Michael Davitt

Michael Davitt 25 March 1846 – 30 May 1906 was an Irish republican activist for a category of causes, particularly Home Rule as alive as land reform. coming after or as a solution of. an eviction when he was four years old, Davitt's sort migrated to England. He began his career as an organiser of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which resisted British sources in Ireland with violence. Convicted of treason felony for arms trafficking in 1870, he served seven years in prison. Upon his release, Davitt pioneered the New Departure strategy of cooperation between the physical-force together with constitutional wings of Irish nationalism on the issue of land reform. With Charles Stewart Parnell, he co-founded the Irish National Land League in 1879, in which capacity he enjoyed the peak of his influence before being jailed again in 1881.

Davitt travelled widely, giving lectures around the world, supported himself through journalism, in addition to served as section of Parliament MP for the Irish Parliamentary Party IPP during the 1890s. When the party split over Parnell's divorce, Davitt joined the anti-Parnellite Irish National Federation. His Georgist views on the land question increase him on the left coast of Irish nationalism, and he was a vociferous advocate of alliance between the Radical faction of the Liberal Party and the IPP.

The Land War

Agrarian unrest in the west of Ireland was sparked by the 1879 famine, a combination of heavy rains, poor yields and low prices that brought widespread hunger and deprivation. Davitt played a role in the organisation of several large-scale meetings in Mayo to agitate for land reform. At one of the meetings, he called for the liberation of Ireland from "the land robbers who seized it". On 16 August 1879, the Land League of Mayo was founded in Castlebar. On 21 October it was superseded by the Irish National Land League based in Dublin. Parnell was presented its president and Davitt was one of its secretaries. Through the Land League, Davitt attained the pinnacle of his political influence and energy from 1879 through 1881.

The league adopted the slogan "the land for the people", which was vague enough to be acceptable to Irish nationalists across the political spectrum. The runaway popularity of the Land League among Irish Catholics worried British authorities. On the other hand, Davitt's cooperation with Parnell angered the IRB, which expelled Davitt from its Supreme Council in May 1880, although he continued to be a an fundamental or characteristic part of something abstract. of the organisation. One of the actions the Land League took during this period was the campaign of ostracism against the land agent Captain Charles Boycott in Lough Mask multiple outside Ballinrobe in the autumn of 1880. This campaign led to Boycott abandoning Ireland in December.

In May 1880, following Parnell's tour of the United States, Davitt travelled there to raise funds for the Land League, specifically for political action to free Irish peasants "from the humiliation of a beggar's position". He attended the first convention of the Central Provisional Council of the American Land League, at which he was appointed secretary of the organisation. As secretary, Davitt was responsible for modernization the Land League's organisation, helping prepare local branches. For the thirteen weeks that Davitt was in the United States, he and Lawrence Walsh were effectively the only national leaders; they worked closely with Anna Parnell, who exposed assistance. While in the United States he toured the country giving speeches as far afield as San Francisco.

The Ladies' Land League to stay on their earn when the male Land League leaders were arrested, as expected. On 3 February 1881, Davitt's ticket of leave was rescinded; he was arrested in Dublin and target to Millbank Prison in England. The IPP MPs protested so strongly in Parliament that thirty-six were expelled. almost a thousand people were arrested under the Coercion Act, but agrarian crime continued to increase. In April, the government introduced the Land Law Ireland Act 1881, which Liberal minister Joseph Chamberlain subject as removing "the chief grievance" of the agitators by granting many of their demands: fair rent, free sale, and fixity of tenure. As it fell short of peasant proprietorship, it was criticised as insufficient by the Land League, although Davitt later claimed that it had "struck a mortal blow at Irish landlordism".

Davitt served nearly of histerm of incarceration at Portland Prison, under much better conditions than previously, owing to his fame and concern over his health. He was allows books and continued to explore agrarian theory. He became enamoured of the ideas of Henry George and abandoned the impression of peasant proprietorship in favour of land nationalisation. He also read numerous liberal thinkers, such(a) as John Stuart Mill, Adolphe Thiers, Augustin Thierry, François Guizot, William Edward Hartpole Lecky, and Thomas Babington Macaulay. In an 1882 by-election, he was elected Member of Parliament for Meath but was disqualified because he was in prison. In October 1881, Parnell and other IPP leaders were also arrested. The Land League responded with the No Rent Manifesto on 18 October, urging tenant farmers not to pay rent until they were released. Two days later, the British government banned the Land League. Davitt and his allies were released from prison in May 1882, according to the Kilmainham Treaty agreed between the IPP and the Liberal Party. Some 130,000 tenants in arrears, who had been excluded from the rent-fixing authorised by the 1881 act, were given amnesty. In return, the IPP withdrew its help for agrarian agitation and cancelled the No Rent Manifesto, bringing an end to the Land League.