ESMONDE, John (1826-1876), of 9 Great Denmark St., Dublin of Pembrokestown, co. Waterford of Ballynastragh, co. Wexford

Esmonde was a member of an established and influential Catholic gentry family of Norman descent, his grandfather and namesake having been hanged for his part in the Irish Rebellion of 1798.2Charles Ross (ed.), Correspondence of Charles, First Marquis Cornwallis, ii (2nd Edn., 1859), 347. After studying classics at Trinity College, Dublin he was called to the Irish bar, though he never practised, having inherited a small estate in County Waterford from his father.3He held 700 acres at a yearly value of £200 and upwards, arising from the lands of Pembrokestown, Gaulstown, and Slieveroe, co. Waterford, and Cullinagree, Co. Wexford: PP 1861 (350) xxxvi. 479. With the support of Sir Richard Musgrave (MP County Waterford 1831-2, 1835-7) and the Catholic bishop of Waterford and Lismore, Nicholas Foran, he was elected for County Waterford as a Liberal at the 1852 general election after a closely fought contest with a Conservative challenger, which was subject to a petition. Esmonde was described at the time as ‘good looking’ and an ‘impressive’, yet reluctant, speaker.4Belfast News-letter, 30 July 1852; Freeman’s Journal, 21 Sept. 1852. After adopting the resolution to take an independent line in parliament concerning land reform at the Tenant League conference of September 1852, he voted for tenant-right amendments to the government’s subsequent land legislation, later arguing that these measures were necessary ‘in order to make the bad landlords do what the good landlords already do voluntarily’.5Freeman’s Journal, 5 Oct. 1853, 13 May 1859. A committee member of the conference of the Friends of Religious Equality, and a supporter of free trade, Esmonde joined other independents in voting down Disraeli’s budget in December 1852, and opposing Gladstone’s budget the following year. He also opposed the extension of income tax to Ireland, and supported a proposed inquiry into Ireland’s contribution to imperial finances. He was not, thereafter, an active supporter of the Independent party, and by October 1853 was regarded in Ireland as a ‘Ministerialist’.6Examiner, 11 Sept. 1852; Freeman’s Journal, 11, 14 Sept., 20 Dec. 1852, 5 Oct. 1853; J.H. Whyte, The Independent Irish Party, 1850-9 (1958), 86-8, 180-1.

Esmonde was appointed captain in the Waterford militia in 1854, and subsequently helped to organise a banquet in honour of Irish Crimean War veterans. He later served on select committees on the system of billeting troops and the pay of General Officers of the Army and, in December 1854, supported the government in the confidence motion on the enlistment of foreigners bill.7PP 1861 (350) xxxvi. 479; D. Murphy, Ireland and the Crimean War (2002), 206; PP 1857-58 (363) x. 1; PP 1860 (528) viii. 281. Esmonde voted in one third of the 198 divisions held in 1856. He supported the Palmerston ministry over the fall of Kars that April, and paired as a government supporter on Cobden’s confidence motion on China in March 1857.8J.P. Gassiot & J.A. Roebuck, Third letter to J.A. Roebuck: with a full analysis of the divisions in the House of Commons during the last session of parliament (1857), 31. After being returned unopposed at the 1857 general election, Esmonde remained largely loyal to the Liberals and supported Palmerston’s ministry in the confidence vote over the Orsini affair in February 1858. On the question of parliamentary reform, he opposed the Conservatives’ proposal to disenfranchise 40 shilling freeholders in English counties, most of whom he considered to be Liberal voters, and argued for a reduction of the borough franchise. He supported Russell’s motion to defeat Derby’s reform bill in March 1859 and remained a consistent supporter of the ballot, which he considered an essential accompaniment to any extension of the franchise.9Freeman’s Journal, 7 Mar. 1857, 13 May 1859; Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1859), 186. After he clashed with James Whiteside over a procedural matter connected with the Maynooth question in May 1857, Esmonde addressed the Commons on a number of occasions. In March 1858, he protested against the apparent exclusion of Irish members from important committees affecting the interests of the empire, such as the consular service and East India colonisation, and opposed the abolition of the Irish viceroyalty on the ground that it would reduce the value of property in Dublin.10Hansard, 21 May 1857, vol. 145, c.671; 22 Mar. 1858, vol. 149, cc.553-5; 25 Mar. 1858, vol. 149, cc.741-3.

