Irish Parliamentary Party - Party Inaugurated

Party Inaugurated

After the election forty-six members assembled in Dublin and organised themselves into a separate Irish parliamentary party in the Commons. The political outlook appeared encouraging at first, but the party displayed no initiative to achieve anything, the Liberals and Gladstone having lost the election. Butt displayed lack of leadership, did not commit his party to anything. He made some excellent speeches but failed to persuade any of the major parties to support bills beneficial to Ireland, nothing worthwhile reaching the statute books.

A minor group of impatient young Irish members, the genuine "Home-Rulers" distanced themselves from Butt’s lack of assertiveness and led by Charles Stewart Parnell, Joseph Biggar, John O'Connor Power, Edmund Dwyer Gray, Frank Hugh O'Donnell and John Dillon, some of whom had close connections with the Fenian movement, adopted the method of parliamentary "obstructionism" during 1876-77, to snap Westminster out of its complacency towards Ireland by proposing amendments to almost every bill and making lengthy overnight speeches. This did not bring Home Rule closer but helped to revitalise the Irish party. Butt considered obstructionism a threat to democracy, its greatest benefit undoubtedly was that it helped bring Parnell to the fore of the political scene. An internal struggle began between Butt’s majority and Parnell’s minority leading to a rift in the party, Parnell determined to obtain control of the Home Rule League.