James Daly (Irish Land League)
Encyclopedia
"James Daly, a forgotten founder of the irish land league"
James Daly (born in County Mayo
, Ireland in 1838; died 21 January 1911 at his residence on Spencer St., Castlebar, County Mayo) was an Irish nationalist activist best known for his work in support of tenant farmers' rights and the formation of the Irish National Land League
.
Daly took up the emerging political cause in the West to establish tenant farmers' rights against largely absentee landlords and participated in the meeting in Louisburgh, County Mayo
in 1875, convened to establish a local tenants defence association.
From May 1876, Daly and Alfred O'Hea supported Matt Harris
's Ballinasloe Tenants Defence Association.
In February 1876 together with Alfred O'Hea he purchased the Mayo Telegraph, renamed the Connaught Telegraph
in 1878, and became sole owner in 1879 on O'Hea's death. The Connaught Telegraph became the early publicity vehicle for what was initially a Mayo-based land movement.
On October 26, 1878 the Mayo Tenants' Defence Association (or Mayo Farmers' Club ) was formed at Castlebar, with Westport barrister J.J. Louden as chairman and Daly as secretary. Local MP John O'Connor Power
attended, giving the support of the "advanced" faction of the home rule movement to the growing land movement. This support was reinforced by Parnell
himself when he joined Daly, O'Connor Power, James Kilmartin and Matt Harris at the Ballinasloe Tenants' Defence Association meeting on November 3, 1878.
mass meeting is disputed. According to one commonly quoted theory, in January 1879 local Irishtown tenant farmers asked Daly to take up their cause against a landowner variously referred to as 'Canon Ulick Burke' or Bourke, or 'Canon Burke' or 'Father Burke', who had inherited a property with 22 tenants, all in arrears, had increased rents and had taken legal steps to evict them. Burke is then said to have backed down after the mass meeting and decreased rents.
Historian T. W. Moody disputes this theory, claiming that this view is based on Michael Davitt
's faulty recollection before the 1889 Times-Parnell Commission
and his 1904 'Fall of Feudalism', repeated by Sheehy-Skeffington
in 1908; and that no contemporary accounts of the events mention a Canon Bourke as an issue. Moody claims that in fact Geoffrey James Bourke, canon of Tuam Cathedral
had nothing to do with the 'Bourke Estate', and that the tenants' dispute, if indeed there was one, would have been with the absentee landlord, his nephew Joseph Bourke; that Daly himself denounced the whole story and Davitt for his 'crass ignorance' of Mayo affairs and in fact the rents on the Bourke estate had been fixed in 1855 for 31 years and hence there could not have been any rack-renting; that Canon Bourke in fact supported the land movement and was on the platform and seconded John Dillon
's resolution at the July 1879 Claremorris
meeting; and remained to his death a much respected parish priest.
Moody presents Canon (alternatively he calls him Fr) Ulick Joseph Bourke, president of St. Jarlath's College
, Tuam
as a separate person who in fact was "far from unsympathetic to the fenians" and served on the committee of the Irish National Land League from its formation in October 1879. John Cunningham refers to 'Professor Ulick Bourke' as 'President of St Jarlath's', and quotes fenian activist Mark Ryan's description of how Professor Bourke actively supported the 1868 election campaign of George Moore
, a 'fenian sympathiser' and tenant right supporter.
For Daly, by 1879 the time for action was right. He was expressing impatience in the Connaught Telegraph with achieving anything for the tenants, either through constitutional means or John Devoy
's 'New Departure
' (an 'unholy alliance' between pragmatic Fenians prepared to delay their resort to force, and radical Home Rulers). Delay could mean desperate men resorting to another failed uprising which he abhorred. Parnell was positioning himself to take over the Home Rule League after Isaac Butt
died, and a growing land campaign would give him an issue for the coming election. Daly was not a Fenian but was prepared to accept any meaningful assistance short of violence from them. The current climate of the New Departure offered a perhaps shortlived opportunity to combine Fenian mass mobilisation and muscle, with activism within the constitutional system provided by Parnell and O'Connor Power, with Michael Davitt
the key man in both camps.
