John O'Connor Power - Early Parliamentary Years

Early Parliamentary Years

While still at St. Jarlath's, Power signalled his intention in January 1874 to stand for election to the British House of Commons; and to take the oath of allegiance to the Queen and his seat if elected. Although there was clerical opposition, he was supported by John MacHale, Archbishop of Tuam and Fr Ulick Burke, President of St Jarlath's, and was successful at the Mayo by-election in May that year.

In the 1874 Parliament, dominated by Disraeli's Conservatives, Isaac Butt's policy of attempting to achieve Irish nationalist objectives by working with the Liberals and Conservatives and respecting House traditions, failed; the Irish minority was simply ignored.

O'Connor Power and J.G. Biggar therefore pioneered the new policy of obstructionism, whereby they obstructed House of Commons business by making long speeches and manipulating its procedures. They were joined in this more successful policy by Charles Stewart Parnell on his election in April 1875. The O'Donoghue, M.P. for County Kerry, in a letter to Cardinal Cullen, 6 August 1877, denounced the strategy: 'It is Fenianism in a new form.'

O'Connor Power spoke strongly and repeatedly in Parliament from 1874 to 1877 for amnesty for Michael Davitt, imprisoned in Dartmoor, and other Fenian prisoners, and brought to notice perceived unfairness of their treatment as common criminals rather than as political prisoners. This led to Gladstone lending his support to Fenian amnesty. Davitt was released early on 19 December 1877, and Fenians Thomas Chambers, Charles McCarthy and John Patrick O'Brien followed in January 1878. Charles McCarthy collapsed and died in Dublin shortly after his release. The ex-prisoners travelled back to London and, 13 February, visited O'Connor Power in 'a private room in Parliament House, where they wrote out their statements giving the details of sufferings endured and the treatment to which they had been subjected ... He and Davitt therefore had them printed in pamphlet form and circulated.' This was published, with a selection of O'Connor Power's speeches on amnesty in the House of Commons, in March 1878.

In 1876, O'Connor Power and Parnell were sent to the United States by the Home Rule League to congratulate the President Ulysses S. Grant on the American Centennial. At an informal meeting with the President, they asked that Ireland's bid for independence be given recognition. Power presented an address to the House of Representatives and on March 4, 1877 the House passed a unanimous resolution recognising the services rendered by Irishmen to the United States and concluded that the principles of self-government be established as a sacred heritage to all future generations. He also used the American visit to resume contact with nationalist supporters, and is almost certainly the IRB agent referred to as 'Shields'.

O'Connor Power is perhaps best known for his work in the radical wing of the Home Rule League and support for tenant farmers' rights, on which he spoke forcefully in Parliament, in conjunction with Parnell, Michael Davitt, Matt Harris and James Daly.

He was generally considered by the Fenians to have sold out to constitutionalism during his career. Along with J. G. Biggar, he was expelled from the IRB Supreme Council in 1876. The Fenians of the "New Departure" refused to work with him and it was Parnell who become the man to bridge the gap between the Fenians and constitutionalists.

T. D. Sullivan presents an anecdote from 1876 that illustrates the distance that grew between O'Connor Power in his Home Rule days and some of his former radical nationalist colleagues:

An immense mass of people assembled in the Free Trade Hall on the 16 September 1876, to hear a lecture from Mr. John O'Connor Power, MP, on a non-political subject. The chair was taken by Mr. J. G. Biggar, MP. On rising to introduce the lecturer, he soon discerned that trouble was impending, that there was, so to say, "a storm in the offing." An "Advanced" person, a Mr. Flesh of Ramsbottom, came on the Platform and informed him that at a meeting of Nationalists held on the previous evening, it was decided that the lecture might be allowed to proceed only on the condition that the lecturer should first answer satisfactorily a series of questions which had been drawn up for him. The main purpose of those interrogatories was to ascertain whether he held and was prepared to support the principles of Wolfe Tone, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and Robert Emmet. The chairman said those questions were not in order, as the lecture was to be on a non-political subject; however, he would leave it to the lecturer to deal with the queries as he thought fit, Mr. O'Connor Power then came to the front and said, amidst much noise, that with regard to the questions that had been read, his view was identical with that of the chairman. He begged leave to point out - He could say no more: the platform was rushed; there was a smashing of chairs and tables, a noise of heavy blows, and of fierce exclamations from men engaged in close combat, mingled with the shouts and screams of women, while blood flowed freely from many wounded persons ... The subject of Mr. O'Connor Power's intended lecture was "Irish Wit and Humour".

O'Connor Power delivered the lecture, within a fortnight, in the same hall, and Biggar again presided. This time, "the Irish of Manchester and Liverpool, revolutionaries and constitutionalists, banded together to put down any rowdyism should it again arise; but instead of that, O'Connor Power was received with 'deafening cheers, again and again repeated' according to a newspaper report".

O'Connor Power had an uneasy working relationship with Parnell, who he thought was "a respectable mediocrity". T. M. Healy narrates an incident from 1878:

... I wrote Maurice:
London,
October, '78.
"Would it be possible to get up a meeting in Lismore, and invite Parnell? The resolution I moved in Dublin at the Confederation of Great Britain was at his request, upon a suggestion of my own. If he could have O'Connor Power at his elbow continually it would be a good thing, as Power understands the necessities of agitation, and Parnell doesn't. I hope he will make a good fist of his answer to Butt, though I have never been persuaded that he shines as a letter-writer. Dan Crilly told me Parnell's first contribution to the Liverpool Argus (mentioned in my London letter) was not worth much, and though he promised to insert it, he has failed me." O'Connor Power and Parnell were not kindred spirits. Power was an able and eloquent man, "reeking of the common clay", at which Parnell's aristocratic sensitiveness recoiled. "Of their differences I hinted to my brother": London,
24 November 1878.
"I met O'Connor Power, and he was unaware, until I told him, that his name was down to propose one of the resolutions in Dublin. He expressed disgust, and said he told the Dublin people he would not go over, and that it was only another piece of their cowardice in being afraid to face Butt themselves. I was aware of the stories told about Power, but what is the use of repeating them? Parnell has been careful to tell me his views about Power (and so has Biggar), but I have defended him to them, and think they should make allowance for his poverty and position. Parnell told Power to his face that he was "a damned scoundrel," and Power made a coarse reply ..."