Misplaced Pages

#685314

146-443: Through it, the whole Irish land question underwent a revolutionary transformation whereby the entire tenantry were encouraged to purchase their holdings with advances from the imperial exchequer, provided for the express purpose of facilitating the transfer of the land from owner to occupier. There were three periods of particularly acute tension and conflict between landlord and tenant in the period 1877–1903. The first period 1877–82,

292-424: A Catholic University. But his educational programme of 1873 did not provide for a denominational university. The Home Government Association adopted educational issues and land reform into its programme, the hierarchy then favouring a Dublin-based parliament. The increasing Catholic numbers within the association frightened off its Protestant, landlord element. The association was dissolved and Butt replaced it with

438-680: A bitter verbal offensive and were imprisoned in October 1881 under the Irish Coercion Act in Kilmainham Jail for "sabotaging the Land Act", from where the No-Rent Manifesto was issued, calling for a national tenant farmer rent strike until "constitutional liberties" were restored and the prisoners freed. It had a modest success In Ireland, and mobilized financial and political support from

584-478: A climax of disillusionment. Not the Act was in question but the manner in which it was won by O'Brien. The issue was – should nationalists co-operate with a minority of Irishmen whose political background was so fundamentally different from theirs? The adversaries said no, O'Brien said yes, pointing to the successful Land Conference as the precursor of further partnerships between nationalists and Unionists. A few weeks after

730-588: A common foe, the party. Purged from it again by the Devlin instigated Baton Convention O'Brien formed a new political organisation in 1909, the All-for-Ireland League , to defy the party and further the cause of national conciliation. When in 1917 Lloyd George and Redmond called the Irish Convention in an attempt to win over Ulster for a Home Rule settlement, O'Brien declined an invitation to attend on

876-482: A further 2 million acres (8,100 km) were pending costing 24 million sterling. By 1914, 75% of occupiers were buying out their landlords, mostly under the two Acts. In all, under the pre-UK Land Acts over 316,000 tenants purchased their holdings amounting to 11,500,000 acres (47,000 km) out of a total of 20 million in the country. It can be said, that with the Wyndham Land Act the state moved to subvent

1022-424: A golden age of social peace was dawning. The eight delegates finally met on 20 December 1902 with Dunraven as chairman and Shawe-Taylor as secretary, in a conference publicly hailed by Redmond as "the most significant episode in the public life of Ireland for the last century". After only six sittings, a unanimously agreed conference report proposing a vast purchase scheme along the lines framed by O'Brien, seven of

1168-553: A letter appeared in the newspapers from an unknown country gentleman. Captain John Shaw-Taylor (the younger son of a Galway landlord and a nephew of Lady Gregory 's) set out a proposal for a landlord-tenant conference in the following terms: "For the last two hundred years the land war has rages fiercely and continuously, bearing in its train stagnation of trade, paralysis of commercial business and enterprise and producing hatred and bitterness between various sections and classes of

1314-526: A mandate for negotiations. They were important because they articulated the desire of a small but highly influential group of centrist landlords who, in turn, were encouraged by the Dublin Castle administration . They set up a Land Committee which produced four delegates to meet the tenant representatives. These were the Earl of Dunraven , the Earl of Mayo , Col. Sir Hutcheson Poë and Col. Sir Nugent Everard . It

1460-611: A minority in Ireland and would have largely voted Conservative . He also introduced his first land bill which led to the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870 , implementing limited tenant rights , thereby impinging on the powers of the Irish landlords to indiscriminately evict tenant farmers. At first the Catholic hierarchy supported Gladstone supervising Irish affairs, hoping to gain financial aid for

1606-432: A monster contingent of tenant farmers on horseback drew up in front of Hughes's hotel, showing discipline and order that a cavalry regiment might feel proud of. They were led on in sections, each having a marshal who kept his troops well in hand. Messrs. P.W. Nally, J.W. Nally, H. French, and M. Griffin, wearing green and gold sashes, led on their different sections, who rode two deep, occupying, at least, over an Irish mile of

SECTION 10

#1732852454686

1752-615: A nationalist parliament in Dublin under their control would impose tariffs on industry. While most of Ireland was primarily agricultural, six of the counties in Ulster were the location of heavy industry and would be affected by any tariff barriers imposed. It resulted in the revival of the Orange Order to resist Home Rule and the forming of an Irish Unionist Party . With the Conservatives playing

1898-575: A new united Irish Parliamentary Party. Redmond, leader of the smaller INL group, was chosen as its leader mainly due to the personal rivalries between the INF's Anti-Parnellite leaders. After the party returned 77 MPs in the 1900 general election a period of considerable political development followed. The UIL, explicitly designed to reconcile the fragmented party, was accepted as the parliamentary nationalists' main support organisation, with which O'Brien intensified his campaign of agrarian agitation. Encouraged by

2044-563: A period of poor harvest, decreased demand for agricultural products and falling prices, saw the establishment of the Irish National Land League in 1879 followed by demonstrations, boycotting , no-rent campaigns, arrests, suppression and prosecutions during 1880–82. The Land Acts introduced in 1881 and 1885 alleviated certain needs, but by and large the grievances of the mass of tenant farmers went unheeded. A second period of agitation began with rent strikes in 1885 accompanied by

2190-401: A recovery, and rents had been fixed and could be reviewed downwards, but tenants found that holding out communally was the best option. Critics noted that the poorer sub-tenants were still expected to pay their rents to tenant farmers. The widespread upheavals and extensive evictions were accompanied by several years of bad weather and poor harvests when the tenant farmers who were unable to pay

2336-562: A role in Irish politics. With the Land League suppressed and internally fracturing, Parnell resurrected it in October as the Irish National League (INL). It combined moderate agrarianism, a Home Rule programme with electoral functions. It was hierarchical and autocratic in structure with Parnell wielding immense authority and direct parliamentary control. Parliamentary constitutionalism was the future path. The informal alliance between

2482-638: A truce not dissimilar to truces to follow, marked a critical turning point in Parnell's leadership, though it resulted in losing the support of Devoy's American-Irish. However, his political diplomacy preserved the national Home Rule movement after the Phoenix Park Murders in May of the Chief Secretary for Ireland and his Under Secretary. For the next twenty years Fenians and physical-force militancy ceased to play

2628-419: The 1880 general election , sixty-four Home Rulers were elected, twenty-seven Parnell supporters, facilitating in May his nomination as leader of a divided Home Rule Party and of a country on the brink of a land war. He immediately understood that supporting land agitation was a means to achieving his objective of self-government. The Conservatives under Disraeli had been defeated in the election and Gladstone

2774-457: The 1895 general election , now in coalition and remaining in office until 1905. During those years Home Rule was not on their agenda. Instead, with Arthur Balfour 's Constructive Unionism approach to settling the Irish Question they enacted many important reforms introduced by the Irish members, who, on the other hand, made no effort to settle their party differences. This bred apathy amongst

