Search Results for 'Irish Parliamentary Party'

When Mitchell Henry entered Westminster parliament in 1871 he went with hope in his heart and a mission to tell the British people the precarious circumstances of the Irish tenant farmer. In many ways he resembled Jefferson Smith in the Frank Cappa film ‘Mr Smith Goes to Washington’ where a naive, idealistic young man has plans to change America.* Mitchell Henry, a liberal, kindly man, had plans to be a voice for the Irish tenant farmer within, what he believed, was a paternalistic landlord system, but he walked into a political cauldron, waiting to explode.

The continued unrest, murders, and large-scale protests as the Land War careered dangerously through the Irish countryside, led at last to some reform. William Gladstone’s Second Land Act of 1881 proposed broad concessions to the tenant farmer. But Parnell, the very effective leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, was not satisfied. He said that tenants were still vulnerable to rent arrears and poverty resulting from poor harvests. He urged that the Act either accommodate these concerns, or be rejected.

Early on Friday August 18 1882, John Collins, a tenant farmer, having heard disturbances during the night coming from his neighbours’ house, the Joyces, went to check if all was well. He must have feared the worst because he brought with him two neighbours, Mary and Margaret O’Brien. They discovered an appalling sight. Even today, when our senses have been hardened by so many atrocities, it was a scene of savage murder that cried to heaven. No mercy was shown to this unfortunate family.