page_title: John Redmond
section_title: Political profession and marriage
hierarchical_section_title: John Redmond / Political profession and marriage
caption_attribution_description: This photo is one of my favourites for quite a while, I have seen quite a few photographs of the great man, but none better than this, in my opinion. We have Mr and Mrs Redmond and the consensus seems to be that the girl (or more appropriately young lady) is Johanna Redmond their daughter. I am going with our suggested catalogue date of 26th January 1914 and there is good evidence that he was in Waterford at that time. John Edward Redmond (1 September 1856 – 6 March 1918) was an Irish nationalist politician, barrister, MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party from 1900 to 1918. He was a moderate, constitutional and conciliatory politician who attained the twin dominant objectives of his political life, party unity and finally in September 1914 achieving the promise of Irish Home Rule under an Act which granted an interim form of self-government to Ireland. However, implementation of the Act was suspended by the intervention of World War I, and ultimately made untenable after the Conscription Crisis of 1918. Photographer: A. H. Poole Collection: Poole Photographic Studio, Waterford Date: 26th January 1914 NLI Ref: P_WP_2514 You can also view this image, and many thousands of others, on the NLI’s catalogue at catalogue.nli.ie
context_page_description: John Edward Redmond was an Irish nationalist politician, barrister, and MP in the British House of Commons. He was best known as leader of the moderate Irish Parliamentary Party from 1900 until his death in 1918. He was also leader of the paramilitary organisation the Irish National Volunteers.
  He was born to an old prominent Catholic family in rural Ireland; several relatives were politicians. He took over control of the minority IPP faction loyal to Charles Stewart Parnell when that leader died in 1891. Redmond was a conciliatory politician who achieved the two main objectives of his political life: party unity and, in September 1914, the passing of the Government of Ireland Act 1914. The Act granted limited self-government to Ireland, within the United Kingdom. However, implementation of Home Rule was suspended by the outbreak of the First World War. Redmond called on the National Volunteers to join Irish regiments of the New British Army and support the British and Allied war effort to restore the "freedom of small nations" on the European continent, thereby to also ensure the implementation of Home Rule after a war that was expected to be of short duration.
context_section_description: Redmond first attended political meetings with Parnell in 1879. Upon his father's death later in 1880, he wrote to Parnell asking for adoption as the Nationalist Party (from 1882 the Irish Parliamentary Party) candidate in the by-election to fill the open seat, but was disappointed to learn that Parnell had already promised the next vacancy to his secretary Timothy Healy. Nevertheless, Redmond supported Healy as the nominee, and when another vacancy arose, this time in New Ross, he won election unopposed as the Parnellite candidate for the seat. On election (31 January 1881), he rushed to the House of Commons, made his maiden speech next day amid stormy scenes following the arrest of Michael Davitt, then a Land League leader, and was ejected from the Commons all on the same evening. He served as MP for New Ross from 1881 to 1885, for North Wexford from 1885 to 1891 and finally for Waterford City from 1891 until his death in 1918.
  
  By the time of Redmond's election, the Land League conflict was by now at a turbulent stage. Early in 1882, he and his brother Willie were sent to Australia on a fundraising mission which was a success in both political and personal terms; in 1883 he and his brother married into the prosperous Irish-Australian Dalton family, and became friends with James Dalton and whom he spent much of his time with. His marriage was short-lived but happy: his wife Johanna died early in 1889 after bearing him three children. He also travelled in 1884, 1886 and 1904 to the USA, where he was to use more extreme language but found his contact with Irish-American extremism daunting. His Australian experience, on the other hand, was to have a strong influence on his political outlook, causing him to embrace an Irish version of Liberal Imperialism and to remain anxious to retain Irish representation and Ireland's voice at Westminster even after the implementation of home rule. During the debate which followed Gladstone's conversion to Home Rule in 1886, he declared: 
  "As a Nationalist, I do not regard as entirely palatable the idea that forever and a day Ireland's voice should be excluded from the councils of an empire which the genius and valour of her sons have done so much to build up and of which she is to remain". 
  In 1899 Redmond married his second wife, Ada Beesley, an English Protestant who, after his death, converted to Catholicism.
caption: Studio portrait of Mr and Mrs Redmond and (possibly) Johanna Redmond their daughter. Circa 1914.
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