Tension within the League leadership in Mayo and between it and the Land League central executive was rooted in a long-standing controversy over whether Irish grievances could best be redressed through a centralized political movement directed by professional revolutionaries (the United Irishman and Fenian tradition) or through a locally based agitation (the Whiteboy and Ribbonmen tradition). Unlike the earlier tactical controversies within Irish nationalism, the one that arose in Mayo in 1880 did not center around whether local or national grievances should be supreme. Rather, the issue was whether the Irish National Land League executive, which by the fall of 1880 was increasingly influenced by the more prosperous farmers of southern and eastern Ireland, could direct the agitation in Mayo more effectively than could local politicians who could claim to be in closer accord with the county's small farmers.