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.
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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.