Life
1861-1917 [William Hoey Kearney; var. Huey; ‘Willie’, occas.
‘Willy’]; b. Ballytrent, Co. Wexford, ed. Clongowes; succeeded
father as MP for Wexford in 1883; A Shooting Trip in the Australian
Bush (1898); Through the New Commonwealth (1906); influenced
by John Mitchel and imprisoned three times during Land War; said in America
in 1884, noted for frequent use of violent language at the hustings; addressing
an audience in Chicago, 1844, ‘There is not a supporter of Parnell
in Ireland, or on America, or in Australia, who, if a reasonable opportunity
should arise for hastening the liberty of Ireland by force, would not
fly to it with the energy of hope and the frenzy of revenge ...’;
MP North Fermanagh, 1885; MP East Clare, 1891-1917; supported Volunteers
at their inception, writing to the organising committee that ‘Orange
arms have been supplied from the large purses of aristocratic and titled
sympathisers in England’; travelled to Belgium and bought 500,000
rounds of ammunition, which were detained in Hamburg at the outbreak of
war; joined Royal Irish Regt., aetat. 53, taking rank of Major; insisted
on joining his men in firing line; attempted to reunit Northern and
Southern Irishmen in trenches, praying for the consummation of peace between
them; made impassioned final plea in Westminster for self-govt. within
the empire, appealing on behalf of ‘we who are about to die’;
d. battle of Messines Ridge, 7 June 1917; having his death vacating the
seat won by Eamon de Valera; Trench Pictures from France, posthum.
(1917); there is a bust by Oliver Sheppard (1930). DNB DIB DIH FDA
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Criticism
Terence Denman, ‘A Lonely Grave’, The Life and Death of William
Redmond (IAP 1995), 224pp.
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Notes
Stephen Gwynn, Highways and By-ways ... (1903) includes an
account of the bringing-back of the body of Willie Redmond - ironically
by an Ulster regiment - in Flanders.
Peter Costello, Clongowes Wood (1991), William Redmond, br. of John ‘made a special journey through the Empire which he wrote about in 1892 ... Irish nationalism had its imperial aspects, which are all too often overlooked by a narrowing view of mere events in Ireland. Redmond spoke for many of his outlook ... shared by many who sent their sons to Clongowes. (Costello, p. 66)
Dictionary of National Biography, ‘violent Parnellite,’ br. of John Edward, killed in Flanders.
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 3, p.537n; MP for East Clare whose seat de Valera won on his death at the Somme.
Belfast Public Library holds A Shooting Trip in the Australian Bush (1898); Through the New Commonwealth (1906); Trench Pictures from France (1917).
Col. Moore: Terence Denman, ‘A Lonely Grave’, The
Life and Death of William Redmond (IAP 1995), cites obituary remarks
by Col. Maurice Moore [br. of George Moore]: ‘Ireland will grieve
over his loss as sorrowfully as she does over Pearse and O’Rahilly’;
Col. Moore further remarked that Ireland did, and does, nothing of the
sort’ (See review, Irish Times, 29, June 1995.)
Belfast Young Ireland Society: William Redmond was a one-time president of that organisation (see W. P. Ryan, The Irish Literary Revival, 1894, p.158).
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)