Isaac Butt
Encyclopedia : I : IS : ISA : Isaac Butt
Isaac Butt (September 6,1813 - May 5,1879) was the founder and first leader of a number of parties and organisations, including the Irish Metropolitan Conservative Society in 1836, the Home Government Association in 1870 and in 1874 the Home Rule League, subsequently known as the Irish Parliamentary Party. He also founded the Dublin University Magazine and for much of his life was a member of the Irish Conservative Party.
Butt was born in Glenfin, Donegal, the son of a Protestant rector. He began his career as a Tory politician on Dublin Corporation. A brilliant barrister, he defended Irish leader Daniel O'Connell in court. His experiences during the Famine led him to move from being an Irish unionist and an Orangeman to becoming a believer in home 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. Butt gained notoriety for both himself and the Home Rule League as well as Fenians executed in England (the Manchester Martyrs incident.)
Butt's personal life was notorious. His chaotic finances led to a number of stays in a debtor's prison, while his sexual proclivities achieved legendary status, with members of his various parties describing his speeches being interrupted by heckling from women with whom he had fathered children.Alvin Jackson, Home Rule: An Irish History 1800—2000 p.36.
He resigned the leadership in 1879 and was replaced by William Shaw, who in turn was replaced by Charles Stewart Parnell in 1880.
He died in 5 May 1879 in Clonskeagh in Dublin.His remains were brought by train to Stranorlar, Co Donegal where he is bured in a corner of the Church of Ireland cemetery beneath a tree in which he used to sit and dream as a boy.
Footnotes
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.