Kilmainham Treaty

The Kilmainham Treaty was an informal agreement reached in May 1882 between Liberal British prime minister William Ewart Gladstone and the Irish nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell.

[1] Gladstone released the prisoner and the agreement was a major triumph for Irish nationalism as it won abatement for tenant rent-arrears from the Government at the height of the Land War.

[2] The agreement extended the terms of the Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881, with which Gladstone intended to make broad concessions to Irish tenant farmers.

But the Act had many weaknesses and failed to satisfy Parnell and the Irish Land League because it did not provide a regulation for rent-arrears or rent-adjustments (in the case of poor harvests or deteriorated economic conditions).

[3] After the Second Land Act became law on 22 August 1881, Parnell in a series of speeches in September and October launched violent attacks on William Forster the Chief Secretary for Ireland and even on Gladstone.

O'Shea contacted Gladstone on 5 May[6] having been informed by Parnell that if the Government would settle the rent-arrears problem on the terms he proposed, he was confident that he would be able to curtail outrages (violent crimes).