Independent Irish Party
Formation and early disunity
Formation and early disunity
----------------------------

The Tenant Right League joined tenant rights associations in largely Presbyterian districts in [Ulster](/wiki/Ulster "Ulster") with tenant protection societies (often guided by local Catholic clergy) in the south. It was formed in 1850 at a tenant right convention called in Dublin by [Charles Gavan Duffy](/wiki/Charles_Gavan_Duffy "Charles Gavan Duffy"), editor of the revived [Young Irelander](/wiki/Young_Ireland "Young Ireland") weekly *[The Nation](/wiki/The_Nation_%28Irish_newspaper%29 "The Nation (Irish newspaper)")*; [James MacKnight](/wiki/James_MacKnight_%28Irish_agrarian_reformer%29 "James MacKnight (Irish agrarian reformer)") editor of the *Londonderry Sentinel*; [Frederick Lucas](/wiki/Frederick_Lucas "Frederick Lucas"), founder of the international Catholic weekly, *[The Tablet](/wiki/The_Tablet "The Tablet")*; and [John Gray](/wiki/John_Gray_%28Irish_politician%29 "John Gray (Irish politician)"), owner of the leading nationalist paper, the *[Freeman's Journal](/wiki/Freeman%27s_Journal "Freeman's Journal")*. Against the background of the distress caused by the [Great Famine](/wiki/Great_Famine_%28Ireland%29 "Great Famine (Ireland)") and by a fall in agricultural prices, Duffy believed that the demand for tenant rights could serve as the basis for a new all\-Ireland movement and for a (potentially [abstentionist](/wiki/Abstentionism "Abstentionism")) national party.

The Westminster elections of July 1852 returned 48 MPs, including Duffy from [New Ross](/wiki/New_Ross "New Ross"), pledged to the tenant cause. But what Duffy had projected as a "League of North and South" failed to deliver in Ulster. [William Kirk](/wiki/William_Kirk_%28MP%29 "William Kirk (MP)") from the border town of [Newry](/wiki/Newry "Newry") was province's only tenant\-right representative. In Monaghan, the Rev. [David Bell](/wiki/David_Bell_%28Irish_Republican%29 "David Bell (Irish Republican)") was to find that of his 100 Presbyterian congregants who had signed the requisition asking [John Gray](/wiki/John_Gray_%28Irish_politician%29 "John Gray (Irish politician)") to stand in their constituency only 11 voted for him. In [County Down](/wiki/County_Down "County Down"), [William Sharman Crawford](/wiki/William_Sharman_Crawford "William Sharman Crawford"), who as MP for [Rochdale](/wiki/Rochdale_%28UK_Parliament_constituency%29 "Rochdale (UK Parliament constituency)") in England had been the author of a tenant right bill, had his meetings broken up by Orange vigilantes.

An early difficulty in appealing to Protestant tenants and voters in the north was the declared intention of many League\-endorsed candidates to repeal the [Ecclesiastical Titles Act 1851](/wiki/Ecclesiastical_Titles_Act_1851 "Ecclesiastical Titles Act 1851"). Together with the presence among them of so many sitting [Repeal Association](/wiki/Repeal_Association "Repeal Association") MPs, their determination to remove the Act's restrictions on a restored [Catholic Church](/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_the_United_Kingdom "Catholic Church in the United Kingdom") hierarchy heightened the suspicion that the League was being used for political purposes beyond its declared agenda. In this, the prominent [County Down](/wiki/County_Down "County Down") tenant\-righter, Julius McCullagh, argued the 1851 Act worked its purpose: to "afresh old grudges and differences \- to divide a people now happily uniting". It was the case as well that landowners in the north threatened to withdraw their consent for the existing Ulster Custom if their [Conservative](/wiki/Irish_Conservative_Party "Irish Conservative Party") nominees were not elected.

In November 1852, [Lord Derby's short\-lived Conservative ministry](/wiki/Who%3F_Who%3F_ministry "Who? Who? ministry") introduced a land bill to compensate Irish tenants on eviction for improvements they had made to the land. The Tenant Compensation Bill passed in the [House of Commons](/wiki/House_of_Commons "House of Commons") in 1853 and 1854, but failed in the [House of Lords](/wiki/House_of_Lords "House of Lords"). The bills had little impressed the League and its MPs as landlords would have been left free to pass on the costs of compensation through their still unrestricted freedom to raise rents.

Holding the balance of power in the House of Commons, the Independent Irish MPs voted to bring down the government. But in the process two of the leading members, [John Sadlier](/wiki/John_Sadlier "John Sadlier") and [William Keogh](/wiki/William_Keogh "William Keogh"), broke their pledges of independent opposition and accepted positions in a new Whig\-[Peelite](/wiki/Peelite "Peelite") ministry of [Lord Aberdeen](/wiki/George_Hamilton-Gordon%2C_4th_Earl_of_Aberdeen "George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen"). Twenty others followed as reliable supporters. While Aberdeen opposed to the Ecclesiastical Titles Act, his government gave no undertakings in regard to tenant\-right policySee also  Significantly in a League debate in February 1853 MacKnight, wary of any sign of Irish separatism, did not support Duffy in condemning these desertions. Rather, he protested the increasingly strident nationalism of southern League spokesman.


How did landowners in Ulster respond to the threat of tenant rights?