In the
1852 general election Greer stood on the tenant right platform. But in the face of organised, sometimes violent
Orange opposition, Duffy's promised "League of North and South" failed to deliver. Of the 48 League-supported MPs returned to Westminster as the
Independent Irish Party (many of them sitting Repeal MPs), only one represented an Ulster constituency,
William Kirk for
Newry. In the south, the
clericalist Catholic Defence Association further split the movement. Politically isolated, in 1856 Duffy took his commitment to land reform to Australia. While supportive of the legislative union with Great Britain, Greer was not prepared to enter into the pan-Protestant unionist alliance urged by the sometime Presbyterian Moderator,
Henry Cooke. Too many
Church of Ireland members insisted on the prerogatives not only of landlords, but also of their
established church, the costs of which, borne by landowners, were passed to the tenant in higher rents. He was not successful at the by-election. Supported by MacKnight, Greer was successful in taking one of the county's two seats in the
general election later the same year as a
Radical. In Britain, the Radical leader
John Bright had, at the outset, endorsed the League's tenant right programme. his vote dropped from a third to a quarter of the ballot, and the
Conservatives regained both seats. In 1860 in
1860 Londonderry City by-election, Greer tried to succeed the Whig MP
Sir Robert Ferguson, but the
Conservative candidate
William McCormick, who employed a significant number of Catholic workers, managed to split the Catholic vote and defeated Greer with a majority of 19. Although failing to win office as a Liberal, Greer promoted the party in Ulster. It was the vehicle through the first of the
Irish Land Acts was secured in 1870. This met one of the central demands of the Ulster Tenant Right Association. It gave the
Custom of Ulster, which restricted the opportunity to
rack-rent tenant improvements, the force of law. In 1872, the
Gladstone administration also introduced the
Ballot Act 1872, which reduced the intimidatory power of landlords and employers through the use of the secret ballot. In 1870 Greer accepted the
recordership of Londonderry, until 1878, when he was appointed county court judge of
County Cavan and
County Leitrim. He died in 1880. ==References==