Davitt was in Mayo at the time investigating land issues, assisted by and briefed by his cousin John Walshe. He is generally credited with having the vision to extend the scope of tenant land protests from the local to a coordinated national context. Davitt and a group of Fenians including John Walshe and P.W. Nally of Balla met with Daly and his local organizers, Fenian tenant farmers James Daly and Daniel O'Connor of Irishtown, and schoolteacher J.P. Quinn and two shopkeepers from Claremorris
, Thomas Sweeney and John O'Kane.
A group of farmers from the Irishtown area had approached Daly in January 1879 during the Claremorris quarter-sessions about their treatment by landlords. To avoid libel, Daly refused to explicitly expose the landlords concerned but agreed to publish rent grievances in general. Daly publicised the grievances and advertised a mass protest meeting on February 22, 1879 in the Connaught Telegraph. The meeting had to be postponed until April. The day before the meeting, on Saturday April 19, 1879, Daly's announcement in the Connaught Telegraph read :-
"Advanced" land-reformer and Home-Ruler John Ferguson's resolution stated the goal of the Land War:
Michael M. O'Sullivan, teacher at a Catholic College and early tenant right
activist from Galway, is said to have drawn the greatest audience response :-
"Ribbon Fenian" Thomas Brennan
gave the following ominous address :
, eventually a bitter opponent of Parnell, presents a view of the Irishtown meeting in which Parnell
had not yet seen the potential of a Land War
, and also highlights the importance of the coverage provided by the Connaught Telegraph, one of only two newspapers (the Tuam Herald
was the other) which covered the event:
T.W. Moody points out that Healy's comment about Davitt missing the train appears to come from A.M. Sullivan
's 'New Ireland', p 434 and is otherwise uncorroborated; likewise his quoting of Daly's quip about Davitt is otherwise uncorroborated. However, it does appear that Daly and Davitt held differing views of their relative importance to the early land war. Moody points out that Daly's January 1881 account of the Irishtown meeting in the Connaught Telegraph claiming that Davitt was not involved until the June Westport meeting is untrue; similarly Davitt's July 1882 account left Daly out and claimed he himself was solely responsible, yet he told the 1889 Times-Parnell Commission
that he (Davitt) was not responsible; then in his 1904 'Fall of Feudalism', when he was free to reveal all, he failed to give Daly any due.
meeting on June 8, 1879, addressed by Parnell and Davitt which finally gave national political impetus to the Land Reform movement.
Daly became vice-president of the new National Land League of Mayo on August 16, 1879, and was elected to the committee of the Irish National Land League founded in Dublin on October 21, 1879 when the Mayo Land League was absorbed into it.
, County Sligo, declaring of landlord-tenant relations : "the time has come when the manhood of Ireland will spring to its feet and say it will tolerate this system no longer". Daly stated that "if anyone was evicted it was the duty of his fellows to assemble in their thousands and reinstate him the next day." James Bryce Killen ended his speech by wishing that "everyone at the meeting were armed with a rifle". On November 19 Davitt, Daly and Killen were arrested on a charge of using seditious language. Their arrest led to mass protest meetings, Parnell used it to launch a propaganda drive in Britain and the United States, and the authorities failed to achieve a conviction. Moody states that 'The government had thus incurred a great deal of ridicule'..
Davitt, Daly and Killen became known as 'The Gurteen Three'. President Mary McAleese has spoken thus of the incident :
in pursuit of its aims. He returned to local politics and left the Land League. He sold the Connaught Telegraph to T.H. Gillespie in 1888 and became a full time farmer. He continued in local Government and served on Mayo County Council and Castlebar Urban District Council.
used the occasion of his Michael Davitt Centenary Lecture, June 15, 2006, to claim that land reform in the west of Ireland has since regressed.
James Daly (born in County Mayo
County Mayo
County Mayo is a county in Ireland. It is located in the West Region and is also part of the province of Connacht. It is named after the village of Mayo, which is now generally known as Mayo Abbey. Mayo County Council is the local authority for the county. The population of the county is 130,552...
