John Redmond

John Redmond: 

The Irish Party and Political Violence

The Pig Buyers of Ballybricken: 

Founders of Irish Democracy?

     As Ireland asserted itself in the period 1900 to 1920, there was a contest between those who adhered to democratic standards in politics and those who used violent methods to impose their point of view on others.

     There was the initially small configuration of Arthur Griffith’s Sinn Féin party which, along with a tiny revolutionary Republican grouping, opposed Irish involvement in the system of government of Ireland by officials in Dublin who were appointed by the British government of the day.

     On the other hand there was the great political movement led by John Redmond, said to be in the constitutional tradition of O’Connell, Butt, and Parnell; stretching through the 19th century into the 20th; when it was replaced by a movement which rejected the particular parliamentary methods of Redmond.

     So: peaceful, democratic, constitutional methods were overcome and displaced by men of violence; until, after hard-fought struggles in the 1920’s, ‘30’s and ‘40’s, democracy was restored; with a

further outbreak of violence through the 1970’s and ‘80’s which was finally extinguished by the non- violent, constitutional methods of John Hume and others in the tradition of Redmond, Parnell and O’Connell.

     In the end Irish political violence was gradually overcome and Redmondian democratic parliamentarism vindicated.

That’s one way to look at it.

     But if you look a bit closer at what actually happened in the course of Irish politics during 1890 – 1918, the perception outlined above is turned on its head.

     John Edward Redmond died in March 1918. Because of the collapse of his reputation he could not have a public funeral in Dublin, and instead he was taken to Wexford town to be buried in the Redmond family vault.

     Here his coffin was carried, not by relatives, or by MPs of the Irish Party which he led for nearly thirty years, but by stalwarts of the Ballybricken Pig Buyers Association from Waterford city. The crucial part played by the Pig Buyers in Redmond’s career has been air-brushed out.

The Pig Buyers and the Rise of Redmond:

     Nicholas (“Nixie”) Whittle was a Volunteer of the East Waterford IRA, wounded three times in the Pickardstown Ambush near Tramore. Prior to that he was Sinn Féin Director of Elections in the Waterford city by-election caused by Redmond’s death in 1918, and in the General Election of the following December. Sinn Féin lost both times after enjoying a run of by-election successes in the previous year. At one point it looked like Redmondism could turn the tide.

     The Waterford city seat was held by Redmond’s son Captain William (“Billie”) Archer Redmond DSO who campaigned in British Army uniform, wearing a black armband for his father who had occupied

the seat for 27 years.

     In his 1955 Witness Statement (available on this site Nicholas Whittle's Statement  and on the Bureau of Military History website) Whittle described both of these election campaigns in detail, including the violence instigated and perpetrated on Captain Redmond’s behalf by the Ballybricken Pig Buyers. John Redmond won this seat with the Pig Buyers’ support in 1892 in a similarly violent by-election campaign against Michael Davitt, and he held the seat until his death in 1918.

     In the 1892 by-election, the previously relatively unknown Redmond salvaged the Parnellite remnant after a string of defeats, establishing himself as Parnell’s political heir by means of the rough methods of the Ballybricken Pig Buyers. And when Redmond died, the Pig Buyers ensured that Redmondism was not extinguished, but held on in one constituency of the future Irish Free State.

The Redmond family held a seat in Waterford until 1952.

     These days John Redmond is celebrated as Ireland’s lost leader, the founder of Irish democracy, the constitutional heir of Daniel O’Connell and Charles Stewart Parnell, temporarily side-lined by men of violence who spurned Redmond’s constitutional path of acquiring political power by peaceful, non- violent means.

    These days we know of O’Connell and Parnell (and of course Redmond) only from books. But John Hume is still alive, and is a celebrated practitioner of constitutional, non-violent, peaceful, democratic politics in a troubled Irish context.

     Generally speaking, present-day Redmondites are not prepared to accept the “democratic, constitutional” credentials of the independence movement. If, for the sake of argument, we accept these neo-Redmondite terms of reference and leave Republicanism out of the reckoning as comparator, it is not unreasonable to posit John Hume’s political history for comparison purposes in examining the record of Redmond.

     As we peruse some of the circumstances of Redmond’s political practice let us ask ourselves, “What would John Hume have said, what would he have done?”

     As our pre-eminent non-violent constitutional democrat, what is Redmond’s record of democratic electoral practice? What is his record on political violence?

     And who on earth were the Ballybricken Pig Buyers? If it is true to say that Redmond is the source of contemporary democratic constitutional politics in Ireland, then surely it is time to pay tribute to the ultimate source---the mysterious and forgotten group of men who put this paragon into power and kept him there.

Early Days of Redmond:

     Redmond was born in 1856 to a family prominent in Wexford banking and politics. He dropped out of legal studies in Trinity College Dublin and lived off income from rents which he supplemented by working as a clerk at the House of Commons, and by doing some journalism. During this period Michael Davitt, Tom Clarke, and other Fenians were serving some very hard prison time.

     In January 1881 Redmond became MP for New Ross in County Wexford. “Elected” unopposed, he was not voted into this position. In the 1885 general election he became MP for North Wexford. According to Dermot Meleady, in Redmond: the Parnellite (2008), Redmond “denounced the loyal classes for forcing a contest on the constituency by putting up a candidate, Viscount Stopford, to oppose him”. So Redmond, the constitutional democrat, would have preferred to obtain his North

Wexford seat by appointment, not voting.

     (What “loyal classes”? In 1612 – 13 there was a plantation of English Protestant settlers in that area.

Some Palatines were settled around Gorey in 1709. The 12th century settlers from the Bristol area, who were located in the south east Wexford baronies of Forth and Bargy, rejected the English State Reformation and were absorbed into the general population, whilst retaining their distinct identity and language until the mid-19th century.)

     There is no mention in the books of Dermot Meleady (Redmond the Parnellite (2008), John Redmond the National Leader (2014)) or Chris Dooley (Redmond: A Life Undone, (2015)) of any electoral contest in North Wexford in the general election of 1886, so presumably Redmond was returned unopposed.

     Though active, Redmond was not in the first ranks of the Irish Nationalist Party. This was to change after the Parnell split of 1890. Parnell and his supporters were increasingly marginalised in a series of by-election defeats, in which the bitter North Kilkenny by-election set a pattern which was replicated over the next three decades.

     Parnell had lost the support of the Catholic hierarchy, most of their clergy, most of his parliamentary colleagues, most of his party, and most of the public. To compensate, Parnell made a move towards elements outside of the mainstream --- the Fenians and industrial workers in the cities.

     Was this sincere? The former Lancashire trade unionist, Fenian prisoner and Land League founder Michael Davitt declared that it was a deceptive ploy.

Fall of Parnell and Rise of Redmond:

     What is generally remembered about the North Kilkenny by-election (December 22 1890) is that the tragic hero Parnell was betrayed by his own party, denounced by a bigoted Catholic clergy and their spineless flock, had quicklime thrown in his eyes, and died soon after.