At the 1859 general election, Esmonde mounted a strong defence of the Liberals’ record in government and, was again returned unopposed. Involving himself in the Irish schools question, he was a consistent supporter of free education and, while conceding that the system required revision, defended the progress that had been made. In August 1860, he co-signed a letter to the Irish Chief Secretary stating the Catholic position on the future direction of Irish national education. That year he also moved for a select committee inquiry into the system of nomination to naval cadetships, but without success.11Freeman’s Journal, 13 May 1859; Hansard, 22 July 1859, vol. 155, cc.306-7; PP 1861 (212) xlviii. 683; Hansard, 3 July 1860, vol. 159, cc.1341-5. In 1861, Esmonde married the daughter of the late Henry Grattan, the younger son and namesake of the great Irish Patriot, and repeal MP Dublin, 1826-30 and County Meath, 1831-52.12HP Commons, 1820-32: Grattan, Henry. His wife had inherited an estate of 3,500 acres in Co. Wicklow on her father’s death in 1859. At this period, Esmonde was temporarily at odds with the Liberal ministry over their withdrawal of the subsidy to the Galway packet line. In May 1861, he voted against the government on paper duties in the opposition’s unsuccessful bid to bring the ministry down, and was absent for the confidence vote on the marriages of affinity bill on 12 March 1862, which resulted in a government defeat.13T.A. Jenkins (ed.), The Parliamentary Diaries of Sir John Trelawny, 1858-1865 (1990), 172-5, 192, 195. Esmonde subsequently explained his position to his constituents thus: ‘I find that the best plan is to hold myself independent of the government, and to vote conscientiously, as I think the interests of the country require me to vote.’: Freeman’s Journal, 22 July 1865.

Although he was a ‘zealous and attached member of the Roman Catholic communion’, Esmonde steered clear of Cardinal Cullen’s National Association before the 1865 general election when, having successfully explained his support for the Irish peace preservation bill and his absence from the final division on the parliamentary oaths bill, he was re-elected unopposed.14Freeman’s Journal, 22 July 1865; W.E. Vaughan (ed.), A New History of Ireland, v (1989), 432-3; The Times, 12 Dec. 1876. He was a member of the Catholic Union in 1874: Freeman’s Journal, 20 Feb. 1874. By this time, he was regarded as a steady supporter of the Palmerston ministry, being one of the minority of Irish Catholic MPs who supported the government in the confidence vote on the Schleswig-Holstein question in July 1864. He placed great importance on the value of an alliance between English and Irish Liberals and consequently supported Gladstone’s 1866 reform bill.15E.D. Steele, Palmerston and Liberalism 1855-1865 (1991), 327; Freeman’s Journal, 30 Apr. 1866. Esmonde’s ‘steady support to his party’ was rewarded by Lord John Russell, who appointed him a commissioner of the Treasury in June 1866.16A. Hawkins and J. Powell, The journal of John Wodehouse first earl of Kimberley for 1862-1902 (1997), 172; Freeman’s Journal, 11 Dec. 1876. The previous year, his brother, Major John Esmonde VC (1829-73) had been appointed deputy inspector general of the Royal Irish Constabulary. That year, he criticised the actions of the Irish Salmon Commission in sweeping away ancient charters, presented bills to amend the Irish grand jury laws and tithe rent-charges, and supported a request for a grant to the Irish Academy of Music.17Hansard, 20 Mar. 1866, vol. 182, c.589; 22 Mar. 1866, vol. 182, c.817; PP 1866 (89) iii. 77; Hansard, 17 Apr. 1866, vol. 182, c.1579; PP 1866 (110) v. 437. He introduced a further tithe rent-charge bill in 1871: PP 1871 (132) vi. 229. In 1867-8, he joined Charles Barry in introducing two unsuccessful bills to extend to Ireland the existing law of England respecting the presence of the military at parliamentary elections. Citing the recent violence at the County Waterford by-election, he argued that troops were employed at Irish elections largely to maintain landlord influence over their tenants’ votes.18Hansard, 14 Feb. 1867, vol. 185, c.370; 27 Apr. 1868, vol. 191, c.1424; 30 June 1868, vol. 193, cc.417-8; 25 July 1867, vol. 189, cc.109-10; PP 1866 (89) iii. 77; PP 1867-68 (95) iii. 499. In June 1868, Esmonde protested that the Irish reform bill was ‘in no way a settlement of the question’ and urged that the county and freeman franchises be reconsidered. He also objected to the Irish registration bill on the ground that its title could not be presumed to contain provisions for polling-places.19Hansard, 22 June 1868, vol. 192, cc.1892-908; 20 July 1868, vol. 193, cc.1486-7. He voted in favour of an amendment to the parliamentary oath concerning Catholic members, the abolition of church rates, and an investigation of the temporalities of the Irish Church in May and July 1867 and, while not an outright disestablishmentarian, he did support both Gladstone’s established church bill in May 1868, and the subsequent disestablishment of the Irish church in 1869.20For his position on the established church, see Freeman’s Journal, 22 July 1865.

