May is National Inventor’s Month! Today we remember the English landowner Charles Cunningham Boycott ignored by his Mayo tenants. The man who became a verb!
Have you ever wondered where the term “ boycott ” comes from ? many might be surprised that it originates from Ireland in the clock time of Charles Stuart Parnell .
Charles Cunningham Boycott ( March 12, 1832 – June 19, 1897 ) was an english nation agentive role who became ill-famed after he was ignored and ostracized by his Mayo Irish community in Ireland after treating them very badly .

Their actions gave the english terminology the verb to boycott .
Boycott was a erstwhile army military officer and had served in the british Army 39th Regiment, which brought him to Ireland. After retiring from the army, Boycott worked as a farming agent for Lord Erne, a major landowner in the Lough Mask area of County Mayo who lived off the exorbitant rents he charged tenants. Evictions by Boycott were many and bally .
In 1880, as part of Charles Stewart Parnell and the Land League ’ s campaign for the Three Fs ( fair lease, fastness of tenure, and free sale ) and opposition to evictions which were numerous and grievous, natural process was taken against money-grabbing landlords .

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When Boycott set about evicting 11 tenants the locals had had enough. The Mayo arm of the Irish Land League urged Boycott ‘s employees to withdraw their labor and began a campaign of isolation against Boycott in the local community .

This campaign included shops in nearby Ballinrobe refusing to serve him, and the withdrawal of services. Boycott found himself a scar world, not fearing violence but even worse the reject, hush, and condescension of merely everyone he encountered .
angry, he made a fatal mistake by informing the almighty London media of his pledge. The political campaign against Boycott became a huge emergence in the british press after he wrote the trace letter to The Times .
“ Sir, The watch detail may be interesting to your readers as exemplifying the world power of the Land League. On the twenty-second September a process-server, escorted by a patrol force of seventeen men, retreated to my house for protection, followed by a howling gang of people, who yelled and hooted at the members of my class .

“ On the ensuing day, September 23rd, the people collected in push upon my farm, and some hundred or so came up to my house and ordered off, under threats of subterranean consequences, all my farm labourers, workmen, and stablemen, commanding them never to work for me again .
“ My herd has been frightened by them into giving up his employment, though he has refused to give up the house he held from me as part of his emolument. Another herd on an off farm has besides been compelled to resign his site .

“ My blacksmith has received a letter threatening him with mangle if he does any more work for me, and my washwoman has besides been ordered to give up my wash. A little boy, twelve years of old age, who carried my post-bag to and from the neighbouring town of Ballinrobe, was struck and threatened on 27th September, and ordered to desist from his work ; since which time I have sent my fiddling nephew for my letters and even he, on 2nd October, was stopped on the road and threatened if he continued to act as my messenger.

“ The shopkeepers have been warned to stop all supplies to my house, and I have just received a message from the postmistress to say that the cable messenger was stopped and threatened on the road when bringing out a message to me and that she does not think it safe to send any telegrams which may come for me in the future for fear they should be abstracted and the messenger injured. My farm is public property ; the people wander over it with impunity. My crops are trampled upon, carried aside in quantities, and destroyed wholesale .

“ The locks on my gates are smashed, the gates thrown outdoors, the walls thrown devour, and the stock driven out on the roads. I can get no workmen to do anything, and my ruin is openly avowed as the object of the Land League unless I throw up everything and leave the nation. I say nothing about the risk to my own life sentence, which is apparent to anybody who knows the country .
– charles C. BOYCOTT

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The situation became a major report in the English press and funds were raised by the Daily Express, Daily Telegraph, and other papers to send farmers from the Orange North to harvest the crops. In answer, a group of about 50 ulster Loyalists volunteered to come to Boycott ‘s help and bring in his crops .
The worsen of the site was carried in newspapers all over the world. The Brooklyn Eagle reported on November 9, 1880 :
“ DUBLIN
“ Four troops of Hussars were dispatched therefore for Ballinrobe by particular trains at 2 o’clock this morning. Four hundred infantry have just arrived at Ballinrobe, and will encamp near Lough Mask .

“ These precautions are taken in view of the intention of the Northern Orangemen to send laborers to harvest the crops of Mr. Boycott, Lord Erne ‘s agentive role, for whom the local anesthetic peasantry, at the fomentation of the Land League, refuse to work. The Government will protect a centrist force of laborers, but refuse to furnish anything approaching armed demonstrations, which would certain provoke a collision. ”
Newspapers sent correspondents to the West of Ireland to cover the report and the Fifty Orangemen from County Cavan had to be guarded by a regiment of the 19th Royal Hussars and more than 1,000 men of the Royal Irish Constabulary were deployed to protect the harvesters. The episode cost at least £10,000 to harvest about £500 worth of crops .
Boycott left Ireland on December 1, 1880, in discredit, his name constantly attached to a campaign to bring down tyrants. and in 1886, became a land agentive role for Hugh Adair ‘s Flixton estate in Suffolk. He died at the age of 65 on 19 June 1897 in his home in Flixton, after an illness earlier that year. His mention lives on in infamy constantly .
Boycotting had dramatically strengthened the office of the peasants, and by the end of 1880, there were reports of boycotting from all over Ireland. The events at Lough Mask had besides increased the exponent of the Land League, and the popularity of Parnell as a drawing card. Non-violent and successful it was one of the most successful tactics ever used against the british in Ireland .
* originally published in 2016.

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