Plan of Campaign
Encyclopedia
The Plan of Campaign was a stratagem
adopted in Ireland
between 1886 and 1891, co-ordinated by Irish
politicians for the benefit of tenant farmer
s, against mainly absentee
and rack-rent
landlords. It was launched to counter agricultural distress caused by the continual depression in prices of dairy products and cattle from the mid 1870s, which left many tenants in arrears with rent. Bad weather in 1885 and 1886 also caused crop failure, making it harder to pay rents. The Land War of the early 1880s was about to be renewed after eviction
s increased and outrages became widespread.
was devised and organised by Timothy Harrington secretary of the Irish National League, William O'Brien
and John Dillon
. It was outlined in an article headed Plan of Campaign by Harrington which was published on 23 October 1886 in the League's newspaper, the United Irishman of which O’Brien was editor. The purpose of the Plan was to secure a reduction of rent where tenants considered themselves overburdened in consequence of a poor harvest:- if a landlord refused to accept a reduced rent, the tenants were to pay no rent at all. The rents were then collected by campaigners who banked them in the name of a National League committee of trustees and were to be used to assist evicted tenants who had risked eviction in the hope of rapid fair-rent reinstatement.
A Land Commission had been established under the Land Law (Ireland) Act of 1881 to review and reduce rents where they were clearly unpayable, securing an average reduction of 25%. The Campaign sought to reduce the amounts further by concerted action and ideally by negotiation.
The measures were to be put into operation on 203 estates mainly located in the South and West of the country and some scattered Ulster estates. Initially sixty landlords accepted the reduced rents, twenty-four holding out but then agreeing the tenant conditions. Tenants gave in on fifteen estates. The chief trouble occurred on the remaining large estates. The organisers of the Plan decided to test a number of these expecting the remainder would then give in. Widespread attention was focused on it being implemented by Dillon and O’Brien on the estate of the Marquess of Clanricarde
at Portumna
, co. Galway
(19 November 1886), where the landlord was an absentee ascendancy landlord
. The estate comprising 52000 acres (210.4 km²), or 21,000 hectare
, yielded 25,000 sterling yearly in rents paid by 1,900 tenants. The hard-pressed tenants looked for a reduction of twenty-five percent. The landlord refused to give any abatement. The tenant’s reduced rents were then placed into an estate fund, and the landlord informed he would only receive the monies when he agreed to the reduction. Tenants on other estate then followed the example of the Clanricarde tenants, the Plan on each estate led by a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party
Campaign activists including Pat O'Brien
, Alexander Blane
or members of its constituency organisation, the National League. Some 20,000 tenants were involved.
, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party had been concentrating on winning over the British electorate to Irish Home Rule prior to the 1885 elections. William Gladstone
leader of the Liberal Party
then in power, had come under Parnell’s sway and committed himself like a ferocious evangelist to introducing Home Rule as "justice for Ireland". The election in November saw Parnell with 86 seats holding the balance of power in the House of Commons
. In April 1886 Gladstone then introduced the First Irish Home Rule Bill. Immediately Unionists and the Conservative Party
mounted opposition throughout Britain. Gladstone's party split on the issue, with his wealthier supporters forming the Liberal Unionist Party
. On its second reading in June the Bill was defeated by 341 seats to 311 and Parliament dissolved. The ensuing election brought a majority of 118 for the Conservatives and their Liberal Unionist allies over the combined Irish and Liberal members, reflecting the threat felt by Home Rule.
Undaunted and certain Home Rule’s time would yet come, Parnell in the aftermath of the Home Rule Bill dissociated himself from the launching of the Plan of Campaign, after agrarian war flared up again, fearing to identify Home Rule and constitutional nationalism with militant agrarian violence. His more canny supporters wanted to secure the votes of the growing low-to-middle income electorate and felt that their own campaign would head off any support for the more radical Michael Davitt
. Essentially they were copying Davitt's earlier methods without his more radical policy.
In December 1886 Lord Salisbury
’s Conservative government declared the Campaign to be "an unlawful and criminal conspiracy". Parnell, unable to prevent it, persuaded O’Brien to confine it at that stage to the estates upon which it was operating. However, the campaigners had moral support from the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, William Walsh
, and from the Archbishop of Cashel
, Thomas William Croke. Many other bishops supported it, while opposition was led by the Bishop of Limerick
, Edward O’Dwyer. A complication for the church was that it had lent money to larger Catholic landlords, such as the Earl of Granard
in Longford
, who could not pay their mortgage payments to the Church when receiving no rents.
