Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-03-08
REDMOND, LEADER
OF NATIONALISTS
IN IRELAND, DEAD
End Comes Suddenly From
Heart Failure, Following His
Recent Serious Operation in
London

] LONDON, March 6.-John +. Edmond.
the Irish Nationalist leader died this
morning.
Mr.. Redmond, who underwent an oper-
alton in London last Friday. passed a
fair day yesterday and apparently was
maintaining the progress shown Mon
] day.
1 The Irish convention, which had been
supported by MIR. Redmond, yesterday
I adopted a message of sympathy IN
which an earnest wish was expressed
| for his early and complete recovery.
Mr.. Redmond passed away peacefully
i at 7:45 o'clock this morning. Death was
/ due to heart failure, following the recent
/ operation.
This was borne courageously and it
relieved the patient, but heart failure
interviewed Tuesday night.
The physicians attending Mr.. Red
mond issued the following announce
ment:
We regret to announce that John
Redmond died at 7:45 this morning. Ow-
| ing to several serious attacks of illness,
a severe operation was faced with great
courage. 1t had become Imperatively
! necessary, owing to an intestinal OBJ
struction This was, relieved by the OPP
I Grafton and for some days satisfactory
/ progress was maintained. After a fair
/ ly comfortable day Tuesday, heart fail
/ ure supervened during the night and
after a few hours Mr.. Redmond passed
peacefully away"
Fought for Home Rule
For more than twenty-five years John
/ r. Redmond fought for home rule in
ireland and for majority of that time
/ he was the recognized leader of Ireland's
struggle for liberty" AS chairman of
/ the Irish parliamentary party-the Ma
y .EVVI
/ ence in bringing about the creation of
/ the Irish convention organized in July.
/ 1917, to devise a system of government
| for the island.
When David Lloyd George, the British
! premier, in that year offered two meth
! DDS of settling the vexed Irish ques-
! ton il was Redmond who, as spokesman
| for the Nationalists, rejected the propo-
sition for a partition of Iseland and, in
/ stead. accepted Lloyd Georges alterna-
tive plan for the eonvocation of the Irish
| convention in which Irishmen of nearly
/ all parties and creeds might meet in the
| effort to compose their differences and
draft a constitution that would afford
| justice to all.
Redmond was one of the delegates to
| the convention which sat at various
times at Dublin, Belfast and Cork in
| 1917 and 1918.
Born in 1851, son of w. A. Redmond,
deceased, member of the British parlia-
ment from Wexford, Ireland, John e.
| Redmond had sat almost continuously in
| the British house of commons since
1881. There his parliament fights for
home rule earned for him the sobriquet
of the stormy petrol of the house"
Educated in C1ongowes Woods college,
Kildare, and Trinity college, Dublin, Red
mond was called to the London bar in
1885, and the irish bar the following
year, but he never practised law. He
devoted himself almost wholly to his
parliamentary and political duties.
Prior to his first election to parlia-
ment from New Ross, Ireland, Redmond
was for some time a clerk in the vote
Office of the house of commons. From
1885 to 1891 he represented North Wex-
ford. but in 1891 ne was elected from
Waterford and had been returned from
that district since, generally without op
position.
Redmond's eloquence and his grasp of
parliamentary procedure won his early
recognition in parliament and when in
1891 the Irish party was disrupted, con-
sequent on the Parnell scandals, he be-
came the accredited leader of the Par
nelIites. In 1900 he succeeded in bring
ing about an amalgamation of the two
leading nationalist parties and made his
position as Nationalist leader secure.
Redmond was we'll known in the
United States which he visited in 1908
and 1910, and Australia, where in 1888
he not only performed a great service
for his party in directing the collec-
tIcn of a fund of more than $4,000,
but found a wife in the person of Jo-
hanna Dalton. New South Wales heir
ess and beauty.
Toured America
The Irish leaders first visit to this
country proved a fiasco, but his second,
made for the purpose ostensibly of at
tending the convention of the United
States Irish league at Buffalo, met
with great success. Following his at
tendance at the convention, Redmond
made a. tour of all the principal cities
Of the middle west and the Atlantic
coast, delivering a series of addresses
on the Irish question which were later
held responsible for the British cabi-
net crisis of November. 1910.
The speeches brought the home rule
question to a head. The British gov
eminent took serious hold of the prob
lem, and a bill was evolved, which on
presentation and discussion in the
house of commons resulted in an i'm
passe because of the Ulster opposition.
This was shortly before the outbreak
of the great war.
With the entrance. Of England into
the war, Redmond Immediately defined
his position as squarely with the gov
eminent in the earnest prosecution OF
the war. His support of the govern
ment won the unstinted praise of Car
dinal Gibbons and the open and bitter
condemnation of the Sim Fein party,
members of which at a public meeting
accused him of being = traitor to the
irish cause.
He maintained his loyal position even
during the exciting days of the Sim
Fein revolution, decrying the rebellion,
but attributing ii to a German plot
ting in the United States. When the
rebellion had been put down he used
all the eloquence Of which he was cap
able in pleading for leniency toward the
great mass of the rebels, and in urg-
ing a speedy settlement of the differ
ences that had caused the revolt.
His eloquent address in the house of
commons on October 10, 1916 demand
| ing immediate home rule and the re.
| lease of the Irish revolutionists called
forth an answer from Premier Lloyd
George, in which the premier admitted
that mistakes had been made in ham
ding the Irish situation and urging
| all parties to unite in bringing about
solution.
1t was not, however, until the fol-
/ lowing year that the premier proposed
/ the plan of holding the Irish conven-