. The AFIL’s political objective was the attainment of an All-Ireland parliament with the consent rather than by the compulsion of the Protestant
Church of Ireland
The Church of Ireland is an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. The church operates in all parts of Ireland and is the second largest religious body on the island after the Roman Catholic Church...
and Unionist community
Unionism in Ireland
Unionism in Ireland is an ideology that favours the continuation of some form of political union between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain...
, under the banner of the "Three Cs", for Conference, Conciliation and Consent as applied to Irish politics. The League was supported by many prominent Protestant gentry, leading landlords and Munster business figures. The political activist Canon Sheehan of Doneraile was also a founder member.
Ill-health striking O’Brien, he departed for Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
to recuperate, returning for the January 1910 general election, in which the Cork electorate returned eight "O'Brienite" MPs. Throughout 1910 his AFIL movement was opposed an Irish Party supported by the Catholic clergy. It returned eight independent AFIL MPs in the December 1910 general election to be O'Brien's new political party. From July 1910 until late 1916 O’Brien published the League’s newspaper, the Cork Free Press
Cork Free Press
The Cork Free Press was a nationalist newspaper in Ireland, which circulated primarily in the Munster region surrounding its base in Cork, and was the newspaper of the dissident All-for-Ireland League party...
. Election results published by it showed Independents throughout Ireland had won 30% of votes cast.
O’Brien saw it opportune for a co-operative understanding with 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:...
's moderate Sinn Féin movement, having in common – attaining objectives through "moral protest" – political resistance and agitation rather than militant physical-force. Neither O’Brien nor Griffith advocated total abstentionism
Abstentionism
Abstentionism is standing for election to a deliberative assembly while refusing to take up any seats won or otherwise participate in the assembly's business. Abstentionism differs from an election boycott in that abstentionists participate in the election itself...
from the Commons, and regarded Dominion Home Rule, modelled on Canada or Australia, as acceptable. Although Griffith favoured co-operation, a special Sinn Feín executive council meeting called to consider co-operation regretted it was not possible because its constitution would not allow it. In the following years O’Brien and his party continued to associate themselves with Griffith's movement both in and out of parliament. In June 1918 Griffith asked O’Brien to have the writ moved for his candidacy in the Cavan-east
East Cavan (UK Parliament constituency)
East Cavan was a parliamentary constituency in Ireland, which from 1885 to 1922 returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.Prior to 1885 the area was part of the Cavan constituency...
by-election (moved by AFIL MP Eugene Crean
Eugene Crean
Eugene Crean was an Irish nationalist politician and MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and member of the Irish Parliamentary Party 1892–1910, for the All-for Ireland Party 1910–1918....
) to which Griffith was elected with a sizable majority.
In 1911 O'Brien proposed Dominion Home Rule in a letter to Asquith
Asquith
Asquith refers to:Persons of the Asquith family, descended from or related to H.H. Asquith, a British prime minister, later a peer:*Herbert Henry Asquith , Prime Minister of the United Kingdom...
as the only viable solution to the "Irish Question". Home Rule became technically assured after a new Home Rule bill was introduced in 1912 with the IPP holding the balance of power at Westminster
Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
. During the 1913–14 parliamentary debates on the Third Home Rule Bill, O'Brien, alarmed by Unionist resistance to the bill, opposed the IPP's coercive "Ulster must follow" policy, and published in January 1914 specific concession which would enable Ulster join a Dublin parliament "any price for an United Ireland, but never partition". The Ulster Volunteers armed to resist likely "Rome Rule
Rome Rule
"Rome Rule" was a term used by Irish unionists and socialists to describe the belief that the Roman Catholic Church would gain political control over their interests with the passage of a Home Rule Bill...
" , Redmond's 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"...
armed likewise to ensure enactment of all-Ireland self-government. Rejecting O'Brien's initiatives, the Redmond-Dillon-Devlin hardline alliance remained uncompromising – "no concessions for Ulster".