, fresh from his attack on the Scottish Land League
, to the post of Chief Secretary of Ireland. Balfour secured a tough Irish Coercion Act
or Perpetual Crimes Act (1887), aimed at the prevention of boycott
ing, intimidation, unlawful assembly and the organisation of conspiracies against the payment of rents. The Act resulted in the imprisonment of hundreds of people including over twenty MPs, all of whom had done no more than help evicted tenants. The so-called Crimes Act (or "Coercion" Act) was condemned by the Catholic hierarchy since it was to become a permanent part of the law and did not have to be renewed annually by parliament. Trial by jury was abolished. Balfour also had the National League declared illegal and its many branches suppressed. He went further and sent armed police and soldiers to evict tenants, using battering ram
s against small cottages after sieges of several days. These dramatic scenes were reported by the press around the world and aroused much sympathy in Britain for those evicted.
Dillon and O’Brien were arrested, and, when their supporters started a public defence fund, Archbishop Croke issued a No Tax Manifesto which prompted Balfour to consider imprisoning him also. Two priests, Fr. Matt Ryan and Fr. Daniel Keller, both within Croke’s archdiocese, were imprisoned. Balfour defended Divisional Magistrate Plunkett’s injunction to the police under threat: "Do not hesitate to shoot", in the House of Commons. Later in 1887 when O’Brien and a local Tipperary farmer John Mandeville were taken for trial to Mitchelstown
, Dillon was present and after he delivered a speech denouncing Balfour, the crowd of 8,000 threw stones at the police, who retreated and then opened fire, killing three people in what became known as the "Mitchelstown Massacre". Balfour defended his subordinates for which O’Brien dubbed him "Bloody Balfour" in the House of Commons.
The Parnell Commission
hearings in 1888-89 exonerated Parnell from involvement with murders in 1882, but also revealed a great amount of violence and intimidation. In hindsight the government felt justified in enacting special criminal laws for special circumstances.
assistance to suppress clergymen involved in the Plan. In answer the Vatican despatched Archbishop Persico
to Ireland, who travelled throughout the country from July 1887 until January 1888, consulting prominent members of the hierarchy. A Papal Rescript (20 April 1888) condemned the Plan and all clerical involvement in it as well as boycotting, followed in June by the Papal encyclical "Saepe Nos" that was addressed to all the Irish bishops.
This was openly denounced as an impertinence by the Irish MPs and the clergy themselves divided on the issue. A general resentment of the Vatican’s intrusion into Irish affairs helped to win some support for the Plan, which was by now in financial difficulties. This ran counter to the Ultramontane policy adopted by Cardinal Cullen since the 1850s, which included total obedience to papal decrees. Suspicion arose that the encyclical was issued in hopes that Britain and the Papacy would appoint ambassadors to each other and establish diplomatic relations.
The covering letter with the encyclical was written by Raffaele Monaco La Valletta, Cardinal Secretary of the Holy Office
, and included:
Persico later commented that, "I had no idea that anything had been done about Irish affairs, much less thought that some questions had been referred to the Holy Office, and the first knowledge I had of the decree was on the morning of the 28th April, when I received the bare circular sent me by Propaganda. I must add that had I known of such a thing I would have felt it my duty to make proper representations to the Holy See."
Persico was rewarded soon after his return by the Vicariate of the Vatican Seminary and in 1893 was appointed a Cardinal
.
[Excerpt from relevant article in "Ireland's Own" magazine (Nov. 17-2006) on Monsignor Daniel Keller, The People's Priest by Maurice Aherne]………..In September 1896, he accompanied a party of Bishops and Priests to Ivrea, Turin, for the beatification of a former Bishop of Cloyne- Thadeus McCarthy. Whilst there he sought, and was granted, an audience with Pope Leo XIII, who had condemned the Plan of Campaign. He left an enlightened Pope with a Special Papal Blessing for ‘The Plan of Campaign’ stalwart, Maurice Doyle, who had spent seven months in jail for his beliefs. That was not all he brought back from Rome. He also obtained Papal permission to hold the Eucharist Procession in Youghal on Corpus Christi and the very first one ever held in Ireland was held in Youghal……….
