Irish Reform Association

The Irish Reform Association (1904–1905) was an attempt to introduce limited devolved self-government to Ireland by a group of reform oriented Irish unionist land owners who proposed to initially adopt something less than full Home Rule. It failed to gain acceptance due to fierce opposition from Ulster Unionists who on the one hand claimed it went too far, and on the other hand denounced by Irish Nationalists who claimed it did not go far enough. Also known as the Irish Reform Movement, it ended in calamity for most of those concerned.

Since the 1870s a Land War had been waged incessantly by tenant farmers in Ireland against their gentry landlords mainly due to rack-renting, evictions and depressed economic conditions. The United Kingdom Government tried to alleviate tensions by introducing several Irish Land Acts which only partly relieved the situation. At the turn of the century the United Irish League, founded in 1898, intensified agrarian agitations and pressure on the landlords. As a consequence a number of leading and progressive landlords proposed to negotiate terms to settle the age old "Irish land question" by calling a Land Conference backed by the Chief Secretary for Ireland George Wyndham.

The swift success of the Land Conference resulted in the enactment of the 1903 Wyndham Land (Purchase) Act, won by William O'Brien MP, leader of the tenant representation during the Conference. O'Brien resigned from the Irish Parliamentary Party in November 1903, claiming he was making no headway with his policy of conciliation. O'Brien's defiance of the party encouraged the landlord 'Land Conference Committee' to summon a meeting in Dublin early in 1904 attended by three hundred of the leading Irish gentry and landlords who resolved themselves into the Irish Reform Association, led by the Earl of Dunraven, who had been the presiding genius of the Land Conference and of that triumph of conciliation. Many were moderate southern supporters of the Irish Unionist Alliance.

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