Hereditary Patriotism

Abstract Charles Stewart Parnell and John Dillon entered Irish politics in the mid 1870s. They rapidly assumed positions of exceptional influence: apparently united in their pursuit of nationalist objectives. They greatly strengthened Irish nationalism and helped restructure British party politics. Nevertheless, they were, in reality, rarely as one. To put it bluntly, self-government apart, they did not share a common political outlook. This was the case long before Dillon played a key role in destroying Parnell’s political career. The tensions between them reflect, in part, different family contexts. Both came from privileged Irish backgrounds but they were rather different; Parnell hailed from Protestant landed stock while Dillon’s inheritance was Catholic and professional. This study goes to the heart of Irish nationalist belief, but it also lays intense emphasis on presence—physical and moral—in politics. After Parnell’s death in 1891, Dillon moved formally into the leadership of the Irish parliamentary party, which Parnell had played such a key role in building, but he was always troubled by the interpretation of Parnell’s legacy. In the last fifty years, there has been a tendency, perhaps at times a little glib, to see him as unimaginative at best. The Irish government sponsored historic decade of centenaries (1912–22), now passed, has inevitably tended to focus to a significant degree on acts of violence. In the era covered by this book, violence was also important, but the relatively greater weight granted to politics and parliamentary process permits an analysis of a world which is just as intensely Irish because of, not despite, its intimate engagement with English politics and parties.