ORGANISATION AND LEADERSHIP From the day when Gladstone first made Home Rule for Ireland the leading issue in British politics, the Loyalists of Ulster--who, as already explained, included practically all the Protestant population of the Province both Conservative and Liberal, besides a small number of Catholics who had no separatist sympathies--set to work to organise themselves for effective opposition to the new policy.

In the hour of their dismay over Gladstone's surrender Lord Randolph Churchill, hurrying from London to encourage and inspirit them, told them in the Ulster Hall on the 22nd of February, 1886, that "the Loyalists in Ulster should wait and watch--organise and prepare."[9] They followed his advice.

Propaganda among themselves was indeed unnecessary, for no one required conversion except those who were known to be inconvertible.

The chief work to be done was to send speakers to British constituencies; and in the decade from 1885 to 1895 Ulster speakers, many of whom were ministers of the different Protestant Churches, were in request on English and Scottish platforms.
A number of organisations were formed for this purpose, some of which, like the Irish Unionist Alliance, represented Unionist opinion throughout Ireland, and not in Ulster alone.

Others were exclusively concerned with the northern Province, where from the first the opposition was naturally more concentrated than elsewhere.