     Parnell dismissed his Party team in North Kilkenny and brought in Fenian allies instead. The campaign was violent. Parnell himself had already personally smashed his way into a party newspaper office in order to seize it from the party majority. Prominent party members opposed to Parnell had to have police protection from Parnellite mobs. Campaigning against Parnell, Land League founder Michael Davitt was beaten up.

     A constant refrain in elections reports over the next decade or so was the beatings received by the one-armed Davitt, the former Mayo workhouse child pauper, the prison-weakened land reformer with a Lancashire accent.

     What about the attack on Parnell himself? Parnell is alleged to have said that a “preparation of lime” was thrown at him. According to Parnellite James Joyce, “’Twas Irish humour, wet and dry,/Flung quicklime into Parnell’s eye.” So a “preparation of lime” becomes “lime”, then “quicklime”. (A “preparation of lime” could be a solution of lime in water. Whitewash, in other words.)

     Over the next few days Parnell took to wrapping his face in increasingly bizarre bandaging. If he had lime thrown at him, it would look and feel like a handful of flour. Quite harmless. If some of it got in your eye it might cause a little irritation for a little while.

     Quicklime, on the other hand, is unslaked lime. It’s the stuff used to consume the corpses of executed criminals. Throwing quicklime at somebody is like an acid attack. Since quicklime powder can’t be held in the hand, throwing it at somebody requires a bit of planning and preparation. If you received it in the face (never mind the eye) you would probably have to be hospitalised, and you are not likely to do any more work in any election campaigns for six months or so.

     Parnellism seemed to go into irreversible decline, defeated in by-elections in North Sligo April 2 1891 and Carlow 7 July 1891. When Parnell died in 1891 Redmond gave up his North Wexford seat to contest the by-election for Parnell’s Cork city seat. The anti-Parnellite newspaper, National Press, was bombed. A week before voting 108 people were hospitalised. Davitt came to Cork to try to calm the situation. Going by other such elections it can be assumed he was beaten up for his pains. John Dillon and William O’Brien (anti-Parnellites) denounced the “conspiracy of violent intimidation and of murder”.

      In a fourth Parnellite defeat in a row, Redmond lost by 3669 votes to 2157, with 1161 votes going to a Tory candidate.

     Both sides campaigned for the release of Fenian prisoners of the 1880s dynamite campaign, in which military locations were bombed, and also civilian sites such as tube stations. Presumably there were no telephones then, so no prior warnings? More ISIS than Provisional IRA? (This is not to make moral judgement on either of these groups. The moral problem arises for those who extol Redmond as a virtual pacifist.)

     William O’Brien was scathing about “Redmond and his party [seeking] to make some political capital out of the sufferings of these poor men [Fenians].”

     The next by-election (January 1892) was caused by the death of a Parnellite MP in Waterford city. The Parnellites, including the Ballybricken Pig Buyers, had helped a recent strike by bacon workers in the city, and Redmond capitalised on this as the rebuttal of the scepticism of the trade unionist Davitt. (According to Pat McCarthy in The Irish Revolution 1912 -23 Waterford (2015), Redmond successfully defended members of the Pig Buyers Association for violent conduct in an 1893 strike.)

     Davitt came to Waterford in January 1892 to make peace, with a proposal to leave the seat to Redmond, uncontested. After being beaten up by a Redmondite mob at the instigation of the Pig Buyers, Davitt decided to contest the seat himself. The clergy supported him, and they too were physically attacked.

     Who were the good guys, and who were the bad guys? The Fenians are linked with secular anti- clerical liberal-republicans. In France at that time the traditional Catholic monarchist right was in pitched battle with the enlightened modern republican-liberal left. In Germany there was a Kulturkampf by the new state to bring the Catholic church under control in order to establish a united German nation.

     In Waterford, do we shout for the Fenians (and Redmond) against the bishops (and Davitt)? It is fairly clear which side espoused unconstitutional violence. The Fenians, in their origins, were “anti-constitutional” by definition and by intent. There is and was no debate or disagreement about what they stood for. They had rallied to Parnell’s side when, at their low point in the 1880’s, he had spoken up for them when nobody else would.

Redmond, Fenians, and Unionists:

     Splits in physical force Republicanism have produced strange bedfellows. The Official IRA became allies of the Blueshirts.

Dissident Republican, Máiría Cahill, was made a Labour Party nominee to the Irish Senate.

     The Edinburgh Evening News, commenting on the Waterford by-election, said: “It was felt that if Parnellism could not win in the centre of Fenianism it was a hopeless task. Those who remember the colossal demonstration in the South of Ireland last summer in honour of Daly who had suffered for the cause of Fenianism, felt no doubt but the hillside men would strain every nerve to be revenged on Michael Davitt for his desertion from the ranks of the physical force men.”

     [Fenian prisoner John Daly was uncle of Kathleen Clarke whose husband Tom and brother Ned Daly were executed in 1916.]

     In the 1892 Waterford by-election Redmond got 1775 votes, Davitt 1229.

     Thus Parnellism was salvaged at the eleventh hour, and Redmond was launched into supremacy with the support of the poor people of the back streets of Ballybricken. And when the rest of nationalist Ireland had moved on, Ballybricken stood fast by Redmondism in 1918. Twice in 1918.

     In his post-election speech (1892), Davitt said he “would have rather lost the fight than win it as Mr. Redmond had done, by Toryism and terrorism.” This touches on another aspect of Redmondism---the support it obtained from well-heeled and well-connected Protestant Unionists who, as business people depending on the community, could no longer afford to flaunt explicit loyalism as they might have done 50 years earlier.

     In Waterford, Redmond’s victory came, not just from noisy, smelly Ballybricken (which had few votes), but from posh suburban Newtown where the Tories lived. These could provide lots of money for lots of free booze; and the Catholic nationalist pig buyers, themselves a smallish group of 150 or so Ballybricken families, could inflame a mob into action against political opponents.

     Despite the rhetoric, some aspects of Parnellism/Redmondism were not alien to Unionism. Parnell received financial support from the imperialist Cecil Rhodes. Redmond’s fixed idea of federation within the Empire is what Rhodes was promoting for the British colonies; a policy which looked particularly promising, when after Boer defeat, it was adopted by Botha for South Africa.

     The somewhat counter-intuitive network of Parnellite/Redmondite support and alliances makes sense when looked at from different perspectives.

Redmondite Pattern of Violence:

     There is a consistent pattern of Redmondite political violence through to 1918. The party’s 1909 National Convention in Dublin’s Mansion House is called the Baton Convention because Joe Devlin’s Hibernian goons from Belfast were paid ten shillings and provided with batons to silence opponents. Told to listen out for the “Cork accent”, they targeted William O’Brien’s contingent of Cork supporters. The party split again, giving rise to the All-for-Ireland League which generally outpolled the Redmondites in the Munster region.

