Above : Picture Of Gladstone

A great conference in Dublin was arranged. In November 1873, the Rotunda,which had witnessed the meeting of the Volunteer Conference in November 1783, and seen it end in disaster and defeat, was now, after ninety years, the scene of another assembly, which, in different ways and by different means, sought, like the earlier one, a remedy for the ills 0f Ireland, but of an Ireland real and national, not merely of the narrow
community for whom mainly, if not exclusively, the men of 1783 had interested themselves. The outcome of this conference was a decision that all the forces of the League should be employed to contest every possible constituency at the next General Election, and that the Members returned should band themselves together in Parliament in a solid body, independent of British Parties and intent only on obtaining, from Conservatives or from Liberals, the object for which they strove.

Above : Portrait Of Jeremiah O’Donovan

FOR the next few years there was tranquillity in Ireland. The activity of the constitutional politicians had ceased ; the ” physical force ” party gave no sign of life. Within a decade each had made a great effort ; both had failed. The English people in general believed that the Irish were at last ” settling down,” and that agitations and rebellions would be heard of no more. In truth, however, the apparent peace was but ” smothered war.”