Woodford’s Campaign Plan
Gladstone formed his third ministry in February 1886, with the Liberal John Morley appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland and the sympathetic Lord Aberdeen sent to Dublin as lord lieutenant. Aberdeen received conspicuous nationalist goodwill on arriving in Dublin on 20 February. His brief viceregal term included public gestures towards relief work and reconciliation, but real authority lay with ministers in London. The arrival nevertheless mattered: it suggested that Dublin Castle might, for once, administer Ireland under a government willing to remake the constitutional relationship rather than merely police it.
