Chamberlain took a special interest in Ireland. The Irish Land League promoted fair rents, fixity of tenure and free sale for Irish Catholic peasants, in opposition to (often absentee) Anglo-Irish landlords. Chamberlain agreed with suggestions that a Land Bill would counter agitation in Ireland and Fenian outrages in the British Isles and would quieten demands for Irish Home Rule, which he opposed strongly, reasoning that it would lead to the eventual break up of the British Empire. He opposed the Chief Secretary for Ireland, W.E. Forster's policy of coercion, believing that coercive tactics before a land settlement would provoke Irish malcontents. In April 1881, Gladstone's government introduced the Irish Land Act, but in response, Charles Stewart Parnell, leading the Irish nationalists, encouraged tenants to withhold rents. As a result, Parnell and other leaders, including John Dillon and William O'Brien, were imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol on 13 October 1881. Chamberlain supported their imprisonment rather than further concessions, and used their incarceration to bargain with them in 1882.