of Cork
, Arthur Smith-Barry
. As the landlord’s agent, Smith-Barry, ennobled as Lord Barrymore, was authorised to buy up estates which were threatened by the Plan and then evict the tenants, which he carried out in the case of the Charles Ponsonby estate in Youghal
. This brought him into conflict with his own tenants, largely the tenants of Tipperary
town, who in anger refused to pay rents. When evicted they moved with their shops to pursue their livelihoods outside the town boundaries and built ‘New’ Tipperary under the direction of Fr. Davis Humphries and O’Brien, just released from prison. The Tipperary project, comprising two streets with houses, proved too costly for the Plan’s leaders and this led to its defeat. By this time Parnell had been induced to give some support which helped in the formation of a Tenants’ Defence Association in Tipperary and this, along with Dillon’s raised money, enabled the Plan to continue. The organisers had £84,000 in 1890 but this had shrunk to £48,000 within a year, by which time almost 1,500 tenants were receiving grants from the Plan funds.
, Parnell, concerned that it would otherwise harm his alliance with the Liberals, virtually renounced his association with the Plan, this disunity with his party a precursor of the more momentous split to come. The organisers were forced to seek financial assistance elsewhere and Dillon embarked on a fund-raising drive in Australia
and New Zealand
(May 1889-April 1890) which raised some £33,000, but this was insufficient for their needs. In October Dillon and O’Brien jumped bail and escaped to France, and from there to America where they were empowered by Parnell to raise more money (£61,000, which he intended for the Irish party).
Parnell also had to distance himself from the Campaign during the Parnell Commission
hearings in 1888-89. While the main outcome was very favourable to him, much of the surrounding evidence suggested that the organisers of the Campaign and the former Land War had incited, or were complicit in, the attendant violence.
The Campaign attracted many British and foreign journalists to Ireland as well as Liberal MPs some of whom were imprisoned under the “Crimes Act”, which increased sympathy for Home Rule. The Conservative Party as a result of its mishandling lost sympathy among the working classes in Britain. Balfour however in the following decade, surprisingly, became one of Ireland’s better Chief Secretaries, when he amended and introduced new land acts, encouraged various economic schemes, local industries, extension of the railways and the introduction of local government. His approach, much in keeping with his character, had been from the beginning two-pronged - I shall be as relentless as Cromwell
in enforcing obedience to the law, but, at the same time, I shall be as radical as any reformer in redressing grievances and especially in removing every cause of complaint in regard to the land.
and Parnell’’ divorce case the IPP split. This diverted attention from the Campaign which slowly petered out. The IPP also wanted to disassociate itself from the more violent aspects on the approach to the Second Home Rule Bill that narrowly succeeded with a majority of 30 in the House of Commons but was then defeated by the House of Lords in 1893.
The Irish land question was addressed after the 1902 Land Conference
by the main reforming Wyndham Land (Purchase) Act of 1903, during Balfour's short tenure as Prime Minister in 1902-05, allowing Irish tenant farmers to buy the freehold title to their land with low annuities and affordable government-backed loans.
Strategy
Strategy, a word of military origin, refers to a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. In military usage strategy is distinct from tactics, which are concerned with the conduct of an engagement, while strategy is concerned with how different engagements are linked...
adopted in Ireland
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...
between 1886 and 1891, co-ordinated by Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
politicians for the benefit of tenant farmer
Tenant farmer
A tenant farmer is one who resides on and farms land owned by a landlord. Tenant farming is an agricultural production system in which landowners contribute their land and often a measure of operating capital and management; while tenant farmers contribute their labor along with at times varying...
s, against mainly absentee
Absentee landlord
Absentee landlord is an economic term for a person who owns and rents out a profit-earning property, but does not live within the property's local economic region. This practice is problematic for that region because absentee landlords drain local wealth into their home country, particularly that...
and rack-rent
Rack-rent
Rack-rent denotes two different concepts:# an excessive or extortionate rent, or# the full rent of a property, including both land and improvements if it were subject to an immediate open-market rental review...
landlords. It was launched to counter agricultural distress caused by the continual depression in prices of dairy products and cattle from the mid 1870s, which left many tenants in arrears with rent. Bad weather in 1885 and 1886 also caused crop failure, making it harder to pay rents. The Land War of the early 1880s was about to be renewed after eviction
Eviction
How you doing???? Eviction is the removal of a tenant from rental property by the landlord. Depending on the laws of the jurisdiction, eviction may also be known as unlawful detainer, summary possession, summary dispossess, forcible detainer, ejectment, and repossession, among other terms...
s increased and outrages became widespread.
