MCKENNA, Joseph Neale (1819-1906), of Ardo House, Ardmore, Youghal, co. Cork of 85 Inverness-terrace, Bayswater, London, Mdx.

McKenna was born in Dublin, the son of a wealthy Catholic businessman, whose own father had prospered in Philadelphia the previous century. He hailed from a Monaghan family and claimed to be the eldest lineal male descendant of the last Prince of Truagh.2T. Bunbury, ‘Sir Joseph Neale McKenna (1819-1906), Nationalist MP and Chairman of the National Bank’ [www.turtlebunbury.com]; The Graphic, 13 June 1874. Having trained in law, he subsequently became a financier of acknowledged ability, and from the 1850s was chairman and managing director of the National Bank, and a partner in the firm of Chadwick, Adamson, McKenna & Company.3Pall Mall Gazette, 30 Sep. 1865. The bank had been partly founded by Daniel O’Connell in 1834-5: O. MacDonagh, The Emancipist. Daniel O’Connell 1830-47 (1989), 110-5.

McKenna was narrowly defeated as a Liberal at New Ross at both the 1859 general election and a subsequent by-election in 1863, and lost to The O’Donoghue (Daniel O’Donoghue) in a stormy by-election at Tralee in February 1865.4Freeman’s Journal, 6 May 1859; Daily News, 21 May 1863; Leeds Mercury, 7 Feb. 1865. His defeat in 1863 was attributed to his adoption of ‘the creed of the Ultramontanists’: The Times, 8 June 1863. He was returned for Youghal as an ‘independent’ Catholic Liberal at the 1865 general election, easily defeating Isaac Butt. He was widely thought to possess the requisite energy, common sense and practical knowledge to help to regenerate the Irish economy and developed as his theme the over-taxation of Ireland.5Freeman’s Journal, 18 July 1865, and see Speech of Joseph Neale McKenna Esq., M.P., to his constituents at Youghal Court House, September 21, 1866 (1866). His resolution on the issue was debated in the House on 9 July 1867, and he further developed his argument the following March. This was a question to which he would repeatedly return, though with little support in England, throughout his career.6Liverpool Mercury, 11 June 1867; Hansard, 9 July 1867, vol. 188, cc. 1292-314; 13 Mar. 1868, vol. 190, cc. 1608-12. For an English perspective on his arguments, see Pall Mall Gazette, 15 Mar. 1875. McKenna urged parliament to meet the ‘claims of Ireland to exceptional remedial measures’, and supported the government’s Irish tenants improvements bill as a valuable step in the direction of Tenant-Right.7Hansard, 29 Apr. 1867, vol. 186, cc. 1733-6; PP 1867 (29) vi. 385. He further argued that the establishment of a Catholic University in Ireland ‘was a national requirement’ and proposed a state-endowed institution, with adequate protection given to the religious faith of its students, as opposed to what he regarded as the tendency of ‘modern Liberalism … to eliminate all religion whatever ... from the institutions of the state’.8Daily News, 30 Apr. 1867; Hansard, 10 July 1868, vol. 193, cc. 1058-60. In addition to national issues, McKenna also championed some of the local causes which had dominated his election campaign, introducing a bill to allow the grand juries of Cork and Waterford to purchase the Blackwater bridge at a fixed price. He also defended applications for loans made by Irish railway companies and moved the second reading of the Irish promissory notes bill, which aimed to simplify the process of issuing bank notes.9Hansard, 28 June 1866, vol. 184, cc. 695-6; 15 Mar. 1867, vol. 185, cc. 1946-7; 1 May 1867, vol. 186, cc. 1853-8.

McKenna played a controversial role during the reform crisis of 1866-7. In April 1866, McKenna’s speech in support of Lord Grosvenor’s amendment to Gladstone’s reform bill was interpreted ‘as a vote of want of confidence in the Irish administration of the Government’.10Hansard, 16 Apr. 1866, vol. 182, cc. 1395-8; Pall Mall Gazette, 17 Apr. 1866; Birmingham Daily Post, 20 Apr. 1866. He subsequently voted for Lord Dunkellin’s amendment to the £7 borough franchise clause (substituting rateable value in the place of yearly value) which led to the fall of the Liberal ministry, and was listed amongst the Adullamites.11Hull Packet, 22 June 1866; Examiner, 7 July 1866, though this label has been disputed, see M. Cowling, 1867: Disraeli, Gladstone and revolution: the passing of the second Reform Bill (1967), 418. In April 1867, McKenna spoke in favour of Disraeli’s scheme for reducing the national debt and, a few days later, supported the Conservative ministry’s reform bill. He was absent from the Liberal fold during the vote on Ayrton’s amendment (reducing the term of residence from 2 years to one), though he did support Mill’s amendment on the enfranchisement of women.12Hansard, 4 Apr. 1867, vol. 186, cc. 1050-1; Pall Mall Gazette, 3 May 1867; Newcastle Courant, 24 May 1867. He voted with the Conservative majority for Disraeli’s scheme on 9 May and supported the ministry over the county franchise.13Pall Mall Gazette, 10, 28 May, 1 June 1867. As the representative of a small borough, he opposed Laing’s proposal to take one member from every borough with less than 10,000 inhabitants. McKenna’s support for the reform bill is thought to have been influenced by the government’s signalling its intention to repeal the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, a measure McKenna regarded as a ‘perpetual insult to Catholics’. He sat on the select committee to consider its repeal and, in August 1867, was rewarded with a knighthood.14Cowling, Disraeli, Gladstone and revolution, 200, 417 (see Edward MacEvoy’s bill: Hansard, 21 Mar. 1867, vol.186, cc. 363-71); Hansard, 21 Mar. 1867, vol. 186, cc. 367-8; Daily News, 3 June 1867; PP 1867 (503) (503-I) viii. 15, 125. Overall, his record in parliament had not impressed his Liberal constituents. In September 1866, McKenna had had to defend his opposition to Liberal ministry, criticising Gladstone’s ‘astounding’ application of the ‘revenue screw to Ireland’, and reminding them that he was pledged only to support whichever party was most committed to remedying the country’s ills. He further warned that ‘it would be a mistake for the Irish representatives to mix themselves up with the so-called English Liberal party, as thereby they would lose that power which they at present possessed of turning the scale on a critical division’.15Pall Mall Gazette, 24 Sept. 1866. Nevetheless, a meeting of electors in July 1867 carried resolutions opposing his return at the next general election.16Pall Mall Gazette, 22 Aug. 1867, 23 Nov. 1868; Leeds Mercury, 13, 18 July 1868.