     Devlin and his Belfast hard men also turned out for the 1918 elections in Waterford.

    Meleady’s second book on Redmond quotes historian Pádraig Yeates as saying that Redmond was

incapable of confronting [the violence of] his own party machine in Ulster. Meleady and Yeates should have also included Leinster, Munster and Connacht.

     Forty people were hospitalised when Maud Gonne challenged the Party at a meeting about welcoming the King’s visit. Redmond said, “They got an unmerciful drubbing”, and “the disturbance of this meeting might have been easily and summarily dealt with, were it not that it was led by a lady, against whom we could not put in force any of the rough and ready methods which in other circumstances would be used to other disturbers.”

     In fact suffragettes were another target for the Redmondites, and there are many instances of women getting beaten up. In the March 1918 by-election in Waterford an attempt was made to burn down the Newtown home of Quaker suffragist and Cumann na mBan member Rosamond Jacob. (These Jacobs were related to the Dublin biscuit makers.)

     When Eoin MacNeill’s National Volunteers baulked at a Redmondite takeover of its leadership, Redmond threatened to form his own militia. And when the constitutionalist finally got control he sent Tom Kettle (former MP and now a member of the governing body of the Irish Volunteers) to Belgium to illegally buy arms.

     A few months earlier Kettle passed through Larne the day after the UVF arms landing there. Horrified at the perils which confronted the Catholic population he wrote to the Freeman’s Journal: “No Nationalist in Ulster can, after last night, hold his property, his civil liberties, or even his life safe. … Forthwith every self-respecting man [in Ireland] should dip his hand into his pocket to provide himself and his poorer fellow with a modern rifle.”

     Yet present-day admirers of Redmond’s and John Hume’s constitutionalism are super-critical of the arming of the northern Catholics in 1969, when their submissiveness was finally exhausted after the UVF and their successors had exercised power over them for 50 years.

     The Redmondites have a record of mob violence in politics. If Sinn Féin had conducted itself like that we would never hear the end of it. On that basis alone, and leaving aside other evidence, it is not unreasonable to suppose that Sinn Féin standards of democratic practice were on a higher level than the Redmondites.

Some Descriptions of Redmondite Violence:

     The recent books by Dermot Meleady and Chris Dooley skate gingerly around the issue of Redmondite political violence, frequently mentioning “scuffles between opposing factions”, but not explaining (for instance) de Valera supporters being fired on in the 1917 East Clare by-election.

     Here is a sample by Meleady (Redmond the Parnellite, page 121):

     “Redmond’s attitude to political violence was consistent throughout his career. On the one hand, he would always maintain, inside and outside the House of Commons, that the Irish nation had a sovereign right to use physical force to win and defend its freedom. On the other, any scenario in which such a situation might materialize was to him a construct of fantasy, at least as long as the nationalist population remained unarmed. … There was enough of the folk memory of ’98 in his county to urge extreme caution in contemplating a rebellion by an unarmed people. But though advances in military technology had made a repetition impossible, the insurrections of the past could and should be respected and praised. Redmond looked on these, as did most nationalists, through the prism of the nineteenth century romantic cult of battlefield honour, courage and self-sacrifice.

     The other type of violence, that of the dynamiters, or that which went on in the actual Ireland of his day, the violence of the Moonlighters who assassinated landlords on lonely country roads, fired into the houses of tenants who had taken farms of those evicted, or occasionally shot and killed policemen, fell into the category of crime, was the action of ‘desperate men’, and was to be severely condemned, even if it resulted from great provocation. The possibility that Moonlighter-type acts would one day be harnessed to political objectives, as in the ‘guerrilla days’ of the 1920s, was probably beyond his powers of imagining.”

     To put this in context here are a few extracts from Nicholas Whittle’s 1955 Witness Statement, which give a flavour of his comprehensive description of the March and December 1918 elections in Waterford city. Because Sinn Féin appeared to be the party exclusively of the poor people, Whittle, as Sinn Féin Director of Elections, asked for election workers of higher social standing --- teachers etc. from areas of uncontested seats --- to come to Waterford for the campaign. In the event, he was sent Volunteers (IRA men) from neighbouring counties to fend off Redmondite aggression. But these were outnumbered and outmanoeuvred by the Redmondites and RIC, and had to be skilfully extricated by de Valera.

    “During this bye-election of March, 1918, the six or seven of us on the election staff were busy one night at routine election work in the election offices at Colbeck Street, Waterford. All Republican supporters were out attending a monster public meeting at the Market House on the Quay, where de Valera was the principal speaker. The only others in the building with us were two armed Volunteers who were kept on duty day and night from the time the position started to become acute. 

     About 10.30 p.m. on this night, a procession accompanied by bands from a Redmondite public meeting, came along the street outside. Our first knowledge that they were not our party became evident when a brick crashed the window and landed on the office table. Dan McCarthy of Dublin immediately ordered all present to stand with backs to the wall between the windows. We did so and witnessed, amidst the noise of crashing glass, a shower of bricks and stones flying into the room, causing a bad mess to be made of all the clerical work which lay on the table. The barrage lasted for some minutes. Suddenly our two armed guards came downstairs and stood at the door. One of them called out to Seán Milroy, telling him that the mob were lifting a man up on their shoulders with a lighted torch in his hand and that an attempt was being made to set fire to the National Flag hanging from the upper window. "Will we fire over their heads, Seán?", asked the armed Volunteer. (Both men had drawn their revolvers at the time.) Seán Milroy replied, "Don't fire! The orders from G.H.Q. are absolute that no arms be used". I was the only Waterford born man in the group that night and I shall always remember the sense of shame I felt as the bands outside continued playing while the flag, so closely linked with Waterford born Thomas Francis Meagher, was being publicly burned.

…

     We went into the Volunteer Hall. About twenty Volunteers were lying on straw there, some of them bleeding from strokes of sticks and stones and two or three wounded by gunfire. Some of the ex British soldier element amongst the mob had revolvers, and a rifle was used from the window of a house on the opposite side to the Volunteer Hall.

…

     It was at this juncture that over one hundred armed R.I.C. men, carrying rifles and fixed bayonets, sealed off the four streets leading to Thomas Street. Our position then was that we were virtual prisoners of the R.I.C. with a howling mob behind them at each street entrance.”

     Pat McCarthy’s book describes how the Sinn Féin candidate Dr. Vincent White was attacked by the Redmondites when he attempted to cast his vote. After receiving treatment he finally managed to vote under Volunteer and RIC escort.

     In fiction, The Graves at Kilmorna by Canon Sheehan describes an old Fenian who, disgusted by the venality of the Redmondite party, provides public support for an opposition candidate, and is mortally injured by a Redmondite mob. The motivation and methods of Redmondism, sanitised by its present-day protagonists, were no secret at the time. At the high point of his Home Rule campaign Redmond was prevented from attending a meeting in Dublin because of frantic swarms of place-seekers anticipating cushy jobs in the new regime.

