Michael Davitt
Michael Davitt was an Irish republican activist for a variety of causes, especially Home Rule and land reform. Following an eviction when he was four years old, Davitt's family migrated to England. He began his career as an organiser of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which resisted British rule 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 and 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, and served as Member of Parliament for the Irish Parliamentary Party 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 put him on the left wing of Irish nationalism, and he was a vociferous advocate of alliance between the Radical faction of the Liberal Party and the IPP.
Early years
Michael Davitt was born in Straide, County Mayo, Ireland, on 25 March 1846 during the Great Famine. He was the third of five children born to Martin and Catherine Davitt, tenant farmers of little means who spoke Irish as the family language. Martin had been involved in the Irish nationalist Ribbon movement in the 1830s. In 1850, when Michael was four years old, his family was evicted due to arrears in rent. Davitt later claimed that this event, which he remembered, had brought about all of the family's ills. Like many other Irish people at the time, the family decided to emigrate to England. They took a ship to Liverpool and walked to Haslingden, East Lancashire, where they settled.His parents both worked selling fruit and at other odd jobs. Martin, who was literate and could speak English, ran a night school in their home, which they shared with other Irish families. The family endured the anti-Irish sentiment of the English working class, which believed that Irish immigrants undercut wages. Davitt began working at the age of nine as a labourer in a cotton mill. Two years later, his right arm was entangled in a cogwheel and mangled so badly it had to be amputated ten days later. As was typical for the era, he did not receive any compensation.
According to biographer Carla King, the accident helped save Davitt from a lifetime of mill drudgery. When he recovered from his operation, a local philanthropist, John Dean, helped to send him to a Wesleyan school. In August 1861, at the age of 15, he found work in a local post office owned by Henry Cockcroft, who also ran a printing business. He joined the Mechanics' Institute and continued to read and study, attending lectures on various topics. The Chartist movement lasted longer in Lancaster than elsewhere, and Davitt later recalled that Chartist leader Ernest Charles Jones was the first Englishman Davitt had heard denounce landlordism in Ireland. Although he was on a path to be an "upwardly mobile working-class radical", in King's words, Davitt instead chose to join the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1865.
Irish Republican Brotherhood
The IRB was a secret society that promoted the use of violence to end British rule in Ireland. At the time it was popular among working-class Irish emigrants, and according to another IRB member, "every smart respectable young fellow" from the Irish community in Haslingden joined. Davitt enjoyed the approval of his parents and was soon elected leader of the local Rossendale chapter of about fifty IRB members. In February 1867, Davitt led fifty Fenians on a failed raid on Chester Castle to obtain arms for the planned Fenian Rising that took place later that year. He learned that the police had heard of the plan and were lying in wait and managed to extricate his men from the situation without being caught. In 1868, he left Cockcroft's printing firm to work full-time for the IRB, as an organising secretary and arms agent for England and Scotland, posing as a travelling salesman as cover.Although he was wanted by the authorities from 1867, they did not grasp his importance to the IRB. In 1869, authorities obtained a letter that Davitt had written to IRB member Arthur Forrester, urging him not to go through with the execution of a suspected informer. Believing that a direct order would not be effective, Davitt asked Forrester to wait until Davitt could obtain the permission of two members of the IRB council. He therefore appeared to approve of the murder. After intensive police investigation, Davitt was arrested at Paddington Station in London on 14 May 1870, while awaiting a delivery of arms. Tried at Old Bailey in July, Davitt was convicted of treason felony for arms trafficking in support of insurrection and sentenced to fifteen years of penal servitude. He believed that he had had neither a fair hearing nor adequate defence counsel.
Imprisoned at Millbank, Dartmoor, and Portsmouth, Davitt was held for months in solitary confinement and endured hard labour and poor rations that permanently damaged his health. However, he frequently broke the prison rules and his main objection was that he was treated the same as criminals even though he considered himself a political prisoner. In 1872, he smuggled a letter out of the prison which was published in several newspapers and led to an inquiry by the Home Secretary into his allegations. Davitt was paroled on 19 December 1877, having served seven and a half years, following pressure from the Home Rule League for an amnesty for all Irish political prisoners.
He and other freed prisoners were welcomed by Isaac Butt and the Political Prisoners Visiting Committee in London and returned to a "heroes' welcome" in Ireland. Davitt published a book about his prison experience, and began a campaign for the release of remaining Fenian prisoners. His popularity caused him to try his hand at writing and lecturing, which he discovered he had a talent for. He also rejoined the IRB and became a member of its Supreme Council representing Northern England. Nevertheless, the success of the amnesty movement led him to appreciate the value of political, rather than physical force, approaches to achieving Irish republican goals. His experiences in prison made him a lifetime supporter of prison reform for humane conditions for all prisoners. This was in contrast to other Irish nationalists who had served prison time, who were only interested in the condition of "political" prisoners.
Shortly before his arrest, Davitt had persuaded his family to emigrate to the United States. In July 1878, Davitt made a trip to visit them and raise money through a lecture tour to bring his mother and youngest sister back to Ireland. Upon his arrival in New York, he was welcomed by the United States-based republican organisation Clan na Gael and its leader, John Devoy. In its first such venture of the kind, the Clan organised Davitt's lecture tour, which lasted until December. In meetings with Irish-American Fenians, Davitt developed the strategy called the "New Departure", an informal collaboration between the physical force and parliamentary wings of Irish nationalism focusing on the land reform campaign. This collaboration was cemented during a meeting on 1 June 1879 in Dublin between Davitt, Devoy, and Charles Stewart Parnell, leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, which advocated Home Rule achieved via Parliament.
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 made its president and Davitt was one of its secretaries. Through the Land League, Davitt attained the pinnacle of his political influence and power 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 member 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 House 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 improving the Land League's organisation, helping set up 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 provided assistance. While in the United States he toured the country giving speeches as far afield as San Francisco.
The Liberal government responded to the land agitation with the Protection of Persons and Property Act 1881, an extension of previous Coercion Acts, which would enable the internment without trial of those suspected of involvement in the Land War. In their fight against the act, the IPP MPs reached new heights of obstruction, but were ultimately unable to block it. It was Davitt's idea to set up a Ladies' Land League to continue their work 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 returned 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 Act 1881, which Liberal minister Joseph Chamberlain described 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 most of his second term of incarceration at Portland Prison, under much better conditions than previously, owing to his fame and concern over his health. He was allowed books and continued to study agrarian theory. He became enamoured of the ideas of Henry George and abandoned the idea of peasant proprietorship in favour of land nationalisation. He also read many liberal thinkers, such 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 support for agrarian agitation and cancelled the No Rent Manifesto, bringing an end to the Land League.