In May 1914 O'Brien and his followers abstained from the final vote passing the 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...
, denouncing it as a "partition deal", after Sir Edward Carson leader of the Ulster Unionist Party
Ulster Unionist Party
The Ulster Unionist Party – sometimes referred to as the Official Unionist Party or, in a historic sense, simply the Unionist Party – is the more moderate of the two main unionist political parties in Northern Ireland...
forced through an amendment mandating the partition of Ireland
Partition of Ireland
The partition of Ireland was the division of the island of Ireland into two distinct territories, now Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland . Partition occurred when the British Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act 1920...
, the Nationalist's confrontation course with Ulster ending in fiasco.
Rallying for Europe
O'Brien saw the outbreak of World War IWorld 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...
in August as an opportunity to undertake a last crusade to preserve at any price the unity of Ireland, by uniting the Green and Orange in a common cause, declaring himself on the side of the 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...
and Britain's European war effort. O'Brien was the first Nationalist leader to call on Irish 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:...
for the front. Towards the end of August he had an interview with Lord Kitchener, Secretary of State for War, and laid before him a scheme for raising an Irish Army Corps embracing all classes and creeds, South and North. Kitchener favoured the idea. O’Brien immediately summoned a meeting held in the Cork
Cork (city)
Cork is the second largest city in the Republic of Ireland and the island of Ireland's third most populous city. It is the principal city and administrative centre of County Cork and the largest city in the province of Munster. Cork has a population of 119,418, while the addition of the suburban...
Town Hall under the auspices of the All-for-Ireland League on the 2nd September, the hall packed with an enthusiastic audience of men and women. In a speech that far exceeded Redmond’s in favour of its adherence to England cause, he said:- :
O'Brien later wrote: "Whether Home Rule is to have a future will depend upon the extent to which the Nationalists
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:...
in combination with Ulster Covenanters, do their part in the firing line on the fields of France". He stood on recruiting platforms with the other National leaders and spoke out encouragingly in favour of voluntary enlistment in the Royal Munster Fusiliers
Royal Munster Fusiliers
The Royal Munster Fusiliers was a regular infantry regiment of the British Army. One of eight Irish regiments raised largely in Ireland, it had its home depot in Tralee. It was originally formed in 1881 by the amalgamation of two regiments of the former East India Company. It served in India and...
and other Irish regiments.
Changing tides
O'Brien, alarmed at the increased activity of Sinn Féin in 1915, predicted the danger of a potential republican eruption, culminating in the IRB 1916 RebellionEaster 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...
, in which however Sinn Féin were not involved. He was forced to cease publication of his Cork Free Press in 1916 soon after the appointment of Lord Decies
John Beresford, 5th Baron Decies
John Graham Hope de la Poer Beresford, 5th Baron Decies PC , styled The Honourable John Beresford until 1910, was an Anglo-Irish army officer and civil servant.-Background and education:...
as Chief Press Censor for Ireland. Decies warned the press to be careful about what they published. Such warnings had little effect when dealing with such papers as the Cork Free Press. It was suppressed after its republican editor, Frank Gallagher
Frank Gallagher (author)
Frank B. Gallagher was an Irish author and Volunteer.-Biography:A Cork native, initially London correspondent of William O'Brien's Cork Free Press, subsequently its final editor, though himself a separatist, personally admired O'Brien.The paper suffered closure in 1916 soon after the appointment...
, accused the British authorities of lying about the conditions and situation of republican prisoners in the Frongoch internment camp
Frongoch internment camp
Frongoch internment camp at Frongoch in Merionethshire, Wales was a makeshift place of imprisonment during the First World War. Until 1916 it housed German prisoners of war in an abandoned distillery and crude huts, but in the wake of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, Ireland, the German prisoners...
.