2920-503: The All-for-Ireland League (AFIL). During the previous years many notable Acts of social legislation were pressed for and passed in Ireland's interest: In the January 1910 United Kingdom general election ( January 1910 general election in Ireland ), the Liberals lost their majority, and became dependent on the Irish (IPP and AFIL) Party's 84 seats. Redmond , holding the balance of power in

3066-763: The December general election , the Irish electorate of nearly two million had a threefold increase under the Representation of the People Act 1918 . Women were granted franchise for the first time (confined to those over thirty) and a vote to every male over twenty-one years of age. This increased the number of voters from 30% to 75% of all adults. The Irish Parliamentary Party was for the first time confronted with double opponents from both Unionists and Sinn Féin (the Irish Labour Party founded in 1912 did not participate). In

SECTION 20

#1732852454686

3212-826: The Gaelic League in cultural affairs. He never tried to understand the forces emerging in Ulster. Redmond was further weakened in 1914 by the formation by Sinn Féin members of the militaristic Irish Volunteers . His enthusiastic support for the British war effort alienated many Catholics. His party had been increasingly hollowed out, and the major crises—notably the Easter Rising in 1916 and the Conscription crisis of 1918—were enough to destroy it. Redmond died in March 1918 and John Dillon took over

3358-775: The Home Rule League , formed after a conference in Dublin in November 1873. Gladstone unexpectedly called a general election in 1874 , which helped bring the League to the foreground. Under the Ballot Act 1872 , votes in general election were to be cast in private for the first time. The League put denominational education, land reform and release of political prisoners at the centre of the movement. It had difficulty finding reliable candidates to support its Home Rule issue, though succeeded in winning sixty Irish seats, many with ex-Liberals. After

3504-579: The Home Rule League , parliamentary candidates who adopted the tenant programme in the south and west, and the majority of the Liberals who championed it in the north. The Irish National Land League was founded at the Imperial Hotel in Castlebar , the County town of Mayo , on 21 October 1879. At that meeting Charles Stewart Parnell , the prominent Home Rule Member of Parliament , was elected president of

3650-634: The Irish Land Act during the winter; and by obtaining such reforms in the laws relating to land as will enable every tenant to become owner of his holding by paying a fair rent for a limited number of years. Parnell, Davitt, John Dillon and others then went to the United States to raise funds for the League with spectacular results. Branches were also set up in Scotland, where the Crofters Party imitated

3796-752: The Land Commission (an arrangement that has never been possible in Britain itself). For agricultural labourers, D.D. Sheehan and the Irish Land and Labour Association secured their demands from the Liberal government elected in 1905 to pass the Labourers (Ireland) Act 1906 , and the Labourers (Ireland) Act 1911 , which paid County Councils to build over 40,000 new rural cottages, each on an acre of land. By 1914, 75% of occupiers were buying out their landlords, mostly under

3942-502: The Land League , was an Irish political organisation of the late 19th century which organised tenant farmers in their resistance to exactions of landowners. Its primary aim was to abolish landlordism in Ireland and enable tenant farmers to own the land they worked on. The period of the Land League's agitation is known as the Land War . Historian R. F. Foster argues that in the countryside

4088-568: The Long Depression . The effect by 1878 was that many Irish farmers were unable to pay the rents that they had agreed, particularly in the poorer and wetter parts of Connacht . The localised 1879 Famine added to the misery. Unlike many other parts of Europe, the Irish land tenure system was inflexible in times of economic hardship. In January 1874, there had been an attempt to revive what the Young Ireland er Charles Gavan Duffy had hailed as

4234-564: The Nationalist Party , replacing the Home Rule League , as official parliamentary party for Irish nationalist Members of Parliament (MPs) elected to the House of Commons at Westminster within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland up until 1918. Its central objectives were legislative independence for Ireland and land reform. Its constitutional movement was instrumental in laying

4380-586: The Plan of Campaign during 1886 to 1892. Land Acts in 1885 and 1891 provided for limited tenant land purchase, but as the acts were cumbersome and unwieldy they were little availed of by tenants. The third period of unrest was around the turn of the century, from 1898 to 1902, when, backed by intensified campaigns for compulsory land purchase of both William O'Brien MP's United Irish League (UIL) and T. W. Russell MP's Ulster farmer's organisation in 1901-2, tenants again agitated for concessions from their landlords. There

4526-669: The Triple Entente and the Allied cause ). The Volunteers split on the issue of support for the British and Allied war effort. The majority (over 142,000) formed the National Volunteers , compared to roughly 10,000 who stayed with the original organisation. Though initially there was a surge in voluntary enlistment for the Irish regiments of the 10th (Irish) Division and the 16th (Irish) Division of Kitchener's New Service Army formed for

Land Conference - Misplaced Pages Continue

4672-462: The West-Cork by-election of October 1916. The tide then changed after it lost three by-elections in 1917 to the more physical-force republican Sinn Féin movement, which in the meantime had built up 1,500 organised clubs around Ireland and exceeded the strength of the old UIL , most of the latter members now joining the new movement. At the end of the war in November 1918 when elections were announced for

4818-794: The Western Front . The party was taken by surprise by the Easter Rising in April 1916, launched by the section of the Irish Volunteers who had remained in the original organisation. The Volunteers, infiltrated to a large degree by the separatist Irish Republican Brotherhood , declared an Irish Republic and took over much of the centre of Dublin. The rebellion in Dublin was put down in a week of fighting with about 500 deaths. The manner in which British General Maxwell dealt with its leaders won sympathy for their cause. A total of 16 were shot within weeks of

4964-721: The "League of North and South". In 1852, the Tenant Right League had helped return 48 MPs to Westminster where they briefly cohered as the Independent Irish Party . The initiative in 1874 came from largely Presbyterian tenant righters in the north. The Route Tenants Defence Association ( Ballymoney ) organised an all-Ireland National Tenants Rights conference in Belfast . In addition to the " Three F's " (fair rent fixity of tenure, and free sales), resolutions called for loans to facilitate tenant purchase of land and for breaking

5110-491: The "Ulster card", and sections of the Liberal faction voting against the bill, Gladstone hinted that eventually a separate solution for Ulster might need to be sought. His observation echoed far into the next century. The Liberal Party split on the issue of Irish Home Rule. With the defeat of his Home Rule bill, Gladstone was granted a general election for July 1886 , the result swinging in the other direction. The Conservatives were

5256-495: The "party pledge" in 1884 decisively reinforced that each member was required to sit, act and vote with the party, one of the first instances of a whip ( Richard Power ) in western politics. The members were also paid stipends, or expense allowances from party funds, which helped both to increase parliamentary turnout and enabled middle-class members such as William O'Brien or later D. D. Sheehan attend parliament, long before other MPs first received state pay in 1911. The profiles of

5402-465: The (IRB) Fenians who rallied to him. He was married in June 1891 to Mrs O'Shea. After an election tour in the west of Ireland, his health deteriorated seriously, and he died in October in their Brighton home. His funeral in Dublin was attended by 200,000 people. In his speeches he was convinced of an Ireland completely separated from Britain, but was ambiguous, never committing himself nor distancing himself, from

