Life
1846-1906; b. 25 Mar., Straide, Co. Mayo; family evicted and emigrated
to Lancashire, where he lost an arm in factory accident, aged eleven;
took courses at Wesleyan Mechanics’ Hall and emerged as typesetter,
going on to learn French and Italian as well as Irish; worked as journalist;
involved in raid on Chester Castle, 11 Feb. 1867; abhorred use of dynamite;
local secretary to IRB in 1868, and arms purchaser, 1870; arrested with Matthew Harris and Thomas Brennan, and imprisoned with
15 year sentence as a Fenian gun-runner (‘incitement to murder’),
1870; studied socialism in prison; imprisoned in Dartmoor, released with
ticket-of-leave, Dec. 1877; addressed audience of 2,500 London-Irish at
Picadilly Sq., 9 March, 1878; met Devoy in America, returning 1879; involved
in land agitation in Mayo; organised mass meetings in Irishtown and Westport;
fnd. Land League of Mayo; joined Parnell in New Departure; inspired by
James Fintan Lalor, he inaugurated the Land War by establishing the Irish
National Land League, 21 Oct. 1879, with support of Devoy and Parnell;
expelled from IRB Supreme Council, May 1880; imprisoned for Land League
activities, 1881-82 and 1883, including a term with Parnell resulting
in the Kilmainham Treaty (which Davitt repudiated as a ‘wrong turn’);
released on 6 May 1882, and collected from prison by Parnell and Dillon;
shocked by Phoenix Park Murders (‘My God, have got out of Portland
for this? For the first time in my life I despair!’); MP for Meath,
1882, unseated by special writ of House of Commons; later served other
constituencies (N. Meath, 1892, unseated; N. E. Cork, 1892, unopposed;
E. Kerry and S. Mayo, 1895-99); his denunciation of the Phoenix Park murders
marked his final disillusionment with physical force politics; fnd. The
Irish World, London, 1890; sided against Parnell in the Split, calling
for his resignation in article in Labour World (20 Nov. 1890);
failed to organise agricultural workers in Irish Democratic Trade and
Labour Union; supported Keir Hardie but prevented by commitment to Liberals
from joining Labour Party; gave 21-column maiden speech on Irish Reform
Bill, 1893, called by Daily Chronicle ‘the most impressive
voice of Irish nationalism since the days of O’Connell’; conducted
his own defence before the Parnell Commission and found to have expressed
‘bona-fide disapproval of crime and outrage’; his defence published
as The Defence of the Land League (1895-99); visited of Australia
and New Zealand to rapturous Irish welcome, delivering 70 public lectures,
1895; showed solidarity with world’s first Labour party in Australia,
and identified with Aborigines, Maoris, Kanakas, and Chinese during tour;
questioned exile of Arabi Pasha in Ceylon and Sun Yat-sen’s banishment
from Hong Kong; condemned atrocities by Kitchener’s troops in Omdurman;
attacked by Unionist mob instigated by local landlord at Charleville;
re-formed Land League as United Irish League with William O’Brien;
resigned from House in protest against Chamblerain’s South African
warmongering (‘When I go, I shall tell my boys, I have been some
five years in this House, and the conclusion with which I leave it is
that no cause, however just, will find support, no wrong, however pressing
or apparent, will find redress here, unless backed up by force’);
issued 2-page article, "What I think of the English", in Birmingham
Universal Magazine, July 1890; protested against Boer War, withdrawing
from Parliament; visited South Africa, publishing Boer Fight for Freedom
(1904); supported non-denominational education; attacked by bishops Edward
Thomas Dwyer (Limerick) and William Walsh (Dublin); bur. at Straide; his
chief published works were Leaves from a Prison Diary (1884) and
The Boer Fight for Freedom (1902); counted the Wyndham Act (1903)
a conclusion to 24-year the Land War, though overly generous to landlords;
a portrait by his friend Sarah Purser was exhibited in London in 1892;
d. 25 March; characterised as ‘the greatest Irishman of the nineteeth
century’ by Francis Sheehy Skeffington; his papers are held in the
Library of TCD. DNB JMC DIW DIH OCIL FDA
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Works
Contemporary editions, Leaves from a Prison Diary; Or, Lectures to a Solitary Audience (London:
Chapman & Hall 1885), rep. with intro. by T. W. Moody (Shannon: IUP
1972); Life and Progress in Australasia (London: Methuen &
Co. 1898); The Boer Fight for Freedom (NY: Funk & Wagnall 1902);
Some Suggestions for a Final Settlement of the Land Question (Dublin:
Gill & Son 1902); Within the Pale, The True Story of Anti-Semitic
Persecution in Russia (London: Hurst & Blackett 1903); The
Fall of Feudalism in Ireland (London: Chapman & Hall 1904) [var.