O'Brien accepted the Rising and the ensuing changed political climate in 1917 as the best way of ridding the country of IPP and AOH stagnation. Home Rule had been lost in 1913, an inflexible IPP long out of touch with reality, reflected by Britain's two failed attempts to introduce Home Rule in 1916 and again in 1917. O'Brien refused to participate in 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...
after southern unionist
Irish Unionist Party
The Irish Unionist Alliance was a Unionist party founded in Ireland in 1891 to oppose plans for Gladstonian and Parnellite Home Rule for Ireland. The party was led for much of its life by Colonel Edward James Saunderson and later by the William St John Brodrick, Earl of Midleton...
representatives he had proposed were turned down. The Convention ended as he predicted in failure when Britain attempted to link the enactment of Home Rule with conscription.
During the anti-conscription crisis in April 1918 O'Brien and his AFIL left the House of Commons and joined Sinn Féin and other prominentaries in the mass protests in Dublin. Seeing no future for his conciliatory political concepts in a future election, he believed Sinn Féin in its moderate form had earned the right to represent nationalist interests. He and the other members of his All-for-Ireland League party stood aside putting their seats at the disposal of Sinn Féin, its candidates returned unopposed in the December 1918 general elections. In an address to the election he had said:
"We cannot subscribe to a programme of armed resistance in the field, or even of permanent withdrawal from Westminster; but to the spirit of Sinn Féin, as distinct from its abstract programme, the great mass of independent single-minded Irishmen have been won over, and accordingly they ought now to have a full and sympathetic trial for enforcing the Irish nation's right of self-determination."
O'Brien disagreed with the establishment of a southern Irish Free State
Irish Free State
The Irish Free State was the state established as a Dominion on 6 December 1922 under the Anglo-Irish Treaty, signed by the British government and Irish representatives exactly twelve months beforehand...
under the Treaty
Anglo-Irish Treaty
The Anglo-Irish Treaty , officially called the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty Between Great Britain and Ireland, was a treaty between the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and representatives of the secessionist Irish Republic that concluded the Irish War of...
, still believing that Partition of Ireland
Partition of Ireland
The partition of Ireland was the division of the island of Ireland into two distinct territories, now Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland . Partition occurred when the British Parliament passed the Government of Ireland Act 1920...
was too high a price to pay for partial independence. Retiring from political life, he contented himself with writing and declined Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera
Éamon de Valera was one of the dominant political figures in twentieth century Ireland, serving as head of government of the Irish Free State and head of government and head of state of Ireland...
's offer to stand for Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil
Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party , more commonly known as Fianna Fáil is a centrist political party in the Republic of Ireland, founded on 23 March 1926. Fianna Fáil's name is traditionally translated into English as Soldiers of Destiny, although a more accurate rendition would be Warriors of Fál...
in the 1927 general election. He died suddenly on 25 February 1928 while on a visit to London with his wife at the age of 75. His remains rest in Mallow, and one of the principal streets in the town bears his name to this day. His head-bust overlooks the town Council's Chamber Room and one of his finest portraits hangs in University College Cork.
In 1920 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:...
said of O'Brien:
“The task of William O’Brien’s generation was well and bravely done, had it not been so the work we are carrying out in this generation would have been impossible. In that great work none of Parnell’s lieutenants did so much as William O’Brien.”
Works
O'Brien's books, a number of which are collections of his journalistic writings and political speeches, include:- Christmas on the Galtees (1878) Village Irish Christmas
- When we were boys (1890)
- Irish Ideas (1893) Ideas (1893)
- A Queen of Men, Grace O'Malley (1898)
- Recolections (1905)
- An Olive Branch in Ireland (1910)
- The Downfall of Parliamentarianism (1918)
- Evening Memories (1920)
- The Responsibility for Partition (1921)
- The Irish Revolution (1921)
- Edmund Burke as an Irishman (1924)
External links
- Maume, Patrick: History IrelandHistory IrelandHistory Ireland is a magazine about the history of Ireland published every two months. It features articles by a range of writers and book reviews. The focus is on history rather than archaeology.The magazine's editor isTommy Graham....
article feature: A nursery of editors: the Cork Free Press, 1910–16