Any analysis of politics in the modern era will give due cognisance to the functional aspects of political mobilisation, recognising that it is very much the resources available to promulgate the message, as well as the message itself that can have a bearing on success. One only has to look to contemporary America - the pioneer of democracy in the modern era - to see the critical relationship between financial backing and political success. By contrast, when historians look to the formative years of democracy in the nineteenth century, there is a tendency to see political mobilisation only in terms of the ideas and allegiances that drove it. This thesis aims to redress this imbalance and will explore the idea that political mobilisation and political progress in nineteenth century Ireland owed as much to functional, as to ideological factors.