William Gladstone had again become prime minister following the 1880 general election. He was committed to further land reform in Ireland, but even before he could present proposals in parliament, the Land League proceeded
Print shows clusters of tenants with their belongings after being forcibly evicted from their homes on land owned by British absentee landlords. Lithograph by W. H. Powell (Library of Congress)
With an intensified campaign of withholding rents, massive rallies and marches, and the new tactic of boycott. Parnell himself called for the last tactic in a September 1880 speech in Ennis, County Clare, in which he asked that anyone taking a farm from which someone had been evicted be placed in a moral Coventry, that is, be shunned by the whole community. In County Mayo the agent for the property of Lord Erne, a Captain Boycott, was subject to this tactic in response to evictions. So complete was the process that the only way in which domestic servants or farm hands could be hired to work the property was by importing them from Ulster counties. The name of the object of the tactic became a common word in the English language for the tactic itself.
The Catholic hierarchy, although not necessarily the rank-and-file clergy, was somewhat apprehensive about the potential of the Land League campaign turning violent. However, a rising Catholic middle class, primarily shopkeepers and publicans, with close familial and commercial ties to the farmers, was supportive. Violence did increase, with some fatalities and considerable destruction of property.
Gladstone had to balance his own sympathy with further land reform with the strong links to landlords and concern with property rights held by the aristocratic Whig component of his government, which was made up of not just Liberals and radicals. In 1881 he put through two measures. One was coercion legislation, allowing extraordinary police powers and martial law in certain situations. The other was a land act granting the essence of what the Land League demanded: the three "F's," fixity of tenure, fair rent, and free sale. It also increased the amount of state assistance in land purchase by tenants from two-thirds to three-quarters of the sale amount with a 3 5-year term for repayment. But because the down payment and the interest were too high, few took up the opportunity. Since the three "F's" part of the legislation did not apply to those in default on their rent, who constituted about a third of the farmers in Ireland, the Land League continued its campaign after the legislation was enacted.
Parnell, having had no choice but to keep ahead of the more extreme elements in his movement, including major financial supporters among Irish Americans, complained of the act's inadequacies. The chief secretary, William Forster, responded by having Parnell and Davitt arrested under the Coercion Act and imprisoned in Kilmainham Jail in Dublin. This gave Parnell excellent cover from criticism by the more extreme among his supporters, who responded to his arrest by launching another "no-rent" campaign. The Coercion Act was enforced in order to suppress the Land League for this activity, but that spurred more violence. In April informal agreement between Parnell and the government, known as the "Kilmainham Treaty," resulted in his release, amendment of the land legislation to extend its benefits to those in arrears, relaxation of the coercion policy, and a promise by Parnell to use his influence to gain popular acceptance of the law and cessation of violence. The settlement was immediately thrown into danger a few days after Parnell's release when an extremist wing of the Fenians assassinated Lord Frederick Cavendish, who had replaced Forster who had resigned over the concessions to Parnell, and the undersecretary, T. H. Burke, in Phoenix Park, Dublin. But Parnell's immediate condemnation of the killings won him respect in Britain and opened the way for increased cooperation with the government.
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