Let it be, however, clearly understood that there was an Irish Party
before Parnell's advent on the scene. It was never a very effective
instrument of popular right, but after Butt's death it became a
decrepit old thing--without cohesion, purpose or, except in rare
instances, any genuine personal patriotism. It viewed the rise of
Parnell and his limited body of supporters with disgust and dismay. It
had no sympathy with his pertinacious campaign against all the
cherished forms and traditions of "The House," and it gave him no
support. Rather it virulently opposed him and his small group, who
were without money and even without any organisation at their back.
Parnell had also to contend with the principal Nationalist newspaper
of the time--_The Freeman's Journal_--as well as such remnants as
remained of Butt's Home Rule League.

About this time, however, a movement--not for the first or the last
time--came out of the West. A meeting had been held at Irishtown,
County Mayo, which made history. It was here that the demand of "The
Land for the People" first took concrete form. Previously Mr Parnell
and his lieutenants had been addressing meetings in many parts of the
country, at which they advocated peasant proprietorship in
substitution for landlordism, but now instead of sporadic speeches
they had to their hand an organisation which supplied them with a
tremendous dynamic force and gave a new edge to their Parliamentary
performances. And not the least value of the new movement was that it
immediately won over to active co-operation in its work the most
powerful men in the old revolutionary organisation. I remember being
present, as a very little lad indeed, at a Land League meeting at
Kiskeam, Cork County, where scrolls spanned the village street bearing
the legend: "Ireland for the Irish and the Land for the People."