     Nixie Whittle was puzzled by the phenomenon of Fenian adherence to Redmondism:

     As Director of Elections both in the bye-election of March, 1918, and the General Election of December in the same year, I formed the opinion that, outside of the ex British soldier fraternity and the Ballybricken pig dealers, the bulk of the people who were supporting Redmond did so in a feeling of loyalty to a cause. The following is an example of what I mean to convey.

     A canvasser of ours, who was interviewing voters in the Holy Ghost hospital, Waterford, a charitable institution for the aged, brought back to me his marked register of voters. He pointed out, in particular, the name of one old man on the register. "That man", the canvasser said, "I never saw before. He was about eighty years old and had a fine face. I remarked to him, when he told me he was voting for Captain Redmond, 'Do you know, judging by your appearance, I would say you were a member of the Fenians. You must often have heard in your boyhood days that the Fenians were drilling some place near you'." "As I spoke", remarked the canvasser, "the old man took a handkerchief from his pocket and commenced to weep. Through his tears, he murmured to me, 'I always stood by John Redmond, boy, and I must stand by his son'."

     This turn of mind illustrates well the point of view I hold regarding that fatalistic loyalty to a cause amongst Waterford people.

     Redmond's complex and contradictory network of support obliged him to straddle contradictory positions. During the Boer Wars he expressed pride in the gallantry and sacrifice of the splendid Irish soldiers of the British army, while at the same time wishing that Ireland could (not would, mind!) fight on its own behalf against Britain, just like the Boers.

     Davitt said: "[We have] been told by some few croaking Nationalists in Ireland and some Liberal papers in England that [we imperil] Home Rule because of [our] warm sympathy for the Transvaal in this trouble. If Home Rule [can] be killed by sympathy with justice, with liberty, and with right, then let it die!"

Origins of the Ballybricken Pig Buyers?:

     There does not seem to be much on record about the Pig Buyers, but references to them mention an affiliation to Fenianism, stating that their premises in Ballybricken had pictures of Young Ireland leaders. Nicholas Whittle was also puzzled by the Ballybricken Pig Buyer phenomenon even though, as contemporary native to the place, it must have been completely familiar to him. He says he consulted the famous Decies historian Canon Power, who could not really enlighten him.

     One would not want to try to second-guess Whittle or Power, but it is possible to speculate.

     Historically Waterford port was home to many trades, particularly the bacon industry. It had the biggest ship-building industry in Ireland (Belfast included) at one time. By the mid-19th century the railways were superseding river transport, and capitalist factories were displacing craft industries. What happened to the master butchers when their journeymen, tradesmen and apprentices went

into employment in the new bacon factories?

     The factories required supplies of live pigs sold by farmers, smallholders and householders in the fair at Ballybricken. Maybe the master butchers, with their centuries of knowledge of the trade, took up the pig buyer role for Denny’s and the other new bacon factories.

    In any event the Pig Buyers enjoyed a lucrative monopoly until the producers began to sell direct to the factories. To block this development, the Pig Buyers staged a strike in 1897, and sought to physically stop the supply of pigs to the factories to prevent them from dealing directly with the producers.

    Ultimately the producers formed a meat processing co-operative, and by 1925 or so the Pig Buyers had lost their economic and social clout.

    Later there was a similar development in the beef industry. Cattle were traditionally sold at fairs to cattle dealers who colluded with each other to prevent price competition. In the 1950’s the cattle producers formed marts in which cattle were sold by public auction, where buyers had to bid against each other. The cattle dealers (or buyers) initially boycotted the cattle marts, but the farmers held out, and the marts are still in operation.

Sources of Redmondite Violence?:

     Is there an explanation for the violent methods of Redmondites? Faction fighting was common in the past. In the South East, the early 19th century fighting between the Caravat and Shanavest factions was a kind of class conflict between rural labourers and farmers. It included conflict between local farm labourers and migrant “spailpín” labourers from Cork and Kerry who tended to undercut locally established pay rates.

     Michael Davitt’s movement sought to improve the conditions of both tenant farmers and labourers. But conflict between these groups continued. Creamery workers seized the co-operative dairies (formed a few years earlier by farmers scraping share funds together), raised the Red Flag and called themselves Soviets. Farmers reacted by boycotting the worker-occupied creameries, and by buying the new cream separator centrifuge machines which turned small dairy farms into small butter factories.

     A major farm labourer strike in East County Waterford in 1923 involved violence by both sides, resulting in imposition of martial law by the Free State in the farmers’ favour. In the 1930’s the new Fianna Fáil government restored balance by imprisoning Blueshirts.

     In urban areas, before modern forms of unionisation arrived in the late 19th century, disputes within and between the many trades, crafts, and the complex gradations of pay and status, were sometimes settled by physical force.

     Official and unofficial violence in human affairs, whether justified or unjustified, is not likely to disappear anytime soon. John Redmond himself said many times that Ireland was held in the United Kingdom by force, and he was happy that this should continue under Home Rule.

     Nicholas Whittle attended a major post-1916-Rising speech by Redmond in Waterford, when Redmond broke his long silence and came out into the open to call yet again for more cannon- fodder for the Great War slaughter. Pat McCarthy’s book describes the ejection and violent treatment of dissenters. Whittle quotes Redmond as saying that Sinn Féin were the "effervescent scum of the body politic", predicting that they would "soon run back like rats into their holes”.

     Redmond cannot be absolved from the violence of his supporters. Present-day protagonists make their case on the supposed non-violence of Redmond, compared with those who opposed him. Even when we leave out of the equation Redmond’s stance on Britain’s Great War of 1914–18, their case does not stand up under scrutiny.

     There is a problem with the portrayals of Redmond in terms of “a man of peace standing up against violent methods, just like the quintessentially anti-violence good guy John Hume”. Whatever the defects and/or merits of Redmond and/or Hume, the two are not equivalent or even similar. Try replacing the name “Redmond” with “Hume” wherever it appears in this article.

Election results for Waterford city, December 1918:

Captain William Redmond DSO 4915 votes, Dr. Vincent White 4431 votes.

By-election figures for March 1918, same two candidates: Redmond 1242, White 764. Results for other elections of the period can be found at www.electionsireland.org

A Waterford seat was held by the Redmonds until 1952.

Epilogue:

     Norway was ruled by Sweden in the 19th century. But for some reason the Norwegians preferred to govern themselves and said so in a referendum. Accordingly, Sweden made the necessary arrangements to hand Norway over to the Norwegians in 1905.

    The majority indigenous Irish never consented to be ruled by Britain’s 1688 Glorious Revolution regime and its successors, and in the course of centuries made their dissent clear at every opportunity, even though Britain, unlike Sweden, never recognised or acknowledged this.

