JAMES DALY, “the most forgotten man in Irish history”, according to the editor of the newspaper he once owned, will be honoured in Mayo on the 100th anniversary of his death.
Daly, whose influence on the foundation of the Land League has been overshadowed by history, according to those who herald him, is to be remembered in a tree-planting ceremony to take place in Castlebar cemetery on Tuesday.
The former editor of the Connaught Telegraphwas remembered by the current editor, Tom Gillespie, as having "taken up the cause of land reform with Michael Davitt. Together they established tenant farmers' rights against largely absentee landlords."
However, his great great grandnephew Pádraig Daly said his ancestor had received “absolutely no recognition” for the important role he played in the foundation of the Land League.
Daly was born in Lahardaun, Mayo, in 1838 and began his political career in 1869, when he won a seat in the Breaffy electoral division. In February 1876, he and Alfred O'Hea purchased what was then the Mayo Telegraphfrom Sir Frederick Cavendish, through which Daly promoted land reform. In 1877, two years before the foundation of the Land League, he wrote: "The soil is the property of the tiller."
Daly played an important role in the Tenants’ Defence Association, a precursor to the Land League. On April 20th, 1879, some 8,000 people attended a meeting in Irishtown, Co Mayo, chaired by Daly. According to Nancy Smyth, chair of the Michael Davitt Museum, this resulted in Canon Geoffrey Bourke, who managed the estate for an absentee landlord, reducing tenants’ rent by 25 per cent.
Daly also chaired a meeting in Westport on June 8th, 1879, addressed by both Charles Stewart Parnell and Davitt. He was later elected to the committee of the Irish National Land League founded in Dublin on October 21st, 1879.
“The Tenants’ Defence Association was a foundation for the land reform movement to build on,” Ms Smyth said.
On November 2nd, 1879, Daly, Davitt and barrister James Boyce Killeen were arrested in Gurteen, Co Sligo, on the charge of seditious speeches and came before the court on November 24th, when Daly reportedly said: “Don’t pay the landlord until you have some guarantee from him or from government that they won’t see your children starve.”
Daly, who believed in peaceful protest, advocated secret ballots.
Tomorrow, Daly's descendants, with staff of the Connaught Telegraphand the museum, will gather in Mayo Peace Park at 5.30pm before attending the ceremony.