IRISH AGRARIAN TENURE. 73 



plans of reform for Ireland — it was the influence 

 which the Irish who had emigrated to America 

 had won in American politics, and which they 

 now threw into the scales against England. In 

 addition, numerous Irish colonies had settled 

 during the famine years in manufacturing 

 districts of England and formed there a 

 dangerous proletariat. In America a national 

 revolutionary movement had sprung up among 

 the Irish immigrants, and an " Irish Revo- 

 lutionary Brotherhood " was organised, which 

 intended nothing less than an insurrection in 

 Ireland accompanied by the landing of armed 

 forces from America. Many of the Irish had 

 obtained a militar}^ training in the American 

 Civil War, so that the human material for the 

 physical-force policy seemed to be ready to hand. 

 The Fenians, as the revolutionaries were named, 

 attempted various risings, of which the most 

 notable was an outbreak in the year 1867. 

 Like all Irish insurrections in the 19th century, 

 these ended in a few trifling skirmishes, which, 

 nevertheless, were exciting enough to influence 

 the public opinion of England.^ Thus it be- 

 came possible for the English reformers to bring 

 forward proposals for the prevention of fresh 

 disturbances in Ireland. The road of agrarian 

 reform which John Bright desired to travel led 

 to the establishment of a peasant proprietary. 

 Some tentative advance had already been made 



' Morley's "Gladstone," II., pp. 281-297. 