     There was ample cause for dissent. But doing something about it was another matter. It is generally accepted that the small but highly motivated Irish Republican Brotherhood was a driving force in getting an Irish independence movement off the ground in the twentieth century.

     Opponents of Sinn Féin on the Irish side included the Redmondites who espoused Irish participation in the British Empire in accordance with the self-governing colonial model devised by Cecil Rhodes, whose most striking success was the British Imperial state of South Africa which emerged under Botha after Boer defeats. Rhodes provided funds to Redmond’s predecessor Parnell.

     The idea that Redmondite Home Rule was a peaceful route to independence outside the Empire is nonsense. Redmond had no such goal in mind. His aim, clearly and frequently stated by him, was the aim of Rhodes --- to consolidate and perfect the Empire in the interests of its component parts. Naturally each component had its own champions, and Redmond appointed himself champion of Imperial Ireland.

     If it is the case that the re-generated IRB was the “soul” of the independence movement, was there any corresponding driving force for Redmondism? Was the latter simply a parliamentary grouping? Or was it perhaps an off-shoot of the Land League?

     The tenant farmer campaign is not a sufficient explanation of Redmondism. Land League founder Michael Davitt was sceptical: "If Home Rule [can] be killed by sympathy with justice, with liberty, and with right, then let it die!"

     John Redmond’s imperial ideas and outlook were and are the core of Redmondism. Democracy and non-violence had nothing to do with it --- quite the reverse. The Ballybricken Pig Buyers were a kind of mafia who ruled the back streets of the port city of Waterford with a fist of iron. Their bread-and-butter, so to speak, was the meat trade with England.

     The Pig Buyers created, protected and sustained John Redmond’s political career. In that sense the Pig Buyers were to Redmondism what the IRB was to Sinn Féin.

     Michael Davitt was physically present at the violent birth of Redmondism. He nailed it right at the start: Redmondism was a witch’s brew of “Toryism and terrorism” (Waterford News report of post- election speech, January 1892).

     Though no longer a major political force the Ballybricken Pig Buyers persisted as a social phenomenon into the 1960’s. In the 1930’s they deployed their trademark physical force against left-wing Republicans in Waterford. In 1891 – 92 they were aligned with John Redmond against the anti-Parnell Catholic clergy, whom in characteristic fashion they physically attacked. But in 1935 they supported the Bishop of Waterford in a vicious witch-hunt against Frank Edwards, a left-wing teacher in Mount Sion Schools near Ballybricken, where Edmond Rice founded the Christian Brothers in the 1790’s.

     Emmet O'Connor's Labour History of Waterford (1989, published by Waterford Trades Council), describes the last fling of the Redmond/Pig Buyer axis:

     " ... [The]1952 by-election [was] caused by the death of Deputy "Tiny" Redmond [Bridget Redmond, widow of John Redmond's son Captain William Redmond, DSO]. Ballybricken acolytes tried to perpetuate the old tradition, persuading Captain Redmond's son-in-law, John Redmond-Green, to make a last-minute bid for the Fine Gael nomination. The intervention came too late. Fine Gael selected Alderman Teddy Lynch to contest the by-election, ending the Redmond association with Waterford public life after sixty years."

     Pig Buyers today --- Blue Plaque memorial erected at 17 Ballybricken (site of Pig Buyers premises), June 2016:

http://waterford-today.ie/waterford-lifestyle/8332-waterford-civic-trust-remembers-the-pig-buyers-of- ballybricken-8332.html

     Present-day picture of Ballybricken Fair Green, where country- and city-dwellers brought their pigs to the attention of the Pig Buyers: https://www.facebook.com/BallybrickenWaterford

     In 1897 the Pig Buyers’ strong arm sought to prevent the bacon factories from buying direct from  producers, and from breaking their iron grip as middlemen in the trade. There is a photograph of an RIC armed guard escorting pigs to execution during the Pig Buyers’ “strike”: https://www.facebook.com/waterfordcivictrust/photos/a.128723807236071.23945.128687730573012/89996 8556778255/?type=3

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=899968556778255&id=128687730573012&substory_ index=0

David Smith on Redmondism and the Pig Buyers in the 1930’s:

     David Smith describes how the Pig Buyers backed the 1935 sacking of Frank Edwards by the Bishop of Waterford (for membership of Saor Éire) from his teaching job in Mount Sion school adjoining Ballybricken (where Edmund Rice started the first Christian Brothers school). Frank Edwards, a Republican/Communist, was later to give his life for the Republican cause during the Spanish Civil War.

     Edited extracts taken from: http://irelandscw.com/ibvol-dwardsWaterford.htm where references will also be found. First published by the Waterford Archaeological & Historical Society. The story starts with the Bishop's Pastoral Letter.

A Pastoral Letter and Its Consequences:

     It was clear that the [bishop's] Pastoral [letter] had only inflamed an already tense situation. The notice of dismissal was due to expire in nine days. A meeting of support, to demand the withdrawal of the notice of dismissal, had been called for the following Saturday 12th January 1935. This meeting had the support of the local INTO branch, two Cumann of Fianna Fail (P.H. Pearse and Gracedieu), the IRA, the Republican Congress Branch, the Gaelic League, Gasra an Fháinne, Waterford Workers' Council, the Irish Citizen Army, and various Trades Union branches.

     On 11th January 1935, Mgr. Byrne wrote a letter to the press cautioning people to stay away from the meeting "which is to be held in flagrant opposition to the authoritative teaching and ruling of the Bishop of the Diocese... The Bishop has spoken; the Church had spoken; and the opposition to the Church is opposition to Jesus Christ"…

     Despite the Monsignor's warning and driving rain, which fell continuously for the two hour duration of the meeting, a large crowd numbering several hundreds turned out in Broad Street to hear the speakers, Peadar O'Donnell, Frank Ryan and Seamus Malone, Secretary of the Edwards Defence Committee, under the Chairmanship of Jimmy O'Connor, Poleberry. A motion from Malone was passed calling for a strike of pupils on the following Tuesday…

     The support for Edwards appeared to be very strong, and widespread. The Mayor had assured Frank Ryan that ninety per cent of the people were behind Edwards but, in truth, the city was deeply divided… On Saturday 12th January 1935 (the day of the Broad Street meeting) the Waterford Pig Buyers' Association passed unanimously a resolution— "That we... pledge ourselves as faithful Catholics to give our unqualified support in every way possible to our beloved Bishop, Most Rev. Dr Kinane and his clergy; and we further desire to express our wholehearted approval of his Pastoral read in all the city churches on Sunday, the 6th inst."

     On the following day, both Dr. Kinane and Monsignor Byrne were given a tremendous reception when they attended the annual tea party at St. Joseph's Boys Club. When they entered the Club, the assembled boys cheered for several minutes and then sang the hymn, Faith of our Fathers.

