Irish Confederation - Irish Confederation

Irish Confederation

After negotiations for a reunion had failed, the seceders decided to establish a new organisation which would be called the Irish Confederation. Its founders determined to revive the uncompromising demand for a national Parliament with full legislative and executive powers. They were resolute on a complete prohibition of place-hunting or acceptance of office under the existing Government. They wished to return to the honest policy of the earlier years of the Repeal Association, and would be supported by the young men, who had shown their repugnance for the corruption and insincerity of Conciliation Hall by their active sympathy with the seceders. There were extensive indications that many of the previously Unionist class, in both the cities and among land owners, were resentful of the neglect of Irish needs by the British Parliament since the famine began. What they demanded was vital legislative action to provide both employment and food, and to prevent all further export of the corn, cattle, pigs and butter which were still leaving the country. On this there was a general consensus of Irish opinion according to Dennis Gwynn, “such as had not been known since before the Act of Union.”

The first meeting of the Irish Confederation took place in the Rotunda, Dublin on the 13 January 1847. The chairperson for the first meeting was John Shine Lawlor, the honorary secretaries being John Blake Dillon and Charles Gavan Duffy. Duffy would later be replaced by Meagher. Ten thousand members would be enrolled, but of the gentry there were very few, the middle class stood apart and the Catholic clergy were unfriendly. In view of the poverty of the people, subscriptions would be purely voluntary, the founders of the new movement would bear the cost themselves if necessary.