Drastic measures
The Plan, conceived by Timothy HealyTimothy Michael Healy
Timothy Michael Healy, KC , also known as Tim Healy, was an Irish nationalist politician, journalist, author, barrister and one of the most controversial Irish Members of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
was devised and organised by Timothy Harrington secretary of the Irish National League, William O'Brien
William O'Brien
William O'Brien was an Irish nationalist, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher, author and Member of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
and John Dillon
John Dillon
John Dillon was an Irish land reform agitator from Dublin, an Irish Home Rule activist, a nationalist politician, a Member of Parliament for over 35 years, and the last leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party....
. It was outlined in an article headed Plan of Campaign by Harrington which was published on 23 October 1886 in the League's newspaper, the United Irishman of which O’Brien was editor. The purpose of the Plan was to secure a reduction of rent where tenants considered themselves overburdened in consequence of a poor harvest:- if a landlord refused to accept a reduced rent, the tenants were to pay no rent at all. The rents were then collected by campaigners who banked them in the name of a National League committee of trustees and were to be used to assist evicted tenants who had risked eviction in the hope of rapid fair-rent reinstatement.
A Land Commission had been established under the Land Law (Ireland) Act of 1881 to review and reduce rents where they were clearly unpayable, securing an average reduction of 25%. The Campaign sought to reduce the amounts further by concerted action and ideally by negotiation.
The measures were to be put into operation on 203 estates mainly located in the South and West of the country and some scattered Ulster estates. Initially sixty landlords accepted the reduced rents, twenty-four holding out but then agreeing the tenant conditions. Tenants gave in on fifteen estates. The chief trouble occurred on the remaining large estates. The organisers of the Plan decided to test a number of these expecting the remainder would then give in. Widespread attention was focused on it being implemented by Dillon and O’Brien on the estate of the Marquess of Clanricarde
Hubert de Burgh-Canning, 2nd Marquess of Clanricarde
Hubert George de Burgh-Canning, 2nd Marquess of Clanricarde , was an Anglo-Irish ascendancy nobleman and politician....
at Portumna
Portumna
Portumna is a market town in the south-east of County Galway, Ireland, on the border with County Tipperary. The town is located to the west of the point where the River Shannon enters Lough Derg. This historic crossing point over the River Shannon between counties Tipperary and Galway has a long...
, co. Galway
County Galway
County Galway is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the city of Galway. Galway County Council is the local authority for the county. There are several strongly Irish-speaking areas in the west of the county...
(19 November 1886), where the landlord was an absentee ascendancy landlord
Protestant Ascendancy
The Protestant Ascendancy, usually known in Ireland simply as the Ascendancy, is a phrase used when referring to the political, economic, and social domination of Ireland by a minority of great landowners, Protestant clergy, and professionals, all members of the Established Church during the 17th...
. The estate comprising 52000 acres (210.4 km²), or 21,000 hectare
Hectare
The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...
, yielded 25,000 sterling yearly in rents paid by 1,900 tenants. The hard-pressed tenants looked for a reduction of twenty-five percent. The landlord refused to give any abatement. The tenant’s reduced rents were then placed into an estate fund, and the landlord informed he would only receive the monies when he agreed to the reduction. Tenants on other estate then followed the example of the Clanricarde tenants, the Plan on each estate led by a member of 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...
Campaign activists including Pat O'Brien
Pat O'Brien (Irish politician)
Patrick O'Brien , generally known as Pat, was Irish Nationalist MP in the House Of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and as member of the Irish Parliamentary Party represented North Monaghan and Kilkenny City . He was Chief Whip of the Irish Party from 1907 until his...
, Alexander Blane
Alexander Blane
Alexander Blane was an Irish nationalist politician and Member of Parliament for South Armagh, 1885-92. He was a supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell during the Split in the Irish Parliamentary Party, and later a pioneering Socialist...
or members of its constituency organisation, the National League. Some 20,000 tenants were involved.
