We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
Writers on the Irish land war have long been influenced by such contemporary accounts as Michael Davitt’s The fall of feudalism in Ireland, published in 1904. Given Davitt’s leading position in the Land League, it was only natural that most subsequent histories of the movement borrowed heavily from this publication. The history of the Land League has been viewed from the centre; its local base in the west of Ireland has received less attention. This neglect has resulted in marginalising many of the personalities within the regions, who were important not only to the success of the organisation but also to its origins. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the case of James Daly and the agrarian movement in Connacht. Only recently has Daly’s contribution begun to receive the attention it merits from historians, with the result that he can no longer be deemed ‘the most forgotten man of Irish history’. However, these studies have failed to trace Daly’s full involvement with the Land League and to note his volte-face, when he changed from being its most ardent supporter to become its bitterest internal critic.
I
James Daly was born in 1838 at Cloonabinna, Boghadoon, County Mayo, the eldest son of a prosperous tenant farmer who rented land from Sir Roger Palmer and had a forty-eight-acre farm on Colonel Charles Cuffe’s property at Coachfield, near Castlebar. Later the family rented land on the earl of Erne’s estate near Castlebar and a farm valued at £45 at Ballyshane in the electoral district of Breaghwy.
1 Lee, J.J., The modernisation of Irish society (Dublin, 1973), p. 69 Google Scholar.
2 Valuation Office, Dublin: cancelled books for County Mayo, district of Ballina, e.d. Litterbrick, 1855–1928, townland of Cloonabinna; district of Castlebar, e.d. Breaghwy 1858–1883, townland of Ballyshane; e.d. Breaghwy 1855–1883, townland of Kilkenny.
3 Report from the select committee on the poor law guardians, together with the proceedings of the committee, minutes of evidence, appendix, and index, p. 269, H. C. 1878 (297), xvii, 557, q. 5944.
4 Jordan, Donald, ‘Merchants, “strong farmers” and Fenians: the post-Famine political elite and the Irish land war’ in Philpin, C.H.E. (ed), Nationalism and popular protest in Ireland (Cambridge, 1982), p. 339 Google Scholar. The principal landowners in Castlebar and Westport unions were the earl of Lucan and the marquis of Sligo; both were absentees. The Litterbrick division in Ballina union was also owned by an absentee landlord, Sir Roger Palmer. For the general changeover in control of the poor law guardians in this period see Feingold, William L., The revolt of the tenantry: the transformation of local government in Ireland, 1872–1886 (Boston, 1984)Google Scholar.
5 Many of the O’Connor Power election committee were Galway Fenians, such as Dr Mark Ryan from Tuam and Matthew Harris from Ballinasloe (see Ryan, Mark, Fenian memories (Dublin, 1945), pp 44-6Google Scholar; Moran, Gerard, ‘The changing course of Mayo politics’ in Gillespie, Raymond and Moran, Gerard (eds), ‘A various country’: essays in Mayo history, 1500–1900 (Westport, 1987), pp 151-3)Google Scholar.
6 The Nation, 28 Oct. 1876. According to the police authorities in 1898, Daly had become part owner of the Connaught Telegraph in 1872, but there is no evidence to support this, and given that many of the police reports on Daly in 1898 are inaccurate, one has to be careful in using this source (see biography of James Daly, dated 26 Apr. 1898 (N.A.I., Crime Branch Special file 16005)).
7 As far as Daly was concerned, speech-making at Westminster would never gain the Irish farmer his rights and only through united action at home would the fight be won (Connaught Telegraph, 28 Dec. 1878). At a meeting near Ballinasloe in November 1878 Daly urged tenants to show unity and express their disillusionment with the Home Rule Party (ibid., 9 Nov. 1878).
8 Clark, Sámuel, The social origins of the Irish land war (Princeton, 1979), p. 257 Google Scholar. These farmer clubs also performed a number of other important functions in the new political circumstances of the 1870s. They kept the home rule movement’s interest in land reform alive and helped to increase the political awareness of the farming community. By their involvement in electoral activity they prepared the ground for the more dramatic politico-agrarian alliance of Davitt and Parnell. (See Hoppen, K.Theodore, Elections, politics and society in Ireland, 1832–1885 (Oxford, 1984), p. 469 Google Scholar.) The attitude of the Ballinasloe association must be attributed to its leadership, which was largely Fenian, in particular Harris and O’Sullivan. In the 1870s the Fenian movement in Connacht recruited many small tenant farmers into its ranks.
