Madam, – In his letter (September 11th) Dermot Meleady misses the main point of my Irishman’s Diary. In a 347-page political biography of John Redmond up to 1900 he manages to make just one substantial reference to JJ O’Kelly, which characterises this veteran Fenian, land league campaigner and social agitator as a racist.
He is gracious enough in his letter to acknowledge that the historical evidence would suggest that O’Kelly was not in fact a racist.
I simply felt it important to try to rectify the impression left by the book, of a man who was one of the most progressive Irish nationalist politicians of his age. He played a vital role in reconciling physical force and constitutional nationalism in late 19th- and early 20th-century Ireland, a role that was much appreciated at the time by John Devoy, Charles Stewart Parnell and the subject of Dermot Meleady’s book, John Redmond.
It is true, as Dermot Meleady points out, that JJ O’Kelly often regarded Britain’s enemies with rose-tinted glasses but in 1914 he overcame his inherent hostility towards the traditional foe to support Redmond’s endorsement of the British war effort.
One wonders what he would have made of the fact that his death in 1916 and the consequent by-election in North Roscommon facilitated Sinn Fein’s rapid ascent at the expense of John Redmond and the Irish Party.
One thing is certain. JJ O’Kelly deserves better than to be linked to racists, Nazis and Islamic supremacists, as he was in Dermot Meleady’s letter. – Yours, etc,