5548-513: The 105 Irish MPs had changed considerably since 1868 when 69% were landlords or the sons of landlords, reduced to 47% by 1874. Those with professional backgrounds increased from 10% to 23% in the same period, by the early 1890s professionals exceeding 50%. Now at his height Parnell pressed Gladstone to resolve the Irish Question with Home Rule, but the Liberals were divided. Parnell then sided with

5694-510: The 1874 general election, forty-six members assembled in Dublin and organised themselves into a separate Irish parliamentary party in the Commons. The political outlook appeared encouraging at first, but the party was unable to achieve anything, the Liberals and Gladstone having lost the election. Isaac Butt made some well-received speeches but failed to persuade any of the major parties to support bills beneficial to Ireland, nothing worthwhile reaching

5840-535: The AOH, though the party's attempts to crush out Healyite and O'Brienite 'factionism' were carried out through its national organisation, the UIL. The 1906 general election saw the Liberals back in power with 379 seats, an overwhelming majority of 88 over all other parties, after they had promised Home Rule. Redmond's IPP now with 82 seats, at first delighted until the Liberals backed down on Home Rule, knowing it had no chance in

5986-480: The Act was passed, the precarious consensus achieved by the party was shattered by John Dillon who openly aired his hostility to the Land Act and its underlying premise that it could serve the cause of reconciliation between agnostic classes and conflicting parties during a speech to his constituents at Swinford , County Mayo . O'Brien, who fervently believed in the power of conciliation and the conference approach, never forgave Dillon for his "Swinford revolt". It marked

Land Conference - Misplaced Pages Continue

6132-610: The Act, may almost be said to have been too great a success as it resulted in a rush of landlords to sell and of tenants to buy. Dillon, the deputy party leader, disfavoured the Act because he opposed any negotiations with landlords, Michael Davitt objected to peasant proprietorship, demanding land nationalisation. Together with Thomas Sexton editor of the party's Freeman's Journal , they campaigned against O'Brien, ferociously attacking him for putting Land Purchase and Conciliation before Home Rule. O'Brien's appeal to Redmond to suppress their opposition went unheeded. After stating that he

6278-550: The Chief Secretary George Wyndham and initiated by moderate landlords led by Lord Dunraven the December 1902 Land Reform Conference followed, which successfully aimed at a settlement by conciliatory agreement between landlord and tenant. O'Brien, Redmond, T. W. Russell (who spoke for Ulster tenant-farmers) and Timothy Harrington represented the tenant side. Its outcome became the basis for O'Brien orchestrating

6424-512: The Commons, renewed the old "Liberal Alliance" this time with H. H. Asquith as Prime Minister (the Labour Party also supported the government). Asquith needed the support of Irish MPs to pass the People's Budget and, after a second general election in December 1910 had produced almost exactly the same result, he had no choice but to agree to a new Home Rule Bill. The Parliament Act 1911 abolished

6570-453: The Conference in a long letter to Redmond, advising against any elaborate agenda. Dunraven's and O'Brien's views coincided, the latter outlining details of an agreement with a formula which would regulate what amounts tenants should pay in annuities and what the landlord should receive in payment, the government to pay a gap-bridging bonus to the landlord for the shortfall, O'Brien confident that

6716-424: The Conservatives. Gladstone's second government fell, and Lord Salisbury's Conservatives formed an administration. Both parties now courted Parnell. The result of Parnell's reforms and reorganisation were fully reflected in the general election of November–December 1885 . This election was the first to be fought under the extended suffrage of the 1884 Reform Act . The Reform Act had increased from 220,000 to 500,000

6862-576: The IPP leadership. In March the German spring offensive overran part of the British front. Lloyd George's cabinet took a dual policy decision by, clumsily linking implementing Home Rule with alleviating the severe manpower shortage by extending conscription to Ireland. The Irish party withdrew in protest from Westminster and returned to Ireland to join forces with other national organisations in massed anti-conscription demonstrations in Dublin. Although conscription

7008-652: The Irish Diaspora. Although the League discouraged violence, agrarian crimes increased widely. Typically a rent strike would be followed by eviction by the police and the bailiffs. Tenants who continued to pay the rent would be subject to a boycott , or as it was contemporaneously described in the US press, an " excommunication " by local League members. Where cases went to court, witnesses would change their stories, resulting in an unworkable legal system. This in turn led on to stronger criminal laws being passed that were described by

7154-612: The Irish party. Butt considered obstructionism a threat to democracy; in practice, its greatest achievement was to help bring Parnell to the fore of the political scene. An internal struggle began between Butt's majority and Parnell's minority leading to a rift in the party; Parnell determined to obtain control of the Home Rule League. Parnell first worked successfully to have Fenians freed who missed out on Gladstone's earlier amnesty, including Michael Davitt . After his release in 1877, Davitt travelled to America to meet John Devoy ,

7300-523: The Irish public towards politics, much needed financial contributions from America ebbing away. In this period of political disarray and disunity of purpose young Irish nationalists turned instead to the country's new cultural and militant movements, enabling the Church to fill the political vacuum. The unresolved land reform situation was again the mainspring for renewed political activity. William O'Brien had withdrawn from parliament to Mayo and in 1898, driven by

7446-571: The Land Act", from where the No Rent Manifesto was issued calling for a national tenant farmer rent strike which was partially followed. Although the League discouraged violence, agrarian crimes increased widely. In April 1882 Parnell moved to make a deal with the government. The settlement involved withdrawing the manifesto and undertaking to move against agrarian crime, seeing militancy would never win Home Rule. The so-called Kilmainham Treaty ,

SECTION 50

#1732852454686

7592-540: The Land League "reinforced the politicization of rural Catholic nationalist Ireland, partly by defining that identity against urbanization, landlordism, Englishness and—implicitly—Protestantism." Foster adds that about a third of the activists were Catholic priests, and Archbishop Thomas Croke was one of its most influential champions. Following the founding meeting of the Mayo Tenants Defence Association in Castlebar , County Mayo on 26 October 1878

7738-616: The Land League, with limited success. From 1879 to 1882, the " Land War " in pursuance of the " Three Fs " (Fair Rent, Fixity of Tenure and Free Sale) first demanded by the Tenant Right League in 1850, was fought in earnest. The League organised resistance to evictions, reductions in rents and aided the work of relief agencies. Landlords' attempts to evict tenants led to violence, but the Land League denounced excessive violence and destruction. Withholding of rent led to evictions until " Ashbourne's Act " in 1885 made it unprofitable for most landlords to evict. By then agricultural prices had made

7884-435: The League and secured a reforming Act in 1886. The government had introduced the first Land Act in 1870 , which proved largely ineffective. It was followed by further marginally more effective Irish Land Acts of 1880 and 1881. These established a Land Commission that started to reduce some rents. Parnell together with all of his party lieutenants, including Father Eugene Sheehy known as "the Land League priest", went into

