Andrew Kettle. Prominent Home Rule League MP Charles Stewart Parnell was chosen as the Land League's first President. From 1879 to 1881 Brennan worked tirelessly within the League's executive and became a familiar face at Land League rallies, where he garnered national attention as an eloquent public speaker. As Parnell attempted to attract more moderate members to the land league, Brennan used his speeches to link the demand for tenant rights with the ultimate demand for complete Irish independence, while also demonstrating radical egalitarian and socialist views. Due to their advocacy of non-payment of rent, all senior land league officials were arrested between December 1880 and October 1881 under the Coercion Act. Brennan was convicted under the Protection of Persons and Property Act on 23 May 1881 and imprisoned at Kilmainham Gaol. He was a signatory of the No Rent Manifesto which was issued from Kilmainham on 18 October 1881, calling for a national tenant farmer rent strike. The Land League was suppressed even further as a result. In May 1882, Parnell agreed to the Kilmainham Treaty, in which he withdrew the manifesto and pledged to bring violence to an end in exchange for government leniency on rent owed by over 100,000 Irish tenant farmers. Under this agreement, Parnell and the Land League would return to the parameters of parliamentary and constitutional politics. This approach was strongly opposed by Brennan, who immediately sided with Davitt in continuing to promote land nationalisation upon his release from prison in June 1882. In order to prevent further fragmentation amongst Irish nationalists, Parnell invited Brennan and Davitt to draft a programme for a new national political organisation to replace the Land League during the summer and autumn of 1882. Whilst the constitution of the new Irish National League was being debated, the more radical Irish nationalists continued to propose vigorous actions against the British government and land nationalisation; however, they were overruled by Parnell. By September, Davitt had relented and agreed to substitute land nationalisation for peasant proprietorship. Brennan, ideologically opposed to the new party, effectively retired from politics and left Ireland for the United States. Later life and death He emigrated to New York in late 1882 to work for Patrick Ford's Irish World newspaper, which had been the largest fund-collector for the Land League and promoted radical views in opposition to Parnell. In March 1883, Brennan moved to Omaha, Nebraska where he