Michael Davitt – Pioneer of social justice

THE FATHER of the Land League and pioneer of social justice, Michael Davitt, was born in Straide, County Mayo, on 25 March 1846. When Michael was six years old, his parents, Martin and Sabina Davitt, were evicted from their home for non-payment of rent.

Davit’s father travelled to England to find work. In 1845, Davitt’s mother and her children joined her husband in the industrial town of Haslingden, in Lancashire. At the age of 11, while working in a cotton mill, Davitt had his arm so badly maimed in an accident that it had to be amputated.

At 16, while working for the local postmaster, he began evening classes in Irish history at the Mechanics' Institute. It was at this time that his thoughts began to turn to politics and he joined the Fenian movement in England.

In 1865, he joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood and, two years later, gave up his job to become organising secretary of the Fenians in north England and Scotland.

Davitt was arrested in London in 1870 while awaiting a delivery of arms and was sentenced to 15 years' hard labour. The next seven years were spent in complete isolation in prison, where he was compelled to work in inhuman conditions.

Along with other political prisoners he was released on ticket of leave in 1877 and subsequently became a member of the Supreme Council of the IRB.

After the Land League was suppressed in 1881, Davitt embarked upon a public career in which he advocated radical land and labour reforms and promoted the linking of the interests of the agricultural and urban labouring communities.

Until his death in 1906, Davitt constructed a reform platform that demanded not simply Irish self-government but also a decidedly democratic Irish state to be ruled in the interests of the labouring classes, not British or Irish elites.

He toured America with the active assistance of John Devoy, gaining the support of Irish-Americans for his policy which was founded in the slogan “The Land for the People”. His activities did not have the official approval of the Fenian leadership, some of whom were in fact openly hostile to his methods.

The year 1887 was one of the wettest years on record. The potato crop had failed for the third successive year and the traditional escape route of emigration was virtually closed due to a worldwide economic depression stretching from America across England and as far as Eastern Europe.

At a large meeting attended by Davitt in Claremorris, plans were made for a huge gathering at Irishtown as part of agitation to reduce rents. The first target was land owned by a Canon Ulick Burke and the result was an astounding success when the Canon was forced to reduce rents by 25%.

On 21 October 1879, the National Land League was formed in Dublin with Parnell as President and Davitt as one of the secretaries.

In 1881, the Land League was able to hold a meeting in the local Orange Hall at Loughgall. Davitt told the crowd:

“Landlords of Ireland are all of one religion. Their god is mammon and rack-rents and evictions their only morality while the toilers of the fields – whether Orangemen, Catholics, Presbyterians or Methodists – are the victims.”

In 1882, Michael Davitt was rearrested. On his release he travelled widely, campaigning ceaselessly for the oppressed everywhere. As an author, Davitt highlighted the plight of the underprivileged internationally, including the Boers in South Africa, the Maoris in New Zealand, the Aborigines in Australia, the Jews in Russia, and people serving penal servitude.

He was the author of six books: Leaves from a Prison Diary, Michael Davitt’s Speech Before the Special Commission, Life and Progress in Australia, The Boer Fight for Freedom, Within the Pale, and The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland.

In 1892, he was elected MP for Mayo but disliked the institution of Parliament and became increasingly impatient with the inability or unwillingness to right injustice.

He left the House of Commons in 1896 with the prophetic prediction: “No just cause could succeed there unless backed by physical force.”

Davitt died in Elphis Hospital, Dublin, on 30 May 1906 at the age of 60 of acute septic poisoning. Not wishing to have a public funeral, his body was brought quietly to the Carmelite Friary, Clarendon Street, Dublin. Over 20,000 people filed past his coffin the next day. His coffin was then brought by train to Foxford, County Mayo.

On 18 July 1870, Michael Davitt was sentenced to 15 years’ penal servitude for gun-running.