Ulster's Bishop O’Donnell moved into the Nationalist leadership vacuum and held out against any compromise on fiscal autonomy, circulating a memorandum to all members of the Convention to this effect. Plunkett wrote to Redmond – "The Bishop of Raphoe is determined not to come to terms with Lord Midleton". He was ‘exceedingly doubtful about conditional acceptance until we know the North makes good the condition’ the bishop wrote in a letter to Redmond on 27 December, and recommended ‘before we give anything away – I should be inclined to keep the Convention in session for a considerable time fashioning out a reasonable instrument of Irish government’.