Origins
The IPP evolved out of the Home Rule League founded by Isaac Butt after he defected from the Irish Conservative Party in 1873, to gain a limited form of freedom from Britain in order to protect and control Irish domestic affairs in the interest of the Protestant landlord class, after William Ewart Gladstone and his Liberal Party came to power in 1868 under his slogan Justice for Ireland, when Irish Liberals gained 65 of the 105 Irish seats at Westminster. Gladstone said his mission was to pacify Ireland and with the Irish Church Act 1869 began with the disestablishment of the Anglican Church of Ireland whose members were a minority who made all political decisions in Ireland and would have largely voted Conservative. He also introduced his first land bill which led to the First Irish Land 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 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 by the Home Rule League, formed after a conference in Dublin in November 1873. Gladstone unexpectedly called a new election in February 1874, which helped bring the League to the foreground. Since 1872 the Secret Ballots Act had been introduced, so that voting was to be done secretly for the first time from then on. 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 fifty-nine Irish seats, many with ex-Liberals.
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