8030-536: The League as " Coercion Acts ". The bitterness that developed helped Parnell later in his Home Rule campaign. Davitt's views as seen in his famous slogan: "The land of Ireland for the people of Ireland" was aimed at strengthening the hold on the land by the peasant Irish at the expense of the alien landowners. In reaction to such appeals, and to the Phoenix Park murders to which Parnell's unionist opponents sought to associate him, what limited Protestant support that

8176-444: The League had enjoyed in the north fell away. Parnell aimed to harness the emotive element, but he and his party were strictly constitutional. He envisioned tenant farmers as potential freeholders of the land they had rented. The Land League had an equivalent organization in the United States, which raised hundreds of thousands of dollars both for famine relief and also for political action. The Clan na Gael attempted to infiltrate

8322-410: The League in the hands of his lieutenants Timothy Harrington as Secretary, William O'Brien editor of its newspaper United Ireland and Tim Healy . Parnell's new Irish Parliamentary Party emerged swiftly as a tightly disciplined—one author described it as "a regiment led by C. S. Parnell and by Michael Davitt" and on the whole, energetic body of parliamentarians with strict rules. The inauguration of

8468-410: The Lords. The IPP rift with O'Brien deepened after he helped guide the Bryce 1906 Labourers (Ireland) Act through parliament, which provided large-scale government funding for a programme of extensive rural social housing. In the following five years over 40,000 labourer owned cottages standing on an acre of land and purchases at low annual annuities, were erected by Local County Councils. The Act, and

8614-418: The National League was out of contact with him and primarily concerned with its own vested interests, keeping up local agitation during the Plan of Campaign to further the not-fully-resolved land question, and leading Liberal voters to slowly increase their support for Home Rule. Parnell successfully exposed an attempt to use the forged Pigott Papers to associate him and his party with crime and violence; he

8760-414: The Orange Order in mass demonstrations determined to ensure that Home Rule would not apply for them. Nationalists in turn formed their own armed group, the Irish Volunteers to enforce Home Rule. The initiative for a series of meetings leading up to the public inauguration of the Volunteers came from the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB). The Volunteers had 180,000 members by May 1914. Redmond, worried by

8906-425: The Protestant landlord class. It was inspired by the success in the 1868 general election of William Ewart Gladstone and his Liberal Party under the slogan Justice for Ireland , in which the Liberals won 65 of the 105 Irish seats at Westminster. Gladstone said his mission was to pacify Ireland. The Irish Church Act 1869 provided for the disestablishment of the Anglican Church of Ireland , whose members were

SECTION 60

#1732852454686

9052-436: The Rising and another hanged several weeks later. The Rising began the decline of constitutional nationalism as represented by the IPP and the ascent of a more radical separatist form of Irish nationalism. John Redmond, protesting at the severity of the state's response to the Rising, wrote to Asquith, "if any more executions take place, Ireland will become impossible for any Constitutional Party or leader". Further problems for

9198-536: The Scottish members formed the Scottish Land Restoration League . In 1881, the League started publishing United Ireland , a weekly newspaper edited by William O'Brien , which continued until 1898. Within decades of the league's foundation, through the efforts of William O'Brien and George Wyndham (a descendant of Lord Edward FitzGerald ), the 1902 Land Conference produced the Land Purchase (Ireland) Act 1903 which allowed Irish tenant farmers to buy out their freeholds with UK government loans over 68 years through

9344-408: The Second Home Rule Bill, warned to no avail, that if adequate provisions were not made for Ulster, All-Ireland self-government would never be achieved. The Bill was the centre of intense parliamentary debate and controversy throughout 1913–1914 before it passed its final reading in May, denounced by the O'Brienite Party as a "partition deal" after Carson forced through an Amending Bill providing for

9490-487: The Union with the United Kingdom was economically best for Ireland, and for Protestants, now that Devlin's paramilitary AOH organisation had saturated the entire island, fearing a Church dominated nationalist government, it was a disaster. After the Bill passed its first readings in 1913, Ulster Unionists ' opposition became a repeat scenario of events in 1886 and 1893, their leader Sir Edward Carson approving of an Ulster Volunteer militia to oppose Home Rule. Unionists and

9636-468: The bill's passage. He extravagantly hailed it as one of the most remarkable occurrences in his political life, and actively collaborated and discussed its provisions in private with Wyndham, the Irish Secretary. O'Brien was very prominent in the Commons debates on the Bill as his enthusiasm mounted. The deep divisions this created were initially kept in check but the opposition of Dillon, Michael Davitt , Thomas Sexton MP and his daily Freeman's Journal to

9782-400: The break-up of large estates and gradually devolved to rural landholders and tenants' ownership of the lands. It effectively ended the era of the absentee landlord , finally resolving the Irish Land Question. Irish Parliamentary Party The Irish Parliamentary Party ( IPP ; commonly called the Irish Party or the Home Rule Party ) was formed in 1874 by Isaac Butt , the leader of

9928-425: The collaboration between nationalists, landlords and a Conservative Government intensified. Dillon, Redmond reported with apprehension, was very opposed to the Bill, He does not want a reconciliation with landlords – or anything less than their being driven out of Ireland . The criticisms of Sexton's nationalist daily outmatched the lesser voice of O'Brien's weekly, the Irish People . Davitt emerged as an opponent of

10074-404: The community " He went on to invite a number of fellow landlords and Irish Nationalist MPs to a Conference in Dublin at which " An honest, simple suggestion will be submitted and I am confident that a settlement will be arrived at". What marked out Shawe-Taylor's appeal was that Wyndham promptly endorsed it, and a group of moderate landlords came forward, balloted fellow-landlords, and received

10220-441: The country at large, tried to use his influence with his party leader and conciliation colleague Redmond to crush the opposition of Dillon, Davitt and the Freeman's Journal , but could not get the chairman to act. Redmond balked fearing a rupture with Sexton, Dillon and Davitt, all respected veterans of the Land War, would cause a split and the end of unity in the party. Dillon on the other hand, financially independent, could count on

10366-446: The country." When the war situation worsened, a new Conservative-Liberal coalition government was formed in May 1915. Redmond was offered a seat in its cabinet, which he declined. This was welcomed in Ireland but greatly weakened his position after his rival, unionist leader Carson accepted a cabinet post. As the war prolonged, the IPP's image suffered from the horrific casualties at the Cape Helles landings at Gallipoli as well as on

10512-583: The demand for The Land of Ireland for the people of Ireland was reported in the Connaught Telegraph 2 November 1878. The first of many "monster meetings" of tenant farmers was held in Irishtown near Claremorris on 20 April 1879, with an estimated turnout of 15,000 to 20,000 people. This meeting was addressed by James Daly (who presided), John O'Connor Power , John Ferguson , Thomas Brennan , and J. J. Louden. The Connaught Telegraph' s report of