Parnell’s dilemma
Charles Stewart ParnellCharles Stewart Parnell
Charles Stewart Parnell was an Irish landowner, nationalist political leader, land reform agitator, and the founder and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party...
, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party had been concentrating on winning over the British electorate to Irish Home Rule prior to the 1885 elections. William Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...
leader of the Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
then in power, had come under Parnell’s sway and committed himself like a ferocious evangelist to introducing Home Rule as "justice for Ireland". The election in November saw Parnell with 86 seats holding the balance of power 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...
. In April 1886 Gladstone then introduced the First Irish Home Rule Bill. Immediately Unionists and the Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
mounted opposition throughout Britain. Gladstone's party split on the issue, with his wealthier supporters forming the Liberal Unionist Party
Liberal Unionist Party
The Liberal Unionist Party was a British political party that was formed in 1886 by a faction that broke away from the Liberal Party. Led by Lord Hartington and Joseph Chamberlain, the party formed a political alliance with the Conservative Party in opposition to Irish Home Rule...
. On its second reading in June the Bill was defeated by 341 seats to 311 and Parliament dissolved. The ensuing election brought a majority of 118 for the Conservatives and their Liberal Unionist allies over the combined Irish and Liberal members, reflecting the threat felt by Home Rule.
Undaunted and certain Home Rule’s time would yet come, Parnell in the aftermath of the Home Rule Bill dissociated himself from the launching of the Plan of Campaign, after agrarian war flared up again, fearing to identify Home Rule and constitutional nationalism with militant agrarian violence. His more canny supporters wanted to secure the votes of the growing low-to-middle income electorate and felt that their own campaign would head off any support for the more radical Michael Davitt
Michael Davitt
Michael Davitt was an Irish republican and nationalist agrarian agitator, a social campaigner, labour leader, journalist, Home Rule constitutional politician and Member of Parliament , who founded the Irish National Land League.- Early years :Michael Davitt was born in Straide, County Mayo,...
. Essentially they were copying Davitt's earlier methods without his more radical policy.
In December 1886 Lord Salisbury
Marquess of Salisbury
Marquess of Salisbury is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1789 for the 7th Earl of Salisbury. Most of the holders of the title have been prominent in British political life over the last two centuries, particularly the 3rd Marquess, who served three times as Prime Minister...
’s Conservative government declared the Campaign to be "an unlawful and criminal conspiracy". Parnell, unable to prevent it, persuaded O’Brien to confine it at that stage to the estates upon which it was operating. However, the campaigners had moral support from the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, William Walsh
William Walsh
William Walsh was an English poet and critic, son of Joseph Walsh of Abberley Hall, Worcestershire.He entered Wadham College, Oxford, as a gentleman commoner in 1678. Leaving the university without a degree, he settled in his native county, and was returned MP for Worcestershire in 1698, 1701 and...
, and from the Archbishop of Cashel
Archbishop of Cashel
The Archbishop of Cashel is an archiepiscopal title which takes its name after the town of Cashel, County Tipperary in Ireland. The title is still in use in the Roman Catholic Church, but in the Church of Ireland it was downgraded to a bishopric in 1838....
, Thomas William Croke. Many other bishops supported it, while opposition was led by the Bishop of Limerick
Limerick
Limerick is the third largest city in the Republic of Ireland, and the principal city of County Limerick and Ireland's Mid-West Region. It is the fifth most populous city in all of Ireland. When taking the extra-municipal suburbs into account, Limerick is the third largest conurbation in the...
, Edward O’Dwyer. A complication for the church was that it had lent money to larger Catholic landlords, such as the Earl of Granard
Earl of Granard
Earl of Granard is a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1684 for Arthur Forbes, 1st Viscount Granard. He was a Lieutenant-General in the army and served as Marshal of the Army in Ireland after The Restoration and was later Lord Justice of Ireland...
in Longford
Longford
Longford is the county town of County Longford in Ireland. It has a population of 7,622 according to the 2006 census. Approximately one third of the county's population resides in the town. Longford town is also the biggest town in the county...
, who could not pay their mortgage payments to the Church when receiving no rents.
Coercion Act
The renewal of the Land War in the form of the Campaign, was a matter of grave concern to the government and, determined to crush it, Salisbury appointed his nephew, Arthur BalfourArthur Balfour
Arthur James Balfour, 1st Earl of Balfour, KG, OM, PC, DL was a British Conservative politician and statesman...
