Plan of Campaign (The)

Often cited shortly as “The Plan,” promulgated by John Dillon in October, 1886. It provided that Irish tenants on an estate should band together, and determine what abatement of rent they considered to be called for. If the landlord accepted the abatement, well and good; if not, the tenants were to pay into a campaign fund the amount offered to the landlord, and the money thus funded should be used in fighting the landlord if he went to law to recover his rents.

“The Plan of Campaign proposed to reduce rents by an average of some 30 per cent.”—Nineteenth Century, April, 1894, p. 566.

⁂ In 1885 the Land Commission reduced all the rents from 10 to 14 per cent.; so that 30 per cent. more would equal from 40 to 45 per cent.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.