ABSTRACT
Once the most respected man in Irish nationalist circle, Isaac Butt became merely a footnote in Anglo-Irish history after his death on 5 May 1879. To the detriment of his own legal earnings, he was an eloquent counsel for Fenians in the 1860s, the leading force in the Amnesty Association campaign to free convicted Fenians, chief political spokesmen for the tenant-rights interest in the late 1860s and 70s, and above all the inspirational figure behind the movement for Irish Home Rule. Butt repudiated the wanton disruption or 'obstruction' of parliamentary business, a tactic that brought Charles Stewart Parnell to public fame. Butt can be placed within the framework of what George Boyce terms colonial patriotism, that is the devotion to country by a segment of Protestants who associated themselves foremost with Ireland. Loss of his parliamentary seat occurred just when there was a sea-change in Irish politics.
