Isaac Butt made some well-received speeches but failed to persuade any of the major parties to support bills beneficial to Ireland, nothing worthwhile reaching the statute books.

[5] A minor group of impatient young Irish members, the genuine "Home-Rulers" distanced themselves from Butt's lack of assertiveness and, led by Charles Stewart Parnell, Joseph Biggar, John O'Connor Power, Edmund Dwyer Gray, Frank Hugh O'Donnell and John Dillon, some of whom had close connections with the Fenian movement, adopted the method of parliamentary "obstructionism" during 1876–1877,[6] to bring Westminster out of its complacency towards Ireland by proposing amendments to almost every bill and making lengthy overnight speeches.

Instead he travelled to America with John Dillon on a fund raising mission for political purposes and to relieve distress in Ireland after a world economic depression slumped the sale of agricultural produce.

He left the day-to-day running of the League in the hands of his lieutenants Timothy Harrington as Secretary, William O'Brien editor of its newspaper United Ireland and Tim Healy.

Since 1882, Parnell's successful drive for Home Rule created great anxiety amongst Protestants and Unionists north and south alike, fearing Catholic intolerance from a nationalist parliament in Dublin under their control would impose tariffs on industry.

The Irish Party retained 85 seats and, in the years up to 1889, centred itself around the formidable figure of Parnell, who continued to pursue Home Rule, striving to reassure English voters that it would be of no threat to them.

During that period, the National League was out of contact with him and primarily concerned with its own vested interests, keeping up local agitation during the Plan of Campaign to further the not-fully-resolved land question, and leading Liberal voters to slowly increase their support for Home Rule.

A special meeting of the party a week later lasted six days at the end of which 45 "anti-Parnellites" walked out, leaving him with 27 faithful followers, J. J. Clancy one of his key defenders.

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.

It quickly spread first in the west, the following year nationwide 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.

He was the prime mover and may be truly regarded as an architect of the settlement of 1900 in merging them under a new programme of agrarian agitation, political reform and Home Rule into a new united Irish Parliamentary Party.

The UIL, explicitly designed to reconcile the fragmented party, was accepted as the parliamentary nationalists' main support organisation, with which O'Brien intensified his campaign of agrarian agitation.

[13] Dillon, the deputy party leader, disfavoured the Act because he opposed any negotiations with landlords, Michael Davitt objected to peasant proprietorship, demanding land nationalisation.

[14] Together with Thomas Sexton editor of the party's Freeman's Journal, they campaigned against O'Brien, ferociously attacking him for putting Land Purchase and Conciliation before Home Rule.

The IPP rift with O'Brien deepened after he helped guide the Bryce 1906 Labourers (Ireland) Act through parliament, which provided large-scale government funding for a programme of extensive rural social housing.

In the following five years over 40,000 labourer owned cottages standing on an acre of land and purchases at low annual annuities, were erected by Local County Councils.

Outside the party at this time were the MPs William O'Brien, Sir Thomas Esmonde, T. M. Healy, Charles Dolan, John O'Donnell, Augustine Roche and D. D. Sheehan.

But on his demand for further treasury funding for land purchase, O'Brien was ultimately driven out for good at a Dublin Convention in February 1909 by the party's vigorous militant support organisation, Devlin's "Hibernians".

Redmond, holding the balance of power in the Commons, renewed the old "Liberal Alliance" this time with H. H. Asquith as Prime Minister (the Labour Party also supported the government).

Asquith needed the support of Irish MPs to pass the People's Budget and, after a second general election in December 1910 had produced almost exactly the same result, he had no choice but to agree to a new Home Rule Bill.

But for Unionists, convinced the Union with the United Kingdom was economically best for Ireland, and for Protestants, now that Devlin's paramilitary AOH organisation had saturated the entire island, fearing a Church dominated nationalist government, it was a disaster.

William O'Brien who in 1893 worked closely on passing the Second Home Rule Bill, warned to no avail, that if adequate provisions were not made for Ulster, All-Ireland self-government would never be achieved.

[24] The War Office also reacted with suspicion to Redmond's remark that the Volunteers would soon return as an armed army to oppose Ulster's resistance to Home Rule.

John Redmond, protesting at the severity of the state's response to the Rising, wrote to Asquith, "if any more executions take place, Ireland will become impossible for any Constitutional Party or leader".

Lloyd George's cabinet took a dual policy decision by, clumsily linking implementing Home Rule with alleviating the severe manpower shortage by extending conscription to Ireland.

The Irish party withdrew in protest from Westminster and returned to Ireland to join forces with other national organisations in massed anti-conscription demonstrations in Dublin.

In the North East, and especially in Belfast, the IPP had more or less held their ground against the Sinn Féin insurgency, (Éamon de Valera soundly beaten by Joe Devlin in the Falls division).

On the pro-Treaty side, some Cumann na nGaedheal / Fine Gael leaders (apart from James Dillon) had 'Redmondite' backgrounds, the most notable being John A. Costello, a later Taoiseach.

[30] Many former AOH/IPP followers also lingered on as a pro-Treaty support organisation, some AOH adherents later fought on the Francoist side in the Spanish Civil War, the quasi-fascist Blueshirt movement of the 1930s maybe owing much to its Ribbon tradition.

[31] Veteran MP Timothy Michael Healy was the first Governor-General of the Irish Free State (1922–1928), an enlightened choice to bridge the gap between the old order and the new generation of Cumann na nGaedheal politicians, although highly partisan (his nephew was Minister for Justice Kevin O'Higgins; Healy made a public attack on Fianna Fáil and Éamon de Valera, which led to republican calls for his resignation).