Irish Land and Labour Association - Adversity

Adversity

The Irish Parliamentary Party, after had it alienated O’Brien from the party in 1903, tried by every means to curtail his activities after he became associated with Sheehan’s ILLA, regarding their conciliatory approach in the land question as a dangerous deviation from party policy. In the manner in which the Party took control of O'Brien's UIL through the involvement of Joseph Devlin, Redmond and Dillon were determined to undermine O’Brien and "squelch that body by getting a few reliable Munster MPs to start a new Land and Labour group and claim it as the legitimate continuation of the original association". In 1905, Dillon's loyal "Redmonite" ally and ILLA secretary J. J. O'Shee was tasked with forming a break-away 'party-subservient' organisation in answer to Sheehan's domination of the original one. Sheehan had however created that domination on order to

realize the great democratic principle of the government of the people by the people and for the people

in the teeth of party autocracy. A larger section, mainly in counties Cork, Limerick, Kerry and Tipperary, followed Sheehan who renamed it the 'Land and Labour Association' (LLA). Its members sat on most Rural and District County Councils. Splitting-off and in-fighting became symptomatic of all national movements after the Parnell split.

O’Brien and some others rejoined the IPP in 1908 for the sake of unity, but he was again driven out on the occasion of the rigged Dublin National Convention in February 1909, called the "Baton Convention", in a dispute over the financial arrangements for the next stage of the 1909 Land Purchase Act. By January 1910 further ILLA groups split off, in Cork city P. J. Bradley, building an empire on the title, and William Field MP, as president of a Dublin based Land and Labour League (LLL), each claiming Irish Party credit for the earlier ILLA achievements. Sheehan resigned the LLA presidency in July 1910, his colleague Cornelius Buckley taking over. Cork then had three LLA factions from 1910 to 1915.

This greatly damaged the labourer’s movement as soon nobody knew which organisation they belonged to. In other counties where branches were long established, they remained independent with divergent local activities, in some cases in Connacht under R. A. Corr, with the dual title Trade and Labour Association (T&LA), as successor to Davitt’s Democratic Labour Federation.

By the end of 1919, most ILLA and LLA branches had completed amalgamation with the expanding Irish Transport and General Workers' Union (ITGWU), some independent branches remaining active in outlying areas of Munster and Connacht into the 1920s, when they in turn fused with the ITGWU, all forming the basis of the new labour movement. Thomas Johnson, first parliamentary leader of the Irish Labour Party is recorded as saying that Labour's strength outside of the urban areas could in part be attributed to the role played by organisations such as the ILLA.

Later Irish governments continued rural cottage building well into the middle of the 20th. century, though at a much slower rate