He had been an applicant for the Under-Secretaryship at Dublin Castle, and was therefore clearly not a person of extreme Nationalist views.

But one of his sons, a young poet, had been among the signatories to the proclamation of an Irish Republic, and had paid for it with his life; Count Plunkett stood really as the father of his son.
He was returned by a very large majority.

This was the first open defeat inflicted by the physical force men on the Constitutional party since the beginning of Parnell's day.
In March, Redmond desired to bring the Irish question again before Parliament, and Mr.T.P.

O'Connor introduced a motion calling on the House "without further delay to confer upon Ireland the free institutions long promised her." That debate will always be remembered by those who heard it for one speech.

Willie Redmond was among the oldest members of the Parliamentary party; not half a dozen men in all the House had been longer continuously members; he had always been one of the most popular figures at Westminster and in Ireland; and he had always spoken a great deal.
Yet he had never been in the front rank either as a speaker or as a politician.