After a time agriculture revived, and the manufacturing industries of the island began to compete with those of England. In 1849 were chartered the Queen's Colleges, offering the same advantages to Catholics as to Protestants : but these institutions were taken comparatively little advantage of by the former. The history of those institutions made the Catholics fear they were meant as a menace to their faith. In 1852 telegraphic communication was opened with Great Britain. In 1853 an industrial ex hibition was held at Dublin, resembling that held two years before in London; another exhibition was held in 1865. The latter year witnessed the discovery of a new conspiracy designed to effect a separation between England and Ireland. This had its origin in America at the time of the Civil War in the United States, when the friendly Irish in that country saw an opportunity in England's friendly attitude toward the seced ing States. This conspiracy, originating among the members of a secret society calling them selves Fenians (q.v.), soon spread to Ireland, but before the Fenians could take any overt action in that island their design was stifled by govern ment action from the moment a riot broke out at the Rotunda in Dublin on 22 Feb. 1864. The troubles continued, and British statesmen were driven to make some amends for the wrongs of their predecessors in Ireland. With this object in view an act was passed in 1869 to disestablish the Irish Protestant Episcopal Church, and another in 1870 to improve the tenure of land. An agitation for Home Rule was carried on resulting in the final enactment into law of a measure of self-government in 1914. In 1880 Ireland became the scene of an agita tion carried on mainly by a body calling themselves the Land League. Various severe laws were passed to °coerce," but further con cessions were made, and to redress Irish griev ances a land act was also passed in August 1881, under which substantial reductions on rents were made, exorbitant or rack rents, as they were called, being the cause of the great agrarian agitation. The Land League was sup pressed after wielding a reign of terror and a new body called the National League was soon organized in its place (1882). Over 4,000 agrarian outrages were committed by the Land Leaguers during 1881: many murders were perpetrated and close on to 2,500 persons were arrested, including several Irish members Parliament. On 6 May 1882 Lord Frederick Cavendish, the new chief secretary for Ireland, and Mr. T. H. Burke, permanent under-secre tary, were both stabbed to death in Phcenix Park, Dublin, by four men of the Irish (lIn vincibles.° A reward of i10,000 was offered by the government for the discovery of the mur derers. Through the agency of informers the criminals were brought to justice and executed. A long, melancholy series of riots, murders and consequent executions prevailed for a period of 30 years, from 1860 to 1890. Judges, jurymen, government officials and peasants, including women, were the victims of attacks by lighters,° who shot peaceful farmers in their cottages through the windows at night and in troduced the system (1880) of ostracism known as °boycotting.) In 1885, 86 Nationalist mem bers, headed by C. S. Parnell, were returned to Parliament, and their pressure on the govern ment led to the introduction of a bill by Gladstone in 1886 by which Ireland was to re ceive a Parliament of her own and the Irish members were to be withdrawn from the Im perial Parliament The measure was defeated by an overwhelming majority in June and led to the great °Home Rule A "sale and purchase of land') bill was also rejected, and the Gladstone ministry resigned 20 July 1886. Wide spread refusals to pay exorbitant rents and dispossess notices served without compensation for improvements to lands or farmsteads led to forcible evictions and riotous scenes. The °Prevention of Crimes) act, which expired in September 1885, was replaced by a new criminal law procedure bill passed in 1887. Under the pro visions of this act 18 countries were proclaimed within the scope of its operation; 12 counties partly, the city of Dublin, and 9 other cities. A new land bill, favorable to the tenant, was also passed in 1887. During the autumn many evictions were carried out in the face of violent resistance. On 7 March 1887 began the publica tion, in The Times, of the famous °Parnellism and articles. On 6 July 1888 Parnell stated in the House of Commons that the let ters attributed to him in those articles were forgeries, as, indeed, they were proved to be by the Parnell Commission. Pigott, the forger of the letters, committed suicide in a hotel in Madrid, and the episode cost the Times about $1,250,000 in damages, legal fees, etc. Early in 1890 the stringency of the Crimes Act was re laxed owing to the decline of outrages and riots. During his tenure of the chief secretaryship Mr. A. J. Balfour introduced a number of use ful measures for the improvement of the court-. try, such as the Land Purchase Act, drainage of rivers and construction of light railways. A very important Local Government (Ireland) Act was passed in 1898, which established county councils, urban district councils, rural district councils in Ireland, and transferred the first named the administrative functions formerly discharged by the grand juries and presentment sessions. The first elections under