     Messages of unqualified support for the Bishop poured in to the newspapers from many sources including the Legion of Mary, the Mount Sion Sodality, the United Ireland Party (John Redmond Branch), the Sodality of Mary, the Aquinas Study Circle and Fine Gael, Waterford Central Branch.

     The Dockers' Society of the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers Union (ATGWU) held a special meeting on 14th January 1935 at the Union rooms, O'Connell street. The meeting passed, unanimously, an extraordinary expression of loyalty and support. I quote it in full:

      "We, the members of the Dockers' Society assure our beloved and revered Bishop, Most Rev. Dr Kinane that, conscious of our duty as Catholics, we accept and will loyally obey his authoritative teaching given us in the Cathedral on the 6th inst. Mindful of the warning conveyed in that solemn pronouncement, we can assure him that we shall do all in our power to keep our Union free from the virus of Communism and Socialism. We will endeavour to see that our Union shall be guided by the principles laid down by Pope Leo XIII and the present Holy Father rather than by the anti-Christian maxims of Communist and Socialist agitators. We wish this expression of our Loyalty and obedience to be some reparation to his Lordship for the unfilial attitude of an insignificant section of his flock in the city.

      Signed, Matthew McCloskey, Chairman…"

     Over the following week, many more groups filed similar expressions of loyalty. On Monday morning, however, about half-a-dozen boys carrying banners with inscriptions such as,

WE WANT OUR TEACHER BACK WE ARE ON STRIKE WE STAND FOR JUSTICE STRIKE ON HERE

appeared outside Mount Sion. They paraded in front of the schools and urged other pupils to join them. About ten pupils responded and the demonstrators then marched through the principal streets of the city cheering loudly for Edwards. They halted for a meeting on Ballybricken and two of the strikers declared that they were not going back to school until the teacher was reinstated and victimisation was stopped.

     A few Civic Guards remained on duty outside the schools until after the luncheon interval, by which time the demonstration had withdrawn, several of the boys returning to their homes. The Irish Times reported "speculation is rife as to the number of boys, if any, who will take part in tomorrow's one-day strike".

     [Frank] Edwards [International Brigader] had joined the IRA in about 1924 but in the latter part of the decade, he had become inactive. He joined Saor Éire, the political wing of the IRA, at its foundation in 1931. The local Waterford IRA was involved in various activities, such as when three men visited all the local cinemas, in August 1932, and requested the managers not to show films "of a decidedly British type". The manager of one city cinema admitted to a Waterford News reporter that "as far back as two years ago he himself had noticed that the news films supplied by Pathe... and Fox Movietone were being utilised for propaganda purposes. The men who visited him were very courteous, he said, and... he promised... that whenever possible, he would censor the film in future where it appeared to him to carry the taint of propaganda"…

     Edwards was involved in the 'Bass' protest. This meant the entering of public houses and the smashing of all the stock of Bass Ale on the premises as a protest against British goods being sold… He later regretted having partaken in this activity.

     In the late twenties and early thirties, Waterford was a hotbed of republican and working class agitation in which Edwards played a leading role. The Unemployed Association in the city was so strong that it succeeded in having two of its members, David Nash and Thomas Purdue, elected to the City Council on the platform 'Bread, Blood and Work'. For the next few years the local scene was enlivened by numerous and often boisterous marches and meetings in City Hall and in the People's Park. An example of the type of rhetoric that was used can be gained from a speech made by Councillor Purdue when he said, "If we [the unemployed] are not going to get what we want, we will leave this city like the Temple of Jerusalem-we won't leave a stone upon a stone"…

     The first recorded speech by Edwards was in 1932 and the context is indicative of the type of political action in which he was engaged at the time. On Sunday 4th September 1932, a public meeting of Cumann na nGaedheal, to which admission was by ticket only, was scheduled for the Large Room at City Hall. Mayor Matthew Cassin presided, the Marquis and Marchioness of Waterford were guests and Mr. Paddy McGilligan, ex-Minister for Industry and Commerce was the principal speaker. At the same time, a counter demonstration was staged on the Mall outside. The 'Soldier's Song' was sung with much enthusiasm by the gathering on the roadway, and as its strains came through one of the open windows of the Large Room, someone on the Cumann na nGaedheal platform left his place and closed the window.

     A number of the Mall protesters then tried to gain admittance to the Large Room. They got a little more than halfway up the stairs when they were charged by the Cumann na nGaedheal supporters and a general melee ensued. Two of the protesters were injured in the clash, Robert Walsh, Carrigeen Lane, a member of the St. Declan's Pipe Band receiving a kick in the stomach (for which he was detained in the Infirmary) and Joseph Tobin a kick in the shins. At the close of the meeting a

vote of thanks to the ex Minister was proposed by Mr. John Hearne, builder…

     On the following night, another demonstration, timed for eight o'clock, was held on the Mall, presided over by Edwards. However, the owner of the lorry that was to be used as a platform was visited at his home shortly before the meeting and threatened with dire consequences if he permitted his vehicle to be used for the purpose for which it was hired. The owner declined to proceed to the meeting venue and a second lorry had to be procured from Mr. T. Power, garage proprietor, the Quay. When this lorry arrived at the scene the meeting had already begun, with Edwards addressing the large attendance from a jarvey car. The Waterford News reported:

      "Mr. Edwards, who spoke first in Irish, and continued in English, said the meeting that evening had been arranged in order to appeal for their support for Fianna Eireann—the only national boy organisation in Ireland that was doing its best to educate the future manhood of the country to become loyal citizens of the Irish Republic, which they would attain, and which they were bound to strive to attain (cheers). They were all agreed that it was absolutely essential now for the workers of Ireland to unite to fight the forces of reaction and British Imperialism which were so strong in the country. They could see how those reactionary forces were united against the workers. The people who were associated with the gang of traitors in the Town Hall the previous day were the bosses, the men who exploited the workers, the men who had accumulated wealth from the sweat and the blood of the workers (loud cheers). 

     Then they had the solicitors—it was not necessary for him to make any comment about them—and the rent collectors and the landlords—the Marquis and Marchioness of Waterford. These were the reactionary forces in the country who were backing up the Cumann na nGaedheal party—the organisation that was masking under a Gaelic title, but that was really the force of British Imperialism that was driving the Gael out of the country (loud cheers)... I forgot to mention... the Ballybricken bullies who were associated with Mr. McGilligan and his gang in the Town Hall yesterday. The IRA has been accused by Mr. Blythe of being a thug organisation. You people of Waterford can judge for yourselves on which side are the thugs; and let me tell you that the cause of Irish independence has not been killed, and it will not be killed, by these thugs (loud cheers)... Mr. Edwards concluded, amid loud cheering, as he had begun—in Irish…"

    Edwards' speech is interesting for the various groups that he attacked—bosses, solicitors, rent collectors, landlords and the Ballybricken Redmondites. It is quite certain that he was a marked man after that speech—if he had not already been noted as an agitator and as one who was stirring up revolutionary ideas among the masses.