London: Harper 1904, xviii, 750pp.]; also Jottings in Solitary, ed. Carla King (Dublin: UCD Press 2004), 316pp.
Scholarly Writings, Carla King, ed. & intro., Michael Davitt: Collected Writings, 1868-1906 (Thoemmes Facs. Rep. [2000]) [infra].
Carla King, ed. & intro., Michael Davitt: Collected Writings, 1868-1906 (London: Thoemmes Facs: Rep: [2000]), CONTENTS: VOLUMES 1 & 2: Pamphlets, Speeches and Articles, 1868-1906 [750pp.; Introduction by Carla King. 1: Poems (1868-9). 2: ’A Statement by Mr Michael Davitt (ex-Political Prisoner) on Prison Treatment’ [1878?]; 3: Paudeen O’Rafferty on the Landlord’s Ten Commandments Dedicated to Exterminators and Rack-Renters as also to the People who Work: Creed of the right Hon: Lord Clan Rackrent, Earl of Idleness and Viscount Absentee (1880). 4: The Prison Life of Michael Davitt, Related by Himself, Together with his Evidence before the House of Lords Commission on Convict Prison Life (1882). 5: The Land League Proposal: a Statement for Honest and Thoughtful Men (1882). 6: The Castle Government of Ireland: a Lecture by Michael Davitt (1882). 7: Speech of Michael Davitt at the Meeting in Favour of Land Nationalisation held at St James’s Hall, 1883 (1883). 8: ’The Irish Social Problem’, from Today, new series, Vol. 1, No. 4 (April 1884). 9: Land Nationalisation, or National Peasant Proprietary, Michael Davitt’s Lectures in Scotland: the Principles of Radical Reform in the Land Laws (1885). 10: ’Irish Conservatism and its Outlooks’, from Dublin University Review (September 1885). 11: ’Mr Giffen’s Proposed Solution of the Irish Question’, in the Contemporary Review, Vol. 49 (April 1886). 12: Home Rule: Speech at Glasgow, April 20, 1885, in support of Mr Gladstone’s Home Rule Bill 1886 (1886). 13: Reasons Why Home Rule Should Be Granted to Ireland: an Appeal to the Common Sense of the British Democracy (1886). 14: Landlordism, Low Wages and Strikes (1886). 15: Revival of the Irish Woollen Industry: Brief Historical Record: How England Endeavoured to Destroy Irish Manufacture: How Irish Leaders Propose to Accomplish its Revival (1887). 16: Mr Michael Davitt’s Reply to the Irish Chief Secretary’s Misstatements, Delivered on December 18th 1887 (1887). 17: ’The Irish Landlords’ Appeal for Compensation’, from Contemporary Review, Vol. 53 (April 1888). 18: ’Unionists’ Brought to Book: The Irish Question, No: 27’ (1888). 19: ’The Report of the Parnell Commission’, from Nineteenth Century, Vol. 27 (March 1890). 20: ’Retiring the Landlord Garrison: [Ireland, I]’, from Nineteenth Century, Vol. 27 (May 1890). 21: ’Mr Parnell’s Position’, from Labour World (22 November 1890). 22: ’The Latest Midlothian Campaign’, from Nineteenth Century, Vol. 28 (November 1890). 23: ’Remedies for Irish Distress’, from Contemporary Review, Vol. 57 (November 1890). 24: ’Impressions of the Canadian North-West’, from Nineteenth Century, Vol. 31 (April 1892). 25: ’La Question d’Irlande’, from Revue de Famille (April 1892).: 26: ’Le Caron’s (Re-published). Story’, from the Speaker (October 1892). 27: ’The Priest in Politics’, from Nineteenth Century, Vol. 33 (January 1893). 28: The Settlement of the Irish Question: a Speech by Mr Michael Davitt M:P: on April 11th 1893, in the House of Commons on the Second Reading of the Home Rule Bill, 1893 (1893). 29: ’Fabian Fustian’, from Nineteenth Century, Vol. 34 (December 1893). 30: ’The Evicted Tenants Problem’, from Nineteenth Century, Vol. 35 (April 1894). 31: ’Home Rule and Labour Representation’, from the Speaker (April 1894). 32: ’Criminal and Prison Reform’, from Nineteenth Century, Vol. 36 (December 1894). 33: ’The Crimes of Irish Landlordism’, from Irish Bits: a Journal of Irish Wit, Romance and Scenery, Vol. 4 (13 August 1898). 34: ’Davitt’s Resignation Speech from the House of Commons, 25 Oct: 1899’, from Parliamentary Debates, Vol. 77, cols: 614-22 (1899). 35: ’What I Think of the English’, from Universal Magazine, Vol. 1 (July 1900). 36: ’Ireland’s Appeal to America: Address at Chicago, 1901’ [1902] 37: ’Les États-Unis et l’Europe’, from Minerva: Revue des Lettres et des Arts (15 November 1902). 38: Some Suggestions for a Final Settlement of the Land Question (1902). 39: ’The Irish National Assembly’, from Independent Review (April 1905). 40: ’Mr Davitt and Irish Ireland’, from the Nationist (8 February 1906). 