Michael Davitt

"Principles of reform intelligently and fearlessly propagated are far more destructive to unjust and worn-out systems than dynamite bombs, which only kill individuals or knock down buildings but do no injury to oppressive institutions."

- M.Davitt

Sources

Synopsis of Davitt's life and slide show, online at the UCC Multitext Project in Irish History

Booklet published by Mayo County Library during Davitt's centenary (pdf hosted by rapidshare)
This comprehensive publication makes excellent use of primary sources to trace Davitt's life from his childhood experience of eviction, emigration and the loss of his arm as a child in an industrial accident through his career as a revolutionary, proponent of Irish independence through civil disobedience, parliamentarian and gobal activist.

Featured Primary Source

 

 

 

Leaves from a Prison Diary Vols. 1, 2 (pdf hosted by askaboutireland.ie)
Davitt was a prolific writer. As copyright has expired on his writings, most, if not all, of them are freely available online. Leaves from a Prison Diary, or Lectures to a "Solitary Audience", was composed during his time in Portland prison during the Land War.

Also worth exploring...

Michael Davitt, The Prison Life of Michael Davitt (1878)

Michael Davitt, Leaves from a Prison Diary (2 vols) (1885)

Michael Davitt, Defence of the Land League (1891)

Michael Davitt, Life and Progress in Australia (1895)

Michael Davitt, Within the Pale, The True Story of Anti-Semitic Persecutions in Russia (1903)

Michael Davitt, Boer fight for freedom (1904)

Michael Davitt, The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland (1904)

Michael Davitt, Collected Writings, 1868-1906 Carla King (2001)

Michael Davitt, The "Times"-Parnell Commission: Speech delivered by Michael Davitt in defence of the Land League (1890)

Irish Political Prisoners, Speeches of John O'Connor Power M.P., in the House of Commons on the Subject of Amnesty, etc., and a Statement by Mr Michael Davitt, (ex-political prisoner) on Prison Treatment (March, 1878)