By A. M. Sullivan From the Atlas and Cyclopedia of Ireland
(1900) THE HOME RULE MOVEMENT—ITS DEFECTS AND
FAILURE—"OBSTRUCTION"—A SUCCESS—THE LAND LEAGUE. THE Home
Government Association had its origin at a meeting held at the
Bilton Hotel, Dublin, on the evening of the 19th of May, 1870.
The meeting was a private one, composed of prominent
professional and mercantile gentlemen of the metropolis, and may
be said to have been made up of the most heterogeneous elements,
as it embraced men of various creeds and of every shade of
political opinion—Orangemen, Ultra-montanes, Conservatives,
Liberals, Repealers, Nationlists, Fenian sympathizers and sturdy
Loyalists. The one object, which for the first time, perhaps, in
the history of Ireland, effected, at least, a temporary truce
between men of divergent views and conflicting opinions, was the
consideration of the condition of their common country, with a
view to the amelioration of the present state of things therein.
The following names with the religious persuasio