, Ireland in 1838; died 21 January 1911 at his residence on Spencer St., Castlebar, County Mayo) was an Irish nationalist activist best known for his work in support of tenant farmers' rights and the formation of the Irish National Land League
Irish National Land League
The Irish Land League was an Irish political organization of the late 19th century which sought to help poor tenant farmers. Its primary aim was to abolish landlordism in Ireland and enable tenant farmers to own the land they worked on...
.
Beginnings
Daly was a conservative Catholic from a comfortably-off Mayo farming family. He served from 1869 on the Castlebar Board of Guardians and as a guardian for the Litterbrick Division in Ballina union.Daly took up the emerging political cause in the West to establish tenant farmers' rights against largely absentee landlords and participated in the meeting in Louisburgh, County Mayo
Louisburgh, County Mayo
Louisburgh is a small town on the southwest corner of Clew Bay in County Mayo, Ireland. It is home to Sancta Maria College and the Gráinne O'Malley Interpretive Centre.-History:...
in 1875, convened to establish a local tenants defence association.
From May 1876, Daly and Alfred O'Hea supported Matt Harris
Matthew Harris (politician)
Matthew Harris was an Irish Fenian, Land Leaguer, nationalist politician and MP. in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and, as member of the Irish Parliamentary Party, represented Galway East from 1885 to his death in 1890.Born in Athlone to Peter and Ann...
's Ballinasloe Tenants Defence Association.
In February 1876 together with Alfred O'Hea he purchased the Mayo Telegraph, renamed the Connaught Telegraph
Connaught Telegraph
The Connaught Telegraph is a weekly local newspaper published in Castlebar, County Mayo in the Republic of Ireland. The paper is in broadsheet format , and published every Wednesday. It has the second highest circulation of the paid for Mayo newspapers...
in 1878, and became sole owner in 1879 on O'Hea's death. The Connaught Telegraph became the early publicity vehicle for what was initially a Mayo-based land movement.
On October 26, 1878 the Mayo Tenants' Defence Association (or Mayo Farmers' Club ) was formed at Castlebar, with Westport barrister J.J. Louden as chairman and Daly as secretary. Local MP John O'Connor Power
John O'Connor Power
John O'Connor Power was an Irish Fenian and a Home Rule League and Irish Parliamentary Party politician and as MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland represented Mayo from June 1874 to 1885...
attended, giving the support of the "advanced" faction of the home rule movement to the growing land movement. This support was reinforced by Parnell
Charles Stewart Parnell
Charles Stewart Parnell was an Irish landowner, nationalist political leader, land reform agitator, and the founder and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party...
himself when he joined Daly, O'Connor Power, James Kilmartin and Matt Harris at the Ballinasloe Tenants' Defence Association meeting on November 3, 1878.
The "Canon Bourke" controversy
The immediate trigger for the April 20, 1879 IrishtownIrishtown, County Mayo
Irishtown is a village in County Mayo, Ireland, located on the southern county border with County Galway about halfway between Claremorris and Tuam on the R328 regional road...
mass meeting is disputed. According to one commonly quoted theory, in January 1879 local Irishtown tenant farmers asked Daly to take up their cause against a landowner variously referred to as 'Canon Ulick Burke' or Bourke, or 'Canon Burke' or 'Father Burke', who had inherited a property with 22 tenants, all in arrears, had increased rents and had taken legal steps to evict them. Burke is then said to have backed down after the mass meeting and decreased rents.
Historian T. W. Moody disputes this theory, claiming that this view is based on Michael Davitt
Michael Davitt
Michael Davitt was an Irish republican and nationalist agrarian agitator, a social campaigner, labour leader, journalist, Home Rule constitutional politician and Member of Parliament , who founded the Irish National Land League.- Early years :Michael Davitt was born in Straide, County Mayo,...
