Oxford University Press
James McConnel - 'Jobbing with Tory and Liberal': Irish Nationalists and the Politics of Patronage 1880-1914 - Past & Present 188 Past & Present 188 (2005) 105-131

'Jobbing with Tory and Liberal':

Irish Nationalists and the Politics of Patronage 1880–1914*

University of Ulster

Neil Collins and Mary O'Shea have recently described the practice (apparently common until the early 1970s) of parliamentary representatives in the Republic of Ireland using their political influence to secure low-level public sector jobs for constituents in return for their votes as an 'interesting boundary case' of political corruption.1 However, while they acknowledge that canvassing for jobs in return for 'electoral advantage' might be regarded as corrupt in some political cultures, they persuasively argue not only that this activity was routine, non-allocative and unremunerated, but that in the Irish context it should be seen very much as part of the brokerage culture which formerly defined relations between TDs (Teachta Dála = Dáil deputy) and their constituents. This conclusion builds on the work of political scientists who have sought to account for this feature of politics in twentieth-century Ireland with reference to the localism and paternalism of Irish politics, the centralized, opaque and bureaucratic nature of Irish government, the electoral insecurity of TDs produced by the single transferable vote system of proportional representation, and the absence of socially based partisan cleavages.2 However, it is argued in this article not only that patronage was a feature of Irish parliamentary representation long before 1922, but also that the question of whether it constituted political corruption was important both to Victorian and Edwardian Nationalist politics and to the formation of the Irish Free State. [End Page 105]

I

Whereas the question of whether Irish parliamentary representatives after 1922 were corrupt in acting as state patronage brokers has turned on the extent to which it constituted 'the abuse of public office for private gain', the question of whether the same activity in the context of Ireland before 1922 was corrupt turned on slightly different criteria. In part this reflects the fact that right up to the First World War patronage was an institutionalized part of the government and administration of the United Kingdom.3 However, the principal difference was that in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Ireland many Nationalists regarded the pursuit of patronage as a form of 'political prostitution'.4

The question as to the correct stance for Irish parliamentary representatives to adopt towards British state patronage had been a divisive one since before the Act of Union of 1801. Henry Grattan and the patriots 'believe[d] that . . . a government held in power by purchased votes was unworthy of support'.5 After 1801, opponents of the Union claimed that the Irish House of Commons had only passed the act in return for the liberal distribution of government grace and favour.6 Patronage was also a prominent point of contention between Daniel O'Connell and the Young Ireland movement. Beginning in the 1830s, O'Connell worked with 'real gusto' to secure public office from successive Liberal administrations for his supporters, friends and family. O'Connell saw this activity not in terms of personal gain (he himself abstained — admittedly only just — from accepting office), but rather as advancing the cause of repeal by increasing the number of Liberal and Catholic office-holders.7 But part of the Young Ireland critique of O'Connell was that his strategy only benefited a handful of ambitious Catholic 'whigs' [End Page 106] without materially advancing the Irish cause on a broader front.8 Instead, as early as 1845, Charles Gavan Duffy proposed that Irish MPs should pledge themselves not to seek or accept government appointments until Ireland's demands had been conceded.9 At the 1847 general election they sought (and in some cases received) such pledges from candidates.10

Duffy's idea was again taken up in 1850 by the Irish Independent party and implemented somewhat erratically at the 1852 general election.11 But later the same year two prominent and 'pledged' members of the party (William Keogh and John Sadleir) accepted office under Lord Aberdeen's government.12 Although many contemporary politicians and commentators were cautious in their criticism of Keogh and Sadleir, by the late nineteenth century the names of the two men had become bywords among Nationalists for betrayal and disloyalty.13 The legacy of this incident was certainly discernible when Irish Nationalists next sought to advance the cause of Ireland at Westminster. Isaac Butt's party adopted a resolution ('we should individually and collectively hold ourselves aloof from and independent of all party combinations, whether of the ministerialists or the opposition') which was understood to preclude MPs from accepting office under the crown without constituting a 'resounding breach of faith'.14 This was the party that Charles Stewart Parnell joined in 1875, and it was (according to the MP Stephen Gwynn) under his leadership that in the early 1880s Nationalist MPs 'bound . . . [themselves] to accept no post of any kind under government'.15 After 1891, constitutional Nationalists claimed that they continued this tradition. [End Page 107]

II

The contention that the Edwardian Irish Parliamentary party had abandoned 'the sterner principles which instructed and enacted that the man who sought office or preferment from a British minister unfitted himself as a standard-bearer or even a raw recruit in the ranks of Irish nationality' was argued by a constellation of individuals, publications and organizations (centring on William O'Brien, Tim Healy, and the founder of Sinn Féin, Arthur Griffith).16 Although formally independent of one another, the critique advanced by O'Brien et al. was congruent in several important respects.

First, their case was deeply rooted in the folklore of nineteenth-century Irish nationalism. As the Healyite Irish Catholic newspaper lamented in 1909, 'We are back again just where Sadleir and Keogh left us in the fifties of the last century, when the strangling grasp of whiggery threatened to extinguish the last remnants of national aspiration and national life'.17 William O'Brien made a similar point when he claimed that the Irish party 'had obtained for themselves or their dependents[sic] fifty Dublin Castle jobs or offices for every office bestowed on Sadleir and Keogh'.18 In a more systematic way Arthur Griffith was convinced that 'the Young Ireland critique of O'Connell's whig alliance was as valid for the nineteen-hundreds as for the eighteen-forties'.19 Griffith contended that, like O'Connell, the Edwardian Irish party had, as a consequence of its alliance with the 'whigs' (or in the updated version, the Liberal party), forsaken the Nationalist cause for 'the spoils of office' and had thus become (in the words of one Sinn Féiner) the 'green liveried henchmen of the British connection'.20 Secondly, many of those who criticized the party dated the origins of (what was then styled) 'jobbing' and 'place-hunting' to the formation after 1886 of the alliance between the Liberal and Nationalist parties. Thirdly, it was commonly alleged by the party's critics that, by seeking government patronage for themselves and their supporters, [End Page 108] Nationalist MPs had broken the terms of the pledges they took when selected. The author of one pamphlet wrote of how

Corruption . . . ate the heart out of the National movement. It transformed a noble sentiment into greedy and clamorous self-seeking of the ugliest kind. At one blow all the safeguards established by Mr Parnell to preserve the integrity of the Irish representation and save it from becoming a mere tool of an English Government in exchange for a liberal mess of official patronage was swept away.21

Similarly, in his highly influential book The Story of the Irish Race, Seumas MacManus described how in return for becoming the 'official "tail" of the British Liberals' the Irish party 'were permitted to scramble for the crumbs that fell from their masters' table'. According to MacManus 'although they went through the form of gravely subscribing to the pledge that Parnell had seen it necessary to prescribe — the solemn pledge that no one of them would accept, or ask, from an English government, office or favour for himself or friends', Nationalist MPs were privately engaged in a 'furious scramble . . . for the offices and favours — often times ludicrously petty ones — that Dublin Castle had in its gift'.22