Shortly after being returned unopposed at the 1868 general election, Esmonde inherited the title and estate of more than 8,000 acres in Wexford, Tipperary, Kilkenny, and King’s County from his uncle, Sir Thomas Esmonde, Liberal MP for Co. Wexford 1841-7. He subsequently sat on a select committee on the examination of witnesses upon oath by the Commons, for which he brought in a bill in May 1869.21Hansard, 11 May 1869, vol. 196, cc.620-7; PP 1868-69 (305) vi. 715. That year he also supported the Irish land bill but opposed parts of the peace preservation bill. During 1871-3, he jointly brought in a number of successful minor bills and, in defending the autonomy of the Catholic University in Dublin, voted against the government’s Irish university bill in March 1873.22PP 1871 (261) iii. 59; PP 1872 (128) i. 199; PP 1873 (104) iv. 681; PP 1873 (176) i. 61; PP 1873 (213) i. 71; Freeman’s Journal, 22 July 1865.

At the 1874 general election, Esmonde’s position was jeopardised by the home rule movement. While he did not attend the founding meeting of the Home Rule League in November 1873, he did declare in favour of ‘any well-defined system which shall (without endangering the integrity of the empire) transfer to Irishmen the management of purely Irish affairs’.23D. Thornley, Isaac Butt and home rule (1964), 196; Freeman’s Journal, 5 Feb. 1874 In spite of his reputation as ‘a pure and simple ministerialist’, he came second in the poll to the Conservative, Lord Charles Beresford, but easily beat the home rule candidate.24Thornley, Isaac Butt, 186, 197; Freeman’s Journal, 11 Feb. 1874. Esmonde subsequently ‘refused pointblank’ to join the Home Rule party, but did lend some support to Isaac Butt in the Commons.25Pall Mall Gazette, 17 Feb. 1874; Thornley, Isaac Butt, 212, 280; Hansard, 20 Mar. 1874, vol. 218, cc.110-73; Freeman’s Journal, 5 Feb., 27 Mar. 1874.

At his death in December 1876, Esmonde was still regarded as a solidly Liberal figure.26Freeman’s Journal, 4 Mar. 1876; Birmingham Daily Post, 29 Dec. 1876. He was succeeded in the barontetcy by his son, Sir Thomas Henry Grattan Esmonde, who sat as a Nationalist MP for South Dublin County 1885-92, West Kerry 1892-1900 and North Wexford 1900-18, and became a senator of the Irish Free State in 1922. His grandson, Sir Osmond Esmonde, 12^th bt., was Cumann na nGaedhael TD for Co. Wexford in 1923-36.27P. Maume, ‘Esmonde, Sir Thomas Henry Grattan (1862-1935)’, Oxford DNB [www.oxforddnb.com] His nephew, John Joseph Esmonde, was Nationalist MP for Tipperary North, 1910-15, being succeeded by his own son, John Lymbrick Esmonde, 14th bt., who sat for the seat in 1915-18, and represented Wexford as a Fine Gael TD 1937-44 and 1948-51. John Lymbick’s brother and nephew fulfilled this role between 1951 and 1977.