's faulty recollection before the 1889 Times-Parnell Commission
Parnell Commission
The Parnell Commission was a judicial inquiry in the late 1880s into allegations of crimes by Irish parliamentarian Charles Stewart Parnell which resulted in his vindication.-Background:...
and his 1904 'Fall of Feudalism', repeated by Sheehy-Skeffington
Francis Sheehy-Skeffington
Francis Skeffington from Bailieborough, County Cavan, was an Irish suffragist, pacifist and writer. He was a friend and schoolmate of James Joyce, Oliver St John Gogarty, Tom Kettle, and Conor Cruise O'Brien's father, Frank O'Brien...
in 1908; and that no contemporary accounts of the events mention a Canon Bourke as an issue. Moody claims that in fact Geoffrey James Bourke, canon of Tuam Cathedral
Tuam Cathedral
The Cathedral Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Tuam, commonly called Tuam Cathedral, is the cathedral for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Tuam in Ireland. The geographic remit of the Archdiocese includes half of County Galway, half of County Mayo and part of County Roscommon...
had nothing to do with the 'Bourke Estate', and that the tenants' dispute, if indeed there was one, would have been with the absentee landlord, his nephew Joseph Bourke; that Daly himself denounced the whole story and Davitt for his 'crass ignorance' of Mayo affairs and in fact the rents on the Bourke estate had been fixed in 1855 for 31 years and hence there could not have been any rack-renting; that Canon Bourke in fact supported the land movement and was on the platform and seconded John Dillon
John Dillon
John Dillon was an Irish land reform agitator from Dublin, an Irish Home Rule activist, a nationalist politician, a Member of Parliament for over 35 years, and the last leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party....
's resolution at the July 1879 Claremorris
Claremorris
Claremorris , is a town in County Mayo in the west of Ireland, at the junction of the N17 and the N60 national routes. The population of Claremoris in the 2011 Census was 3,979....
meeting; and remained to his death a much respected parish priest.
Moody presents Canon (alternatively he calls him Fr) Ulick Joseph Bourke, president of St. Jarlath's College
St. Jarlath's College
St. Jarlath's College is a Roman Catholic secondary school for boys in Tuam, County Galway, Ireland. It is an amalgamation of the former St. Jarlath's College and St...
, Tuam
Tuam
Tuam is a town in County Galway, Ireland. The name is pronounced choo-um . It is situated west of the midlands of Ireland, and north of Galway city.-History:...
as a separate person who in fact was "far from unsympathetic to the fenians" and served on the committee of the Irish National Land League from its formation in October 1879. John Cunningham refers to 'Professor Ulick Bourke' as 'President of St Jarlath's', and quotes fenian activist Mark Ryan's description of how Professor Bourke actively supported the 1868 election campaign of George Moore
George Henry Moore
George Henry Moore was an Irish politician who served as Member of Parliament for Mayo in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. He was one of the founders of the Catholic Defence Association and a leader of the Independent Irish Party. He was also father of the writer George A. Moore and the...
, a 'fenian sympathiser' and tenant right supporter.
Leadup to the April 20, 1879 Irishtown Meeting
For many months the agriculture sector had been in recession due to bad harvests and cheap imports. The law as it stood was considered by many to unfairly favour landowners over struggling tenant farmers, leading to landowners evicting "unprofitable" tenant farmers and turning the land over to grazing. The traditionally somewhat conservative tenant farmers were becoming desperate for relief and willing to listen to aggressive nationalists who linked economic with political oppression in their messages and raised the question of who morally owned the land.For Daly, by 1879 the time for action was right. He was expressing impatience in the Connaught Telegraph with achieving anything for the tenants, either through constitutional means or John Devoy
John Devoy
John Devoy was an Irish rebel leader and exile.-Early life:Devoy was born near Kill, County Kildare. In 1861 he travelled to France with an introduction from T. D. Sullivan to John Mitchel...
's 'New Departure
New Departure (Ireland)
The term New Departure has been used to describe several initiatives in the late 19th century where Irish republicans, who were committed to independence from Britain through use of physical force, attempted to find a common ground for cooperation with groups committed to Irish Home Rule through...