However, examination of those points reveals that there are several problems with this interpretation, not least that of chronology. O'Brien et al.'s attribution of the party's 'fall' to the Liberal alliance formed after 1886 cannot easily be reconciled with the desire of many of the same critics personally to exonerate Parnell and the party of the 1880s of involvement with British patronage. Also, as Alan O'Day has shown, one of the dividends of the 'Kilmainham Treaty' was that after 1882 a number of senior Parnellites, including Parnell himself, sought and received government situations on behalf of their constituents.23 Nor, despite the caginess of Nationalist MPs, did this activity pass unnoticed by contemporaries. John O'Connor Power, for instance, declared in 1884 that

unlike . . . [the party's] leader and paymaster, I have not assisted a Cabinet Minister in filling up government situations, and the blandishments [End Page 109] of some paid official of the Land League could not persuade me to become a place-hunter in the interests of their friends. The hypocrisy of some of these people is positively stupendous. They ask you to approach the government in private to obtain favours for their friends, and then they denounce you in public for not opposing the very same government, right or wrong.24

The following year the postmaster general told the House of Commons that he 'frequently' received letters from Nationalist MPs seeking the exercise of ministerial patronage, and that he 'frequently attended to [these] recommendations'.25 Privately, Lord Grosvenor told Gladstone that 'every Irishman, without a single exception, always jobs'.26

But while neo-Parnellites like Arthur Griffith were blinded to the place-hunting of the 1880s by hero-worship, it is certainly true that such activity accelerated after Parnell's deposition. The instalment of a sympathetic Liberal administration in 1892 provided embattled anti-Parnellite MPs with access to the corridors of power. Certainly, the private papers of one anti-Parnellite, Michael McCartan, reveal that he was completely immersed in the business of securing patronage for his constituents and associates at this time. McCartan wrote to Liberal ministers on behalf of Catholic and Protestant constituents seeking appointment or advancement in the postal service, the police, the armed forces and local government. But, arguably, McCartan's main project was the appointment of his 'friends' to the county bench. In Samuel Walker and John Morley, McCartan (and many other Home Rule members) found a lord chancellor and chief secretary sympathetic to Nationalist complaints about the disproportionate number of Unionist JPs. As McCartan informed one correspondent in January 1893, 'The policy which the Lord Chancellor proposes to adopt is to appoint . . . first, those friends of ours whom he can induce the Lieutenants of the counties to approve of, and then he will go back again over the counties and appoint whom he pleases without regard to the Lieutenants'.27 As elsewhere in Ireland, the appointments of many of the so-called 'Morley magistrates' of County Down [End Page 110] between 1892 and 1895 were the result of close consultation between McCartan, the party leadership and the government. Nationally, between 1892 and 1895, 86.97 per cent of the magistrates appointed by the Liberal government were Catholic.28

However, after 1895 the well of patronage dried up. The new Unionist government was, as McCartan explained to several correspondents, unsympathetic to Nationalist interests (though this did not stop him from lobbying Unionist ministers). Thus, he held out little hope of success to William Abraham, who wrote in July 1897 seeking McCartan's assistance in securing an appointment for the son of a former parliamentary colleague.29 Similarly, J. F. X. O'Brien, who under the preceding Liberal government had secured positions for his constituents and been consulted regarding the appointment of magistrates, found that under the Salisbury administration 'there is quite an impasse between Irish MPs and the . . . [government]'. According to O'Brien this was because 'The hands of Irish MPs are tied in matters of this kind. We are bound not to use or try to use influence in such cases'.30

The fact that no such impasse had existed between 1892 and 1895 would seem to suggest that some Nationalist MPs only observed the 'pledge' when political circumstances forced them to. More pragmatic still, some MPs seem to have regarded the 'pledge' as inoperable when they acted as patronage brokers in their capacity as private citizens. Michael McCartan told a clerical correspondent in 1896, 'I believe there is an objection at the present time to any Irish Member making direct application for office for any person, but there is nothing to prevent me from using some influence with my friends in such a very deserving case as this'.31

And yet, McCartan's and O'Brien's apparent pragmatism may have been as much a reflection of their uncertainty and confusion about the terms of the 'pledge' as wilful disregard for it. Indeed, many Nationalist MPs seem only to have had the vaguest grasp of how the 'pledge' actually operated. Richard [End Page 111] McGhee, for example, consulted the anti-Parnellite chairman John Dillon, in December 1897 (a year and a half after first entering parliament), about a request he had received to assist the friend of a Tyrone priest. 'Father Woods is of the opinion', McGhee wrote, 'that the appointment is one which, whatever government is in power, is made on the recommendation of the [ local MP] . . . But is the doing of such a thing in accordance with the rule of the Irish Party at all?'32

Such confusion becomes readily more understandable when it is appreciated that the apparently binding patronage rule was never actually part of the pledge. Instead, the pledge read

I . . . pledge myself that in the event of my election to parliament I will sit, act and vote with the Irish Parliamentary Party and if at a meeting of the party convened upon due notice specially to consider the question, it be decided by a resolution supported by a majority of the entire parliamentary party that I have not fulfilled the above pledge I hereby undertake forthwith to resign my seat.33

Abstinence from place-hunting was not, then, an explicit or formal condition of the pledge. Rather, it was one of the 'self-denying ordinances' begun under Parnell 'by which', according to Stephen Gwynn, 'the man elected . . . bound himself to accept no post of any kind under government'.34 This would suggest that the extension of the ordinance was customary and not compulsory. Moreover, this ordinance does not seem to have been a condition of election nor ever to have been formally administered in the way the pledge was. Indeed, even some of the party's fiercest critics were occasionally uncertain as to the nature of the rule. As the Irish Independent complained, 'There is supposed to be a rule of the Irish Parliamentary Party binding its members neither to accept themselves nor to ask for others offices under the Crown. If such a rule be really on record it is more honoured in the breach than the observance'.35

Yet, if not technically in breach of the pledge, there is no doubt that late Victorian Nationalist MPs were clearly very much aware that in canvassing for patronage they were still transgressing what many considered to be a cardinal principle of Irish nationalism. Thus, although John Pinkerton corresponded with [End Page 112] the lord chancellor during the Liberal administration of 1892–5 concerning the appointment of resident magistrates in his constituency, he strongly denied that he had 'job[bed] with Tory and with Liberal for positions of emolument for himself or any of his constituents',36 while that habitual jobber Michael McCartan formally insisted that '[it is] desirable if not altogether essential to place ourselves under no obligation to any [ government]'.37

II

Although Victorian Nationalist MPs were not explicitly prohibited from assisting others to secure government positions, after 1906 the 'self-denying ordinance' on patronage was superseded by a new rule that essentially functioned in the way critics of the party claimed (and some later historians have assumed) the 'pledge' did. This development was prompted by a letter that Michael Joyce had written to the party's leader, John Redmond, six weeks after the formation of the new Liberal administration, asking him to have the nephew of a local Nationalist appointed as a resident magistrate, providing this was 'consistent . . . with the position you hold as leader of the Irish Party'. Redmond, however, was quite certain it was not and wrote to Joyce of his 'shock' at the request, which he claimed represented a 'gross violation of duty on the part of any member of the Irish Party'.38 Similar letters prompted Redmond to have passed at a meeting of the party the following month (and annually thereafter) a resolution which stated unequivocally that 'it is inconsistent and improper for any member of the Party to use influence, direct or indirect, to obtain paid government situations, or appointments, or promotions of any kind whatsoever, for any person'.39 [End Page 113]

