Isaac Butt

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Isaac Butt
QC MP
Isaac Butt, portrait by John Butler Yeats
1st Leader of the Home Rule League
In office
21 November 1873 – 5 May 1879
Succeeded byWilliam Shaw
Member of Parliament for Limerick
In office
1871–1879
Serving with George Gavin
(to 1874)
Richard O'Shaughnessy
(from 1874)
Preceded byFrancis William Russell
George Gavin
Succeeded byDaniel Fitzgerald Gabbett
Richard O'Shaughnessy
Member of Parliament for Youghal
In office
1852–1865
Preceded byThomas Chisholm Anstey
Succeeded byJoseph Neale McKenna
Personal details
Born6 September 1813
Glenfin,
Queen's Counsel

Isaac Butt

Irish nationalist parties and organisations. He was a leader in the Irish Metropolitan Conservative Society in 1836, the Home Government Association in 1870, and the Home Rule League in 1873. Colin W. Reid argues that Home Rule was the mechanism Butt proposed to bind Ireland to Great Britain. It would end the ambiguities of the Act of Union of 1800. He portrayed a federalised United Kingdom, which would have weakened Irish exceptionalism within a broader British context. Butt was representative of a constructive national unionism.[1] As an economist, he made significant contributions regarding the potential resource mobilisation and distribution aspects of protection, and analysed deficiencies in the Irish economy such as sparse employment, low productivity, and misallocation of land.[2] He dissented from the established Ricardian theories and favoured some welfare state concepts.[3] As editor he made the Dublin University Magazine a leading Irish journal of politics and literature.[4]

Early life

Butt was born in 1813 in Glenfin, a district bordering the Finn Valley in

elected a Scholar, and president of the (extern) College Historical Society.[8] Whilst there he co-founded the Dublin University Magazine and edited it for four years. For much of his life he was a member of the Irish Conservative Party, and he founded the conservative Ulster Times newspaper.[8] He became Whately Professor of Political Economy at Trinity in 1836 and held that position until 1841.[9]

Legal career

After being called to the bar in 1838, Butt quickly established a name for himself as a brilliant

Orangeman[11] to supporting a federal political system for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland that would give Ireland a greater degree of self-rule. This led to his involvement in Irish nationalist politics and the foundation of the Home Rule League. Butt was instrumental in fostering links between constitutional and revolutionary nationalism through his representation of members of the Fenians
Society in court.

Political career

He began his career as a

Tory politician on Dublin Corporation. He was Member of Parliament for Youghal from 1852 to 1865, and for Limerick from 1871 to 1879 (at the 1852 general election he had also been elected for the English constituency of Harwich
, but chose to sit for Youghal).

The failed

Fenian revolt, Butt then from June 1869 became president of the Amnesty Association formed to secure the release of imprisoned Fenians,[13] supported actively amongst others by P. F. Johnson
.

In 1870 Butt then founded the Irish Home Government Association. This was in no sense a revolutionary organisation. It was designed to mobilise public opinion behind the demand for an Irish parliament, with, as he put it, "full control over our domestic affairs".[12] He believed that Home Rule would promote friendship between Ireland and her neighbour to the east.

In November 1873 Butt replaced the Association with a new body, the Home Rule League, which he regarded as a pressure-group, rather than a political party. In the general election the following year, 60 of its members were elected, forming then in 1874 the Irish Parliamentary Party. However, most of those elected were men of property who were closer to the Liberal cause.[14] In the meantime Charles Stewart Parnell had joined the League, with more radical ideas than most of the incumbent Home Rulers, and was elected to Parliament in a by-election in County Meath in 1875.[15]

Butt had failed to win substantial concessions at

Joseph Gillis Biggar (then a senior member of the IRB
), began making extensive use of the ungentlemanly tactic of "obstructionism" to prevent bills being passed by the house.

Declined influence

When Parnell entered Parliament he took his cue from John O'Connor Power and Joseph Biggar and allied himself with those Irish members who would support him in his obstructionist campaign. MPs at that time could stand up and talk for as long as they wished on any subject. This caused havoc in Parliament. In one case they talked for 45 hours non-stop, stopping any important bills from being passed. Butt, ageing, and in failing health, could not keep up with this tactic and considered it counter-productive. In July 1877 Butt threatened to resign from the party if obstruction continued, and a gulf developed between himself and Parnell, who was growing steadily in the estimation of both the Fenians and the Home Rulers.[17]

The climax came in December 1878, when Parliament was recalled to discuss the war in Afghanistan. Butt considered this discussion too important to the British Empire to be interrupted by obstructionism and publicly warned the Irish members to refrain from this tactic. He was fiercely denounced by the young Nationalist John Dillon, who continued his attacks with considerable support from other Home Rulers at a meeting of the Home Rule League in February 1879. Although he defended himself with dignity, Butt, and all and sundry, knew that his role in the party was at an end.[18] Barry O'Brien, in his biography of Parnell, interviews 'X' who relates: 'It was very painful. I was very fond of Butt. He was himself the kindest-hearted man in the world, and here was I going to do the unkindest thing to him.'[19]

Butt, who had been suffering from bronchitis, had a stroke the following May and died within a week. He was replaced by William Shaw, who in turn was replaced by Charles Stewart Parnell in 1880.