9 Connaught Telegraph, 19 Oct. 1878.
10 Great popular movements, such as the tenant right movement of the 1850s, had been particularly weak in Connacht (see Hoppen, K. Theodore, ‘Landlords, society and electoral politics in mid-nineteenth-century Ireland’ in Philpin, (ed.), Nationalism & popular protest, pp 287-8)Google Scholar.
11 In April 1879 James Kilmartin, president of the Ballinasloe Tenants’ Defence Association, stated that the general apathy among the tenant farmers meant that the land question was dead and would not be revitalised for a long time (Western News, 5 Apr. 1879).
12 Bew, Paul, Land and the national question in Ireland, 1858–82 (Dublin, 1978), pp 56-7Google Scholar; Moran, Gerard, ‘ “A passage to England”: seasonal migration to Britain and post Famine change in the west of Ireland, 1870–1890’ in Saothar, xiii (1988), p. 28 Google Scholar. For a contemporary assessment of the plight of the migrants see Hancock, Neilson, ‘Some further information as to migratory labourers from Mayo to England, and as to the importance of limiting law taxes and law charges in proceedings affecting smallholders of land’ in Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, viii, pt 56 (Apr. 1880), pp 52–78 Google Scholar.
13 Connaught Telegraph, 26 Apr. 1879, 15 Jan. 1880; Palmer, N.Dunbar, The Irish Land League crisis (New York, 1978 ed.), pp 182-3Google Scholar.
14 Davitt, Michael, The fall of feudalism in Ireland (London, 1904), pp 146-7Google Scholar.
15 See Moran, ‘Changing course of Mayo politics’, pp 146–53; see also John O’Connor Power to Father John O’Malley, 26 Sept. 1879 (N.L.I., J. F. X. O’Brien papers, MS 13457).
16 See Moody, T.W., Davitt and Irish revolution, 1846–82 (Oxford, 1981), pp 310, 337–9Google Scholar.
17 Freeman’s Journal, 26 June 1879; Power, John O’Connor, ‘The Irish land agitation’ in Nineteenth Century, iv (Dec. 1879), p. 946 Google Scholar.
18 Solow, Barbara L., The land question and the Irish economy, 1870–1914 (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), p. 67 Google Scholar. The question of rents and their relationship to Griffith’s valuation is examined in Bew, Land & the national question, pp 25–30.
19 Irishtown meeting, 2 May 1880 (N.L.I., National Land League papers, MS 11289); O’Brien, William, Recollections (London, 1905), p. 224 Google Scholar. Moody, T.W. has described Daly’s contribution at the beginning of the agitation as most important (Davitt & Irish revolution, p. 284)Google Scholar.
20 Donnelly, James S. Jr, The land and people of nineteenth-century Cork (London & Boston, 1975), p. 249 Google Scholar.
21 At a meeting in Frenchill, County Mayo, the chairman, Canon Magee of Castlebar, said that Daly was their constant and faithful friend whose sole motive was to do good for the poor tenant farmers of Mayo (Connaught Telegraph, 13 Dec. 1879).
22 Feingold, The revolt of the tenantry, p. 100.
23 Connaught Telegraph, 5 July 1879.
24 Bew, Land & the national question, pp 58–60. The Fenian influence within the movement was evident throughout these early months. An example was at the eviction of the Dempsey family near Balla on 22 November where many banners were carried in memory of the ‘Manchester Martyrs’, Allen, Larkin and O’Brien (see Rose, Paul, The Manchester- Martyrs: the story of a Fenian tragedy (London, 1970), p. 122)Google Scholar.
25 For an account of the clergy’s failure to dominate proceedings in Mayo and north Galway in the 1879–80 period see Clark, , Social origins of the Irish land war, pp 282-7Google Scholar.