Publicly, at least, the 1906 formula seemed to have settled the matter. British commentators testified to the honesty of Edwardian Nationalist MPs. Hilaire Belloc, for instance, wrote in 1911 of the many place-hunting MPs who 'make up (when we have excepted the Irish Party, which is happily independent of such intrigue) the great bulk of Parliament'.40 Another commentator wrote the following year: 'Although most of them are poor men, who could not live in London unless their expenses were paid for them, no breath of corruption has ever touched their honour. They hold rigidly aloof from the wild scramble for government patronage'.41 In September 1911, the London correspondent of the Birmingham Post reported that many British MPs were envious of their Nationalist colleagues being in possession of an effective reply to the many requests for preferment made in connection with the National Insurance Act. 'To these requests', the correspondent reported, 'Nationalist Members respond by forwarding their correspondents copies of the resolution which, in order to preserve their independence they pass at the beginning of each session'.42 The party press also exulted in the honesty of Nationalist Ireland's parliamentary representatives. As the Wicklow People editorialized, 'The Irish Party has its faults and failings, like every other institution, but it is thoroughly honest and unselfish; the ways in which its members keep clear of government patronage and government jobs of every kind is simply marvellous'.43

Although often quiescent on the question of patronage,44 the occasional comments of Nationalist backbench MPs were intended to reassure their supporters of the disinterestedness of the party. P. J. Brady observed in 1912 (in words that echoed those of the Birmingham Post) that the 'number of young men desirous of obtaining posts of any nature under the [ National] Insurance Act is countless. One could spend the entire day either in interviewing applicants or writing them polite letters pointing out the Irish Party rule'.45 But the clearest repudiation of charges of jobbery invariably came from the party's chairman, [End Page 114] John Redmond. Redmond was unequivocal in his rejection of the accusations made against his supporters. As he told a meeting in Manchester in 1908, 'No single member of the Party has ever violated the pledge or has accepted any honour, office or employment for himself or his friends'.46 Again, in 1910, he told a meeting in Kilkenny that 'for the past years for which I have been chairman, I have known no member of the Party to have ever claimed or looked, for either himself or a friend, any place or honour or position (applause)',47 while in a press interview in 1912 he insisted, 'Never in my life have I asked a single government for a single office for my friends, though I have made many enemies by my refusals'.48

Although Redmond was equivocal about exerting influence over government appointments during the 1890s,49 in the new century he was generally seen by both his allies and enemies to be personally above the politics of patronage.50 This impression would seem to be confirmed by one letter he wrote to a leading clerical supporter in the North: 'I am sure you quite understand that it is out of my power to interfere in any way whatever. I have never used my influence in favour of the appointment of any individual by the government, and never will'.51 John Dillon apparently took a similar approach to such requests after 1900, as evidenced by the comment of one of his correspondents that 'I know from past experience that you could not well intervene in any government appointment'.52 However, some were not so convinced. When J. B. Skeffington (father of Francis Sheehy Skeffington) sought appointment as a commissioner of national education he was privately informed that Dillon was 'pushing' [End Page 115] the candidacy of a Connaught priest, while Redmond was standing aside 'no doubt to give Dillon a free hand'.53

Others, while confident of Redmond's essential honesty, were not so well disposed to the rank and file of his party. The Liberal MP C. J. O'Donnell (undoubtedly a hostile witness), claimed that, whereas the veteran members of the party 'strictly observed' the 'pledge', those MPs more recently elected — and in particular those who were members of the Ancient Order of Hibernians — 'worked like blacks for their friends'.54 Sir Henry Robinson (the last vice-president of the Irish Local Government Board) made a similar distinction between senior and junior members of the party with respect to patronage.55 In contrast, one junior MP and member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, Matthew Keating, later insisted that 'very few [backbench] members of the Irish Party allowed their names to be used in . . . applications [for government appointments]'.56

IV

Although reluctant to pronounce on whether the party engaged in patronage politics, historians have tended indirectly to endorse the view advanced by Keating. One scholar well placed to judge, the American historian Lawrence McBride, has written that 'Redmond denied that anyone in his party had broken the pledge. There is no direct evidence to cast doubt on this'.57 In fact, there is a wealth of correspondence to suggest that place-hunting was a regular and normal activity for many Nationalist MPs after 1906. The aforementioned Sir Henry Robinson recalled of these years that Nationalist members would often write to him using the formula 'Only that I am pledged not to ask for any favour from the government, I would be quite unable to resist telling you that . . .', in order to bypass [End Page 116] the party rule.58 A Sinn Féin leaflet of 1908 quoted apparently leaked correspondence from the Home Office acknowledging a letter from the aforementioned Michael Joyce and his colleague William Lundon, written on behalf of a constituent seeking preferment.59 Moreover, a letter of 1912 from the chairman of a branch of the Town Tenants' League to John Dillon suggests that Lundon's son and successor, Tom Lundon, also solicited patronage from the government.60 Denis Kilbride reported to Dillon that some of the officials at the Estates Commissioners office were annoyed by the letters they received from Nationalist MPs recommending individuals for positions. The names of P. A. Meehan and William Delany were mentioned in connection with the matter.61 The papers of Tom O'Donnell indicate that he actively canvassed on behalf of numerous constituents seeking preferment. In 1907 and 1912 he wrote letters of recommendation on behalf of candidates seeking employment with the Congested Districts Board, and in 1914 the lord chancellor appointed three men O'Donnell had recommended to be made commissioners of the peace. O'Donnell had earlier written a letter of recommendation on behalf of a female constituent who sought appointment as a superintendent with the Irish Intermediate Education Board in 1910.62 J. P. Nolan approached the Irish chief secretary in support of A. N. Sheridan's (successful) application to be appointed clerk of the crown and peace for Louth in 1908.63 The chairman's brother, William Redmond, seems also to have expressed privately a willingness, on occasion, to recommend candidates for public office.64

Not all Nationalist MPs personally approached government ministers or departments. Some members approached party [End Page 117] colleagues who might, in turn, have valuable contacts; as when William Abraham approached Michael McCartan in 1897, or when in 1907 Tom O'Donnell apparently sought the assistance of Augustine 'Gussy' Roche.65 More common, however, was for MPs to lobby either Dillon or Redmond, in part because they were seen as having most influence but also because some MPs may have hoped to bypass the rule by harnessing the influence of the leadership. J. P. Farrell and John Hackett, for instance, both wrote to John Dillon in 1912 on behalf of constituents keen to secure his support in their applications for public appointments.66 The MPs Jerry MacVeagh, John O'Dowd and J. D. Nugent also wrote to Dillon on behalf of applicants, though this was before they were elected to parliament.67 As an MP, O'Dowd later sought Dillon's help in advancing the professional interests of some of his constituents.68 P. A. McHugh was another member who lobbied Dillon both before and after he entered parliament.69 In March 1909 he wrote concerning 'a decent county Leitrim man' and remonstrated with Dillon over his policy of non-intervention.70

Judged by the Irish party's own standards, then, many Irish Nationalist MPs clearly behaved in an 'inconsistent and improper' manner with regard to government patronage after 1906. But William O'Brien et al. did not simply accuse Nationalist MPs of hypocrisy. Rather, they indicted them on the more serious charge of being 'corrupt'. This allegation had three distinct parts.

