an all-Ireland agitation. Ulster tenant-farmers and labourers equally demanded rights, their movement the Farmers and Labourers Union led by T. W. Russell. The Irish Trade Union Congress passed a motion in 1896 which recommended that in every parish in Ireland, a branch of the ILLA be founded. Programme The passing of the revolutionary Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898, a "grass roots home rule" Act, totally reorganised the old aristocratic landlord "Grand Juries", eliminating their power by transferring it to Local County Councils elected by tenant farmers, town traders and labourers. The creation of the new councils had a significant effect on Ireland as it allowed local people to take decisions affecting themselves. The County and the sub-county District Councils also created a political platform for proponents of Irish Home Rule, displacing Unionist influence in many areas. The enfranchisement of local electors allowed the development of a new political class, creating a significant body of experienced politicians who began to take local affairs into their own hands. This coincided with William O'Brien founding the United Irish League (UIL), the wide expansion of the agricultural co-operative movement established earlier by Horace Plunkett and Sheehan becoming both President of the ILLA and editor of the Skibbereen based The Southern Star newspaper. He assured that the ILLA as well as the UIL were given weekly press coverage of their branch reports, particularly crucial for the expansion and growth of the UIL in Cork. The Act was immediately recognised by the labourers, who for the first time held both active and passive electoral franchise, as a means to achieving their interests and facilitating those who desired to help them on local county councils. The prospects offered by the Act of radically overhauling the socio-economic distribution of political power in the countryside was not lost on the labourer movement. The ILLA took resolute steps to both organise the voting power of the labourers and to see to the 'proposal of labour candidates'. Modelling themselves on Davitt’s concepts, the ILLA platform included demands for: – land for the people – houses for the people – work and wages for the people – education for the people – state pensions for old people – all local rents shall be paid by the ground landlords. Its strategy was to achieve these through political and parliamentary leverage, pressure of the press and public agitation rather than by physical-force means or