concurrence; and Irishmen who already considered that Redmond had missed his chance of driving a bargain at the opening of the War, now held that he had been ignominiously duped. Redmond knew that he had not the confidence of the country, but he remained at his post. The death of his brother in action at the Wytschaete Ridge in June 1917, followed in a few weeks by that of Patrick O'Brien, chief whip to the party, and his most devoted follower, were deadly blows to the Irish leader's spirit.
This was his state when the last phase of his work began. In May 1917 the Irish question had been re-opened, and on a suggestion from Redmond himself it was decided to try the expedient of a convention of Irishmen for the drafting of a constitution for Ireland within the Empire. Before it met on 25 July, William Redmond's seat had been captured by Mr. de Valera, and at the opening meeting Redmond was insulted in the streets of Dublin. In the Convention he refused throughout to act as leader of a party, but his personal ascendancy was admitted on all sides; and the group of southern unionists showed a disposition to make common cause with him. But their proposals did not give to Ireland the complete fiscal control on which a section of nationalists insisted; and Redmond, on a motion designed to effect agreement with them, found the Catholic prelates and Mr. Devlin against him. He withdrew his motion, and consented to act as one of a delegation to the ministers from the nationalist members of the Convention. This took him to London in February 1918; he fell ill there, and when the Convention reassembled to discuss the government's reply, he was absent. On 6 March he died suddenly and unexpectedly. A few weeks later the government passed a measure applying conscription to Ireland, and the train of events was finally set in motion which largely undid the work of his life.
In the period of Redmond's leadership three main points were carried by the Irish people in their long struggle to regain mastery of their country: control of local government, ownership of the land, and statutory establishment of an Irish parliament with an executive responsible to it. These were essential to the complete reconquest of self-government, which came within five years from his death, achieved by means which he deliberately rejected. His aim was to establish in Ireland parliamentary institutions, capable of growth to the limit of such powers as Ireland should find necessary for her free development. Separation was no object of his. He aimed at a free Ireland within the Empire, liberated by friendly means. He aimed also at a willing union of all Irishmen, and avoided all that could increase race-bitterness. The only concession to which he could not bring himself was that of excluding any part of Ulster, except for a limited period. He was not willing that in this matter the decision should rest with Protestant Ulster. But the essential generosity of his nature is revealed in the project that Irishmen on the brink of civil war should find reconciliation by rivalry in self-sacrifice against a common enemy in a good cause. This project, after many thousand Irish lives had been sacrificed, he lived to see discomfited, and he died in the full sense of disastrous defeat.
[Stephen Gwynn, John Redmond's Last Years, 1919; L. G. Redmond Howard, John Redmond, 1910; Home Rule: Speeches of John Redmond, M.P., edited by R. Barry O'Brien, 1910; political literature of the time; personal knowledge.]
REDMOND, WILLIAM HOEY KEARNEY (1861–1917), Irish nationalist, the second son of William Archer Redmond, M.P., of Ballytrent, and brother of John Edward Redmond [q.v.], was born at Ballytrent in 1861. He was educated at Clongowes, and entered the Wexford militia, but, developing strong nationalist opinions, resigned his commission, and in 1881 was one of the youngest among the ‘suspects’ imprisoned under the coercive measures of the Irish chief secretary, William Edward Forster [q.v.]. He was in Kilmainham jail with Charles Stewart Parnell [q.v.], to whom he formed a lifelong devotion. In 1883 he was sent to join his brother John, on a political mission to Australia, and in his absence was elected member of parliament for Wexford, which his father had represented before him. While in Australia he married Eleanor, daughter of James Dalton, of Orange, New South Wales, whose near kinswoman the same day married his brother. On his return from the mission, which was extended to America, ‘Willie’ Redmond (as he was always called) became a prominent figure among the rank and file of Parnell's party—aggressive at Westminster and very active in Ireland, where his flamboyant rhetoric and gallant bearing made him the idol of public meetings. During the land war he was for the second time imprisoned, in 1888, for a speech, and met his brother, also a prisoner, in Wexford jail.
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