The first was that Irish Nationalist MPs personally benefited from government patronage. Although (following the terms of the self-denying ordinance) Nationalist MPs never served in [End Page 118] government (famously so in the case of John Redmond in 1915),71 many were magistrates and this was held by some opponents of the party to constitute a breach of the 'pledge'.72 Even former MPs were held by some heterodox Nationalists to be still bound by the party rule. T. P. Gill was careful to clear his appointment as assistant secretary of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction with Redmond before he accepted it.73 Matthias Bodkin was strongly criticized for censuring the former Healyite MP Arthur O'Connor for becoming a judge in England after he himself became a county court judge in Clare.74 Serving MPs such as Tom Kettle and J. G. S. MacNeill were accused of having used their political connections to secure academic posts with the National University of Ireland,75 while the solicitor Tom Scanlan was criticized for representing the government during the Titanic inquiry.76 Orthodox Nationalists questioned the grounds for several of these claims,77 though even some MPs found the acceptance of crown briefs by the barrister John O'Connor difficult to reconcile with the party rule.78

As for the second allegation (that Nationalist MPs were engaged in a more modest version of Lloyd George's sale of peerages), there is very little evidence to suggest that Nationalist members received monetary payment for their advocacy (though this is not to suggest that every MP was personally incorruptible).79 Among the surviving correspondence there is only one letter offering money in return for the influence of an MP,80 and several jobbing members are known to have reacted angrily to offers of cash in return for their 'influence'. Michael McCartan, for example, wrote to one correspondent in December 1892: [End Page 119] 'As a Member of Parliament I am always willing to give any information and advice . . . but in so doing I never allow myself to be [tempted?] by offers of retainer or fees',81 while J. F. X. O'Brien reacted angrily to one constituent's enclosure of a money order for £10. '[ I ]t is obvious', he wrote, 'that your enclosed . . . is practically intended as payment on account of services rendered and for further services expected . . . I consider it to be the duty of an MP to serve his constituents . . . without expectation of reward'.82

The third charge (that some individual MPs used their political influence to help family members secure local government or Dublin Castle jobs) is more difficult to dismiss. Tim Healy cited the appointment of one of John Dillon's distant relatives as a magistrate, Denis Kilbride's brother as a magistrate in County Kerry and John Roche's sister as a postmistress in County Galway as evidence of nepotism.83 Roche also allegedly worked to have the sister of his colleague in the representation of Galway, Patrick McDermott, appointed as a postmistress.84 William O'Brien drew attention to another appointment awarded to one of Kilbride's relations (that of Irish taxing master).85 John O'Dowd apparently canvassed on behalf of his cousin's application for the matronship of the Sligo workhouse.86 Such claims are given credibility by the fact that the MPs William Lundon and John Roche separately wrote to Dillon seeking his assistance in securing appointments for their sons.87

But incriminating as some (though by no means all) of the personal accusations against Edwardian MPs are, in total they represent fairly slim pickings, given the size of the party and in proportion to the effort and political capital heterodox Nationalists invested in searching for jobbery. But then allegations of individual corruption were always secondary to the contention [End Page 120] that the party used state appointments, first and foremost, to construct and maintain its political 'machine'.

Although the progressive extension of the franchise effectively precluded vote-buying, there is evidence to suggest that some MPs did use patronage to sway 'influential' local opinion- formers. In his novel O'Rourke the Great, Arthur Lynch (himself a former MP) depicted his main character Michael O'Rourke, MP, buying the electoral influence of the vice-chairman of the local county council, Neddy Sullivan, in return for helping Sullivan's nephew enter the police force, advancing his daughter 's career in the post office, and lending Sullivan money to extend his business premises.88 When W. G. Fallon was nursing Mid Cork he received one letter from a local county councillor relating to the appointment of magistrates in which the writer observed: 'These appointments give the very highest assistance in winning all elections'.89

However, after the death of Parnell the use of patronage for electoral purposes was undoubtedly fairly modest, since the majority of Irish seats were uncontested between 1892 and 1918. Instead, the distribution of low-level patronage was more often directed towards the construction of 'networks of influence' in members' constituencies. As the member for South Kerry, J. P. Boland, explained, during the parliamentary session MPs relied 'upon a man, or group of men, in each key-district, and [kept in] constant correspondence with them' in order to stay in touch with their constituencies. In South Kerry, Boland had nine 'key-workers' who looked after his interests: five in Cahirciveen and four in Kenmare. Other MPs made similar arrangements.90 Here, political patronage was used both to reward past support and to encourage the future assistance of such 'pivotmen' in the management of a member's constituency.

The use of patronage by MPs to reward their political 'friends' appears to have taken two forms. The appointment of supporters as magistrates essentially constituted an informal 'honours system' (rather than the sinister pyramid of clientelism depicted [End Page 121] by many of the party's critics). In a letter to Dillon of August 1912, for instance, T. S. Moclair (one of his principal supporters in County Mayo) wrote: 'Pat Higgins (brother of the Bishop) got his permanent JPship on Wed[nesday]; I know if we could work one for J. Conway, Co. Councillor . . . and for Bill Barrett, DC [District Councillor], Parke . . . some recompense would be made to two of the best fighting men in West Mayo'.91 Such positions did not involve major allocative responsibilities but did confer considerable local prestige and status on the recipients. As the O'Brienite MP Daniel Sheehan caustically observed, being raised to the bench 'added inches to one's girth and one's stature'.92

That said, many Nationalists sought not only enhanced local status for themselves, but also the appointment of family members and political allies to remunerated official positions. One senior Tyrone Nationalist wrote, 'as my father, my brother, and myself have given the most part of a century to the support of liberal and democratic principles, I claim the right of my brother to recognition of our services of the cause'.93 The surviving correspondence demonstrates that MPs received letters from men (and sometimes from women) seeking appointment as circuit court judges, crown solicitors, superintendents for the Intermediate Education Board, medical superintendents of lunatic asylums, inspectors of factories, cottages and fisheries, officials in the Dublin Castle administration, rural postmasters, and tax and rate collectors. But many of these jobs required 'proven professional competence' (in some cases via examination) and could be located beyond an MP's 'bailiwick'.94 One Victorian writer, for instance, recalled a story of a Nationalist MP who approached a Fleet Street editor on behalf of an influentially backed constituent who wanted to 'get connected with some first-class London paper and write leading articles'. Though without journalistic experience, the MP pressed his constituent's [End Page 122] interests ('they say he's a wonderful fellow'), but 'The manager shakes his head and ventures to say that so far as Bouverie's Street [ Bouverie Street, off London's Fleet Street] is concerned, Ballyhooly must continue to nurse its genius'.95 Clearly, such conditions would have placed restrictions on the ability of MPs to exploit state patronage for their own purposes.

V

Although many Nationalist MPs clearly did use government patronage to help manage their constituencies, it was only after 1916 that the Irish party as a whole came to be widely regarded as 'corrupt' (and then specifically in connection with its acceptance of parliamentary salaries in 1911).96 Indeed, before the Easter Rising, a consensus within the Nationalist community as to whether brokering patronage was corrupt simply did not exist. Of course, many of those who dissented did so for pragmatic reasons. One Donegal priest, for example, who remonstrated with J. G. S. MacNeill for refusing to help secure a position in the gift of the postmaster general for a local doctor, argued

your only plea was [that?] [ your?] Party would all [abstain?] from the govt. But this is a personal and not a party or [strictly?] government matter and the interests of your constituents should not be overlooked for any party [ principles?]. You know where there is a will there is a way. We would not ask you to interfere if Dr Gordon was not under every aspect of the case the most eligible man.97

It was easy for William O'Brien et al. to dismiss such local opportunism. Much more difficult to disregard was the public-interest defence advanced by many Nationalists to justify place-hunting. For example, at a meeting of Donegal Home Rulers in 1911, Father James Morris argued that 'Nationalists, whose education and position entitled them to a share of the country's responsible public positions . . . [should not] be debarred or side-tracked by the [Irish party's] resolution'. Although the local MP, Philip O'Doherty, was more guarded — 'there was a great [End Page 123] deal of force in Father Morris's argument, and he sympathized with these views'98 — the following day a leading provincial Nationalist showed less inhibition:

the resolution would . . . be a wise and noble one were there equal opportunities for Irishmen of every class to aspire to such public appointments, but our experience goes to show that it is not merit or efficiency which counts . . . in most cases what counts is the 'pull' which a person may have.99