' (an 'unholy alliance' between pragmatic Fenians prepared to delay their resort to force, and radical Home Rulers). Delay could mean desperate men resorting to another failed uprising which he abhorred. Parnell was positioning himself to take over the Home Rule League after Isaac Butt
Isaac Butt
Isaac Butt Q.C. M.P. was an Irish barrister, politician, Member of Parliament , and the founder and first leader of a number of Irish nationalist parties and organisations, including the Irish Metropolitan Conservative Society in 1836, the Home Government Association in 1870 and in 1873 the Home...
died, and a growing land campaign would give him an issue for the coming election. Daly was not a Fenian but was prepared to accept any meaningful assistance short of violence from them. The current climate of the New Departure offered a perhaps shortlived opportunity to combine Fenian mass mobilisation and muscle, with activism within the constitutional system provided by Parnell and O'Connor Power, with Michael Davitt
Michael Davitt
Michael Davitt was an Irish republican and nationalist agrarian agitator, a social campaigner, labour leader, journalist, Home Rule constitutional politician and Member of Parliament , who founded the Irish National Land League.- Early years :Michael Davitt was born in Straide, County Mayo,...
the key man in both camps.
Davitt was in Mayo at the time investigating land issues, assisted by and briefed by his cousin John Walshe. He is generally credited with having the vision to extend the scope of tenant land protests from the local to a coordinated national context. Davitt and a group of Fenians including John Walshe and P.W. Nally of Balla met with Daly and his local organizers, Fenian tenant farmers James Daly and Daniel O'Connor of Irishtown, and schoolteacher J.P. Quinn and two shopkeepers from Claremorris
Claremorris
Claremorris , is a town in County Mayo in the west of Ireland, at the junction of the N17 and the N60 national routes. The population of Claremoris in the 2011 Census was 3,979....
, Thomas Sweeney and John O'Kane.
A group of farmers from the Irishtown area had approached Daly in January 1879 during the Claremorris quarter-sessions about their treatment by landlords. To avoid libel, Daly refused to explicitly expose the landlords concerned but agreed to publish rent grievances in general. Daly publicised the grievances and advertised a mass protest meeting on February 22, 1879 in the Connaught Telegraph. The meeting had to be postponed until April. The day before the meeting, on Saturday April 19, 1879, Daly's announcement in the Connaught Telegraph read :-
IRISHTOWN TENANT-RIGHT MEETING
On to-morrow (Sunday) a mass meeting of the tenant farmers of Mayo, Galway, and RoscommonRoscommonRoscommon is the county town of County Roscommon in Ireland. Its population at the 2006 census stood at 5,017 . The town is located near the junctions of the N60, N61 and N63 roads.-History:...
will be held at Irishtown, a few miles outside Claremorris, for the purpose of representing to the world the many and trying ordeals and grievances the tenant farmers labour under. There will be several leading gentlemen present who will speak on the occasion, amongst whom will be John O'C. Power, Esq., M.P., John Ferguson, Esq. Glasgow, and J.J.Louden, Esq. Westport. The meeting, it is considered, will be one of the largest ever held in Connaught.
The April 20, 1879 Irishtown Meeting
The Connaught Telegraphs report of the meeting in its edition of April 26, 1879 began:-
Since the days of O'ConnellDaniel O'ConnellDaniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell Daniel O'Connell (6 August 1775 – 15 May 1847; often referred to as The Liberator, or The Emancipator, was an Irish political leader in the first half of the 19th century...
a larger public demonstration has not been witnessed than that of Sunday last. About 1 o'clock the monster procession started from Claremorris, headed by several thousand men on foot - the men of each district wearing a laural leaf or green ribbon in hat or coat to distinguish the several contingents. At 11 o'clock a monster contingent of tenant-farmers on horseback drew up in front of Hughes's hotel, showing
discipline and order that a cavalry regiment might feel proud of. They were led on in sections, each having a marshal who kept his troops well in hand. Messrs. P.W. Nally, J.W. Nally, H. French, and M. Griffin, wearing green and gold sashes, led on their different sections, who rode two deep, occupying, at least, over an Irish mile of the road. Next followed a train of carriages, brakes, cares, etc. led on by Mr. Martin Hughes, the spirited hotel proprietor, driving a pair of rare black ponies to a phæton, taking Messrs. J.J. Louden and J. Daly. Next came Messrs. O'Connor, J. Ferguson, and Thomas BrennanThomas Brennan (Irish Land League)Thomas Brennan , born in Beauparc, County Meath, was a founder and joint first secretary of the Irish National Land League....
