In this chapter you will learn about: • The early career of Charles Stewart Parnell • Parnell’s involvement in the Land Question • The Land War • Gladstone’s Second Land Act • The Kilmainham Treaty
By the end of this chapter you will be able to: • Discuss how Parnell increased support for the Home Rule movement • Compare Parnell’s leadership to Isaac Butt’s • Discuss the Land League’s role in the Land Question
Charles Stewart Parnell and the Home Rule Movement
Charles Stewart Parnell was elected as a Home Rule MP in a by- election for Co. Meath in 1875. Parnell was from a Protestant landowning family in Co. Wicklow, but he held strong beliefs on Irish independence. Parnell had run in the 1874 general election but had failed to be elected.
When Parnell entered parliament he was initially a reluctant speaker, but he soon developed his political skills. He sided with the small Fenian group in the Home Rule Party and their tactic of parliamentary obstruction. Butt may have disapproved of the obstructionists, but they were popular with the Irish people.
In 1876 Parnell gave a speech in support of the Manchester Martyrs, the IRB men who had been executed nine years earlier for their part in an escape attempt in which a policeman was killed. Through this speech and his support for parliamentary obstruction, Parnell won the support of the Fenians, and they made him president of the Home Rule Confederation of Great Britain in 1877. Isaac Butt had been president until then. Parnell’s appointment weakened Butt’s overall leadership of the Home Rule movement.
Charles Stewart Parnell. MOVEMENTS FOR POLITICAL AND SOCIAL REFORM, 1870–1914 17
