Michael Davitt

Michael Davitt (Irish: Mícheál Mac Dáibhéid; 25 March 1846 – 30 May 1906) was an Irish republican and agrarian campaigner who founded the Irish National Land League. He was also a labour leader, Home Rule politician and Member of Parliament (MP). He was a close ally of Charles Stuart Parnell, the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party and campaigner for Home Rule, until Parnell's divorce crisis in 1890, when the Catholic Church and its conservative allies in the party set out to destroy the Protestant Parnell.

Michael Davitt was born in Straide, County Mayo, Ireland, at the height of the Great Famine, the second of five children born to Martin and Catherine Davitt. They were of poor farming origin, but Davitt's father had a good education and could speak English and Irish. Irish was the household language, and Davitt used it later in life on a visit to Australia.

In 1850, when Michael was four-and-a-half years old, his family was evicted from their home in Straide due to arrears in rent. They entered a local workhouse, but when Catherine discovered that male children over three years of age had to be separated from their mothers, she promptly decided her family should travel to England to find a better life, like many Irish people at this time. They travelled to Dublin with another local family and in November reached Liverpool, walking the 77 kilometres ( 48 miles) to Haslingden, in East Lancashire. There they settled. Davitt was brought up in the closed world of a poor Irish immigrant community with strong nationalist feelings and a deep hatred of landlordism.

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