in a covered carriage, followed by at least 500 vehicles from the neighbouring towns. On passing through Ballindine the sight was truly imposing, the endless train directing its course to Irishtown - a neat little hamlet on the boundaries of Mayo, RoscommonRoscommonRoscommon is the county town of County Roscommon in Ireland. Its population at the 2006 census stood at 5,017 . The town is located near the junctions of the N60, N61 and N63 roads.-History:...
, and Galway.
"Advanced" land-reformer and Home-Ruler John Ferguson's resolution stated the goal of the Land War:
That as the land of Ireland, like that of every other country, was intended by a just and all-providing God for the use and sustenance of those of his people to whom he gave inclination and energies to cultivate and improve it, any system which sanctions its monopoly by a privileged class, or assigns its ownership and control to a landlord caste, to be used as an instrument of usurious or political self-seeking, demands from every aggrieved Irishman an undying hostility, being flagrantly opposed to the first principle of their humanity - self-preservation.
Michael M. O'Sullivan, teacher at a Catholic College and early tenant right
activist from Galway, is said to have drawn the greatest audience response :-
. . . the past two seasons have been very bad, and disease in sheep has crept in to accumulate the distresses of the farmer. Under such circumstances does any man for a moment consider that the tenant farmers of Ireland can afford to pay the present exorbitant rents for their lands, or that the lands are worth those rents?
(Cheers, and cries of "They are not".)
It follows, then, that the present rents being too high, justice demands their reduction.
(cheers)
But, judging from the past, we know that, unfortunately, there are landlords. in Ireland who do not look to what is just, but to what the law will permit.
(hear, hear)
If, then, the landlords who are now demanding exorbitant rents
do not lower them to meet the requirements of the times and the altered
circumstances of the tenant farmers, let the tenant farmers themselves meet
together, and consult together, and settle among themselves what would be fair, equitable rent, and if that is not accepted by the landlord - why, let them pay none at all.
(great cheering, and loud cries of "None at all.")
A Voice - Let them do that (great cheering)
Mr. O'Sullivan - Let it not be considered that in councelling [sic] this I am acting thoughtlessly, unwisely, or impracticably.
(no, no)
I have given this question a great deal of thought. I have seen the Land Question in parliament brought forward with unanswerable eloquence, but with what result?
(Cheers, and a voice, "It was kicked out.")
What, then, are the people to do?
A Voice - Pay no rent at all.(cheers)
Mr. O'Sullivan - They cannot pay unreasonable rents, they wish to pay what is fair and just and it must be accepted. If not let the landlords who refuse take the consequences of refusal on their own heads.
(cheers)
It is...fearful to contemplate those consequences in their fullness ...extermination of the people on the one hand, and - we cannot shut our eyes to the lessons of the past - extermination of the exterminators on the other.
(applause)
"Ribbon Fenian" Thomas Brennan
Thomas Brennan (Irish Land League)
Thomas Brennan , born in Beauparc, County Meath, was a founder and joint first secretary of the Irish National Land League....
gave the following ominous address :
. . . I have read some history, and I find that several countries have from time to time been afflicted with the same land disease as that under which Ireland is now labouring, and although the political doctors applied many remedies, the one that proved effectual was the tearing out, root and branch, of the class that caused the disease. All right-thinking men would deplore the necessity of having recourse in this country to scenes such as have been enacted in other lands, although I for one will not hold up my hands in holy horror at a movement that gave liberty not only to France but to Europe. If excesses were at that time committed, they must be measured by the depth of slavery and ignorance in which the people had been kept, and I trust Irish landlords will in time recognize the fact that it is better for them at least to have this land question settled after the manner of a Stein or a HardenbergKarl August von HardenbergKarl August Fürst von Hardenberg was a Prussian statesman and Prime Minister of Prussia. While during his late career he acquiesced to reactionary policies, earlier in his career he implemented a variety of Liberal reforms...