, fresh from his attack on the Scottish Land League
Highland Land League
The first Highland Land League emerged as a distinct political force in Scotland during the 1880s, with its power base in the country's Highlands and Islands. It was known also as the Highland Land Law Reform Association and the Crofters' Party...
, to the post of Chief Secretary of Ireland. Balfour secured a tough Irish Coercion Act
Irish Coercion Act
The Protection of Person and Property Act 1881 was one of more than 100 Coercion Acts passed by the Parliament of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland between 1801 and 1922, in an attempt to establish law and order in Ireland. The 1881 Act was passed by parliament and introduced by...
or Perpetual Crimes Act (1887), aimed at the prevention of boycott
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
ing, intimidation, unlawful assembly and the organisation of conspiracies against the payment of rents. The Act resulted in the imprisonment of hundreds of people including over twenty MPs, all of whom had done no more than help evicted tenants. The so-called Crimes Act (or "Coercion" Act) was condemned by the Catholic hierarchy since it was to become a permanent part of the law and did not have to be renewed annually by parliament. Trial by jury was abolished. Balfour also had the National League declared illegal and its many branches suppressed. He went further and sent armed police and soldiers to evict tenants, using battering ram
Battering ram
A battering ram is a siege engine originating in ancient times and designed to break open the masonry walls of fortifications or splinter their wooden gates...
s against small cottages after sieges of several days. These dramatic scenes were reported by the press around the world and aroused much sympathy in Britain for those evicted.
Dillon and O’Brien were arrested, and, when their supporters started a public defence fund, Archbishop Croke issued a No Tax Manifesto which prompted Balfour to consider imprisoning him also. Two priests, Fr. Matt Ryan and Fr. Daniel Keller, both within Croke’s archdiocese, were imprisoned. Balfour defended Divisional Magistrate Plunkett’s injunction to the police under threat: "Do not hesitate to shoot", in the House of Commons. Later in 1887 when O’Brien and a local Tipperary farmer John Mandeville were taken for trial to Mitchelstown
Mitchelstown
Mitchelstown is a town in County Cork, Ireland with a population of approximately 3300. Mitchelstown is situated in the valley to the south of the Galtee Mountains close to the Mitchelstown Caves and is 28 km from Cahir, 50 km from Cork and 59 km from Limerick...
, Dillon was present and after he delivered a speech denouncing Balfour, the crowd of 8,000 threw stones at the police, who retreated and then opened fire, killing three people in what became known as the "Mitchelstown Massacre". Balfour defended his subordinates for which O’Brien dubbed him "Bloody Balfour" in the House of Commons.
The Parnell Commission
Parnell Commission
The Parnell Commission was a judicial inquiry in the late 1880s into allegations of crimes by Irish parliamentarian Charles Stewart Parnell which resulted in his vindication.-Background:...
hearings in 1888-89 exonerated Parnell from involvement with murders in 1882, but also revealed a great amount of violence and intimidation. In hindsight the government felt justified in enacting special criminal laws for special circumstances.
Papal Encyclical 1888
The rising crime rate and general unrest forced Balfour to more subtle strategies by seeking VaticanHoly See
The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Catholic Church in Rome, in which its Bishop is commonly known as the Pope. It is the preeminent episcopal see of the Catholic Church, forming the central government of the Church. As such, diplomatically, and in other spheres the Holy See acts and...
assistance to suppress clergymen involved in the Plan. In answer the Vatican despatched Archbishop Persico
Ignatius Persico
Ignatius Camillus William Mary Peter Persico was an Italian Cardinal.-Life and career:He entered the Capuchin Franciscan Order on 25 April 1839, and immediately after ordination was sent in November, 1846, to Patna, India. The vicar Apostolic, Anastasius Hartmann, made him his socius and confidant...
to Ireland, who travelled throughout the country from July 1887 until January 1888, consulting prominent members of the hierarchy. A Papal Rescript (20 April 1888) condemned the Plan and all clerical involvement in it as well as boycotting, followed in June by the Papal encyclical "Saepe Nos" that was addressed to all the Irish bishops.