In short, the use of political patronage to help Catholics and Nationalists to positions of public authority did not constitute corruption but (in the light of the institutionalized racism and religious discrimination of the British administration in Ireland) was instead seen as a form of 'affirmative action'. As another Nationalist MP, John Pinkerton, explained to one of his critics, 'It is time I fought tooth and nail to have a Catholic President appointed for the Queen's College and if by doing so I was jobbing with the Liberals and Tories I must plead guilty'.100

Of course, Irish Catholics did make progress in the decades before 1914. Following the qualified introduction of competitive examinations in 1876 Catholics came to dominate the lower and intermediate tiers of the Irish civil service. Elsewhere the expansion of educational opportunities for Catholics facilitated their increasing presence within the professions. In 1878 an intermediate system was introduced to provide for Catholic secondary education, and between 1881 and 1911 there was a 'considerable increase' in Catholics attending secondary school. By the 1880s, there were seven Catholic teacher-training colleges, while the foundation of the National University of Ireland in 1909 (which replaced the old Royal University) ensured that an increasing number of Catholic doctors and lawyers were educated.101

But, despite this progress, the advancement of Irish Catholics and Nationalists in the civil service and professions remained limited. In part this was the result of the continuing dominance (via superior educational opportunities and embedded patronage networks) of Protestants and Unionists, but it has also been attributed to the fact that by the beginning of the twentieth [End Page 124] century the number of qualified Catholics emerging from Ireland's schools and universities was much greater than the civil service or professions could (or were prepared to) absorb.102

The combination of a Catholic 'glass ceiling' with intense job competition encouraged the belief that to obtain position or office candidates required political 'influence' to be deployed on their behalf. For example, one letter received by Dillon on behalf of a candidate seeking a job with an Irish local authority read: 'The one thing he [the candidate] lacks is that influence which, whatever a man's accomplishments or abilities may be, is necessary as you know now-a-days to succeed'.103 The same belief informed one of Tom O'Donnell's constituents, who wrote to him in 1913 concerning a fishery inspectorship: 'No outsider can ever find out when a vacancy occurs, as those in office have the happy way of informing their friends who in fact do not know the least thing about fishing'.104

Constituents wrote to MPs because they regarded them as Nationalist Ireland's men on the 'inside'. Not only were they the occupants of the highest secular, non-governmental, political positions in Nationalist Ireland, but they were believed to have specialist knowledge of the workings of government and (especially after 1906) direct access to the 'corridors of power'. As one of James O'Mara's constituents, writing on behalf of a man seeking appointment as an inspector of cottages under the Labourers Act, explained, '[though he] has testimonials from Dr Browning PP [RC Parish Priest] . . . and all the leading men of the county . . . I think if you would speak to Sir Anthony MacDonnell [the permanent under-secretary for Ireland] you could do more than the whole of them for him'.105 One MP later complained that 'constituents really believed there was nothing [we] . . . couldn't get . . . They were forever asking for favours that couldn't possibly be granted'.106 Yet, in the matter of [End Page 125] government jobs it seems that MPs did indeed have some leverage. As one junior clerk in the accountant general's office in Dublin (who sought promotion to one of the offices of the Four Courts) explained to Tom O'Donnell, '[while the] head of my office, the Acc[ountan]t General is quite favourable . . . he volunteered the information himself to me that the way of making sure of my getting the transfer is to get some Nationalist MP to say a word in my favour to the Chancellor, the ex-Attorney General'.107

VI

Estimating how widely held the pro-patronage view was within the Nationalist community is extremely difficult. However, there are a number of significant indicators. One is that several leading critics of the party's jobbery were themselves implicated in place-hunting at one time or another. During the 'split' of the 1890s William O'Brien rejected claims that anti-Parnellite MPs should not seek government jobs for their constituents on the grounds that they were needed to balance the long-standing preferential treatment given to Unionists.108 In 1908, Tim Healy lobbied the chief secretary in order to have one of his principal supporters in Louth appointed as a law officer.109 Count Plunkett, who was elected in the 'Sinn Féin' interest at the first by-election after the 1916 Easter Rising, had applied for the position of under-secretary in Dublin Castle before the First World War.110 Éamon de Valéra sought the influence of the leading party activist John J. Horgan in support of his application for the chair of mathematical physics at University College Cork in 1913.111

Another indication of popular feeling is the place of jobbery at the level of local government. The county councils set up under the 1898 Local Government Act 'soon became a by-word for corruption',112 as rural middle-class councillors quickly 'embraced . . . the [ pre-existing] spoils system in the allocation [End Page 126] of local authority employment'.113 William O'Brien depicted place-hunting MPs as being at the vanguard of a 'wave of corruption and selfishness . . . passing over the public life of Ireland'.114 The Irish party certainly dominated Irish local authorities from 1898 onwards (many MPs were also councillors) and some were undoubtedly involved in local patronage networks. But a number of Nationalist members were also openly critical of the culture of jobbery apparent in some local authorities,115 while the London-based leadership deprecated such petty corruption because it strengthened 'intermediate organisations' at its expense.116 Sinn Féin, of course, was contemptuous of what it saw as local kleptocratic politics and (according to Tom Garvin) the Irish Free State 'wiped out patronage' after 1922.117 However, the Dunbar–Harrison case suggests that patronage politics survived at local government level at least into the 1930s.118

But much the best sense of contemporary attitudes towards patronage may be gleaned from the ongoing debate on the subject which was conducted in the pages of the Nationalist press. When, for instance, in 1896 the Healyite newspaper the Nation accused P. G. Phelan, along with his son and son-in-law, of having accepted government jobs (allegedly brokered by John Dillon), the claim was strongly denied. But Phelan's son did candidly admit (without feeling that he thereby vitiated his defence) that he had secured his position in the Dublin Castle administration with the assistance of a prominent Parnellite MP, while Phelan himself argued robustly that the acceptance of government jobs by Nationalists was justified as being in the public interest. 'I find no fault', he wrote, 'with the influential person who secured those offices for his political friends. On the contrary, I approve of his action, and only regret that he did not succeed in making more'. And he continued,

according to your views, all public offices in Ireland should go to the Unionists, and Nationalists allowed to remain the hewers of wood and [End Page 127] drawers of water in their own country. I join issue with you on that, and boldly say that I would fill every office in Ireland with friends rather than foes.119

Twelve years later the Leader (a weekly newspaper which championed cultural Nationalism and Catholic employment rights) published an editorial in which it stated unequivocally that Nationalist Ireland should 'take what it can get, and fight . . . for all the positions of power that they can put up a fight for '. The paper argued that, while 'It is quite right . . . that no MP or prominent agitator should take a position', the 'loose, self-denying ordinance that, until we get Home Rule . . . [all] Nationalists are to sulk in their tents, and let the Ascendancy and importations crowd into the administration . . . is absolutely silly'. Instead, the Irish party and its national organization, the United Irish League, should make it one of their 'avowed objects' that 'Every position of patronage should be fought for'. 'Such a plank as this in the Irish Party's programme, would', the Leader asserted (echoing O'Connell seventy years earlier), 'win the approval of commonsense men who want to see this country march'.120

