Redmond: ‘Talk of civil war absurd’

Nationalist leader claims Home Rule cause has triumphed over forces of privilege and bigotry

‘You are on the eve of a great change in the public life of Ireland,’ John Redmond MP told a huge nationalist rally in his home constituency of Waterford this weekend.

Mr. Redmond said that twice already the Home Rule bill has passed through the House of Commons in London by majorities of more than 100 votes: ‘All the powers of wealth, privilege and bigotry beat against the Bill in vain. Every appeal to prejudice, to ignorance, to party passion, to race hatred, and to religious bigotry has been made, and has failed.’

He continued: ‘Never in the history of these countries has any great reform encountered such powerful and vindictive opposition, and emerged with less damage from the ordeal.’

The voters of Waterford City have returned Mr Redmond as their representative in Westminster since 1891. Previous to that, he served as MP for New Ross and then North Wexford.
(Image: Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland by P.W. Joyce and A.M. Sullivan [1900]. Retrieved from The Internet Archive [www.archive.org].)

To great cheers Mr. Redmond said: ‘Last year ended with our cause triumphant, our ranks unbroken. Today we are face-to-face with the year 1914, for which we have so long watched and waited.’

‘What are our prospects? As certainly as the spring will succeed the winter gloom, as certainly as the full glory of summer will succeed the promise of spring, so certainly and automatically will the Home Rule Bill become law, unless the House of Commons changes its opinion or the present government and parliament cease to exist.’

Mr. Redmond said that their would be no abandonment of the Home Rule Bill, because to do so would be to restore the veto of the House of Lords, to restore Tory rule and to condemn the Liberal Party to utter impotence, dishonour and extinction.

He continued: ‘All the ravings and threatenings of our opponents will have no more power to stop it than the shrieking of the winter wind can stop the blooming of the flowers of June.’

He said that the Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, was as ‘firm as a rock’ and that those who thought they could intimidate him were wrong: ‘They mistake their man. The truth is that all this talk of civil war is, at bottom, absurd.’

A confidential police report notes how the Waterford meeting 'attracted great attention and was very largely attended both locally and by the various civic authorities and political associations in Ireland'. It goes on to observe that the 'event passed off quietly without any display of partisan feeling'. Click to enlarge.
(Image: National Archives UK, CO 904/9, RIC Confidential Monthly Report for Co. Waterford, January 1914)

Mr. Redmond then appealed to the businessmen of Ireland to come and take their place in the new Home Rule parliament. He said the country needed the input of able and practical men to help conduct the affairs of the Irish nation.

He continued by saying: ‘I hope the old gladiators who won the fight will not be entirely thrown on one side and that having led the National Army into the sunlight, they will be allowed, for a while at any rate, to enjoy the warmth and glory of its beams.’

Earlier, a procession through the city took place along streets decorated with flags, bunting and banners. The procession began at the Mall and included numerous bands, organisations and public bodies. Stewards on horseback kept back the crowds that swelled onto the streets.

More than 25,000 people then crowded into the into the square at Ballybricken in the city to hear Mr. Redmond speak, with observers comparing it to the great Parnell rally at the same site in 1881.