Editing John Mitchel (section)

===Lalor and the break with O'Connell===
[[File:James Fintan Lalor 2.jpg|thumb|150px|right|[[James Fintan Lalor]]]]
In June 1846 the Whigs, with whom O'Connell had worked against the [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] ministry of [[Robert Peel]], returned to office under [[John Russell, 1st Earl Russell|Lord John Russell]]. Invoking new [[laissez-faire]] doctrines "political economy", they immediately set about dismantling Peel's limited, but practical, efforts to provide Ireland with food relief.<ref>{{Cite book |title= The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845–1849 |last=Woodham-Smith |first=Cecil |publisher=Penguin |year=1962 |location=London |isbn=978-0-14-014515-1|pages=410–411}}</ref> O'Connell was left to plead for his country from the floor of the [[House of Commons]]: "She is in your hands—in your power. If you do not save her, she cannot save herself. One-fourth of her population will perish unless Parliament comes to their relief".<ref>{{cite book |last1=Geoghegan |first1=Patrick |title=Liberator Daniel O'Connell: The Life and Death of Daniel O'Connell, 1830-1847 |date=2010 |publisher=Gill & Macmillan |location=Dublin |pages=332 |isbn=9780717151578 |url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=ptn4AwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT332.w.0.0.0.0.1 |access-date=26 December 2020 |archive-date=22 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210922231616/https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=ptn4AwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PT332.w.0.0.0.0.1 |url-status=live }}</ref> A broken man, on the advice of his doctors O'Connell took himself to the continent where, on route to Rome, he died in May 1847.

In the months before O'Connell's death, Duffy circulated letters received from [[James Fintan Lalor]] in which he argued that independence could be pursued only in a popular struggle for the land. While Lalor proposed that this should begin with a campaign to withhold rent, he suggested more might be required.<ref>Finton Lalor to Duffy, January, 1847 (Gavan Duffy Papers).</ref> Parts of the country were already in a state of semi-insurrection. Tenants conspirators, in the tradition of the Whiteboys and [[Ribbonism|Ribbonmen]], were attacking process servers, intimidating land agents, and resisting evictions. Lalor advised only against a general uprising, as he believed the Irish people could not overthrow [[British rule in Ireland]] with military force.<ref>Finton Lalor to Duffy, February, 1847 (Gavan Duffy Papers).</ref>

Having abandoned the hopes he had entertained with Duffy that landlords might rally to Repeal, and notwithstanding that his own ideas of agrarian reform extended little further than [[Tenant-right|Tenant Right]], Mitchel embraced Lalor's vision of agrarian agitation as the cutting edge of a national struggle.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Russell |first=Anthony G. |title=Between Two Flags: John Mitchel & Jenny Verner |publisher=Merrion Press |year=2015 |isbn=9781785370007 |location=Sallin, Co. Kildare |pages=40–41}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Quinn |first=James Quinn |title=John Mitchel |publisher=University College Dublin Press |year=2008 |isbn=9781906359157 |location=Dublin |pages=17}}</ref> When the London journal the ''Standard'' observed that the new Irish railways could be used to transport government troops to quickly curb agrarian unrest, Mitchel responded that the tracks could be turned into pikes and trains ambushed. O’Connell publicly distanced himself from ''The Nation, ''appearing to some to set Duffy, as the editor, up for prosecution.<ref name="Irish Confederation formed">{{cite web |last1=McCullagh |first1=John |title=Irish Confederation formed |website=newryjournal.co.uk/ |date=8 November 2010 |publisher=Newry Journal |url=https://www.newryjournal.co.uk/history/1800-1900/irish-confederation-formed/ |access-date=27 August 2020 |archive-date=25 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200925090507/https://www.newryjournal.co.uk/history/1800-1900/irish-confederation-formed/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In the case that followed, Mitchel successfully defended Duffy in court.<ref name="Irish Confederation formed"/> O'Connell and his son John were determined to press the issue. On the threat of their own resignations, they carried a resolution in the Repeal Association declaring that under no circumstances was a nation justified in asserting its liberties by force of arms.<ref>O'Sullivan (1945). ''Young Ireland''. The Kerryman Ltd. pp. 195-6</ref>

The grouping around the ''Nation'' that O'Connell had taken to calling "[[Young Ireland]]", a reference to [[Giuseppe Mazzini]]'s anti-clerical and insurrectionist [[Young Italy]], withdrew from the Repeal Association. In January 1847, they formed themselves anew as the [[Irish Confederation]] with, in [[Michael Doheny]] words, the "independence of the Irish nation" the objective and "no means to attain that end abjured, save such as were inconsistent with honour, morality and reason".<ref name="doheny112-112">Michael Doheny’s The Felon’s Track, M.H. Gill & Son, LTD, 1951 Edition pg 111–112</ref> But unable to secure a pronouncement in favour of Lalor's policy of building a campaign of resistance around tenant grievances, Mitchel soon broke with his confederates.