AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED by Irish Radical Nationalist Michael Davitt to Publisher of THE AMERICAN IRISH WORLD Patrick Ford

Dublin, 2 February 1899. Letter. Patrick Ford (1837 - 1913) was a journalist and founder and publisher of the influential IRISH WORLD. A four-page AUTOGRAPH LETTER SIGNED (ALS) marked "Private" on one 8-3/4" x 7" sheet of paper folded into fours, with the original envelope, to Patrick Ford, publisher of THE AMERICAN IRISH WORLD. Davitt passionately writes to protest the value of the Irish people over the “...appeal which you have made in the I.W. for the movement for preserving the Irish Language…. We however who are trying to preserve the Irish People, in Ireland, get very little help from those who are directing the Gaelic movement … to me the work (truncated) of works for Ireland is that of stopping the deadly flow of our best boys & girls from these shores … we are trying to arrest this devils work of England by the United Irish League. We are sure to win some concession in the way of enlarged holdings in the West but the usual price of coercion & imprisonment will have to be paid first. The U.I. League is to be suppressed after the elections for the County Councils are over -- that is by the end of March. O'Brien, myself & others will be sent to prison & then the government will do what we are now demanding. The movement is spreading rapidly but we are crippled for want of workers … your 600 (pounds) was an almost Providential aid…. You have your heart in this work just as we have…. In haste yours sincerely Michael Davitt.” A PS adds, “Burton will be released next year. I will do my utmost in his behalf -- So will all the others.”

Michael Davitt (1846 - 1906), Irish radical nationalist and major proponent of agrarian reform, was radicalized at an early age when his family was evicted for non-payment of rent and their cottage was burned down. In 1868, ostensibly a pedlar, he was appointed IRB (Irish Republican Brotherhood) organising secretary and arms agent for England and Scotland. He was arrested at Paddington railway station in London for attempting to buy fifty pistols from Birmingham. He duly pleaded not guilty (as Fenian rules required), and on 18 July, after a widely reported three-day trial at the Old Bailey, Davitt was sentenced to fifteen years penal servitude for treason-felony. He declared that, if he ever regained his liberty, his services would be placed at Ireland's disposal. He spent six and a half years at Dartmoor prison breaking stones and laboring outside in winter, severely damaging his health. He was released at the end of 1877 and was immediately elected to the IRB supreme council for the north of England. Hailed as a national hero, Davitt helped found the National Land League of Mayo at Castlebar with a manifesto drafted by Davitt declaring "the land of Ireland belongs to the people of Ireland." He spoke widely in the United States and elsewhere, drumming support for Irish freedom and regularly publishing pieces in Ford's IRISH WORLD. Never wavering from the idea of an independent Ireland, his last months were occupied with a struggle over the English education bill, on which he fell foul of the Catholic clergy. The Irish Press was closed to his letters advocating secular education, so he contemplated the establishment of a weekly paper to express strongly democratic as well as nationalist views, but he died in 1906 before being able to do so. (Inventory #: 022003)