41: ’Education - Denominational and National:’ Letter to the Editor of the Freeman’s Journal (2 March 1906). VOLUME 3: Leaves from a Prison Diary: or Lectures to a ’Solitary’ Audience (1885), xv, 251pp./xi, 256pp. VOLUME 4: The ‘Times’-Parnell Commission: Speech Delivered by Michael Davitt in Defence of the Land League: Carefully revised (1890), 432pp VOLUME 5: Life and Progress in Australasia (1898), 494pp. VOLUME 6: The Boer Fight for Freedom (1902), 628pp. VOLUME 7: Within the Pale: the True Story of Anti-Semitic Persecution in Russia (1903), 318pp. VOLUME 8: The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland: or the Story of the Land League Revolution (1904), 774pp: [€1,190:00]
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Criticism
D[enis] B. Cashman, The Life of Michael Davitt: Founder of the Land
League; to which is added the secret history of the Land League,
by Michael Davitt (London: Washbourne 1923) [note].
Francis Sheehy Skeffington, Michael Davitt, Revolutionary, Agitator, and Labour Leader, intro.
Justin McCarthy (London: T Fisher Unwin 1908), 291pp.
J. W. Good, Michael Davitt (Dublin: Cumann Leigheacht an Phobail 1921-22).
T. W. Moody, ‘Michael Davitt’, in J. W. Boyle, ed., Thomas Davis Lectures (Cork 1966); B. E. Kunina, Maikl Davitt (Moscow Mysl 1973).
T. W. Moody, Davitt and the Irish Revolution 1846-82 (OUP 1981; 1983).
Thomas P O’Neill, ‘Michael Davitt’, in J. W. Boyle, ed. Thomas Davis Lectures (Cork 1966).
Francis Sheey Skeffington, Michael Davitt, Revolutionary, Agitator, and Labour Leader, intro. Justin M’Carthy (London: T Fisher Unwin 1908), 291pp.
T.W. Moody, ‘Anna Parnell and the Land League’, Hermathena CXVII, Summer 1974, p.7.
Desmond Fennell, “Irish Socialist Thought”, in Richard Kearney, ed., The Irish Mind, (1985), p.195ff.
Joseph Lee, The Modernisation of Irish Society 1848-1918 (Dublin, 1973), pp. 71, [88, 95.
Chris Morash, ed., Literature and the Supernatural, Lilliput 1996, pp.95-117; p.103.]
P. S. O’Hegarty, Ireland Since the Union, p.489; quoted in D. George Boyce, Nationalism in Ireland, London 1982; 1991, p.213.
Noel McLachlan, ‘Michael Davitt and Passive Resistance’, commentary, Times Literary Supplement, 12 Feb. 1999, p.14.
Fergus O’Ferrall, ‘Liberty and Catholic Politics 1790-1990’, in Daniel O’Connell, Political Pioneer, ed. Maurice R O’Connell, 1991, pp.35-56, p.49).
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Notes
Justin McCarthy, gen. ed., Irish Literature (Washington:
University of America 1904), selects extracts from Leaves from a Prison
Diary [‘... all this talk is indulged in really for the sake
of concealing the chagrin which England experiences in consequence of
the fact revealed in recent years, that the people of Ireland have discovered
how to make it more difficult for England to rule Ireland, than to govern
all the rest of her vast empire put together’; goes on to distinguish
the Extremists fro the Home Rulers or Federalists, ‘No Irish leader
can afford to ignore either of these two principle phases of Irish National
sentiment’]
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2. selects from The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland, ‘The Great Famine and the Young Irelanders’ [198-202], ‘Home Rule and Land Reform’, ‘The New Departure’, and ‘A Future Racial Programme’ [275-80], and ‘Samson Agonistes’ (his account of the Parnell Split in which he blames the IPP for re-electing Parnell, 25 Nov 1890, and Parnell for ignoring Morley’s advice to resign) [320-22]; Some Suggestions for a Final Settlement of the Land Questions [280]. Remarks at 119 [compared with Lalor on opposition to peasant proprietorship, Deane, ed.]; it was Davitt who sustained the alliance between land agitation and political nationalism until the fall of Parnell, linking Lalor’s ideas to the Home Rome question, and giving Lalor a centrality which nationalists later reassigned to Davis [ed.], 120; Davitt, a Lalor convert [ed.], 165; [in Feudalism &c., Davitt follows Mitchel in quoting the Times announcement of the extinction of the Celts], 178n; William Edward Foster, 1818-86, hated by Davitt and others for his coercion measures against Land League, 197; Davitt explains failure of 1848 in terms of the effects of the Famine [ed.], 211; wanted to stimulate in the Irish a sense of the land as a communal possession, 212; [vide Butt (RX supra), 224]; supported by Devoy, 265; 528n.