     Two of the people who were attacked by Edwards were the newly elected Mayor Cassin and John Hearne. The latter was the leader of the Master Builders Federation in the city and was a prominent member of many of the city's Catholic organisations. He was, also, a personal friend of Archdeacon Byrne…"

http://irelandscw.com/ibvol-EdwardsWaterford.htm 

Slightly edited extract from “FRANK EDWARDS The man that fought the Bishop” irelandscw.com

Who were the Ballybricken Pig Buyers? Nicholas Whittle’s Witness Statement:

     The Pig Buyers bought pigs and sold them to the bacon factories. They consisted of a hundred or so families who lived around the Fair Green in the Ballybricken area.

     Unlike the Waterford clerk-typists, haberdashers, jarvey drivers, dockers, nurses, or bicycle repairmen, the pig buyers of Ballybricken were John Redmond’s political enforcers, the hard men who won his elections for him by brute force and intimidation.

     When Redmond was buried in Wexford in 1918 his coffin was not carried by his nearest and dearest family members. Nor by his trusted and faithful fellow-MPs in the Irish Parliamentary Party who had fought the good fight by his side in the House of Commons. No. At that most sacred, solemn and tragic moment Redmond’s dead body was carried by the Ballybricken pig buyers.

     What made the pig buyers so special? What set them apart from the clerk-typists, the haberdashers, the jarvey drivers, the dockers, the nurses, and the bicycle repairmen? We are told that Redmond is the original source of Irish democracy. If that is so, what innate talents did the Pig Buyers possess that enabled them to confer this special grace upon us?

     The obvious place to search for an explanation is in the acclaimed biographies of Redmond by Dermot Meleady and Chris Dooley. But when you consult the indices of these books, under “P” for Pig Buyers, or “B” for Ballybricken, you are left none the wiser.

     Waterford was exceptional in stemming the demise of Parnellism in 1892, and in holding out against Sinn Féin in 1918. Was there something special about Waterford? Founded by the Vikings, it was Ireland’s first city. Dermot McMurrough, King of Leinster, married his daughter Aoife to Strongbow in Waterford (making him heir to the kingdom of Leinster) when the Norman Lord captured the city in 1170. The Norse inhabitants were turfed out and settled down outside the walls in Ballybricken. These events were the first military and political steps in the conquest.

     For most of its existence Waterford was a fairly typical English city in Ireland. Its motto “Urbs intacta manet Waterfordia” (Waterford remains loyal) was awarded by Henry VII when it refused Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel, pretenders to the English throne.

     But the city rejected Henry VIII’s religious reformation. Waterford cleric Luke Wadding was the political and diplomatic brains behind the 1642 – 1649 Confederation which was defeated by Cromwell. Thomas Hussey was an international diplomat who, as chaplain to the Spanish embassy, re-instated Catholic religious practice in London in the 18th century. When he was appointed bishop of Waterford he broke with the compliant and submissive practice of the Irish hierarchy, and helped Edmund Rice to get a system of basic education started. When Hussey died an Orange mob attacked his funeral and tried to throw his coffin into the river Suir.

     Young Irelander Thomas Francis Meagher was a scion of Waterford Catholic merchants. He was the first to defy Daniel O’Connell, declaring that Ireland would be liberated by the Sword. He is credited with creating the Irish tricolour flag, modelled on the French revolutionary tricolour. When he was arrested in Waterford in 1848 the citizens rallied to his defence, created barricades, and armed themselves with pikes and guns. They were opposed by five British warships. Meagher averted a

clash and went to prison.

     Many Irish people have probably heard of Thomas Francis Meagher and his Tricolour contribution to national symbolism. Probably very few have heard of Luke Wadding who created the present day Irish nation by combining the old English settlers and the indigenous Irish into a single body politic. And few will know anything much of Thomas Hussey who helped initiate the political revival of that body after a hundred and fifty years of Cromwellian and Glorious Revolution subjugation.

     Any town or city which has existed for more than a century or two will have many such snippets of more or less interesting historical information. But these do not “explain” Waterford’s Redmondite/Pig Buyerite fetish for political violence.

     Why Waterford and not Sligo? Why the pig buyers and not the haberdashers? Redmond’s biographers are silent on all this, so we turn to Nicholas Whittle, a Waterford native who had direct personal experience of Redmondite pig buyer violence.

     Whittle participated in the Tramore ambush of January 7 1921, barely escaping death from gunshot wounds. In the two 1918 elections won by Captain William Redmond, he was Sinn Féin’s Director of Elections.

      The following is extracted from Whittle’s 1955 Witness Statement:

     Men from most of the thirty-two counties had witnessed scenes in Waterford two years earlier [in the 1918 elections] that stamped on their minds the impression that the fires of nationality burned much lower in Waterford than in any other part of Ireland.

     The success of the Tramore ambush lay, therefore, in the fact that the lull in the Anglo-Irish war was broken by a major engagement in a district where it was least expected. This shot in the dark which came from Tramore (known generally as an easy-going holiday resort), in my opinion, did much to brace up the I.R.A throughout the country, as, on the other hand, it must have caused deep apprehension amongst the higher British authorities in Dublin.

     I shall now qualify this statement I have made by adverting to the fact that, late in the year 1917, Eamonn Waldron, a school teacher in Galway, was arrested by the British and charged with sedition. Having been jailed, he was further sentenced to deportation from Co. Clare. He was given the option of residing in either of two places in Ireland, Belfast or Waterford. He elected to come to Waterford. The safest place, deemed safest by the higher British authorities in Ireland a year after the 1916 Rising, had suddenly, out of the blue as it were, switched over and taken its proper place with the nation in its struggle for freedom. In this latter fact lay the great importance and success of the Tramore ambush. …

      … [The 1918 general election defeat] was a hard blow to us, as I was convinced that we had the requisite number of votes to give a slender majority, but the combined efforts of the R.I.C. and the organised mobs cut across the accomplishment of victory for Sinn Fein.

     There is an aspect or two of the election which I consider historically important enough to dwell upon here. I first refer to the extraordinary combination of forces which beset the path of Irish Republicanism in Waterford. I shall enumerate the groups seriatim.

     Firstly, there was the spearhead, viz., the Ballybricken pig buyers. I once asked the famous historian [of Waterford and County], the late Canon Patrick Power, D.Litt. if there was any historical background to the Ballybricken pig buyer, as they appeared different generally to the ordinary run of Waterford citizens. He told me that somebody else had asked him precisely the same question. “My reply to you”, he said, “is going to be the same as I gave then.”

     “There was”, Canon Power said, “no historical background to the peculiar characteristics of the Waterford pig buyers. In common with men who make their living by dealing with livestock, they acquired a love of things garish. They resembled the gypsy by the love of show, of shined brasses in the homes and their ignorant outward show generally.” 

