initiative and separate from his official mission. While the IRB leadership refused to officially support his call to co-operate with Parnell and his radical wing of the Home Rule League, the IRB's Michael Davitt supported it as a personal initiative. The high personal standing of both Davitt and Devoy with local Fenians allowed them to build a highly successful, albeit short-lived, "unofficial" partnership between moderate Fenians and Parnell's radical Home Rulers, agreed verbally in Dublin on 1 June 1879. Devoy supported the agreement because he believed that the "demands of the Land League will not be granted by a Parliament of British landlords". This led to the escalation of the Land War (a national protest against landlords), creation of the Irish National Land League and a crisis for the British Government. The following disparate groups cooperated in the common cause of small tenant farmers: Revolutionary nationalists such as Matt Harris and Thomas Brennan; Conservative nationalists such as James Daly; Catholic leaders such as the influential Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, Thomas Croke (who is quoted as telling Devoy "that he had no objection to physical force in principle, but strongly opposed it because it had no chance of success" and that he had "more respect for the Fenians than for any [other] men in Ireland"<ref name=Gilley>Sheridan Gilley, "The Catholic Church and Revolution", in The Revolution in Ireland, 1879–1923', ed. D. G. Boyce, chapter 7, London: Macmillan, 1988.</ref>) and Tuam's Catholic clergy (with the notable exception of Archbishop John MacHale); Constitutionalists such as Parnell and Joseph Biggar; Pragmatic Fenians as epitomised by Davitt. Notes Sources Home Rule. An Irish History 1800–2000, Alvin Jackson, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003, . That Irishman: The Life and Times of John O'Connor Power, Jane Stanford, The History Press Ireland, 2011, . Davitt and Irish Revolution 1846–82, T. W. Moody, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981, The Revolution in Ireland, 1879–1923, ed. D. G. Boyce, London: Macmillan, 1988, The Fenians in Context, Irish Politics & Society, 1848-82'', R. V. Comerford, Dublin, 1985. "The Home Rule Movement", Michael MacDonagh, Fisher Unwin, Dublin and London, 1920. "The Life of Charles Stewart Parnell, 1846–1891", R. Barry O'Brien, London and New York, 1910. Irish Republican Brotherhood Irish nationalism Irish republicanism Land reform in Ireland