10658-497: The demise of the actual party (O'Connor being returned unopposed in the elections of 1918, 1922, 1923, 1924, and 1929). The IPP emerged from the 1885 general election holding the balance of power. The Liberals had won 335 seats, but the IPP's 86 seats were enough to keep the 249 Conservatives in power for the time being. Early in 1886, Gladstone declared himself in favour of Home Rule. Parnell's party changed sides, allowing Gladstone to form his third government. Gladstone introduced

10804-546: The destruction of landlordism could only hasten Home Rule. The calm was first ruffled by Archbishop Walsh of Dublin, who, although the Bishop's Standing Committee expressed approval of the Report, in letters to the Freeman's Journal he challenged the accuracy of certain figures. O'Brien in turn retaliated with an exchange of letters which only ended by mid-March when it became clear that

10950-620: The divided Home Rulers holding the balance of power. He brought in his promised second Home Rule Bill in 1893. It was master-handled through three readings of the Commons by William O'Brien and passed in September by 301 votes to 267, during which Unionist conventions called in Dublin and Belfast to oppose the bill, denounced the possibility of partition. A week later 419 peers in the Lords rejected it, only 41 supporting. Gladstone retired in 1894. The Conservatives and Liberal Unionists returned to power in

11096-401: The eight of the tenant's requirements were conceded outright, the eight covered by a compromise, was published 4 January 1903. The Land Conference reached an amiable solution differing from the purchase schemes and provisions of previous land acts in one essential aspect, that sale was to be irresistibly attractive to both parties. The State should supply 'any reasonable difference arising between

11242-567: The end of a close friendship going back to the Plan of Campaign years in 1880s. Added aggravation came from Arthur Griffith who denounced the Land Conference as a landlord swindle and seized on Dillon's reaction to prove the party self-confessed incompetents. O'Brien, who had up to then held the initiative, and saw Dillon wantonly attacking a policy which the Irish party and the UIL had approved of and which had begun to reap considerable advantages for

11388-452: The exclusion of Ulster, permanent or provisional to be negotiated, which ultimately led to the partition of Ireland. This was deeply resented among northern nationalists and southern unionists who felt themselves abandoned. The Government of Ireland Act 1914 received Royal Assent in September 1914, celebrated with bonfires across southern Ireland. The outbreak of World War I in August led to

11534-546: The fact that the division did not have its own specific uniforms, was an unpopular decision. The War Office also reacted with suspicion to Redmond's remark that the Volunteers would soon return as an armed army to oppose Ulster's resistance to Home Rule. Around 24,000 of the National Volunteers did enlist but the remainder, or about 80% did not. Moreover, the organisation declined due to lack of training and organisation as

11680-525: The first Home Rule Bill 1886 and, after a long and fierce debate, made a remarkable Home Rule Speech , beseeching parliament to pass the bill which was, however, defeated by 341 to 311 votes. The Bill caused serious riots in Belfast during the summer and autumn of 1886, in which many were killed. Since 1882, Parnell's successful drive for Home Rule created great anxiety amongst Protestants and Unionists north and south alike, fearing Catholic intolerance from

11826-466: The follow-on Birrell Labourers Act of 1911, housed over a quarter of a million rural labourers and their families and thereby transformed the Irish countryside. In 1907 Richard Hazleton became the new party secretary. Outside the party at this time were the MPs William O'Brien, Sir Thomas Esmonde , T. M. Healy, Charles Dolan , John O'Donnell , Augustine Roche and D. D. Sheehan. Proposals to reunite

11972-522: The former Parnellite Irish National League (INL) under John Redmond and John Dillon's anti-Parnellite Irish National Federation (INF). By-elections in 1891 were fought with bitter venom by the INF anti-Parnellites, Dillon and Healy making extremely personal attacks on Parnell. The INF was also supported by the Catholic clergy who went to aggressive extremes to ensure that INF candidates were returned. Parnell worked untiringly between Ireland and Britain making speeches for support which he actually got from

12118-433: The full arrears of rents resorted to a rent strike . A renewed Land War was waged under the Plan of Campaign from 1886 up until 1892 during which the League decided on a fair rent and then encouraged its members to offer this rent to the landlords. If this was refused, then the rent would be paid by tenants to the League and the landlord would not receive any money until he accepted a discount. The first target, ironically,

12264-399: The further development of O'Brien's policy of conciliation by providing a platform to explore the possibility of limited devolved government for Ireland, heralding hopes for O'Brien, that Ireland had somehow entered a new era in which 'conference plus business' could replace agitation and parliamentary tactics as a primary strategy for achieving national goals. With the involvement of Wyndham,

12410-456: The future Land Act, not solely because he demanded nothing less than land nationalisation, also because he regarded the terms offered to the landlords as too favourable. By 7 May the bill had passed its second reading with a number of amendments by 443 votes to 26, a personal triumph for Wyndham. On 21 July the third reading was passed, the Bill only modified in minor ways by the House of Lords and by

12556-512: The government would enact on the Land Conference proposal. There was to be no quiet revolution in Irish national politics. The omens were initially good: on 16 February the leadership of the League blessed the Conference (and the later Act), as did Redmond and the Irish Parliamentary Party . But these prospects were soon to be dashed by the chief adversary of the Conference, Redmond's deputy John Dillon MP. His detestation of landlords

12702-563: The grounds that it could not succeed with a hundred and one delegates. His proposal to reduce the numbers to a dozen genuinely representative Irishmen from North and South, on the lines of the Land Conference, was not accepted, the Convention consequently ending as he predicted in disagreement. The original centrist supporters of the Land Conference turned themselves into the Irish Reform Association , led by Dunraven. They contemplated

12848-465: The groundwork for Irish self-government through three Irish Home Rule bills . The IPP evolved out of the Home Rule League which Isaac Butt founded after he defected from the Irish Conservative Party in 1873. The League sought to gain a limited form of freedom for Ireland within the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in order to manage Irish domestic affairs in the interest of

12994-532: The growth of nationalist mass movement outside the Party, quickly tried to take control of the Volunteers. He demanded and was given a position on its leadership council and rapidly filled its ranks with IPP supporters. Redmond and his IPP nationalists, as later those who succeeded them in 1919, had little or no knowledge of Belfast, underestimating Unionist resistance as a bluff, insisting "Ulster will have to follow". William O'Brien who in 1893 worked closely on passing

13140-522: The intractable land question, this was daring, generous and ingenious. The prices to be paid would range from 18½ years' purchase up to 24½ years' purchase on first term rents (that is, rents settled by the Land Courts under the Act of 1881), or 21½ to 27½ years' purchase on second-term rents. The money was to be advanced by the State and repaid over 68½ years by annuities at the rate of 3¼ per cent. The landlord

13286-491: The landlord monopoly on local government. Once again there was a determination to organise parliamentary constituencies so as to return Members pledged to tenant rights. But, as in the 1850s, the "shared dislike for, or hostility to, landlords, and a common desire for improved tenurial terms" could not overcome the sectarian-aligned division over Irish self-government between the Repeal Association , or now in 1874

