Davitt, Michael definition of Davitt, Michael in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

Davitt, Michael (dăv`ĭt), 1846–1906, Irish revolutionary and land reformer. He joined the Fenian movement Fenian movement (fē`nēən) or Fenians, secret revolutionary society organized c.
..... Click the link for more information. in 1865 and was imprisoned three times by the English for his revolutionary activities. Davitt and Charles Stewart Parnell were the leading figures in the organization of the National Land League in 1879 (see Irish Land Question Irish Land Question, name given in the 19th cent. to the problem of land ownership and agrarian distress in Ireland under British rule. The long-term result of conquest, confiscation, and colonization was the creation of a class of English and Scottish landlords and
..... Click the link for more information. ). Influenced by the theories of Henry George George, Henry, 1839–97, American economist, founder of the single tax movement, b. Philadelphia. Of a poor family, his formal education was cut short at 14, and in 1857 he emigrated to California; there he worked at various occupations before turning to
..... Click the link for more information. , Davitt broke with Parnell over the question of land nationalization. But he remained an important Irish leader and was instrumental in bringing the Parnell and anti-Parnell factions together in the United Irish League (1898).

Bibliography

See his The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland (1904); study by T. W. Moody, Davitt and Irish Revolution, 1846–1882 (1981).