Social protest in late nineteenth-century Irish towns — the House League movement

Abstract

Despite the volume of research into the land question and its role in the evolution of nationalist politics in later nineteenth-century Ireland, the related dimension of urban protest has been neglected. This paper addresses one particular aspect of this latter phenomenon, the House League movement which was first established in Longford town in 1885 as a conscious attempt. in an urban context, to emulate the Land League's protest against evictions and rack-renting. The paper examines the curious spatial evolution of the movement. Despite the ubiquity of town tenant grievances throughout Ireland. House Leagues developed only in cattle grazing regions with relatively well developed markel town networks, nationalist in political complexion and badly affected by the economic downturn of the mid-1880s. In seeking an explanation for this distribution, the social composition, motivations and tactics of House Leagues are also discussed. It is concluded that, although only a short-term and regionally confined movement. House Leagues reflected the growing consciousness among town tenants in late nineteenth-century Ireland that their interests had been neglected in the fusion of the land question with nationalist politics.