ABSTRACT
The second phase of the land war in Cork, like the first, was rooted in economic difficulties. Lacking the resources and the cohesiveness needed if they were to combat the agrarian agitation effectively, Irish unionist landowners leaned heavily upon government initiative and support. A resurgence of agrarian agitation was a distinct possibility by the end of 1884. It is somewhat surprising that the revival of the agrarian agitation in 1885 and 1886, made manifest by the rent conflicts on so many estates, was not accompanied by a substantial increase in the resort to violence. Heralding the 'collapse of the Plan of Campaign' on the Kingston estate in early August, the Cork Constitution gleefully noted that one of the principal tenants had just paid rent and costs, and claimed that the others were by now 'heartily sick and disgusted with the life they have been living for the last nine months'.
