THE ULSTERCONRLICT olic church in Ireland from a South American type institution into one of the most efficiently organised Churches in Europe, and turned its orientation from the creation and protection of privilege and nepotism, to that of meritocratic education and modernisation, principally by centralising administration and creating a machine which might have been the envy of a Tammany Hall boss. Cullens was hated by Unionists and Fenians alike, and the Catholic church was careful throughout the 19th century in Ireland, to steer a middle course in the struggle for independence, always condeming (at least outwardly) insurrectionary activity. Nevertheless the Church always knew what they required of an independent Irish government, and because of their control of the preponderance of the population they were to make sure they got it, in the century to come. When Parnell took over the Land League and the remnants of the Fenians in 1880, after Butt's death, he also inherited the influence of the Catholic church. None of this bothered Parnell. What he wanted was Irish Home Rule at almost any cost (but not agrarian revolution) and he was prepared to use anybody or any thing to get it. His main support came from the Land League and its land war. Funds from the organization enabled him to pay retainers to members of the Irish parliamentary party (the first time this had been done in the English parliament) and thus to keep them together as a bloc vote. In parallel with his display as a« great parliamentarian» (organizing disruption of parliamentary business when the need arose) Parnell also came to have decisive though indefinable and ambiguous connections with the Fenian rank and file, especially in the great land-agitation of 1879-72. In one sense the revolutionary movement was captured by the costitutional movement working through a militant and independent Irish party in parliament; and for a long time it looked as though the home rulers had the future in their hands. American support for Fenianism was transferred to Parnell and his party. As the franchise was further expanded in the United Kingdom during the latter half of the century, the number of Catholic M.P.s representing Irish constituencies grew and began to favour the Home Rulers. Before the general election of 1885, Parnell had flirted with the idea of an alliance with the Conservatives since they seemed more likely than the Liberals to allow a Home Rule parliament to erect tariffs to protect small-scale southern Irish industries. Parnell raised the demand for protection of Irish industry in his election 83
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