While P. G. Phelan strongly defended the right of Nationalists to accept government patronage, he was seemingly ambivalent as to whether 'all such offices should be secured through the influence of Irish Members'. The Leader, while advocating intervention, was even less comfortable with the notion of clandestine influence and insisted that Nationalist MPs should pursue government patronage 'openly' (whatever that meant) and with 'no backstairs or hugger-mugger about it'. A similar position was adopted the following year by A. M. Sullivan in response to the sharp editorial comment that the Irish Independent made on George McSweeney, a former leader-writer of the Freeman's Journal and newly appointed crown prosecutor for Cork: 'Has Dublin Castle not yet crammed its maw with [enough] converted patriots?'121 Sullivan wrote to the Independent to protest that 'So long as they apply directly and solely upon their own merits, Irishmen can play an honourable part in seeking [government] [End Page 128] positions for which they are qualified'. However, 'the man who advances a claim through politics or through politicians, no matter of what colour, is worthy of denunciation'. Accordingly, 'Members of the party should never speak a word for or against any candidate'.122

In response, the Independent commented that it had never maintained that Nationalists should boycott government positions, but it insisted that it was vital that the party rule be strictly observed. The editor of the Kilkenny People, E. T. Keane, also spoke out: 'it is indisputable that a party whose members are soliciting favours from the government cannot be held to be independent of that government',123 while Sinn Féin (which advocated a total boycott of state jobs by Nationalists) added, 'While Dublin Castle buys in the open market the men whom yesterday you followed implicitly, Dublin Castle is the ruler and dictator of your policy'.124 Yet, ultimately, to many Home Rulers the question posed by one anonymous correspondent of the Independent (who described himself in terms reminiscent of the Leader's editorial, as a 'practical person'), that 'When all important posts, and the enormous privileges attached thereto, are in the hands of Nationalists, will it not mean Home Rule despite the necromancy of any English legislature?', seemed a compelling and convincing response.125

* * *

If the definition of corruption employed by William O'Brien, Tim Healy and Arthur Griffith is accepted then there is little doubt that the Irish party was indeed 'corrupt'. However, as this article has demonstrated, certainly until 1916 this definition was by no means universally accepted. As to the contention that Nationalist involvement in the politics of patronage impeded Ireland's struggle for nationhood, the evidence suggests that a rather different conclusion is here also possible. The place-hunting of the Irish party was (to a much greater extent than [End Page 129] critics were prepared to acknowledge for fear of alienating many ordinary Home Rulers) a functional response to the Catholic–Nationalist community's perception of their condition under the Union, rather than simply a consequence of the anglicization or corruption of the party itself. The fact that, following the establishment of the Free State (and for fifty years thereafter), TDs also operated as local patronage brokers would seem to confirm that they were responding to a demand.

This is not, however, to suggest that Nationalist jobbery was simply part of the highly developed constituency service role of Victorian and Edwardian members of the Irish party.126 Orthodox Nationalists were very much aware that place-hunting was a highly controversial activity. Yet, while some buckled beneath the weight of nationalist folklore and perjured themselves before the public, others openly took the fight to William O'Brien et al. For the propriety first of place-hunting, and secondly of MPs acting as brokers, was in fact the subject of a robust and by no means one-sided discourse within the Nationalist community. Echoing O'Connell, pro-patronage Nationalists argued forcefully that the attainment of public-sector jobs by Catholics and Nationalists did advance the national cause. They argued that the employment by the British administration in Ireland of Catholics and Nationalists not only prepared the nation for self-government by ensuring that the new polity would be administered by suitably qualified and experienced public servants, but that it hastened Home Rule by demonstrating the ability of Nationalists to administer their own country. And, while some pro-patronage Nationalists were squeamish about formally endorsing the brokerage role of MPs, others publicly (and many more privately) accepted it as a necessary evil.

Of course, the extent to which Nationalist place-hunting did actually facilitate the smooth transfer of the government and administration of Ireland after 1922 is debatable. Given the size of the Irish administration comparatively few people would have been direct recipients of patronage and so its contribution was probably fairly modest when measured against the legacy of nineteenth-century civil service reform or the influence of the public service ethos of the Irish bureaucracy. Yet, arguably, [End Page 130] Nationalist place-hunting did contribute to the attainment of self-government (albeit in a manner not directly intended by those engaged in it). The historian J. M. Bourne has argued that patronage 'made important and useful contributions to the stability and the flexibility of political institutions [in nineteenth-century Britain]'.127 Recent work in the field of corruption studies has gone further and suggested that 'under certain conditions, such as those observed in parts of Europe, [patronage-based] political machines helped consolidate democracy by strengthening and institutionalizing political parties'.128 The party's function as a conduit of patronage was important to the maintenance of its political organization in the provinces and thus contributed to the long period of sustained Nationalist agitation between 1885 and 1914 which (though unsuccessful in its own right) was essential to the attainment of independence in 1922. Thus, though it contributed to the demise of the party, place-hunting or political corruption (call it what one will) made self-government in certain respects possible.

Footnotes

* I would like to thank Heather Marquette for commenting on an earlier draft of this article, and also for the final footnote reference.

1. Neil Collins and Mary O'Shea, Understanding Corruption in Irish Politics (Cork, 2000), 11–12.

2. Lee Komito, 'Irish Clientism: A Reappraisal', Econ. and Social Rev., xv, 3 (1984); Brian Farrell, 'Ireland: From Friends and Neighbours to Clients and Partisans. Some Dimensions of Parliamentary Representation under PR-STV', in Vernon Bogdanor (ed.), Representatives of the People? Parliamentarians and Constituents in Western Democracies (Aldershot, 1985); Michael Gallagher and Lee Komito, 'The Constituency Role of TDs', in John Coakley and Michael Gallagher (eds.), Politics in the Republic of Ireland, 3rd edn (London, 1999).

3. H. J. Hanham, 'Political Patronage at the Treasury, 1870–1912', Hist. Jl, iii (1960), 75.

4. Cork Free Press, 1 Jan. 1910, quoted in Lawrence McBride, The Greening of Dublin Castle: The Transformation of Bureaucratic and Judicial Personnel in Ireland, 1892–1922 (Washington DC, 1991), 167.

5. Gerard O'Brien, Anglo-Irish Politics in the Age of Grattan and Pitt (Blackrock, 1987), 123. See also James Kelly, Henry Grattan (Dundalk, 1993), 25.

6. J. G. S. MacNeill, 'The Confession of the Viceroy of the Union', English Rev., xvii (1914).

7. Oliver MacDonagh, The Emancipist: Daniel O'Connell, 1830–1847 (London, 1989), 57, 108–10, 130, 174–5.

8. Raymond Moley, Daniel O'Connell: Nationalism without Violence (New York, 1974), 137–8. Moley rejects claims that the O'Connell family overly benefited from nepotism, as does Maurice R. O'Connell, Daniel O'Connell: The Man and his Politics (Dublin, 1990), 98.

9. McBride, Greening of Dublin Castle, 46.

10. Richard Davis, The Young Ireland Movement (Blackrock, 1987), 127, 133, 261.

11. J. H. Whyte, The Independent Irish Party, 1850–9 (Oxford, 1958), 51–2.

12. Ibid., 98–108.

13. Steven R. Knowlton, Popular Politics and the Irish Catholic Church: The Rise and Fall of the Independent Irish Party, 1850–1859 (London and New York, 1991), 115–37; Patrick Maume, The Long Gestation: Irish Nationalist Life, 1891–1918 (Dublin, 1999), 91.