13432-475: The largest party and were able to form a minority government with the loose support of the Liberal faction opposed to Home Rule, the Liberal Unionist Party . The Irish Party retained 85 seats and, in the years up to 1889, centred itself around the formidable figure of Parnell, who continued to pursue Home Rule, striving to reassure English voters that it would be of no threat to them. During that period,

13578-486: The leading Irish-American Fenian and raise funds. During 1878 Parnell also met with leading members of the Irish American Fenians. In October Devoy agreed to a New Departure of separating militancy from the constitutional movement in order to further its path to Home Rule. Throughout 1879 Parnell continued to campaign for land reform and when Davitt founded the Irish National Land League in October 1879 Parnell

13724-403: The league. Andrew Kettle , Michael Davitt and Thomas Brennan were appointed as honorary secretaries. This united practically in a single organisation all the different strands of land agitation and tenant rights movements on the nationalist side of the increasingly frozen sectarian-political divide in Ireland. The key motion at the Dublin meeting was proposed by Parnell. It proposed that

13870-399: The meeting in its edition of 26 April 1879 began: Since the days of O'Connell a larger public demonstration has not been witnessed than that of Sunday last. About 1 o'clock the monster procession started from Claremorris, headed by several thousand men on foot – the men of each district wearing a laurel leaf or green ribbon in hat or coat to distinguish the several contingents. At 11 o'clock

14016-584: The middle of August it had become law. Almost immediately land purchase was enormously accelerated. Prior to 1903 a total of nearly 20 million sterling had been advanced for the purchase of 2 ½ million acres. Under the Act of 1903, and the consequential Act of 1909, the position was completely transformed. When in March 1920, the Estate Commission reviewed the development since 1903 under these Acts, they estimated that 83 million sterling had been advanced for 9 million acres (36,000 km) transferred, whilst

14162-635: The movement cut across some sectarian boundaries, with some meetings held in Orange halls in Ulster , but the tenancy system in effect there Ulster Custom was quite different and fairer to tenants and support drifted away. As a result of the Land War, the Irish National Land League was suppressed by the authorities. In October 1882, as its successor Parnell founded the Irish National League to campaign on broader issues including Home Rule . Many of

14308-465: The new, tightly disciplined National League and the Catholic Church was one of the main factors for the revitalisation of the national Home Rule cause after 1882. Parnell saw that the explicit endorsement of Catholicism was of vital importance to the success of this venture. At the end of 1882 the organisation already had 232 branches, in 1885 increased to 592 branches. He left the day-to-day running of

14454-563: The nominees to Parliament. Now they were selected by the local party organisations, giving Redmond numerous weak MPs over whom he had little control. Redmond was an excellent representative of the old Ireland, but grew increasingly out-dated as he paid little attention to the new forces attracting younger Irishman, such as Sinn Féin , and the Ancient Order of Hibernians in politics, the Gaelic Athletic Association in sports, and

14600-614: The number of Irishmen who had a right to vote, many of whom were small farmers. The election increased the total Irish Party representation from 63 to 85 seats, which included seventeen in Ulster. In January 1886 the INL had developed to 1,262 branches and could claim to contain the vast body of Irish Catholic public sentiment. It acted not merely as an electoral committee for the Irish Party, but as local law-giver, unofficial parliament, government, police and supreme court. Parnell's personal authority in

14746-459: The objectives of the League were: ... first, to bring about a reduction of rack-rents ; second, to facilitate the obtaining of the ownership of the soil by the occupiers [and that these] ... can be best attained by promoting organisation among the tenant-farmers; by defending those who may be threatened with eviction for refusing to pay unjust rents; by facilitating the working of the Bright clauses of

14892-583: The organisation was enormous. The INL was a formidable political machine built in the traditional political culture of rural Ireland. It was an alliance of tenant farmers, shopkeepers and publicans. No one could stand against it. The party secured a seat in the English city of Liverpool , which contains a large Irish Catholic community. T. P. O'Connor won the Liverpool Scotland seat in 1885 and retained it in every election until his death in 1929 – even after

15038-498: The other hand, the Dillonite dogma of hostility towards any form of reconciliation or conference between agnostic classes and conflicting parties, that is, towards any collaboration with the hereditary enemy at any level, precipitated into subsequent events on the political stage in Ireland up to the end of the century. Irish National Land League The Irish National Land League ( Irish : Conradh na Talún ), also known as

15184-646: The party followed Asquith's abortive attempt to introduce Home Rule in July 1916 which failed on the threat of partition. Again Lloyd George 's initiative to disentangle the Home Rule deadlock after Redmond called the Irish Convention in June 1917, when Southern Unionists sided with Nationalists on the issue of Home Rule, ended unresolved due to Ulster resistance. In sharp contrast to Parnell, John Redmond lacked charisma. He worked well in small committees, but had little success in arousing large audiences. Parnell always chose

15330-539: The party was dissolved. The remnants of the IPP later re-established itself with six members to form the Nationalist Party in Northern Ireland under Joe Devlin . Twenty-seven of the newly elected Sinn Féin MPs assembled in Dublin on 21 January 1919 and formed an Irish parliament, or Dáil Éireann of a self-declared Irish Republic . Their remaining MPs were either still imprisoned or impaired. The UK state did not recognise

15476-575: The party were made by Redmond and a meeting summoned for the Mansion House, Dublin in April 1908. O'Brien and others rejoined the party temporarily for the sake of unity. But on his demand for further treasury funding for land purchase, O'Brien was ultimately driven out for good at a Dublin Convention in February 1909 by the party's vigorous militant support organisation, Devlin's "Hibernians". After which O'Brien founded his own political party in March 1909,

15622-400: The past the IPP only faced opposition from candidates at conventions within the Home Rule movement. It never had to compete a nationwide election, so that the party branches and organisation had slowly declined. In most constituencies the new young local Sinn Féin organisation controlled the electoral scene well in advance of the election. As a result, in 25 constituencies the IPP did not contest

15768-525: The plight of the farming community's need for more land, formed together with Davitt a new land movement, the United Irish League (UIL). It quickly spread first in the west, the following year nationwide like the old Land League and attracted members from all factions of the two split parties, O'Brien threatening to displace them and take them both over. The outbreak of the Second Boer War in 1899

15914-400: The process of land purchase in Ireland by means of state loans "as a healing measure". It was precisely the policy which Parnell enunciated in the 1880s. Although the Act resulted in vastly extended sales of entire estates – and in this regard deserves to be characterised as revolutionary, the adversary campaign led by Dillon, Davitt and Sexton which claimed it was a landlord victory, created

16060-519: The reformists produced two reports in August–September 1904 on a scheme of ' devolution '—that is, for granting to Ireland limited powers of local self-government. It became known that the Under-Secretary for Ireland, Sir Anthony MacDonnell , a Mayo Catholic originally appointed by Wyndham, had also been involved in the plan. In Ulster Unionist eyes this added particular sinister significance to