26 Report of her majesty’s commissioners of inquiry into the working of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870, and the acts amending the same, vol. ii: Digest of evidence, minutes of evidence (henceforth cited as Bessborough Commission), p. 73 [C 2779–1], H.C. 1881, xviii, 571, q. 17699Google Scholar; Lee, Modernisation of Irish society, p. 69. These sentiments were at a time when the Fenian influence was becoming more evident. In advocating a system of government-sponsored measures which would buy out the landlords, Daly said: ‘I don’t want the abolition of landlordism by other than legal means, that is the buying of them out, and when we can pay the landlords’ passage out to Zululand and we will send the Royal Irish Constabulary with them’ (Irishtown meeting, 2 May 1880 (N.L.I., National Land League papers, MS 11289)). These points are totally at variance with the police report from Castlebar in 1898, which maintained that Daly had been a Fenian member in Mayo during this period (see biography of James Daly, dated 26 Apr. 1898 (N.A.I., Crime Branch Special file, 16005)).
27 See the meetings in Bohola and Shrule, July 1880 (N.L.I., National Land League papers, MS 11289).
28 Daly’s first incarceration was in Sligo over his speeches at Gurteen, County Sligo, but the government failed to secure a conviction on the charge of seditious libel. On 14 April 1881 he was imprisoned in Galway under the 1881 coercion act, as the government felt that by arresting the league leadership at a central and local level, it would paralyse it (see Reid, T. Wemyss, Life of the Rt Hon. William Edward Forster (2 vols, London, 1888), ii, 342 Google Scholar). In Daly’s case, however, the authorities decided to release him in early May, ostensibly on grounds of ill-health, but really in admission of his restraining influence within the community.
29 Clark, Samuel, ‘The social composition of the Land League’ in I.H.S., xvii, no. 68 (Sept. 1970), pp 460-61Google Scholar; Bessbomugh Commission, p. 68 [C 2779–1], H.C. 1881, xviii, 566, q. 17670.
30 This can be seen in a letter from Daly to Davitt in late 1879, in which he said that ‘nothing less than peasant proprietary would settle the evils of this country’ and that fixity of tenure was no longer the objective they should be working for (T.C.D., Davitt papers, MS 9433 (2607a)).
31 See Moran, Gerard, ‘Landlord and tenant relations in Ireland: Sir Arthur Guinness and his estate at Ashford Castle, 1868–1886’ in Cathair na Mart, x 1990), pp 69–73 Google Scholar.
32 As far as the police authorities in Mayo were concerned, the Irishtown meeting had been got up entirely to promote the political aspirations of one of the speakers, John Ferguson of Glasgow, in the constituency of Roscommon. It is easy see why they drew this conclusion: the location of the meeting was close to the Roscommon border, where the local M.R, The O’Conor Don, was loathed by the majority of his constituents. It was afterwards conceded that the authorities’ failure to send men to the meeting was a major mistake. The authorities were caught off-guard by the non-involvement of the clergy. They had expected that some members of the local clergy would be present. (See police reports, 8, 10 May 1879 (N.A.I., C.S.O., R.R, 1879/8039); Moody, Davitt & Irish revolution, p. 290.)
33 It was only on 11 November that the government decided to act, and it was in response to the fears of Irish landlords and English opinion about the situation (see files dated 12 Nov. 1879 (B.L., cabinet papers, B62/28, 13/4)).
34 Freeman’s Journal, 25 Nov. 1879; Annual Register, 1879, p. 97; Moody, Davitt & Irish revolution, p. 351.
35 Connaught Telegraph, 6 Dec. 1879. Davitt stated about the Gurteen proceedings: ‘Dublin Castle had grappled with it and had been thrown badly in the encounter’ (Davitt, Fall of feudalism, p. 186).
36 Clark, Social origins of the Irish land war, pp 306–7.
37 Thornely, David, Issac Butt and home rule (Westport, Conn., 1976 ed.), p. 350 Google Scholar; Healy, T.M., Letters and leaders of my day (2 vols, London, 1928), i, 164 Google Scholar.
38 Dooloague meeting, 18 July 1880 (N.L.I., National Land League papers, MS 11289).
39 Moody, Davitt & Irish revolution, p. 361.
40 Connaught Telegraph, 10 Apr. 1880.
41 John O’Connor Power to Father John O’Malley, 26 Sept. 1879, 16 Apr. 1880, 28 Feb. 1881 (N.L.I., J. F. X. O’Brien papers, MS 13457). O’Connor Power maintained that Parnell was prepared to select Louden for Mayo in order to destroy his influence and that of the clergy.
