Land War - Plan of Campaign 1886

Plan of Campaign 1886

Preceded by economic difficulties due to droughts in 1884 and 1887 as well as industrial depression in England causing shrinking markets, the 1886-91 Plan of Campaign was a more focused version of agitation and rent strikes. Organised by Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) members such as Tim Healy, it copied Davitt's methods while disassociating the party from his more radical views. Lord Clanricarde had evicted many tenants and became the main target. Given the extended franchise allowed in 1884, the IPP had to gain credibility with the larger number of new voters, choosing the group that was most likely to support it; the low-to-middle-income rural electorate. Most IPP members were Catholic, and appealed to Rome for moral support. So did the government, and the Vatican issued "Saepe Nos" in 1888, a Papal Rescript forbidding the activities of the Land League, particularly boycotting. In 1887 the "Perpetual Crimes Act" was passed to deal with the offenses surrounding the Campaign, and it was described emotively in the nationalist press as a Coercion Act.

After the 1881 and 1885 Land Reform Acts (see below), many Tory press commentators described the Plan of Campaign as an opportunistic and cynical method of revenge following the division of the Liberal Party and the rejection of the first Irish Home Rule Bill in June 1886. It was also described as cruel, as new rent strikes would inevitably result in more evictions and boycotting as before, with all the associated intimidation and violence. Other reporters saw it as a matter of justice and of continuing concern to genuine liberals.

The Campaign led on to events such as the Mitchelstown massacre in 1887 and the imprisonment of IPP MPs such as William O'Brien for their involvement. The violent aspects of the campaign were abandoned on the run-up to the debates on the Second Irish Home Rule Bill in 1893, the IPP was by then divided into the Irish National Federation and the Irish National League over Parnell's divorce crisis.