At the 1868 general election, McKenna presented himself as an ‘independent Liberal’, yet was regarded in Liberal circles as standing upon ‘the independent principles of a Catholic Tory’. He was defeated by a Gladstonian Liberal in a notoriously corrupt contest and did not claim the seat after his opponent, Christopher Wegulin, was unseated on petition.17Pall Mall Gazette, 10, 23 Nov. 1868; The Times, 17 Aug. 1906. His decision may have been due to the reversal he had suffered in his professional fortunes. The National Bank had expanded under his management during the 1860s by diversifying its business out of Ireland. The directors, however, had engaged in a series of dubious investments which resulted in the failures of the Birmingham Banking Company and the Bank of Hindustan, China, and Japan in 1866. McKenna’s own position deteriorated rapidly after that and, prior to the 1868 election, the directors decided that their managing director ought not to be identified with politics or hold a seat in parliament. McKenna duly resigned his post (worth £4,200 p.a.) but remained a director until, late in 1868, the National Bank’s shareholders forced him to resign from the board, after with bad debts of more than £300,000 had been exposed.18C. O’Grada, Ireland. A New Economic History 1780-1939 (1995), 160; Birmingham Daily Post, 4 Aug. 1866; Leeds Mercury, 4 Aug. 1866, 21 Sept. 1868. Irish investors criticised the bank’s ‘lavishly rewarded directors for extravagance’, deeming them ‘more men of pleasure than of business [with] ideas and … habits entirely above their station’. McKenna stoutly denied allegations of mismanagement, but was later investigated for fraudulent trading and successfully sued by the National Bank for lending money to companies whose security was clearly dubious.19The Times, 7 Dec. 1868; The National Bank: A Case with Proofs (1870); Pall Mall Gazette, 31 Jan. 1873. Regarding their dealings with the Imperial Land Company of Marseilles, a judge concluded that the conduct of the bank’s directors was ‘more disgraceful than anything that had taken place within the last seven years in connection with limited companies’: Pall Mall Gazette, 21 Mar. 1870. See also complaints to the London Stock Exchange Commission, PP 1878 (C.2157) (C.2157-I) xix. 263, 295.

Nevertheless, McKenna’s political fortunes revived as he re-invented himself as a home ruler. After joining the Home Government Association in September 1873, he addressed the Home Rule conference and likened the case of Ireland and England to that of Austria and Hungary. He was one of two ‘Conservative Home Rulers’ elected at the 1874 general election, and following his return in 1880 he involved himself in the land question.20Pall Mall Gazette, 21 Nov. 1873, 7, 9 Feb., 28 Mar. 1874; The Times, 9 Jan. 1880. He was relatively inactive in the division lobby, participating in only 19 of the 169 divisions that year; Pall Mall Gazette, 18 Sept. 1880. A member of numerous select committees between 1875 and 1890, including those on the Irish Land Act of 1870, the revision of standing orders, bankruptcy law, and the taxation of towns, he also introduced several Irish bills relating to town rating and fisheries. As a wealthy landlord, McKenna was unable to enlist sufficient support from the National League to contest the enlarged constituency of East Cork at the 1885 general election.21Daily News, 2 Feb. 1885. Returned instead for South Monaghan, a seat he retained in 1886, he again encountered financial difficulties. (A receiver was appointed over his estates in February 1887, at which time his Munster holdings fell victim to the National League’s ‘Plan of Campaign’). He again persisted with his political career and publicly denounced the more extreme activities of the League.22T. Cadogan & J. Falvey, A Biographical Dictionary of Cork (2006), 187. For his letter refusing to endorse the Irish Catholics MPs’ denunciation of the Papal rescript on this issue, see Newcastle Weekly Courant, 8 June 1888. Although McKenna had been opposed to Parnell’s assuming leadership of the home rule party in 1880, he continued to support the fallen leader after the Nationalist party split in 1890. He retired at the 1892 general election.

McKenna died at his estate at Ardrogena, Co. Cork in 1906 and was buried in the local cemetery. His nephew, Reginald McKenna, was Liberal MP North Monmouthshire 1895-1918, and served as First Lord of the Admiralty 1908-11, Home Secretary 1911-5 and Chancellor of the Exchequer 1915-6.23Cadogan & Falvey, Dictionary of Cork, 187; D.M. Cregier, ‘McKenna, Reginald (1863-1943)’, Oxford DNB, vol. 35, 541-5.