THE IRISH LEADER

New Zealand Tablet, 8 December 1910, Page 2010

THE IRISH LEADER

MR. REDMOND’S COUNTRY RETREAT The present political contest in the United Kingdom directs special attention to Mr. John Redmond, M.P., and his policy at a crucial point of the Home Rule movement. Mr. Redmond has been so prominent in the political life of the United Kingdom for over a quarter of a century that it is almost impossible to realise that occasionally he betakes himself far from public turmoil, from telephones and telegraphs, and spends his day ‘ the world forgetting, by the world forgot.’ In an article in a London weekly, Mr. T. P. O’Connor, M.P., gives the following interesting account of Mr. Redmond’s retreat:Aughavanna, where John Redmond takes his vacation, is the kind of retreat that could only occur to a man who is fond of silence and solitude. It is miles away either from a railway station or a telegraph office. The nearest town is Aughrim, and that is seven miles off, and there is nothing . but a somewhat rough mountain road between the house and this town. Aughavanna might well be compared to the home of an _ eagle, that loves heights and the open sky, the mountain side, and, above all, the absence of human face and human voice. It dates from the days when the mountains of Wicklow were the last asylums of the rebels of 1798. It was over the mountains around it that General Holt and other leaders roamed, setting at defiance the Soldiers and the other pursuers that tried to track them down. On all heights around Aughavanna you are pointed spots which have some legend of a battle or a miraculous escape.' And among the small population scattered in the few houses in the vicinity there remain survivals of the divisions and the passions that rent Ireland when people had to choose between fighting and dying for Ireland or supporting the invader. When the rebellion was suppressed, the military authorities thought it would be wise to build a barrack on the dread mountain top, so as to keep the natives under the watchful eyes of the soldiers. When the country settled down somewhat the barrack for soldiers was transformed into a barrack for police; and a police barrack Aughavanna remained for generations. This fact gave, I have no doubt, additional satisfaction to Parnell when he came into possession of the house in the mountains. For Parnell was made largely what he was by the stories he heard as a child of excesses committed on the people of his native County of Wicklow in the days of the rebellion. I was once on a visit with Parnell at his house in Avondale, which is not many miles away from Aughavanna, and it was then that I realised for the first time the profound depth of passion that underlay the calm and even icy exterior of that remarkable man.

When in due time it was felt that the police barrack was no longer necessary, the Parnell family acquired the old house. But it as characteristic of Parnell, who was a dreadfully careless man in the smaller affairs of life, that he never attempted to put the house in good order. It is not in good order yet. The house consists of three parts. There is the centrethis is the inhabited part. But at either hand there are blank staring walls which are empty from the top to the floor, and where no human being enters. Parnell neglected his own beautiful home in Avondale. That house stands on a gentle hill ; it is surrounded by a beautiful country; within a short distance of it is the Vale of Avoca, which provoked Moore’s celebrated poem of ‘ The Meeting of the Waters.’ Inside the house there were some rich archaeological treasures. Parnell’s ancestors were in the squirearchy that formed the membership of the Irish Parliament, and one of them was known as the ‘incorruptible in the days when the Union was being carried by force and by almost universal and gigantic bribery. In this house at Avondale there were many mementoes of the great part his family had played. There were banners in the hall which belonged to the Volunteers —a body of armed Irish gentlemen who in 1782 forced from the British Parliament a large number of concessions which increased the liberties and powers of the Parliament. The banners were tattered and dusty. There were in the shelves around reports of the great debates in the old Parliament, but the volumes looked ragged and dusty.- The hall door had its almost-vanished paint covered with blisters; the knocker was rusty and twisted. The house bore all the external signs of one that had been deserted—as indeed it had been—for many years; for Parnell seldom went there in his last years. Similarly in Aughavanna he used to invite a certain number of friends who loved sport like himself, but after three days he had again vanished, leaving to them the rude retreat and the guns and the sport. The magnet of his existence drew him from these fresh mountain breezes; the freedom of even three days was as much as he could bear. But while he remained he was an ideal host. The fare was rough, but he gave it out with his grand seignorial air, and in these rustic rooms and with this plain fare—such was the kindliness of the man — might have passed for one of those ancient barons who bade his retainers to a lordly feast in a great and magnificent castle. It is a pity Ireland has had no Walter Scott to immortalise the interior, which might •well have taken its place beside the tragic story of the Master of Ravenswood, which has kindled the fancy of the world for generations.

When Parnell died, John Redmond, who had often been Parnell’s guest, and, like Parnell, is a sportsman, acquired the place. He holds it for a ridiculous renta few pounds a year. Mr. Redmond has something of Parnell’s love of solitude. He rushes off to this desolate retreat with "wife and daughter, and can remain there for months without seeing anybody. He scorns the telephone; he is delighted, not distracted, by the idea that a letter takes twenty-four hours to reach him, and telegrams nearly as many. With his gun, his pipe, and his dog he can scour around the mountains and be happy, and forget all the stormy life that within a few miles may be raging and surging around him. This now powerful leader of men is essentially simple and modest in his habits. In London he lives in a small flat. He is an orderly and methodical man; keeps all his papers in apple-pie order packs his own portmanteau when he has to travel, and inscribes on a piece of paper the hours of the trains he has to catch. At the bottom of his nature there is a tremendous fund of phlegm, which perchance comes from the Danish blood which is so largely spread in the County of Wexford, from which he and his family come. Too stout some years ago, he was induced by me to take a certain kind of starchless bread which can be eaten with impunity and without adding to one’s weight; and by a strict regime he has got himself down at least 28 pounds from his weight some years ago. He has made an extraordinary change in his appearance by this regime, is slight and boyish in face and expression and equable in spirit.