FROM THE ARCHIVES: February 25th, 1891The split in the Irish Party over Charles Stewart Parnell's relationship with Katharine O'Shea was accompanied by disputes over policies and tactics as well, including whether or not the Liberal Party proposals on Home Rule would allow an Irish parliament full control over policing. In this extract from an apparently verbatim report of a speech by Parnell to GAA members in Dublin, he set out his views on the policing issue very forcefully. – JOE JOYCE
NOW THAT this matter has been opened, it will not, fellow-countrymen, be closed until the position of Ireland, the rightful claims of Ireland, the only conditions upon which Ireland will sign a treaty of peace with England, have been fully made known and disclosed to the English people; and when our just claims have been formulated, I am convinced and satisfied that it will be admitted by public opinion in England that these claims are only too reasonable and too moderate.
They will be amazed at the folly of their leaders in refusing cheerfully, immediately, and spontaneously to grant them to us. Why, the very foundation of what is called local government in England is the right to control and appoint the police. The Imperial authority in Ireland has arrogated to itself this right, has usurped this right – one which does not belong to it and which if it is to belong to the Imperial authority in Ireland in the future, I think that the Irish people would do well to leave the country to that authority.
The maintenance of an army outside an army, an army of constabulary, is a standing menace and intimidation to any sort of freedom or liberty in any country, and so careful have Englishmen been to guard their liberties from the Crown, that they have fenced about with all sorts of restrictions and precautions the right of the Crown to raise and maintain a standing army. But this right of raising and maintaining a standing army in Ireland under the name of constabulary has been given to the Crown in this country without any limitation or precaution whatever, and it is a mockery to tell us that we are to be given power over our own affairs, and over our own business, if it is to be permitted to our English masters to come down upon our naked, defenceless heads at any moment with the loaded baton of the policemen, or to run us through with the constable’s bayonet, or to shoot us down with his rifle.
A Voice – Mitchelstown.
Mr Parnell – They have all done it; all English governments have used this force for the same purpose, and it would be impossible to choose between them. (Hear, hear.) It would be impossible to say whether the Liberal Government, when it has been in power, or the Tory Government, when it has been in power, has used this force the most unscrupulously and the most recklessly. Each Ministry in turn has shot down the people, has bayoneted the people, has used the constabulary for the purpose of evicting people, for the purpose of destroying their homes, and devastating their hearths with equal impartiality. So there is practically nothing to choose between them. So that it is not a question whether a Liberal Government or a Tory Government are most to blame. They have been all equally to blame in this and if this Irish question is not settled by the concession to Ireland of the full rights of self-government you will see the Liberal Government, on getting into power again, use coercion again, use the police again as they have used them in the past, for the purpose of destroying and repressing the liberties of the people.
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