16206-532: The rents of the others. From 1870 and as a result of the Land War agitations and the Plan of Campaign of the 1880s, various British governments introduced a series of Irish Land Acts . William O'Brien played a leading role in the 1902 Land Conference to pave the way for the most advanced social legislation in Ireland since the Union, the Wyndham Land Purchase Act of 1903. This Act set the conditions for

16352-451: The road. Next followed a train of carriages, brakes, cares, etc. led on by Mr. Martin Hughes, the spirited hotel proprietor, driving a pair of rare black ponies to a phæton, taking Messrs. J.J. Louden and J. Daly. Next came Messrs. O'Connor, J. Ferguson, and Thomas Brennan in a covered carriage, followed by at least 500 vehicles from the neighbouring towns. On passing through Ballindine the sight

16498-558: The seats, and Sinn Féin candidates were returned unopposed. The Party lost 78 of its 84 seats. This was due to the "first past the post" British electoral system. Votes cast for the IPP were 220,837 (21.7%) for merely 6 seats (down from 84 out of 105 seats in 1910). Sinn Féin votes were 476,087 (or 46.9%) for 48 seats, plus 25 uncontested totalling an 73 seats. Unionist (including Unionist Labour) votes were 305,206 (30.2%) – by which Unionists increased their representation from 19 to 26 seats. The Irish Party leader Dillon lost his seat and

16644-684: The statute books. A minor group of impatient young Irish members, the genuine "Home-Rulers" distanced themselves from Butt's lack of assertiveness and, led by Charles Stewart Parnell , Joseph Biggar , John O'Connor Power , Edmund Dwyer Gray , Frank Hugh O'Donnell and John Dillon , some of whom had close connections with the Fenian movement, adopted the method of parliamentary " obstructionism " during 1876–1877, to bring Westminster out of its complacency towards Ireland by proposing amendments to almost every bill and making lengthy overnight speeches. This did not bring Home Rule closer, but helped to revitalise

16790-452: The sum advanced by the State and ultimately repaid to it'. This contribution was to be justified by the desirability of giving the occupier a favourable start on their new career as owner'. The report, in turn, provided the basis for the future land act. It seemed for a scant moment that both the historic land dispute had been resolved and the style of national politics had been redefined along new, conciliatory lines. The Land Conference Report

16936-529: The summer of 1902 conciliatory advances were not entirely novel. On the Nationalist side, John Redmond MP, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party , indicated on two occasions that he was in favour of conciliation, even if the landlords had to get better terms than they deserved from their history. After publication of the Shawe-Taylor letter which proposed O'Brien, Redmond, Timothy Harrington MP and Russell as

17082-587: The support of Davitt, of Joe Devlin MP's Belfast machine and of the Irish organisation in Britain led by T. P. O'Connor MP. William O'Brien, distressed and marginalised by Dillon's assault, told Redmond on 4 November 1903 he was retiring from Parliament and the UIL Directory, withdrawing from public life and closing the Irish People . O'Brien refused to reconsider, despite appeals from friends and allies His resignation

17228-522: The suspension of the Home Rule Act for the duration of the war, expected to only last a year. Ireland's involvement in the war defused the threat of civil war in Ireland and was to prove crucial to subsequent Irish history . After neutral Belgium had been overrun by Germany , Redmond and his party leaders, in order to ensure Home Rule would be implemented after the war, called on the Irish Volunteers to support Britain's war effort (her commitment under

17374-462: The tenant representative, there was enough conciliation in the air to generate a scheme that would bring the parties together. Shawe-Taylor corresponded with both O'Brien and Redmond on his initial difficulty in having the landlords take up the conference idea. However, by 19 September both agreed to throw in their support. Shawe-Taylot had chosen his men well. There was now no turning back, the landlord deliberations having agreed on four delegates to meet

17520-421: The tenant representatives. Dunraven and Redmond as leaders of their respective delegation drew up a scheme that would be fair to landlord and tenant alike. There was confidence that victory and new possibilities would result from such cooperation, Redmond reporting to O'Brien that Dunraven himself had further ideas as to some kind of Home Rule afterwards. O'Brien outlined his views on the terms to be discussed at

17666-488: The two Acts. In all, under the pre-UK Land Acts over 316,000 tenants purchased their holdings amounting to 15 million acres (61,000 km ) out of a total of 20 million acres (81,000 km ) in the country. Sometimes the holdings were described as "uneconomic", but the overall sense of social justice was manifest. The major land reforms came when Parliament passed laws in 1870, 1881, 1903 and 1909 that enabled most tenant farmers to purchase their lands, and lowered

17812-486: The two leaders bent their energies on sounding out where the Liberals stood on the Home Rule issue in the forthcoming general election. The Dunraven group were atypical of their cast, but for a time combined with O'Brien's sense of nationalism and Healy's opportunism, produced with the Land Conference—one of the most sustained and extensive attempts at unionist-nationalist co-operation in the twentieth century. On

17958-433: The unprecedented Wyndham Land Purchase (Ireland) Act 1903 through parliament, which enabled tenant farmers to buy out their landlord's land at favourable annuities, while giving the landlords a premium price. The last landlords sold out in the 1920s, thus ending the age-old Irish land question . The masterful strategy adopted by William O'Brien of bringing about agreement on land purchase between tenants and landlords under

18104-521: The use of physical-force. In the 1892 general election that followed, Redmond's Parnellites won a third of the Home Rule/nationalist votes (18.2% Parnellites v. 58.9% for anti-Parnellites) but only nine seats, the anti-Parnellites returned 72 MPs divided between Dillonites and a fragmented minority of six Healyites – the People's Rights Association. Gladstone and the Liberals were again in power,

18250-449: The veto of the House of Lords over most matters and limited them to a two-year delaying power, ensuring that Redmond's reward of a Government of Ireland Bill for the whole of Ireland introduced in 1912 would subsequently achieve national self-government in Dublin by 1914. This prospect after 40 years of struggle was greeted optimistically, even when self-government was initially limited to running Irish affairs. But for Unionists, convinced

18396-559: The war went on. "The resulting collapse of the National Volunteers presaged that of the Irish Party itself, though this was less obvious. Its support for the War was gradually revealed to be a major political encumbrance." The Under Secretary for Ireland , Mathew Nathan, writing in November 1915, thought that Redmond's stance on the War ultimately cost him and his party their pre-eminent position in Irish life, "Redmond has been honestly imperial, but by going as far as he has, he has lost his position in

18542-523: The war, the enthusiasm did not last. Unlike their 36th (Ulster) Division counterparts and the Ulster Volunteers who manned it with their own trained military reserve officers, the southern Volunteers possessed no officers with previous military experience with the result that the War Office had the 16th Division led by English officers, which with the exception of Irish General William Hickie , and

