New Departure (Ireland)

The term New Departure has been used to describe several initiatives in the late 19th century by which Irish republicans, who were committed to independence from Britain by physical force, attempted to find a common ground for co-operation with groups committed to Irish Home Rule by constitutional means. In the wake of the Fenian Rising of 1867 and the unpopular executions which followed it, Fenianism was popularised and became more moderate, while the Home Rule movement was edging toward radicalism at the same time, laying the framework for the alliance. The term was coined by John Devoy in an anonymous article in the New York Herald on 27 October 1878 in which he laid out a framework for a new policy. rdf:langString