396 



GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, UNITED KINGDOM OF. 



only for a few weeks. After the return of 

 Archbishop Walsh from Rome they took as 

 active a part as ever in the meetings. 



Arrest of Members of Parliament. In January, 

 1888, Mr. Cox, member of Parliament for East 

 Clare, was sentenced to four months' imprison- 

 ment for a speech inciting his hearers to join 

 the league, and accusing the Government of 

 driving the Irish people to commit outrages. 

 Commoners Pyne and Gilhooly were com- 

 mitted to jail about the beginning of the par- 

 liamentary session. English Gladstonians were 

 inclined to go into Ireland and defy the Gov- 

 ernment to put the crimes act into operation 

 against them, but concluded to leave the agita- 

 tion in the hands of Irishmen. John Morley 

 and the Marquis of Ripon made a political tour 

 in Ireland in January in order to manifest the 

 sympathy of the English Liberal party. In 

 April, John Dillon and William O'Brien went 

 over from London with the express purpose of 

 braving the Government by taking an active 

 part in the Plan of Campaign, and of convening 

 meetings in proclaimed districts. Mr. Dillon 

 met the tenants of Lord Massarene's estate at 

 Tullyallen, and delivered a speech intended to 

 counteract the effect produced by the act of 

 tha tenant that had first been evicted in Octo- 

 ber, 1887, who had redeemed his farm, saying 

 that the sympathies of Englishmen did not go 

 with men who went cringing to their land- 

 lords. For this speech he was arrested, and 

 tried at Mill, County Louth, and was sentenced 

 on May 10 to six months' imprisonment for 

 taking part in an illegal conspiracy to induce 

 tenants not to pay and with having taken part 

 in an unlawful assembly in a proclaimed dis- 

 trict. He was the sixteenth member of Parlia- 

 ment who, up to that time, had been sentenced 

 under the crimes act. On September 18 he was 

 unconditionally released by order of the Lord 

 Lieutenant, because the rigors of confinement 

 had seriously impaired his health. William 

 O'Brien and others were brought to trial at 

 Loughrea on April 19, on the charge of hav- 

 ing attempted to hold an illegal meeting on the 

 8th of the same month. The crimes act was 

 applied with severity to boycotters. Persons 

 were sentenced to three and four months' im- 

 prisonment with no further proof of conspira- 

 cy than that they had individually refused to 

 sell their merchandise or services to members 

 of the constabulary force, even when the latter 

 had made a demand for things with which they 

 were already plentifully supplied, for the sole 

 purpose of procuring evidence and making ar- 

 rests. One of the anomalies of the adminis- 

 tration of the act was the increase of sentences 

 by county courts on appeal from the courts of 

 summary jurisdiction. One of many instances 

 was that of Mr. Blane, a member of Parliament, 

 whose sentence the Appellate Court raised 

 from four to six months, adding the penalty of 

 hard labor. 



Thomas Condon, member of Parliament, was 

 imprisoned two weeks in May in Cork jail for 



advocating the Plan of Campaign, and on his 

 release was tried and sentenced to a month's 

 confinement for conspiring, with others, to 

 induce certain persons not to pay a levy of 

 1,000 that the grand jury of Cork County 

 ordered to be paid as compensation to Con- 

 stable Leahy, who was injured by the crowd 

 in the Mitchelstown riots. J. O'Brien, mem- 

 ber of Parliament, after undergoing a sentence 

 of four months in Tullamore jail, was taken at 

 its expiration to Kilkenny, to pass through a 

 second term of imprisonment of the ssime 

 length. James O'Kelly was arrested in Lon- 

 don, on July 24, when leaving the Houses of 

 Parliament, and was tried at Boyle on the 

 charge of inciting his constituents not to give 

 evidence under the " Star Chamber" clauses of 

 the crimes act, and sentenced on August 10 to 

 imprisonment for four months. John E. Red- 

 mond, member of Parliament, with Edward 

 AValsh, proprietor of the " Wexford People " 

 newspaper, was tried and convicted of using 

 intimidating language in reference to a land- 

 lord at Scarawalsh, a proclaimed district, in 

 saying that the landlord would find no tenants 

 for a farm from which he had evicted the oc- 

 cupier, and that he could not afford to arouse 

 the ill-will of the people among whom he lived. 

 Mr. Redmond was confined in Tullamore jail 

 five weeks, regaining his liberty on October 30. 

 William Redmond was present at some evic- 

 tions at Coolroe, where the bailiffs were 

 resisted desperately and several constables 

 assaulted. He was tried for inciting people 

 to obstruct officers of the law in the discharge 

 of their duties, and was sentenced to prison 

 tor three months. Mr. Sheehan, member of 

 Parliament for East Kerry, was committed to 

 Tralee prison for a month in November, hav- 

 ing been convicted of using threatening and 

 abusive language to the district inspector of 

 the constabulary. Near the end of the year, 

 Edward Harrington was condemned to six 

 months' imprisonment in Tullamore jail for 

 publishing in his paper, the " Kerry Sentinel," 

 reports of the meetings of suppressed branches 

 of the National League. A question of privi- 

 lege was raised in Parliament, near the close 

 of the session, in the case of Mr. Sheehan, on 

 whom a summons was served by an Irish po- 

 liceman within the precincts of the House of 

 Commons. 



The Plan of Campaign was not defeated by 

 the imprisonment of Irish members, and after 

 the Mandeville inquest the Government re- 

 laxed the severities to which the prisoners 

 were subjected, and embraced the first pretext 

 they could find for releasing the leaders. They 

 were scornfully dared, across the benches of 

 Parliament, to apply the crimes act to Roman 

 Catholic priests, and visit them Avith the in- 

 dignities of prison garb, association with felons, 

 oakum-picking, and stone-breaking. Many of 

 the landlords who attempted to fight the Plan 

 of Campaign were triad to accept in the end 

 the terms offered, and receive their rent from 