42 O’Neill, William, ‘From Belfast Presbyterian to Home Rule M.P.’ in Irish Times, 9 Sept. 1983 Google Scholar. For further information on Nelson see Butt to Philip Callan, Sept. 1877 (N.L.I., Butt papers, MS 831).
43 The Nation, 10 Apr. 1880; Lyons, F.S.L., Charles Stewart Parnell (London, 1977), pp 121-2Google ScholarPubMed. Nelson was unacceptable to the Leitrim clergy because of his unsatisfactory position on the Catholic university question (see Bew, Land & the national question, p. 131).
44 Freeman’s Journal, 25 May 1880.
45 Healy, , Letters & leaders of my day, i, 65, 73Google Scholar.
46 Jordan, Donald, ‘John O’Connor Power, Charles Stewart Pamell and the centralisation of popular politics in Ireland’ in I.H.S., xxv, no. 97 (May 1986), pp 55-6Google Scholar.
47 Ibid., pp 57–8. Power had become convinced since 1879 that Parnell was trying to unseat him.
48 The Nation, 5 June 1880.
49 Connaught Telegraph, 8 May 1880; Bew, Land & the national question, pp 102–3. Harris was the most perceptive of the tenant leaders as to the problems betwen the small farmers and large graziers. As early as 1879 he said that the graziers were ‘as unpopular as the worst class of landlords’ (see Bew, op. cit., p. 55).
50 For an account of the spread of the Land League in the east see Murray, A.C., ‘Nationality and local politics in late nineteenth-century Ireland: the case of County Westmeath’ in I.H.S., xxv, no. 98 (Nov. 1986), pp 144-58Google Scholar; Nelson, Thomas, The land war in County Kildare (Maynooth, 1985)Google Scholar.
51 Bohola meeting, 4 July 1880 (N.L.I., National Land League papers, MS 11289); Connaught Telegraph, 10 July 1880; The Irishman, 10 July 1880.
52 See Moran, Gerard, ‘The origins and development of boycotting’ in Galway Arch. Soc. .Jn., xxx (1985-6), pp 56-7Google Scholar; Marlow, Joyce, Captain Boycott and the Irish (London, 1973), pp 188-9Google Scholar.
53 Connaught Telegraph, 13 Nov. 1880. There is strong evidence to suggest that the affair referred to was that concerning Father Patrick Lavelle, P.P. of Cong. In July and August 1880 the Connaught Telegraph published a number of letters from Lavelle’s enemies in Cong, but then retracted its allegations, stating that they were untrue (see Moran, Gerard, A radical priest in Mayo: the rise and fall of Father Patrick Lavelle, 1825–86 (Dublin, 1994), pp 162-4Google Scholar; idem, ‘Landlord & tenant relations’, pp 74—5).
54 Palmer, Irish Land League crisis, pp 268–9; Moran, Origins & development of boycotting’, pp 58–9. For an excellent account of the practical role of women during the Land League agitation see TeBrake, Janet K., ‘Irish peasant women in revolt: the Land League years’ in I.H.S., xxviii, no. 109 (May 1992), pp 63–80 Google Scholar.
55 Bew, Land & the national question, p. 133.
56 Mitchel Henry went so far as to state that the league was a communist organisation and the country was being plunged into disgrace (see Mitchel Henry to John O’Neill Daunt, 27 Sept. 1879, 18 July 1880 (N.L.I., Butt papers, MS 832); Villiers-Tuthill, Kathleen, Beyond the Twelve Bens: a history ofClifden and district, 1860–1923 (Galway, 1986), p. 61)Google Scholar.
57 Report of the Irish land commissioners from the period from 22 August 1881 to 22 August 1882, pp 265–72 [C 343], H.C. 1882, xx, 8–15; see also Thompson, Francis, ‘Attitudes to reform: political parties in Ulster and the Irish land bill of 1881’ in I.H.S., xxiv, no. 95 (May 1985), p. 328 Google Scholar.