14. Conor Cruise O'Brien, Parnell and his Party, 1880–1890 (Oxford, 1957), 140–2.

15. Stephen Gwynn, John Redmond's Last Years (London, 1919), 12.

16. D. D. Sheehan, Ireland since Parnell (London, 1921), 217.

17. Irish Catholic, 10 July 1909, quoted in McBride, Greening of Dublin Castle, 150.

18. Cork Accent, 1 Jan. 1910, quoted in McBride, Greening of Dublin Castle, 167.

19. Maume, Long Gestation, 6; Patrick Maume, 'Young Ireland, Arthur Griffith and Republican Ideology: The Question of Continuity', Éire-Ireland, xxxiv, 2 (1999).

20. William Rooney, Prose Writings (Dublin, 1909), 73–5, quoted in F. S. L. Lyons, Ireland since the Famine (London, 1971), 245.

21. 'Red Hand', Through Corruption to Dismemberment: A Story of Apostacy and Betrayal (Londonderry, n.d.), 10–11, quoted in McBride, Greening of Dublin Castle, 169.

22. Seumas MacManus, The Story of the Irish Race: A Popular History of Ireland (1921; New York, 1969), 667. See also Maurice Healy, The Old Munster Circuit: A Book of Memories and Traditions (London, 1939), 184.

23. Alan O'Day, 'The Irish Parliamentary Party and British Politics, 1880–1886' (Univ. of London Ph.D. thesis, 1971), 177–86.

24. United Ireland, 9 Feb. 1884, quoted ibid., 179.

25. Hansard, 3rd ser., ccxcvii, col. 932 (27 Apr. 1885).

26. Lord Richard Grosvenor to W. E. Gladstone, 3 Sept. 1882, quoted in Hanham, 'Political Patronage at the Treasury', 80.

27. Michael McCartan to Robert Lytle, 21 Jan. 1893: University College Dublin Archive (hereafter UCDA), McCartan Letter Book (hereafter MLB) (McCartan Papers), p. 479.

28. McBride, Greening of Dublin Castle, 48–9.

29. Michael McCartan to William Abraham, 27 July 1897: UCDA, MLB (McCartan Papers), p. 700.

30. J. F. X. O'Brien to Bertram Windle, 1 Feb. 1897: National Library of Ireland, Dublin (hereafter NLI), MS 13,432/11 (O'Brien Papers).

31. Michael McCartan to Father Manner, 30 July 1896: UCDA, MLB (McCartan Papers), p. 108. My emphasis.

32. Richard McGhee to John Dillon, 16 Dec. 1897: Trinity College Dublin (hereafter TCD), MS 6757/1022 (Dillon Papers).

33. F. S. L. Lyons, The Irish Parliamentary Party, 1890–1910 (London, 1951), 143.

34. Gwynn, Redmond's Last Years, 12. My emphasis.

35. Irish Independent, 24 Sept. 1909, 4.

36. John Pinkerton to [Illegible] McCormack, 22 Sept. 1900: Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Belfast (hereafter PRONI), D/1078/P/69 (Pinkerton Papers); [ Illegible] to John Pinkerton, 28 Jan. 1894: PRONI, D/1078/P/62 (Pinkerton Papers).

37. Michael McCartan to Mr MacCaghan, 24 Dec. 1892: UCDA, MLB (McCartan Papers), p. 461.

38. Michael Joyce to John Redmond, 21 Jan. 1906: NLI, MS 15,199/2 (Redmond Papers); John Redmond to Michael Joyce, 30 Jan. 1906: NLI, MS 15,199/2 (Redmond Papers).

39. Freeman's Jl, 15 Feb. 1906, 7.

40. Hilaire Belloc and Cecil Chesterton, The Party System (Dublin and London, 1911), 77–8.

41. Sydney Brooks, Aspects of the Irish Question (London, 1912), 217.

42. Quoted in Freeman's Jl, 9 Dec. 1911, 7.

43. Wicklow People, 11 Feb. 1911, 4.

44. McBride, Greening of Dublin Castle, 112.

45. Freeman's Jl, 9 Jan. 1912, 10.

46. McBride, Greening of Dublin Castle, 154.

47. Freeman's Jl, 29 Aug. 1910, 9.

48. Ibid., 13 May 1912, 9. See also John Redmond to John Dillon, 6 Apr. 1907: TCD, MS 6747/217 (Dillon Papers).

49. McBride, Greening of Dublin Castle, 43.

50. Warre B. Wells, John Redmond: A Biography (London, 1919), 15; William Martin Murphy to T. R. Harrington, 29 July 1916: National Archives of Ireland, Dublin, MS 1052/4/2 (Harrington Papers); Sir Henry Robinson, Memories: Wise and Otherwise (London, 1923), 284; Margaret O'Callaghan, 'Franchise Reform, "First Past the Post" and the Strange Case of Unionist Ireland', Parliamentary Hist., xvi (1997), 101–2.

51. John Redmond to Canon Quin, 31 Aug. 1909: NLI, MS 15,251/2 (Redmond Papers).

52. J. J. Dunne to John Dillon, 27 Oct. 1909: TCD, MS 6782/1231 (Dillon Papers); Robinson, Memories, 224.

53. J. B. Skeffington to Francis Sheehy Skeffington, 2 May 1909: NLI, MS 21,632/4 (Sheehy Skeffington Papers), quoted in McBride, Greening of Dublin Castle, 146.

54. Charles James O'Donnell and Brendan Clifford, Ireland in the Great War: The Irish Insurrection of 1916 Set in its Context of the World War (Belfast, 1992), 284. The AOH was an oath-bound Catholic fraternity. Its critics claimed that it was a major conduit and beneficiary of state patronage. See, for example, F. H. O'Donnell, Paraguay on Shannon: The Price of a Political Priesthood (London and Dublin, 1908).

55. Robinson, Memories, 284.

56. Munster Express, 19 Nov. 1926, 3.

57. McBride, Greening of Dublin Castle, 146.

58. Robinson, Memories, 284–5.

59. Sinn Féin leaflet, 1908: NLI, MS 21,544 /7 (O'Mara Papers).

60. Daniel Fetton to John Dillon, 27 Apr. 1912: TCD, MS 6783/1382 (Dillon Papers).

61. Denis Kilbride to John Dillon, 28 Mar. 1907: TCD, MS 6756/780 (Dillon Papers).

62. Congested Districts Board to Tom O'Donnell, 12 Oct. 1907: NLI, MS 15,456/5 (O'Donnell Papers); Congested Districts Board to Tom O'Donnell, 3 Apr. 1912: NLI, MS 15,458/3 (O'Donnell Papers); [ Illegible] Horan to Tom O'Donnell, 21 Jan. 1914: NLI, MS 15,456/5 (O'Donnell Papers); Pain Johnston to Tom O'Donnell, 24 Mar 1910: NLI, MS 15,458/1 (O'Donnell Papers).

63. E. L. O'Malley and Henry Hardcastle, Reports of the Decisions of the Judges for the Trial of Election Petitions (London, 1911), 498.

64. William Redmond to J. J. Horgan, n.d.: NLI, MS 18,269 (Horgan Papers).

65. Stanley Harring to Augustine Roche, 8 June 1907: NLI, MS 15,456/5 (O'Donnell Papers).

66. J. P. Farrell to John Dillon, 17 Sept. 1912: TCD, MS 6753/429 (Dillon Papers); John Hackett to John Dillon, 1 Mar. 1912: TCD, MS 6755/612a (Dillon Papers).

67. Jerry MacVeagh to John Dillon, 23 Mar. 1897: TCD, MS 6757/1175 (Dillon Papers); John O'Dowd to John Dillon, 27 May 1895: TCD, MS 6759/1452 (Dillon Papers); J. D. Nugent to John Dillon, 12 Aug. 1912: TCD, MS 6758/1335 (Dillon Papers).