than wait for the excesses of a MaratJean-Paul MaratJean-Paul Marat , born in the Principality of Neuchâtel, was a physician, political theorist, and scientist best known for his career in France as a radical journalist and politician during the French Revolution...
or a RobespierreMaximilien RobespierreMaximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre is one of the best-known and most influential figures of the French Revolution. He largely dominated the Committee of Public Safety and was instrumental in the period of the Revolution commonly known as the Reign of Terror, which ended with his...
.
T M Healy's view of the Irishtown meeting
T M HealyTimothy Michael Healy
Timothy Michael Healy, KC , also known as Tim Healy, was an Irish nationalist politician, journalist, author, barrister and one of the most controversial Irish Members of Parliament in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland...
, eventually a bitter opponent of Parnell, presents a view of the Irishtown meeting in which Parnell
Charles Stewart Parnell
Charles Stewart Parnell was an Irish landowner, nationalist political leader, land reform agitator, and the founder and leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party...
had not yet seen the potential of a Land War
Land War
The Land War in Irish history was a period of agrarian agitation in rural Ireland in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s. The agitation was led by the Irish National Land League and was dedicated to bettering the position of tenant farmers and ultimately to a redistribution of land to tenants from...
, and also highlights the importance of the coverage provided by the Connaught Telegraph, one of only two newspapers (the Tuam Herald
Tuam Herald
The Tuam Herald is a weekly Irish newspaper, founded in 1837 by Richard Kelly, which serves the town of Tuam and County Galway. It has a circulation of about 10,000 copies.Jim Carney...
was the other) which covered the event:
No reporters attended the meeting. Power called on me when he returned to London to give an account of it. From what he said I realized that a new portent had arisen out of a leaden sky. He related that footmen in legions and horsemen in squadrons gathered round him to demand reductions of rent. The horsemen, he declared, were organized like cavalry regiments. The police were powerless, and Power foreshadowed that Ireland was on the verge of a movement which would end a dismal chapter. Yet his meeting was unnoted, save by a local weekly, the Castlebar Telegraph, owned by James Daly.
King-HarmanEdward Robert King-HarmanEdward Robert King-Harman was an Irish landlord and Irish Nationalist and later Unionist politician who sat in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom from 1877 to 1888.-Early life:...
, M.P. (afterwards Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Ireland), who read that paper, came upbraidingly to Power in the House of Commons. He and his class watched the trend of politics as stockbrokers do the money markets, for £ s.d. to them was the kernel of the Land question.
When Parnell heard of the success of the Irishtown meeting, he asked Davitt (who had been told to "boycott" it) to get up a second gathering there the following Sunday. At the second demonstration fresh speeches were made which attracted universal attention.
Davitt afterward explained that he would have attended Power's meeting only that he "missed the train." He was a lofty and generous character, yet James Daly, who helped at both gatherings, coined the jibe that Davitt would be "father of the Land League if he had not missed the train." Power refused to come to the second meeting, but the fire they kindled spread into a blaze which inflamed all Ireland.
T.W. Moody points out that Healy's comment about Davitt missing the train appears to come from A.M. Sullivan
Alexander Martin Sullivan (Irish politician)
Alexander Martin Sullivan was an Irish politician, lawyer and journalist from Bantry, County Cork.He was the son of Daniel and Ann Sullivan, and brother to Timothy Daniel Sullivan, who was Lord Mayor of Dublin from 1886 to 1888....