58 O ’Brien, C.C., Parnell and his party, 1880–1890 (Oxford, 1957), p. 80 Google Scholar.
59 Bohola meeting, 4 July 1880 (N.L.I., National Land League papers, MS 11289); Feingold, The revolt of the tenantry, pp 142–3. Walsh himself totally disputed this and said that he refused to issue such tickets for the league in his pub because he was afraid that such accusations would be made; he also said that his two brothers, who were merchants in the town, refused to accept the league’s relief tickets for fear that it might be alleged that he had used his position to increase their business (see Walsh to Thomas Brennan, 2 Aug. 1880 (N.L.I., National Land League papers, MS 17693)).
60 In Crossmolina the local branch was accused of distributing relief only to those who shopped in the officials’ shops. In Clifden and Dunmore it was alleged that the league officials refused to distribute relief to the tenants unless they paid their league membership dues. (See Moran, Gerard, ‘Famine and the land war: relief and distress in Mayo, 1879–81, pt 2’ in Cathair na Mart, vi (1986), pp 120-21Google Scholar; Bew, Land & the national question, pp 96, 177; Clark, Social origins of land war, p. 318.) Father P.A. MacDonnell, of Ballycastle, County Mayo, wrote in exasperation to the executive in September 1880: ‘Must I, a hard-working curate, be left to fight the battle of downtrodden serfs single-handed against cowards, traitors, and tyrants in this remote district?’ (MacDonnell to Thomas Brennan, 21 Sept. 1880 (N.L.I., National Land League papers, MS 17693)); see also Ed Cooke, Kingscourt, to Land League, 7 Mar. 1881 (ibid., MS 17697). Another person who alleged that the league had dishonestly and fradulently allocated for political purposes money which had been subscribed for the relief of distress was Philip Callan. Callan’s opinions were undoubtedly influenced by his dispute with Parnell over the latter’s decision to support the Liberal candidate’s campaign for Dundalk borough. (See The Nation, 10 July 1880; Moran, Gerard, ‘Philip Callan: the rise and fall of a Nationalist M.P., 1868–1885’ in Louth Arch. Soc. Jn., xxii, no. 4 (1992), pp 405-7.Google Scholar) Similar allegations were made by Dean Cantwell and Richard Pigott (see Pigott, , Recollections of an Irish national journalist (repr., Cork, 1979), pp 397, 424—30Google Scholar).
61 Connaught Telegraph, 13 Aug. 1881; quoted in Feingold, The revolt of the tenantry, p. 145.
62 Patrick Egan to Thomas Brennan, 29 May 1881 (N.L.I., National Land League papers, MS 8577(1)). The league never contested Daly’s allegations directly because at this point it was more concerned with O’Connor Power and his actions over the 1881 land act.
63 Moran, ‘Famine & the land war’, pp 119–20.
64 Connaught Telegraph, 13 Oct. 1883.
65 Ibid., 19 Feb., 12 Mar., 30 Apr. 1881, 3 Feb. 1883.
66 When the land sub-commissioners sat at Westport in February 1883, it was found that the accusations concerning Louden’s rent were true (ibid., 3 Feb. 1883).
67 For an example of how the Land League took over control of a board of guardians see Feingold, W.L., ‘Land League power: the Tralee poor-law election of 1881’ in Clark, Samuel and Donnelly, James S. Jr, (eds), Irish peasants: violence and political unrest, 1780–1914 (Manchester & Madison, 1983), pp 285–310 Google Scholar.
68 See Moran, Gerard, ‘The Land League and electioneering in Mayo’ in Bliainiris (Journal of the North Mayo Historical and Archaeological Society), iv 1986), pp 39–40 Google Scholar; Feingold, Revolt of the tenantry, p. 149; O’Brien, Parnell & his party, pp 137–8. In 1885 Parnell maintained that Louden had learned nothing and forgotten nothing since his Land League days (Lyons, Parnell, p. 76)Google Scholar.
69 Moody, Davitt & Irish revolution, p. 295.
70 Feingold, Revolt of the tenantry, pp 147–9.
71 Ibid., p. 146.
72 Comerford, R.V., The Fenians in context: Irish politics and society, 1848–1882 (Dublin & New Jersey, 1985), p. 248 Google Scholar.