Emerald Isle Books (1995) lists D. B. Cashman, The Life of Michael Davitt: Founder of the Land League; [and] the Secret History of the Land League by Michael Davitt (Glasgow c.1900), 256pp.
De Burca Books, Catalogue 44 (1997) lists The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland, or the Story of the Land League Revolution. London, Harper, 1904. Pages, xviii, 750pp. [£135].
Portrait, Michael Davitt, port., by William Orpen, Municipal Gallery;
in FSL Lyons, John Dillon (1968), pp.228 facing; [?]another held
in National Gallery noted in Anne Crookshank, Portraits of Great
Irish Men and Women, Ulster Mus. 1965 and W B Yeats, A Centenary
Exhibition (Nat. Gallery of Ireland 1965).
Davitt was the recipient of letters from Oscar Wilde, following the latter’s letters to the Daily Chronicle demanding reform of the prison system and Davitt’s support assistance in that cause replied saying, ‘No one knows better than yourself how terrible life in an English prison is, and what cruelty can result from the stupidity of officialdom’).
‘Passive resistance’, a term coined by Walter Scott in Ivanhoe to describe Isaac’s ‘humour of passive resistance’ in his dungeon, was employed by Davitt with rare sarcasm in 1897 when describing the failure of young men at Coolgrany, Wexford, to prevent the eviction of Widow Darcy, writing that they deserved to be send to prison under the Coercion Act ‘for the splendid "passive resistance" they had shown to the Emergency brigade.’
‘One day as I went on my rambles/from Swinford to sweet Ballinalee/I met a young maid on my rambles/and her name was Mary Magee/She sighed for the rights of her country/Michael Davitt her true Irish Boy/Who is now in the Prison in Portland/far from the lovely green banks of the Moy.’ (Quoted by Kevin Myers, Irish Times, 25 March 1996.)[ top ]
Michael Davitt condemned the Boer War in Parliament as ‘the meanest and most mercenary of ends and aims which ever prompted conquest or aggression, and it will rank in history as the greatest crime of the 19th century.’ (Quoted in Thomas Kettle, ed., Irish Orators and Oratory; also cited by Stephen Watts in Joyce, O’Casey, and the Irish Popular Theater, 1991).
Davitt made two journeys to Russia, visiting Leo Tolstoy on one occasion; MSS journals in TCD Library; ‘I have come from a journey through the Jewish Pale a convinced believer in the remedy of Zionism’ (TCD MS 9651, pp. 44-45; cited in Library of Trinity College [Handbook; q.d.]).
Standish James O’Grady took a side-swipe at Davitt’s nationalisation programme, see RX O’Grady, under Ulrick the Ready (1899).
Liam O’Flaherty gives Davitt a brief appearance in Land, where he orates from a platform: ‘To confiscate the land of a subjugated people’, Davitt cried passionately, as he gesticulated with his solitary arm, ‘and bestow it on adventurers is the first act of unrighteous conquest, the preliminary step to the extermination of servitude of an opponent race [sic]. The landlord garrison that England established in this country centuries ago is today as true to the object of its foundation as when it first cursed our soil.’ (Random House ed. 1946, p.175-76). (Quoted in James Cahalan, Great Hatred, Little Room, The Irish Historical Novel, 1983, p.45.]
Denis Ireland, An Ulster Protestant looks At his World (1930), quotes Sheehy Skeffington Michael Davitt), accrediting Davitt with defeating the Anglo-American Alliance [67]
Denis Cashman, the author of the first life of Mitchell (1923), acted as head of the Waterford Fenian ring and was arrested in Jan. 1867 and afterwards convicted of felony treason before being imprisoned in Kilmainham and then transferred to Millbank Prison (London), from whence in Sept. 1867 he was transported to Australia aboard the Hougoumont; pardoned in 1869, he settled in Boston, rejoining his wife and children; died in Boston, 1897; took prominent part in planning the Catalpa expedition to liberate other Irish political convicts in Australia; shared his journey of transportation with John Boyle O’Reilly, John Flood, John Casey, and others; edited The Wild Goose with others; kept a diary of the voyage. (Information supplied by C. W. Sullivan III, East Carolina Univ., Greenville, NC 27858-4358.)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)