Editing Independent Irish Party (section)

==Split and dissolution==
The [[Catholic primate of all-Ireland|Catholic Primate]], Archbishop [[Paul Cullen (cardinal)|Paul Cullen]], who had been sceptical of the independent opposition policy from the outset, sought to rein in clerical support for the remaining IIP in the constituencies.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=E. D.|first=Steele|date=March 1975|title=Cardinal Cullen and Irish Nationalism|journal=Irish Historical Studies|volume=XIX (75)|issue=75|pages=239–260|doi=10.1017/S0021121400023440|s2cid=156595729 }}</ref> This was accompanied by the defection from the League of the [[Catholic Defence Association]] (to their detractors, "the Pope's Brass Band"). Lucas's decision to take a complaint against Cullen to Rome further alienated clerical support.<ref name=":0">
{{cite book|last=Whyte|first=John Henry|url=https://archive.org/details/independentirish0000whyt|title=The Independent Irish Party 1850-9|date=1958|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|page=[https://archive.org/details/independentirish0000whyt/page/139 139]|url-access=registration}}</ref>

To Duffy the cause of the Irish tenants, and indeed of Ireland generally, seemed more hopeless than ever. In 1855 he published a farewell address to his constituency, declaring that he had resolved to retire from parliament, as it was no longer possible to accomplish the task for which he had solicited their votes.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{DNB12|wstitle=Duffy, Charles Gavan|first=Richard Barry|last=O'Brien}}</ref> To John Dillon he wrote that an Ireland where McKeogh typified patriotism and Cullen the church was an Ireland in which he could no longer live.<ref>Duffy to John Dillon, April 1855, ''Gavan Duffy Papers'', National Library of Ireland</ref> In 1856 Duffy and his family emigrated to Australia.

In the 1857 general election, with a recovery in agricultural prices blunting the enthusiasm of farmers for agitation, those presenting themselves as Independent Irish managed to hold on to 13 seats. One seat was won in the north on a platform of the three F's. [[Samuel MacCurdy Greer]] was returned for [[Londonderry City (UK Parliament constituency)|Londonderry City]]. But Greer identified with the pro-Union British [[Radicals (UK)|Radicals]] not with the IIP.<ref name="walker">{{cite book|title=Parliamentary Election Results in Ireland 1801–1922|publisher=Royal Irish Academy|year=1978|isbn=0901714127|editor1-last=Walker|editor1-first=Brian M.|series=A New History of Ireland|location=Dublin|pages=296–7|issn=0332-0286}}</ref><ref name=":02">{{cite book|last1=Murphy|first1=Desmond|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YcJnAAAAMAAJ|title=Derry, Donegal, and Modern Ulster, 1790–1921|date=1981|publisher=Aileach Press|location=Londonderry|pages=113–114|language=en}}</ref> The Independent Irish MPs had been under the notional leadership of [[George Henry Moore (politician)|George Henry Moore]]. Within the Catholic Church, Moore had retained sufficient support from Cullen's rival, [[John MacHale|Archbishop John MacHale of Tuam]], for his reelection in 1857 to overturned in the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom|House of Commons]] on the grounds of "obtrusive" and "unseemly" clerical influence.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Hansard|date=28 July 1857|title=Writ Suspended, Prosecution Ordered|url=https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1857/jul/28/writ-suspended-prosecution-ordered|access-date=2021-04-17|website=api.parliament.uk}}</ref> 

The IIP never developed the organisation and leadership to get out their full vote in the Commons or to collect, when the opportunity arose, the support of other MPs. In a vote of confidence in the Lord Derby's second Conservative government on 31 March 1859 the rump of the party split seven against six on whether join Whig and Radical factions in bringing in a new [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal]] ministry under [[Lord Palmerston]]. This marked the end of any pretence to coherence, although as a faction in Irish politics the Independent Oppositionists endured until 1874.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Independent Irish Party |website=Encyclopedia.com|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/international/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/independent-irish-party|access-date=2021-04-05}}</ref>  

In the [[Landlord and Tenant Law Amendment (Ireland) Act 1860]] the new Palmerston government did no more than confirm [[contract law]] as the basis for tenancies. Legislation of the three F's awaited the [[Land War]] of the 1880s, agitation conducted by the new [[Irish National Land League]] in alliance with the [[Irish Home Rule movement|home-rule]] [[Irish Parliamentary Party]].