's 'New Ireland', p 434 and is otherwise uncorroborated; likewise his quoting of Daly's quip about Davitt is otherwise uncorroborated. However, it does appear that Daly and Davitt held differing views of their relative importance to the early land war. Moody points out that Daly's January 1881 account of the Irishtown meeting in the Connaught Telegraph claiming that Davitt was not involved until the June Westport meeting is untrue; similarly Davitt's July 1882 account left Daly out and claimed he himself was solely responsible, yet he told the 1889 Times-Parnell Commission
Parnell Commission
The Parnell Commission was a judicial inquiry in the late 1880s into allegations of crimes by Irish parliamentarian Charles Stewart Parnell which resulted in his vindication.-Background:...
that he (Davitt) was not responsible; then in his 1904 'Fall of Feudalism', when he was free to reveal all, he failed to give Daly any due.
Following the Irishtown Meeting
Daly was chairman of the WestportWestport, County Mayo
Westport is a town in County Mayo, Ireland. It is situated on the west coast at the south-east corner of Clew Bay, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean....
meeting on June 8, 1879, addressed by Parnell and Davitt which finally gave national political impetus to the Land Reform movement.
Daly became vice-president of the new National Land League of Mayo on August 16, 1879, and was elected to the committee of the Irish National Land League founded in Dublin on October 21, 1879 when the Mayo Land League was absorbed into it.
The "Gurteen Three"
On November 2, 1879 Davitt addressed a land meeting at GurteenGorteen
Gorteen is a village in County Sligo, Ireland. Gurteen has experienced quite a rise in development in the last number of years and has become, to some degree, a commuter town for people working in Sligo.-Transport:...
, County Sligo, declaring of landlord-tenant relations : "the time has come when the manhood of Ireland will spring to its feet and say it will tolerate this system no longer". Daly stated that "if anyone was evicted it was the duty of his fellows to assemble in their thousands and reinstate him the next day." James Bryce Killen ended his speech by wishing that "everyone at the meeting were armed with a rifle". On November 19 Davitt, Daly and Killen were arrested on a charge of using seditious language. Their arrest led to mass protest meetings, Parnell used it to launch a propaganda drive in Britain and the United States, and the authorities failed to achieve a conviction. Moody states that 'The government had thus incurred a great deal of ridicule'..
Davitt, Daly and Killen became known as 'The Gurteen Three'. President Mary McAleese has spoken thus of the incident :
The newspapers of the day throughout the western world were full of the trial of Davitt and his two colleagues for an allegedly inflammatory speech he had given at Gurteen, Co. Sligo. They were known as "The Gurteen Three" and the collapse of their trial spelt the end of feudal landlordism in Ireland.
Later years
Daly was not comfortable with the centralized control of the land movement and what he perceived as a drift away from the West, the real area of need, and also was concerned about use of physical forcePhysical force Irish republicanism
Physical force Irish republicanism, is a term used to describe the recurring appearance of non-parliamentary violent insurrection in Ireland between 1798 and the present...
in pursuit of its aims. He returned to local politics and left the Land League. He sold the Connaught Telegraph to T.H. Gillespie in 1888 and became a full time farmer. He continued in local Government and served on Mayo County Council and Castlebar Urban District Council.
Quotes
- "'Truly is the dawn of freedom appearing - truly the emancipation of the tenant farmers of Ireland. The south is awakening, slowly but surely". Daly in the Connaught Telegraph on 6 December 1879, after being released from Sligo jail following his comments at Gurteen.
- "I am a Land Leaguer myself, and I would not be a Land Leaguer if it had anything behind it like revolution. I would fight against it." : Daly to the Bessborough Commission 1880.
Retrospective
Gerry AdamsGerry Adams
Gerry Adams is an Irish republican politician and Teachta Dála for the constituency of Louth. From 1983 to 1992 and from 1997 to 2011, he was an abstentionist Westminster Member of Parliament for Belfast West. He is the president of Sinn Féin, the second largest political party in Northern...
used the occasion of his Michael Davitt Centenary Lecture, June 15, 2006, to claim that land reform in the west of Ireland has since regressed.
External links
- Fr Kevin Hegarty, James Daly in The Mayo News, 26 September 2007