18688-399: The whole affair, scented a political conspiracy and were outraged that a permanent official should dare to tamper with the sacred British connection. MacDonnell claimed he had written to his superior Wyndham informing him, who failed to take particular notice of the letter. When in March 1905 Unionists launched their attack and Ulster resentment became overwhelming, Wyndham, by now a broken man,

18834-400: Was a member of the Catholic clergy, Canon Ulick Burke of Knock , who was eventually induced to reduce his rents by 25%. Many landlords resisted these tactics, often violently and there were deaths on either side of the dispute. The Royal Irish Constabulary , the national armed police force, were charged with upholding the law and protecting both landlord and tenant against violence. Originally,

18980-537: Was a political scandal for English Victorian society . Gladstone reacted by informing Parnell that if he were re-elected leader of the Irish Party, Home Rule would be withdrawn. Parnell did not disclose this to his party and was selected leader on 25 November. A special meeting of the party a week later lasted six days at the end of which 45 "anti-Parnellites" walked out, leaving him with 27 faithful followers, J. J. Clancy one of his key defenders. Both sides returned to Ireland to organise their supporters into two parties,

19126-571: Was a very serious blow for the party at home and abroad. Membership lapsed, many UIL branches became extinct. O'Brien embarked on a lengthy career of independent opposition to the Parliamentary party and although he briefly returned, together with Healy, in January 1908 in the interest of unity and to test the strategy of conciliation again, disappointment remained his lot. Events had drawn the once estranged Healy and O'Brien closer together, both now sharing

19272-466: Was again Prime Minister. He attempted to defuse the land question with the dual ownership Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881 which failed to eliminate tenant evictions. Parnell and his party lieutenants, William O'Brien , John Dillon, Michael Davitt, Willie Redmond , went into a bitter verbal offensive and were imprisoned in October 1881 under the Irish Coercion Act in Kilmainham Jail for "sabotaging

19418-402: Was also a growing resentment at the landlord class as enunciated by Russell, who castigated their control of land as 'systemised and legal robbery'. The Government was involved in the Land War only to the extent of enforcing its understanding of law and order chiefly in the interest of land owners. All the acts passed advanced the rights of tenants to some extent, but by the end of the century it

19564-473: Was clear that the existing system of landlord and tenant ought to be replaced by a system of 'tenant proprietorship'. When the Chief Secretary for Ireland George Wyndham introduced a Land Purchase Bill early in 1902 which fell deplorably short of the necessities of the situation, the UIL wanted no paltry compromises and entered upon a virile campaign against the rack-renters. All the elements of social convulsion were gathering strength, when on 2 September 1902

19710-469: Was condemned by both Irish factions; their combined opposition helped to bring about a measure of understanding between them. By 1900 the threat of O'Brien swamping and outmanoeuvring them at the upcoming elections forced the two divided parties, the INL and the INF, to re-unite. He was the prime mover and may be truly regarded as an architect of the settlement of 1900 in merging them under a new programme of agrarian agitation, political reform and Home Rule into

19856-403: Was elected president, but did not take control of it, favouring to continue to hold mass meetings. Isaac Butt died later that year and Parnell held back in grabbing control of the party. Instead he travelled to America with John Dillon on a fund raising mission for political purposes and to relieve distress in Ireland after a world economic depression slumped the sale of agricultural produce. At

20002-500: Was entirely fitting that a scion of the original invader should be among those called to reverse the consequences of the Conquest. Among them, Dunraven soon emerged as a capable leader with a genuine sympathy for a settlement and an interest in Irish affairs transcending mere land questions. Dunraven and Everand were among the few landlords to win election to county councils in 1899; Everard survived on Meath County Council until 1920. During

20148-525: Was forced to retire from office. Nationalist leaders taken by surprise by the Association's proposals, reacted ambiguously, Redmond at first greeted the devolution scheme, then sided with Dillon who was vehemently against it, regarding the Irish party as the only standard bearer of self-government. Anything less than the fulfilment of the full demand for self-government was dangerous, because accepting less might postpone true self-government indefinitely. Instead

20294-517: Was making no headway with his policy, he resigned his parliamentary seat in November 1903. It was a serious setback for the party, at the same time turning once intimate friends into mortal enemies. O'Brien subsequently engaged during 1904–1905 with the Irish Reform Association and in 1907 with the Irish Council Bill which he viewed as a step in the right direction, or "Home Rule by instalments", equally condemned by his opponents. O'Brien's UIL

20440-454: Was never enforced in Ireland, as fresh American troops began to be deployed to France in large numbers, the threat of conscription radicalised Irish politics. Sinn Féin , the political arm of the Volunteer insurgents, had public opinion believe that they alone had prevented conscription. The Irish party held its own and returned its candidates in by-elections up to the end of 1916, the last in

20586-624: Was praised by O'Brien as such, not merely its commitment to legislation, but also the new form of Irish politics it embodied, O'Brien's 'conference plus business'. The attention of Ireland was now riveted on the developments around the Conference Report, for what was to become the most revolutionary piece of legislation in Irish history, the Land Act of 1903. Before the Land Conference Redmond and O'Brien had preached "unity" and "conciliation". Nationalists, O'Brien foremost, believed that

20732-399: Was taken over by Dillon's protégé and ally, Joseph Devlin , a young Belfast MP, as its new secretary. Devlin had founded a decade earlier the Catholic sectarian neo-Ribbon Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH), organising its rise first in Ulster and after he had control of the UIL, eventually across the south, largely displacing the UIL. The Irish Party came to have an increasing dependence on

20878-419: Was to receive a 12% bonus to stimulate sales, paid for out of Irish revenues, one of some features which aroused nationalist resentment. As the bill progressed through Parliament, O'Brien became convinced that the conference method could bring other social reforms and secure unionist consent for limited self-government, developing into full Home Rule. Timothy Healy MP turned from sceptics to vigorously supporting

21024-568: Was truly imposing, the endless train directing its course to Irishtown – a neat little hamlet on the boundaries of Mayo, Roscommon , and Galway . Evolving out of this a number of local land league organisations were set up to work against the excessive rents being demanded by landlords throughout Ireland, but especially in Mayo and surrounding counties. From 1874 agricultural prices in Europe had dropped, followed by some bad harvests due to wet weather during

21170-470: Was vindicated in February 1890. Gladstone invited Parnell to his country house ( Hawarden in Flintshire ) to discuss a renewed Home Rule bill. This was the high point of Parnell's career. However, since 1880 he had had a family relationship with a married woman Katharine O'Shea who bore him three children. Her divorce proceedings first came to court late in 1890, in which Parnell was named co-respondent. This

21316-488: Was well known, having publicly expressed his familiar view that the best way to deal with landlords was not to confer with them, rather to make life uncomfortable for them . Dillon regarded O'Brien's enthusiasm for the Conference policy with deepening suspicion and had begun to diverge from the line taken by his friends, with consequences which in the long term were to be momentous. Wyndham introduced his long-awaited bill on 25 March. Compared with all previous attempts to solve

#685314