the rarest exception.

For society, Parnell's party depended on themselves and their countrymen
and sympathizers. But they were in no way to be pitied; they were the
best of company for one another. It was a movement of the young, it had
all the strength and audacity of youth, it was a great adventure. A few
men from an older generation came with them, Mr. Biggar, Justin McCarthy
and others. But their leader, though older than most of his followers,
was a young man by parliamentary standards. In 1880 Parnell was only
thirty-three; and within four years more he was as great a power in the
House as Mr. Gladstone. Some few years back I heard Willie Redmond say
in the Members' smoking-room, "Isn't it strange to think that Parnell
would be sixty now if he had lived. I can't imagine him as an old man."
Yet the accent of maturity was on Parnell's leadership; the men whom he
led were essentially young. In 1881, when Redmond entered Parliament,
Mr. Dillon was thirty, Mr. T.P. O'Connor and Mr. Sexton veterans of
thirty-three, Mr. Healy twenty-six. Mr. William O'Brien (who did not
come in until 1883) was of the same year as Mr. Dillon. Redmond was
younger than any of them, being elected at the age of twenty-four. Yet
nobody then thought it surprising that he should be sent in 1882 to
represent the party on a mission to Australia and the United States at a
most difficult time. The Phoenix Park murders had created widespread
indiscriminating anger against all Irish Nationalists throughout the
Empire, and Redmond found it difficult to secure even a hall to speak
in. For support there was sent to him his brother, then a youth of
twenty-one, and feeling ran so strong against the two that the Prime
Minister of New South Wales (Sir Henry Parkes) proposed their expulsion
from the colony. Nevertheless, Redmond made good. "The Irish working-men
stood by me," he said, "and in fact saved the situation." Fifteen
thousand pounds were collected before they left the island continent.