National League

National League, a nationalist organization formed in October 1882 as a replacement for the suppressed Land League. Few of the former controlling members of the Land League were on the executive of the new body, while local branches tended to have a wider social mix than their Land League predecessors. Local branches existed ostensibly to represent local nationalist opinion, especially in the selection of parliamentary candidates, but in reality leadership opinion usually prevailed. In fact the league, as a movement shaped in accordance with Parnell's desire to abandon agrarian struggle and pursue a purely constitutional campaign for home rule, was very much under his control. Only very occasionally, and most seriously in Galway in February 1886, when Parnell sought to impose Capt. O'Shea on unwilling local activists, did serious conflict between leadership and constituencies arise. Nevertheless, the growth of the National League was, until the approach of the 1885 general election, slow. Following the franchise reforms of 1884–5, however, the number of local branches expanded threefold to reach 1,200 by 1886. The National League remained the organization through which the authority of the Parnellite movement was exercised until the movement split in 1890.

James Loughlin