This was openly denounced as an impertinence by the Irish MPs and the clergy themselves divided on the issue. A general resentment of the Vatican’s intrusion into Irish affairs helped to win some support for the Plan, which was by now in financial difficulties. This ran counter to the Ultramontane policy adopted by Cardinal Cullen since the 1850s, which included total obedience to papal decrees. Suspicion arose that the encyclical was issued in hopes that Britain and the Papacy would appoint ambassadors to each other and establish diplomatic relations.
The covering letter with the encyclical was written by Raffaele Monaco La Valletta, Cardinal Secretary of the Holy Office
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith , previously known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Roman and Universal Inquisition , and after 1904 called the Supreme...
, and included:
- "The justice of the decision will be readily seen by anyone who applies his mind to consider that a rent agreed upon by mutual consent cannot, without violation of a contract, be diminished at the mere will of a tenant, especially when there are tribunals appointed for settling such controversies and reducing unjust rents within the bounds of equity after taking into account the causes which diminish the value of the land.... Finally, [regarding boycotting] it is contrary to justice and to charity to persecute by a social interdict those who are satisfied to pay rents agreed upon, or those who, in the exercise of their right, take vacant lands."
Persico later commented that, "I had no idea that anything had been done about Irish affairs, much less thought that some questions had been referred to the Holy Office, and the first knowledge I had of the decree was on the morning of the 28th April, when I received the bare circular sent me by Propaganda. I must add that had I known of such a thing I would have felt it my duty to make proper representations to the Holy See."
Persico was rewarded soon after his return by the Vicariate of the Vatican Seminary and in 1893 was appointed a Cardinal
Cardinal (Catholicism)
A cardinal is a senior ecclesiastical official, usually an ordained bishop, and ecclesiastical prince of the Catholic Church. They are collectively known as the College of Cardinals, which as a body elects a new pope. The duties of the cardinals include attending the meetings of the College and...
.
[Excerpt from relevant article in "Ireland's Own" magazine (Nov. 17-2006) on Monsignor Daniel Keller, The People's Priest by Maurice Aherne]………..In September 1896, he accompanied a party of Bishops and Priests to Ivrea, Turin, for the beatification of a former Bishop of Cloyne- Thadeus McCarthy. Whilst there he sought, and was granted, an audience with Pope Leo XIII, who had condemned the Plan of Campaign. He left an enlightened Pope with a Special Papal Blessing for ‘The Plan of Campaign’ stalwart, Maurice Doyle, who had spent seven months in jail for his beliefs. That was not all he brought back from Rome. He also obtained Papal permission to hold the Eucharist Procession in Youghal on Corpus Christi and the very first one ever held in Ireland was held in Youghal……….
New Tipperary
Balfour encouraged the landlords in 1889 to form an anti-tenant syndicate under the chairmanship of Tipperary landlord and High SheriffHigh Sheriff
A high sheriff is, or was, a law enforcement officer in the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States.In England and Wales, the office is unpaid and partly ceremonial, appointed by the Crown through a warrant from the Privy Council. In Cornwall, the High Sheriff is appointed by the Duke of...
of Cork
County Cork
County Cork is a county in Ireland. It is located in the South-West Region and is also part of the province of Munster. It is named after the city of Cork . Cork County Council is the local authority for the county...
, Arthur Smith-Barry
Arthur Smith-Barry, 1st Baron Barrymore
Arthur Hugh Smith-Barry, 1st Baron Barrymore PC was an Anglo-Irish Conservative politician.-Background and education:...
. As the landlord’s agent, Smith-Barry, ennobled as Lord Barrymore, was authorised to buy up estates which were threatened by the Plan and then evict the tenants, which he carried out in the case of the Charles Ponsonby estate in Youghal
Youghal
Youghal is a town in County Cork, Ireland. Sitting on the estuary of the River Blackwater, in the past it was militarily and economically important. Being built on the edge of a steep riverbank, the town has a distinctive long and narrow layout...
