History & Genealogy
Books & eBooks
|
|
|
|
Family Tree Maker
2012 for PC
Family Tree Maker
For Mac
|
|
|
Article Published February 12, 2002
County Mayo (Ireland): An Outline History
By: Bernard O'Hara and Nollaig ÓMuraíle,
Copyright: Mayo Ireland Ltd.
The Land War
The people who remained in County Mayo in the wake of the Great Famine soon
showed that they were resilient in the face of adversity. A national
movement was initiated in County Mayo during 1879 by Michael Davitt, James
Daly, and others, which brought about the greatest social change ever
witnessed in Ireland. Michael Davitt (1846 -1906), who was born at Straide,
County Mayo, saw his family evicted at the age of four, emigration to
England, and experienced many hard knocks and disappointments in his voyage
through life. He became Mayo's most famous son on the pages of Irish history
and one of the great patriots of his country. James Daly (1835-1910), who
played a crucial role in the early land agitation in Mayo, came from
Boghadoon, near Lahardaun, and was editor of The Connacht Telegraph
newspaper. The land agitation started at a meeting held in Irishtown, near
Ballindine, County Mayo, on Sunday 20 April 1879. The meeting, which was
attended by a crowd variously estimated at from four to fifteen thousand,
arose out of a threat to evict a number of tenants for arrears of rent from
the estate of a local absentee landlord. The meeting led not only to the
cancellation of the proposed evictions but to a general reduction of rents.
Of far greater consequence, however, were the wider political effects of the
meeting, whose reverberations were to be felt throughout the whole of
Ireland over the next quarter of a century.
On 1 June 1879, the Fenian leader, John Devoy, Michael Davitt and the county
Wicklow landlord and MP for Meath, Charles Stewart Parnell, met in Dublin,
and apparently agreed on 'the new departure', whereby the Fenians and the
constitutional nationalists agreed to combine in a struggle to reform the
Irish land-system. One week later Parnell urged a meeting of tenants in
Westport 'to hold a firm grip on your homesteads and lands'. His call came
as potato blight was spreading once more through the west, and the number of
evictions for non-payment of rent was rising steadily. On 16 August, under
Davitt's leadership, the National Land League of Mayo was founded in
Castlebar, and two months later the campaign moved well beyond the borders
of Mayo with the inauguration in Dublin of the Irish National Land League,
with Parnell as its President, and Michael Davitt, its acknowledged father,
as one of its secretaries.
The story of the 'Land War' over the next two decades is part of Irish
history rather than of the Mayo story specifically. Mayo, however, played a
prominent, and sometimes violent, role in the struggle. Almost half of what
were termed 'agrarian outrages' (maiming of cattle, destruction of property,
wounding and even killing of land agents, landlords, and those who were
considered 'land grabbers') in the early 1880s occurred in Mayo, Kerry and
west Galway. At the same time, Mayo attracted international attention, and
in the process gave a new word to the English language, by initiating a
rather novel form of non-violent protest. This involved a campaign of
ostracisation against Lord Erne's Mayo agent, a Norfolk man named Captain
Charles Cunningham Boycott, whose efforts to secure the harvest from the
estate on the eastern shore of Lough Mask necessitated the importation of
some fifty Orangemen, mostly from Cavan, and a force of about a thousand
soldiers and police to protect them. The campaign against the 'Boycott
Relief Expedition' was orchestrated by Father John O'Malley, parish priest
of Kilmolara (resident in the Neale), and it was he who suggested the term
'boycotting' as being easier for his parishioners to pronounce that
'ostracisation'. The unfortunate Boycott realised by late November 1880 that
all his efforts had been in vain (the harvest had cost over 10,000 - 'a
shilling for every turnip dug' said Parnell), and so, taking his family with
him, he returned to England until the agitation had subsided. The land
agitation was gradually resolved by a scheme of a state-aided land purchase,
under which the tenants became full owners of the land. A series of land
purchase acts provided the finance which enabled the tenants to purchsae the
land from landlords and repay the loans with interest over a number of
years. Tenant farmers became owner-occupiers within a generation and in the
process created the foundations for the politically stable society we enjoy
today.
Thanks to the vision of Mother Agnes Morrogh-Bernard (1842 - 1932), the
Foxford Woollen Mill was established in 1892. She made Foxford synonymous
throughout the world with high quality tweeds, rugs and blankets.
«previous page |
next page»
|
|
French & Native North American
Marriages & Genealogical Records Series,
Vol. 1 to Vol. 6
Author and compiler Paul Brunnell, a descendant of Hurons from Ontario and Quebec, has published his many years of French, Native, Mi'kmaq, and Metis research into the six volumes that you find here. In his own words Mr. Bunnell says......
Read on...
The Roman Catholic Parish
of "Our Lady of The Angels"
Moose Creek,Ontario Baptisms,
Marriages and Burials 1882-1925
NOW ON CD
The content is organized alphabetically by surname. There is also an index to help researchers find others who are mentioned in the transcriptions, such as witnesses, named relatives, etc.....
Read on...
Research Guide To
Loyalist Ancestors
(Updated and Revised)
This updated research aid lists most of the locations where United Empire Loyalist records may be found throughout the world, and.......
Read on...
The New Loyalist Index
Vol. 1 to Vol. 7
Author and compiler Paul Brunnell, UE has researched United Empire Loyalists for more than 30 years, publishing his findings into the seven volumes that.....
Read on...
Trimming Yankee Sails:
Pirates and Privateers
of New Brunswick
Pirates and privateers sailed from New Brunswick ports throughout the 19th century, but their exploits began in earnest during the War of 1812. Amid tales of battles at sea and fortunes lost and won......
Read on...
New Brunswick and the Navy:
Four Hundred Years
In 1881, the new Dominion of Canada chose New Brunswick as the base for its naval operations. This the story of New Brunswick's contribution to Canada's storied naval heritage......
Read on...
Family Tree Maker for Mac 2
(version 2012)
Makes organizing, researching and sharing your family history easier than ever, whether you're just getting started or already an expert........
Read on...
Methodist Obituaries
From The
Christian Guardian,
1891 to 1895
This 11th volume from D.A. McKenzie provides carefully transcribed obituaries for Methodist deaths across Canada with Ontario most heavily represented, Scroll down to Vol. 11 after clicking.......
Read on...
|
|
|
| |
