The abuse of tenant farmers led to widespread emigration to the United States and the colonies and was a key factor within the Home Rule Movement. They also underlined a deterioration in Protestant-Catholic relationships, although there were notable elements of cooperation in reform attempts such as the Tenant Right League of the 1850s. Following the Great Famine tenant farmers were the largest class of people. Discontent led to the Land War of the 1870s onwards, the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870, the founding of the Land League 1879 to establish fair rents and the fixity of tenures. The movement played a key element in the unification of country and urban classes and the creation of a national identity not existing before.