     My personal recollection of all the Waterford big buyers was that they were an absolutely illiterate class, without a knowledge or

respect for learning. They came out of a period when the pig buyer and the cattle dealer literally bludgeoned the small farmer when the latter came to offer his stock for sale at a fair. An organised system of what I should term “blackmail” existed amongst them in the method of buying. Behind the front line was a second line known as tanglers, the latter making the running for the former.

Through the two groups, a technique was evolved whereby each buyer would select freely his own victim at a fair and none of his competing buyers would interfere. In fact, farmers who set out to break this discreditable technique were frequently beaten up at fairs. These same pig buyers were the moulders of the blackguardly election methods which were typical of the Redmondite party in the Waterford elections.

     I have one very clear recollection of the type of mind which dominated these men. It was in September or October, 1916, [October 6 --- P.M.] when John Redmond, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party made, what I think was, his first public statement since the rising. The occasion was a convention of the United Irish League in Waterford which was held in the large room in the City Hall.

     Actually, owing to the fact that there had not been an election, or a need for an election, for about twenty years in Waterford (as John Redmond was always automatically returned unopposed for that constituency), there was in reality no built-up organization, with the exception of the top group of his followers. At the period in 1916, an engineered convention of the United Irish League was ordered to be held by John Redmond in Waterford. My late father, Patrick Whittle, who to my knowledge was never a member of the U.I.L., was handed a delegate’s card. The card, I clearly remember, indicated that he represented Division 52 of the U.I.L. in Waterford.

     My father, at the time, was a supporter of John Redmond’s policy in common with most of the men of his generation. I asked him if he proposed to go to the convention and he informed me that he did not. I then told him I was anxious to go and hear what Redmond had to say, so he gave me his delegate’s card.

     The large room in the City Hall was packed when I produced my father’s card and was admitted. As I sat there, I heard a din behind me and saw the late J.D. Walsh whom I did not know at the time, his face streaming with blood, being ejected from the hall.

This man was well known to have strong republican sympathies. All this happened before the meeting opened. I saw three or four other men being struck with sticks and ejected. As I sat there, I realized fully that, owing to my family being known supporters of Redmond, I, of course, would be coloured with the same brush.

     On John Redmond stepping on to the platform, all present stood up on the seats and cheered loudly. I remained seated, and I assume I was judged a very quiet, odd sort of person for doing so. In the course of his speech, Redmond referred to the new Sinn Féin party as the “effervescent scum of the body politic”, and predicted that they would “soon run back like rats into their holes”.

Dealing with World War I., which was raging at the time, he stated that he had “pledged” the Irish regiments in the cause of the freedom of small nations. He stressed the fact that a large number of casualties were occurring in these Irish regiments fighting with the British army in France, and added, in a loud voice, “These gaps must be filled”. Immediately the audience, to a man, leapt up and cheered vociferously.

     As they stood cheering, Redmond called out a second time, “These gaps must be filled”. Again, I remained sitting, a solitary figure on my bench. I was expecting a punch from some of those nearest me, but seemingly my being seated was misinterpreted. I recall clearly my contempt for the men cheering, many of whom were known personally to me. I had contempt for them, for I knew that not one of them would ever join the British army, not through patriotic motives but through less worthy motives. At the time, the laneways and alleyways of Waterford were being drained daily of recruits for the British army. These young fellows, most of whom lived close to poverty, were the sons and grandsons of men who had worn the British uniform.

     The cheering by the mass meeting that day was about the lowest piece of hypocrisy I have ever experienced. In point of fact, one solitary Ballybricken pig buyer joined the British army. He did so, following a prolonged bout of drinking, and I am convinced that, were it not for this, Ballybricken would have been without its one solitary representative in the British army during World War 1.

     While listening to the cheering at that meeting, I felt that the whole thing was merely bluff. I knew that, when they spoke of filling gaps in the Irish regiments, the fodder would be provided by the unemployed or the semi-unemployed from the lanes and alleys of the city.

     The second group comprised what I shall term the “shock troops” in the raids carried out by organized mobs in the city. I refer to the numerous element in Waterford which always was strongly represented in the Irish regiments in the British army. This type were the relatives of men who served in the British army and they were organized as mobs by the Ballybricken pig buyers who directed the elections. The relatives of soldiers on active service also included “gentlemen” know as ex soldiers, who were too old to serve. These latter were most difficult to deal with, as they all had experience of actual warfare in the British forces in Africa, India, et cetera. They were copiously supplied with drink during the two election campaigns and, while it used be said that the Ballybricken pig buyers were spending money in prodigal fashion, it was my belief that the finance was coming from across channel.

     The third group in the Redmondite political setup in Waterford was the convinced Redmondite who believed firmly that Redmond was the saviour of Ireland and we, of Sinn Féin, were closely allied to the Bolshevists in Russia.

     The last line of Redmondite organism in Waterford was the Unionist party. Too cute, for business reasons, to show their hand, they backed Redmond’s party as the nearest approach to their own particular creed of Unionism.

     I would like to set down here the fact that our mainstay in breaking finally the mobdom and rowdyism of the Redmondite party came largely from one class. I refer to the children and grandchildren of evicted farmers who lost their homes during the land league agitation and prior to it. A large number of these came into Waterford city to work. Some of them worked in the cellars of local bacon factories, some in the breweries; others had humble jobs, such as cart drivers, et cetera. Also in this group were sons and grandsons of men who had been evicted from their farms in South Kilkenny. Following careful consideration, I came to the conclusion many years ago that the groups referred to made up the core of resistance which finally broke the back of Redmondite rowdyism in Waterford.

     Was Redmondite political violence a consequence of some special or exceptional feature of Waterford itself, as Whittle suggested? Against that view, such violence was not at all limited to Waterford, and it extended back into the period of dissolution of Parnell’s supremacy, before Redmond took over. The violence was not exclusive to Waterford, or to Redmond.

     On the other hand, and in support of Whittle’s stance, there is evidence of polarisation in Waterford, --- like Belfast for instance. Not so much on religious grounds, but socially as in left-right. It is notable also that Redmondite thuggery in Waterford and elsewhere was matched by the activities of Joe Devlin’s Belfast Hibernian goons.

     What about the Pig Buyers? The industrial and social history of Waterford as a food processing and exporting hub gave this caste or clique an economic stranglehold over a great many people in town and country who derived an income from breeding pigs. It seems they successfully extended this power into politics by means of their alliance with Redmond and his movement. It appears also that they had appropriated to themselves the remnants of popular memory of the Thomas Francis Meagher 1848 standoff, when Waterford went to the brink of the revolutions breaking out in Europe

at that time.

     In hindsight it is more difficult to understand the connection between veteran Fenians and Redmondism. Whittle, as an activist of the new re-born Fenianism, tried to explain this. The first part of this article addressed the conundrum.