The grouping around the "Nation" that O'Connell had taken to calling "Young Ireland", a reference to Giuseppe Mazzini's anti-clerical and insurrectionist Young Italy, withdrew from the Repeal Association. In January 1847, they formed themselves anew as the Irish Confederation with, in Michael Doheny words, the "independence of the Irish nation" the objective and "no means to attain that end abjured, save such as were inconsistent with honour, morality and reason". But unable to secure a pronouncement in favour of Lalor's policy, making control of land the issue in a campaign of resistance, Mitchel soon broke with his confederates.