Isaac Nelson was a Presbyterian minister and an Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 Nationalist

Irish nationalism

Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...

 politician.

Nelson stood for Parliament while minister of the Donegall Street Congregation of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. Having been elected, he resigned his pastoral charge and served as the Irish Parliamentary Party

Irish Parliamentary Party

The Irish Parliamentary Party was formed in 1882 by Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader of the Nationalist Party, replacing the Home Rule League, as official parliamentary party for Irish nationalist Members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons at...

 Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Mayo

Mayo (UK Parliament constituency)

Mayo was a parliamentary constituency in Ireland, which returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1885.-History :...

 in the House of Commons

British House of Commons

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

 of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....

 from 1880 to 1882.

In November 1873, at a Home Rule Conference

Home Rule League

The Home Rule League, sometimes called the Home Rule Party, was a political party which campaigned for home rule for the country of Ireland from 1873 to 1882, when it was replaced by the Irish Parliamentary Party.-Origins:...

 in Dublin, Nelson emphasied the historical nationalism of Ulster Presbyterianism and expressed his view that no candidate in the next election would succeed without embracing Home Rule

Home rule

Home rule is the power of a constituent part of a state to exercise such of the state's powers of governance within its own administrative area that have been devolved to it by the central government....

. His views were published in The Northern Whig Newspaper and were promptly condemned by William Johnston (not the prominent Orangeman of that name), the moderator

Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland

The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland is the most senior office-bearer within the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, which is Northern Ireland's largest Protestant denomination....

 of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland

General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland is the sovereign and highest court of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and is thus the Church's governing body. The General Assembly normally meets annually, during the first full week in June....

.

The following year Nelson attended and addressed the fourth annual meeting of the "Home Rule Association", held in Manchester, England. In 1877 he was a founding member of the "Home Rule Confederation"

He returned to Belfast and lived there in retirement until his death in 1888.