the act took place early in 1899, the results of which showed that the voters of Ireland realized they were gaining ground. They never missed an opportunity, however, to proclaim their discontent with the existing land laws, and their desire for a Purchase Land Act. The Irish members of the Imperial Parliament kept the cause of the farm ers before Parliament; and in 1903 a valuable concession was gained by the introduction of Wyndham's °Land Act,) whereby the tenants, sub-tenants, or occupiers, may purchase the land and hold it as their own. In the same year King Edward and Queen Alexandra visited Ireland. Three years earlier (1900) Queen Victoria had been fairly well received in Ireland after an interval of 39 years since her previous visit, but the Boer War, in which Irish sympathies were with the Boers, did much to dampen the national enthusiasm. In March 1903, Saint Patrick's Day was constituted a national or °bank Sporadic disorders, riots and agrarian outrages • continued; conflicts between police and tenants; imprisonments of Irish members of Parliament for sedition and inciting to violence. In April 1904 King Edward laid the foundation stone of the new buildings of the royal college of science in Dublin. During 1905 the board of national education, which controls and administers the whole system of primary education in Ireland, was confronted with a formidable agitation organized by the Gaelic League to apply the re sources of the state to the development of the Irish language and the national propaganda of the league. With the accession of the Campbell Bannerman administration •in January 1906 Mr. James (now viscount) Bryce became chief sec retary for Ireland. He began the work—com pleted by Mr. BirrelF in 1908— of creating the National University of Ireland in which it is possible for Roman Catholics to secure higher education without being subjected to any re ligious test. During 1907-09 there was a re crudescence of riots and agrarian outrages, the latter principally in the form of °cattle Shortly after the coronation in 1911 King George and Queen Mary paid a visit to Ireland.
The introduction of the third Home Rule bill by Mr. Asquith in 1912 opened another stormy period in Irish politics. Uncom promising opposition arose on the part of the Unionists° of Ulster, headed by Sir Edward Carson. A °volunteer was raised in Ulster to resist by force if necessary the ap plication of Home Rule to that province. The Nationalists, in their turn, also began to enroll and drill volunteers, with the strange result that Ireland became the camping ground of two illegal hostile armies. The government pre-. pared to take military precautions. On 20 March 1914 it was announced that a grave crisis had arisen in connection with the troops in Ireland; that in consequence of orders to move troops into Ulster and the sending of a warship to Belfast, many officers of the Curragh gar rison had tendered their resignations. Four days later it became known that Colonel Seely, Secrete of State for War, Sir John (now viscount French, Chief of the Imperial Gen eral Staff, and Quartermaster-General Sir J. S. Ewart had initialled a memorandum, given to Brigadier-General Gough, who commanded the cavalry on the Curragh, pointing out that it was the duty of all soldiers to obey lawful com mands, but concluding: °But they (the Cabi net) have no intention whatever of taking ad vantage of this right to crush political opposi tion to the policy or principles of the Home Rule Bill) The publication of this last clause produced a political sensation. Colonel Seely apologized in Parliament on the 25th for having amplified the memorandum to General Gough after the text had been approved by the Cabi net, and tendered his resignation, which was not then accepted. It developed that General Gough and 57 officers preferred dismissal from the army to taking up arms against the Union ists of Ulster. These officers were suspended, but afterwards reinstated. General French resigned, only to be recalled four months later to command the British forces against Germany. On 24 April 1914 a new crisis arose in consequence of a gun-running exploit of the Ulster volunteers, when 40,000 rifles' and 1,000,000 rounds of arm= munition from Germany were landed. In the midst of this turmoil when civil war appeared imminent, the European crisis which culminated in the great war placed the Irish problems in the background. Sir Edward Carson was soon afterward rewarded with a seat in the Cabinet and General French was made Commander-in chief of the Expeditionary forces.
The ill-starred Irish rebellion of 1916 was attributed to the lax administration of the chief secretary (Mr. Birrell) and the Lord Lieu tenant, Lord Wimborne. See BIRRELL, A.; FENIANs; GREAT BRITAIN: IRELAND; HOME RULE; IRISH REBELLION; REDMOND, JOHN; SINN FEIN.