Books
Study in inconsistency
Brian Inglis
Charles Stewart Parnell F.S.L. Lyons (Collins £8.50)
The people of Ireland, Lord Melbourne wrote in 1834, 'are not Such damned fools as the people of England. When they place confidence, they do not withdraw it the next instant. They do not suffer their opinions to be changed in a day by the leading article of a newspaper. On the contrary, they think that he probably knows what he is about, that what he does is to serve them, and they cling to him the closer on account of any apparent inconsistency.'
Had Melbourne been as shrewd in his treatment of the Irish Question as he was in his diagnosis, relations between the two peoples might have taken a very different course. As things were, the Irish were to bear out his contention not just with O'Connell to whom he was referring but to Parnell, fifty years later; and later still, to de Valera. All three men secured a devotion and trust of a kind which no English statesman has been accorded.
This biography might have been subtitled, 'A Study in Inconsistency' and not just 'apparent'; real. What is remarkable about Parnell's political career, as Professor Lyons unfolds it, is the absence of any dis cernible guiding light, philosophy, or ambition. His was a makeshift kind of statesmanship, based on no very clear principle (though not unprincipled), and hardly even meriting the description pragmatic.
For O'Connell, the objective had been reasonably clear, at least until disillusion ment set in: an Ireland with a legislature of her own, and a measure of executive responsibility, under the British Crown. For de Valera, the ultimate aim was always an all-Ireland republic. But Parnell never really made up his mind what he wanted. Or rather, he allowed events to make it up for him, as he went along. His career came to resemble one of those country houses which used to be common in Ireland though many have been burned down or levelled for redevelopment where the original structure has almost disappeared because of additions, a new wing here, a repaired section there; a medley of architectural whims.
Yet in another sense, Parnell was the most consistent of the three. O'Connell was continually making changes of course for tactical reasons. He assured the Irish fortyshilling freeholders, to whom he owed his political advancement, that he would die to preserve their voting right, if necessary, 'in the field or on the scaffold'; and then he abandoned them, without compunction, when it suited his wider political ends escaping from the need to justify such moves by the traditional method of abusing his critics. De Valera was on occasion compelled to eat his words, his self-justification taking the form of tortuous rationalisations. But Parnell though he often left himself open to the charge that he had been twofaced in his oratory, adapting his mood, cautious or violent, to the mood of his audience contrived to give the impression that the decisions he took were inevitable, rather than tactical; that they were attuned to the time.
How did he get away with it? In ordinary circumstances it would be considered a criticism of a biographer to say that he leaves the reader more baffled when he has finished the book than when he 'opened it; not in this case. Lyons is one of the finished products of the school of Irish historians deeply influenced by Professors Theo Moody of Trinity College, Dublin (to whom the book is dedicated) and Dudley Edwards of the National University of Ireland, both dedicated to the liberation of Irish historical writing not only from the rules of the patriot game (everything extenuate) but also from_ the corrosive reaction of de-bunking (set down naught except in malice). Lyons is concerned not to defend Parnell, or to expose him; not even to explain him 4 so much as to present the evidence which will enable the reader to form his own judgment of the man.
Not that he provides simply a flat narrative. There is analysis, but of the kind which is presented to elucidate the problems, rather than to provide easy solutions. And what emerges is an admirably sympathetic picture of a man for whom it is often difficult to feel sympathy or, perhaps, easy to feel sympathy while at the same time kicking oneself for silly sentimentality.
If the book has a weakness, it is that it is too compressed. The research which has gone into it suggests that it would have been better served by a concession which biographers now rarely get, unless the subject happens to lend himself to the division: two volumes. There are times when the background needs to be sketched in, or .filled out;" in particular the most serious lack by more illumination of the characters of the supporting cast. The individuals composing the Irish party could have done with more attention, more differentiation.
Still, it is clear enough why Parnell kept his ascendancy over them. He had one con
siderable political asset; when circumstances dictated a certain course Of action, he could see where it would lead. And because he knew that different circumstances a switch from a Liberal to a Tory government, say, or vice versa might necessitate shifts in his own course, he was careful to keep the options open. His most famous pronouncement, the only one for which he is now remembered `no man has a right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation; no man has a right to say "Thus far shalt thou go, and Ile further" ' is usually taken to have been a separatist manifesto. But in its context, as Lyons explains, although `to some of those who heard him he seemed to have left the road to independence wide open', he was merely saying that a return to the mild form of devolution represented by Grattan s parliament might not be enough to satisfY nationalist aspirations; 'calculated ambiguity', in fact, designed to satisfy both constitutionalists and Fenians.
He had the measure of his followers, and he knew it. Lyons quotes a story from ParrY O'Brien's biography of Parnell, wIle,a Davin, founder of the land campaign wino Parnell had exploited for his own political purposes, realised that Parnell was backsliding, and asked him what he would do if he had to confront an Irish parliament on the, issue. Parnell replied, 'The first thing I woula do woukl be to lock you up'. I had assurned this was a legend; but the other daY I happened on contemporary confirmation. Davitt related the story at the time to Pre. fessor Henry Sidgwick. And althoug.h Parnell presumably had spoken with his usual grim jocularity, in all probability he had made up his mind to take just such a course, if the need arose. For a politician to be clear-sighted an,d ruthless, though, is not enough, unless he Is also totally dedicated. The place whteh politics should have kept in his mind Was usurped by Mrs O'Shea. With her, he was not in control of his feelings. His letters reveal why: so daffy that they prompted one critic to describe them as 'such as a kitchen-maid might receive from an under footman'. In his infatuation with her .he could make appallingly stupid moves, It", compelling the Galway electors to accePrL O'Shea, which could buy immunity only' a time. Gradually, too, he allowed her to eta him off from his base; shortly before the, divorce action, he was to say he had 0° spoken in Ireland 'for years and years'. The Irish voters could forgive him f,°, that; even as Melbourne had realised v.1.01" O'Connell admire him for concentratu?g on Westminster. But his support at P11 level was eroded. Five years before his fa`: Healy had described him to Labouchere a: 'half mad'. Hea/y's further claim that th: party always acted without him that wishful thinking: but it confirm" s, °lc Parnell could hardly have survived, if Pigott forgeries had not come to his restie!' Even if the divorce scandal had not brokea' he would have broken, before long.
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