Personal life

Butt amassed debts and pursued romances. It was said that at meetings he was occasionally heckled by women with whom he had fathered children.[20] He was also involved in a financial scandal when it was revealed that he had taken money from several Indian princes to represent their interests in parliament.

He died on 5 May 1879 in Clonskeagh in Dublin. His remains were brought by train, via Strabane, to Stranorlar in the east of County Donegal, where he is buried in a corner of the Church of Ireland cemetery beneath a tree by which he used to sit and dream as a boy.

Despite his chaotic lifestyle and political limitations, Butt was capable of inspiring deep personal loyalty. Some of his friends, such as

Edward Thomas O'Dwyer
, retained a lasting hostility towards Parnell for his role in Butt's downfall.

In May 2010 the Church of Ireland (Anglican) parishes of Stranorlar, Meenglass and Kilteevogue instigated an annual memorial Service and Lecture in Butt's honour, inviting members of the professions of law, politics and journalism to reflect aspects of his life. Speakers have included Dr. Joe Mulholland, Senator David Norris, Dr. Chris McGimpsey and Prof. Brian Walker. His grave has been restored and the memorial now includes a wreath.

In literature

Arms

Coat of arms of Isaac Butt
Notes
Granted 14 August 1856 by Sir John Bernard Burke, Ulster King of Arms.[22]
Crest
A horse's head erased Argent charged on the neck with a trefoil Vert the headand mane plaited Or on the head a lume of three ostrich feathers of the first.
Escutcheon
Quarterly 1st & 4th Gules on a chevron engrailed between three estoiles Or a trefoil Vert between two lozenges of the first (Butt) 2nd Azyre three bars counterchanged Or on a canton Gules a lion's head erased Argent (Cox) 3rd Argent an eagle displayed and in chief between two pellets a cross crosslet fitchee Sable (Ramsay) the cross crosslet being adopted in commemoration of a descent through the Ramsays from the family of O'Donnell.
Motto
Possunt Quia Posse Videntur

References

  1. ^ Colin W. Reid, "‘An Experiment in Constructive Unionism’: Isaac Butt, Home Rule and Federalist Political Thought during the 1870s." English Historical Review 129.537 (2014): 332-361.
  2. ^ Alan O’Day, "Isaac Butt and Neglected Political Economists." in English, Irish and Subversives Among the Dismal Scientists (2010): 375+.
  3. ^ R.D. Collison Black, "The Irish dissenters and nineteenth-century political economy." Hermathena 135 (1983): 120-137. online
  4. ^ Wayne E. Hall, "The 'Dublin University Magazine' and Isaac Butt, 1834-1838." Victorian Periodicals Review 20.2 (1987): 43-56.
  5. ^ Spence 1996.
  6. ^ Burke 2009, p. 155.
  7. Thomas Ulick Sadleir
    p. 123: Dublin, Alex Thom and Co, 1935
  8. ^
    The Monitor and New Era. London. 27 December 1913. p. 6. Retrieved 3 September 2019 – via NewspaperArchive.com
    .
  9. ^ Bouchier-Hayes, Frank (26 August 2008). "An Irishman's Diary". Irish Times. p. 15.
  10. ^ Doran 2003, pp. 25–26.
  11. ^ Jackson (2003), pp. 25–26
  12. ^ a b Lyons (1978), p. 42
  13. ^ Jackson 2003, pp. 30–31.
  14. ^ Lyons (1978), p. 46
  15. ^ Lyons (1978), p. 49
  16. ^ Lyons (1978), p. 55
  17. ^ Lyons (1978), pp. 70–75
  18. ^ Lyons (1978), p. 86
  19. ^ Stanford 2011, p. 84, endnote 196.
  20. ^ Jackson 2003, p. 31.
  21. ^ Stanford 2011, pp. 121–122, Part Three.
  22. ^ "Grants and Confirmations of Arms Vol. F". National Library of Ireland. p. 98. Retrieved 28 June 2022.

Further reading

Primary sources

  • Butt, Isaac. Irish federalism : its meaning, its objects, and its hopes (1870) a primary source; online
  • Butt, Isaac. The Irish people and the Irish land: a letter to Lord Lifford, with comments on the publications of Lord Dufferin and Lord Rosse (J. Falconer, 1867) online.
  • Butt, Isaac. Land Tenure in Ireland: A Plea for the Celtic race (J. Falconer, 1866) online.
  • Butt, Isaac. Protection to Home Industry: Some Cases of Its Advantages Considered: the Substance of Two Lectures Delivered Before the University of Dublin, in Michaelmas Term, 1840: to which is Added an Appendix, Containing Dissertations on Some Points Connected with the Subject (Hodges and Smith, 1846) online
  • Butt, Isaac. Home Government for Ireland: Irish Federalism! Its Meaning, Its Objects, and Its Hopes (Irish home rule league, 1874) online.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Isaac Butt.
Wikisource has original works by or about:
Isaac Butt
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Youghal
1852 – 1865 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Member of Parliament for Limerick
1871–1879
With: George Gavin, to 1874
Richard O'Shaughnessy, from 1874 		Succeeded by
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Isaac_Butt&oldid=1216309210"