His views on agrarian reform and on Home Rule led him to be branded an extremist, which resulted in his arrest from May until August 1881 under the Irish Coercion Act.

Again imprisoned for agitation in October 1881[1] together with Parnell, William O'Brien and others in Kilmainham Gaol, he signed the No Rent Manifesto in solidarity although not fully in agreement with it.

Unhappy with Parnell's "New Departure" and because his health had suffered, he resigned his seat in Parliament on 6 March 1883,[2] and retired from politics to Colorado in America where his brother lived.

Dillon was compelled by the Court of Queens Bench in December 1886 to find securities for good behaviour, but two days later he was arrested while receiving rents on Lord Clanricarde's estate at Portumna, County Galway.

He returned to Ireland by way of Boulogne, where he and William O'Brien held long and indecisive discussions with Parnell after his divorce crisis over his continued leadership of the Irish Parliamentary Party.

Dillon was one of his strongest opponents and joined the majority anti-Parnellite block, the Irish National Federation (INF), with Justin McCarthy becoming its leader.

Although he never lost sight of home rule or the land question, particularly the evicted tenants, he now concentrated on the day-to-day running of the INF as deputy chairman.

In 1897 Dillon opposed in the House of Commons the Address to Queen Victoria on the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee, on the ground that her reign had not been a blessing to Ireland, and he showed the same uncompromising attitude in 1901 when a grant to Lord Roberts was under discussion, accusing him of systematised inhumanity.

[5] Dillon was present in January 1898 when William O'Brien launched his "United Ireland League" (UIL) from an agrarian platform in Ballina, County Mayo.

With the UIL and the IPP practically fused into a single body, Dillon later had MP members associated with O'Brien's policy of conciliation, amongst them Thomas O'Donnell and D. D. Sheehan, expelled as "factionists" from the party.

The Home Rule Movement, influenced very greatly by Dillon, reverted to a narrow traditional stand, which opposed any chance of an inclusive nationalism and failed to include new interests within Catholic society.

Dillion's Home Rule Movement was characterised by permanent class war and did not facilitate the working of the Wyndham Land Act; conflict above victory.

[7] Dillon suffered occasional health incapacities causing irregular attendance at Westminster, particularly when his wife died in 1907 though after the Liberals returned to power in 1906, he was more often consulted.

On 15 and 16 January Dillon spent lunch at the Commons with one of his closest supporters, Guardian editor, C. P. Scott, and ardent home ruler, he urged the Irish leader to lobby the new Labour MPs.

Scott courted Dillon's opinion most assiduously at the Bath Club and his Manchester home in favour of "gradual strengthening of the military force in Ulster", without support the police might "cave in altogether".

He intervened with David Lloyd George to halt the 90 sentences of execution pronounced by "field court-martial" (in camera without defence or jury) under martial law by General Maxwell after he declared the rebellion "treason in time of war".

The attempt to impose conscription jointly linked with implementing Home Rule disgusted the wider Irish public and resulted in an immediate swing of support to Sinn Féin which precipitated their election landslide after the war.

Tall and slim he cut an imposing figure, his personal reputation hampered at times by a pessimistic and gloomy nature as well as conservative views on labour and women.

[16] One of his six children was James Mathew Dillon (1902–1986), a prominent Irish politician and leader of the National Centre Party and of Fine Gael (1957–1966), also Minister for Agriculture.