. This brought him into conflict with his own tenants, largely the tenants of Tipperary
Tipperary
Tipperary is a town and a civil parish in South Tipperary in Ireland. Its population was 4,415 at the 2006 census. It is also an ecclesiastical parish in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly, and is in the historical barony of Clanwilliam....
town, who in anger refused to pay rents. When evicted they moved with their shops to pursue their livelihoods outside the town boundaries and built ‘New’ Tipperary under the direction of Fr. Davis Humphries and O’Brien, just released from prison. The Tipperary project, comprising two streets with houses, proved too costly for the Plan’s leaders and this led to its defeat. By this time Parnell had been induced to give some support which helped in the formation of a Tenants’ Defence Association in Tipperary and this, along with Dillon’s raised money, enabled the Plan to continue. The organisers had £84,000 in 1890 but this had shrunk to £48,000 within a year, by which time almost 1,500 tenants were receiving grants from the Plan funds.
Parnell's change of policy
The organisation looked unavailingly to Parnell for further help. In the course of a speech he delivered in May 1888 to the Liberal Eighty ClubLiberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
, Parnell, concerned that it would otherwise harm his alliance with the Liberals, virtually renounced his association with the Plan, this disunity with his party a precursor of the more momentous split to come. The organisers were forced to seek financial assistance elsewhere and Dillon embarked on a fund-raising drive in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
(May 1889-April 1890) which raised some £33,000, but this was insufficient for their needs. In October Dillon and O’Brien jumped bail and escaped to France, and from there to America where they were empowered by Parnell to raise more money (£61,000, which he intended for the Irish party).
Parnell also had to distance himself from the Campaign during the Parnell Commission
Parnell Commission
The Parnell Commission was a judicial inquiry in the late 1880s into allegations of crimes by Irish parliamentarian Charles Stewart Parnell which resulted in his vindication.-Background:...
hearings in 1888-89. While the main outcome was very favourable to him, much of the surrounding evidence suggested that the organisers of the Campaign and the former Land War had incited, or were complicit in, the attendant violence.
Victory in principle
As Balfour had hoped, the organisers found it difficult to raise enough money to pay stipends to those evicted during the Campaign and now forced to live on party doles. By 1893 the Campaign was over. It had resulted in settlements on eighty-four estates; on fifteen estates the tenants had gone back on the landlords’ terms and no settlement had been reached on the remaining. The fate of these evicted tenants was the painful price for Episcopal intervention and preference for managing disputes by mediation, denouncing agitation as the work of reckless agitators leading tenants to destruction. Although the organisers claimed they had been victorious, the price paid was high, the huge expenditure involved, the hardship suffered by those imprisoned under the “Crimes Act”, the tragedy of those evicted whose farms fell into dire neglect, some not restored to their farms until 1907, and the subsequent embittered relationship between the parties on estates where the landlord had given in.The Campaign attracted many British and foreign journalists to Ireland as well as Liberal MPs some of whom were imprisoned under the “Crimes Act”, which increased sympathy for Home Rule. The Conservative Party as a result of its mishandling lost sympathy among the working classes in Britain. Balfour however in the following decade, surprisingly, became one of Ireland’s better Chief Secretaries, when he amended and introduced new land acts, encouraged various economic schemes, local industries, extension of the railways and the introduction of local government. His approach, much in keeping with his character, had been from the beginning two-pronged - I shall be as relentless as Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
in enforcing obedience to the law, but, at the same time, I shall be as radical as any reformer in redressing grievances and especially in removing every cause of complaint in regard to the land.
Outcomes
In December 1890, following the verdict in the ‘’O’Shea v O'SheaKatherine O'Shea
Katharine O'Shea, also known as Katie O'Shea, Kitty O'Shea or, following her second marriage, Katharine Parnell was an English woman of aristocratic background, whose family relationship over many years with Charles Stewart Parnell eventually caused his political downfall.-Background:She was born...
and Parnell’’ divorce case the IPP split. This diverted attention from the Campaign which slowly petered out. The IPP also wanted to disassociate itself from the more violent aspects on the approach to the Second Home Rule Bill that narrowly succeeded with a majority of 30 in the House of Commons but was then defeated by the House of Lords in 1893.
The Irish land question was addressed after the 1902 Land Conference
Land Conference
The Land Conference was a successful conciliatory negotiation held in the Mansion House in Dublin, Ireland between 20 December 1902 and 4 January 1903. In a short period it produced a unanimously agreed report recommending an amiable solution to the long waged land war between tenant farmers and...
by the main reforming Wyndham Land (Purchase) Act of 1903, during Balfour's short tenure as Prime Minister in 1902-05, allowing Irish tenant farmers to buy the freehold title to their land with low annuities and affordable government-backed loans.