Irish Parliamentary Party - Party Divided

Party Divided

In the 1892 general election that followed, Redmond’s Parnellites won a third of the votes 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, 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 the 1895 general election, 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 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 William O’Brien had withdrawn from parliament to Mayo and in 1898, driven by the plight of the farming community’s need for more land, formed together with Davitt a new land movement, the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 nation-wide 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.