A discussion of the revolutionary years in Waterford from 1912 to 1923 requires at the outset an appreciation of the extraordinary influence of John Redmond (1856-1918) on the city and county.
Redmond represented Waterford in the House of Commons from 1891 to 1918 and led the Irish Parliamentary Party from 1900 to 1918. By his determination and parliamentary skill, and that of his party, the Liberal government was forced to place Irish Home Rule on the Statute Book in 1914.
Nationalists throughout Ireland celebrated, none more so than in Waterford, where even before this final triumph Redmond was regarded with immense pride by his constituents.
From the beginning of the war Redmond zealously promoted the recruitment to the British army. To gain the Liberal government’s goodwill and ensure the implementation of home rule, he urged the National Volunteers to join the war against the Central Powers. Thousands of them did, including hundreds of those in Waterford.
These and the business people and shopkeepers who benefitted from the prosperity during the war formed the core of the voting-block which later became known as ‘the Redmondites’. At that time Redmond’s popularity made the task of those attempting to organise the Irish Volunteers and Sinn Féin in the city well-nigh impossible. The Easter Rising in Dublin had no immediate impact on Waterford. The RIC review of the year stated that the county was very peaceable and orderly.
Subsequently the influence of Redmond’s former supporters also affected the course of the war of independence in Waterford. Ernie O’Malley’s remark that “Waterford has not done much” can be applied to the IRA’s East Waterford Brigade, which covered the city and eastern half of the county.
It never evolved into an effective unit. Its one major operation – an ambush on the crown forces at Pickardstown, near Tramore – was a failure and led to the deaths of two volunteers. Riven by indiscipline, and with its officers in a state of mutiny, it was stood down by IRA GHQ.
"Pat McCarthy includes a valuable survey of the social tensions underlying the revolutionary years"
By contrast the West Waterford Brigade, covering the western half of the county, did evolve along conventional lines, with attacks on police barracks forcing the RIC to retreat from the countryside and the assassination of individual policemen. Eventually its members formed an Active Service Unit, which maintained itself in the field and undertook major operations.
In his narrative, Pat McCarthy includes a valuable survey of the social tensions underlying the revolutionary years. In the county they pitched farm labourers against landlords and farmers; in the city workers against employers. Throughout the period there was considerable industrial unrest.
This was particularly the case when farm labourers and workers attempted to retain increases in wages they had gained during the war. Their attempts to this end and a number of efforts to establish the trade union movement in the area were singularly unsuccessful. (There is an echo of this, by the way, in the background to Liam O’Flaherty’s brutal novel of revolutionary betrayal The Informer.)
Treaty
In January 1922, Dáil Éireann approved the Anglo-Irish Treaty. In March, Captain William Redmond, who had succeeded his father at Westminster, on behalf of “the great body of the people of the South of Ireland”, recommended the treaty unreservedly. The civil war was played out in Waterford in much the same way as in the rest of the country with the Anti-Treatyites receiving very little support in Waterford city and its vicinity.
This narrative of the revolutionary years in Waterford differs somewhat from that of other counties, mainly owing to the effect of the Redmond legacy. Barring the Liberator himself, John Redmond could be regarded as our greatest parliamentarian and patriot. Hence the remarkable influence of his legacy.
Later this legacy morphed into support for Cumann na nGaedheal, then for the Irish National League and finally for Fine Gael. One ventures to suggest that the resilience of Redmond’s legacy merits a monograph.