68. John O'Dowd to John Dillon, 21 Mar. 1912: TCD, MS 6759/1464 (Dillon Papers).

69. P. A. McHugh to John Dillon, 8 Mar. 1895: TCD, MS 6757/1106 (Dillon Papers).

70. P. A. McHugh to John Dillon, 1 Mar. 1909: TCD, MS 6757/1137 (Dillon Papers).

71. The single exception to this may be T. P. O'Connor, who accepted a job as an official censor during the First World War: see Maume, Long Gestation, 200.

72. See, for example, Gaelic-American, 19 Feb. 1910, 3.

73. McBride, Greening of Dublin Castle, 82–4.

74. Maume, Long Gestation, 91.

75. Freeman's Jl, 1 Dec. 1910, 7.

76. Maume, Long Gestation, 128.

77. Paul Bew, Ideology and the Irish Question: Ulster Unionism and Irish Nationalism, 1912–1916 (Oxford, 1994), 20.

78. James O'Shee to John Redmond, 11 June 1908: TCD, MS 6748/345 (Dillon Papers).

79. Maurice Manning, James Dillon: A Biography (Dublin, 1999), 32.

80. John McHuoy to John Redmond, 26 July 1893: NLI, MS 15,238/5 (Redmond Papers).

81. Michael McCartan to James Brady, 20 Dec. 1892: UCDA, MLB (McCartan Papers), p. 444.

82. J. F. X. O'Brien to J. J. Walsh, 24 Apr. 1905: NLI, MS 13,432/11 (O'Brien Papers).

83. T. M. Healy, Why Ireland Is Not Free: A Study of Twenty Years in Politics (Dublin, 1898), 99.

84. Nation, 26 Sept. 1896, 4.

85. County Cork Eagle, 6 June 1914, quoted in Bew, Ideology and the Irish Question, 20.

86. Maume, Long Gestation, 126.

87. William Lundon to John Dillon, 7 Apr. 1908: TCD, MS 6756/924 (Dillon Papers); John Roche to John Dillon, 3 June 1912: TCD, MS 6750/109 (Dillon Papers).

88. Arthur Lynch, O'Rourke the Great: A Novel (London, 1921), 171.

89. P. Hureley to W. G. Fallon, 30 Apr. 1914: NLI, MS 22,576 (Fallon Papers).

90. J. P. Boland, Irishman's Day: A Day in the Life of an Irish MP (London, 1944), 153; Thomas P. Dooley, Irishmen or English Soldiers? The Times and World of a Southern Catholic Irishman (1876–1916) Enlisting in the British Army during the First World War (Liverpool, 1995), 73; Terence Denman, A Lonely Grave: The Life and Death of William Redmond (Blackrock, 1995), 51.

91. T. S. Moclair to John Dillon, 13 Aug. 1912: TCD, MS 6773/553 (Dillon Papers).

92. Sheehan, Ireland since Parnell, 216.

93. W. J. Harbison to John Dillon, 25 Apr. 1908: TCD, MS 6747/308 (Dillon Papers).

94. J. M. Bourne, Patronage and Society in Nineteenth-Century England (London, 1986), 23; Mary E. Daly, 'Local Appointment', in Mary E. Daly (ed.), County and Town: One Hundred Years of Local Government in Ireland. Lectures on the Occasion of the 100th Anniversary of the Local Government Ireland Act, 1898 (Dublin, 2001), 46.

95. F. M. Thomas (ed.), Fifty Years of Fleet Street: Being the Life and Recollections of Sir John R. Robinson (London, 1904), 234.

96. For this decision, see esp. Irish Independent, 10 Feb. 1911, 2.

97. J. G. S. MacNeill to John Redmond, 9 Mar. 1908: NLI, MS 15,205/1 (Redmond Papers). See also J. G. S. MacNeill to John Redmond, 12 May 1908: NLI, MS 15,205/1 (Redmond Papers).

98. Freeman's Jl, 23 Jan. 1911, 9.

99. Ibid., 24 Jan. 1911, 11.

100. John Pinkerton to [ Illegible] McCormack, 22 Sept. 1900: PRONI, D/1078/P/69 (Pinkerton Papers).

101. John Hutchinson, The Gaelic Revival and the Creation of the Irish Nation State (London, 1987), 260–1.

102. Ibid., 266–8.

103. Michael Delany to John Dillon, 21 June 1909: TCD, MS 6771/115 (Dillon Papers).

104. Pat Kelly to Tom O'Donnell, 22 Dec. 1913: NLI, MS 15,458/4 (O'Donnell Papers).

105. John O'Shea to James O'Mara, Feb. 1907: NLI, MS 21,544/3 (O'Mara Papers).

106. William O'Malley, Glancing Back: 70 Years' Experience and Reminiscences of Press Man, Sportsman and Member of Parliament (London, 1933), 139.

107. T. F. Rahilly to Tom O'Donnell, 25 Sept. 1911: NLI, MS 15,458/2 (O'Donnell Papers).

108. Maume, Long Gestation, 15.

109. O'Malley and Hardcastle, Reports of the Decisions of the Judges for the Trial of Election Petitions, 498.

110. Alvin Jackson, Ireland, 1798–1998: Politics and War (Oxford, 1999), 209.

111. John J. Horgan, From Parnell to Pearse: Some Recollections and Re ###X### ections (Dublin, 1948), 246.

112. J. J. Lee, Ireland, 1912–1985: Politics and Society (Cambridge, 1989), 161.

113. Diarmaid Ferriter, 'Lovers of Liberty'?: Local Government in 20th Century Ireland (Dublin, 2001), 10.

114. Freeman's Jl, 16 Dec. 1910, 8.

115. Stephen Gwynn, A Holiday in Connemara (London, 1909), 184; Anglo-Celt, 9 Jan. 1909, 4; Jerry MacVeagh to John Redmond, 28 Oct. 1913: NLI, MS 15,205/9 (Redmond Papers).

116. Maume, Long Gestation, 30.

117. Tom Garvin, 'The Dáil Government and Irish Local Democracy, 1919–1923', in Daly (ed.), County and Town, 33.

118. Lee, Ireland, 161–8.

119. Nation, 29 Sept. 1896, 4; 3 Oct. 1896, 3; 10 Oct. 1896, 5.

120. MacDonagh, Emancipist, 125; Leader, 4 Apr. 1908, 97.

121. Irish Independent, 24 Sept. 1909, 4. Sullivan had previously supported Tim Healy (to whom he was related) and his letter apparently came as some surprise to his family: Healy, Old Munster Circuit, 185.

122. In 1911 Sullivan tried to obtain appointment as solicitor-general for Ireland. In his campaign he sought the influence of at least one MP. John Redmond to John Dillon, 6 Sept. 1911: TCD, MS 6729/156 (Dillon Papers). See also Maume, Long Gestation, 125–6.

123. Irish Independent, 28 Sept. 1909, 6.

124. Sinn Féin, 2 Oct. 1909, 2.

125. Irish Independent, 28 Sept. 1909, 6.

126. See esp. James McConnel, 'The View from the Backbench: Irish Nationalist MPs and their Work, 1910–1914' (Univ. of Durham Ph.D. thesis, 2002).

127. Bourne, Patronage and Society, 191.

128. Doug Perkins, 'When Is Political Corruption Good for Democracy? A Comparative Analysis of Political Machines' (a paper given at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, 31 Aug. – 3 Sept. 2000): see <http://www.douglasaperkins.com/portfolio/publications.htm>.



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