After the death of Butt the party soon divided into radicals led by Charles Stewart Parnell and Whiggish members under William Shaw.
[8] It also covered smaller breakaway factions, such as those led by Tim Healy, D. D. Sheehan and William O'Brien.
Some of its members were elected to Dáil Éireann in the early years of the Irish Free State as independents or for William Redmond's National League Party which was to merge into Cumann na nGaedheal.
It developed a reputation for being heavily disorganised and being little more than a collection of elected members with their own local machines.
After O'Connor's death in 1929, no candidate stood in the ensuing by-election to succeed him in the Irish Nationalist interest.