#OnThisDay 1897 “Captain” Charles Boycott died at home near Manchester. Boycott was a land agent for Lord Erne in Mayo during the Land War in the summer of 1880, whose name was used to create a term for ostracising someone. Locals wouldn’t talk to, sell to or work for Boycott. After trying to collect rents from poor tenants after a bad harvest, the tenants gathered and began the ostracising process. People stopped working his land, his servants left his house and he could not be served by the post master/mistress, blacksmith or any business in town.
Fifty Orangemen from County Cavan and County Monaghan travelled to Lord Erne’s estate to harvest the crops, while 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 was estimated to have cost the British government and others at least £10,000 to harvest about £500 worth of crops.
In November 1880, Boycott, his family were escorted from Lough Mask House by members of the 19th Hussars where he left by train and left Ireland for good.
The Irish at War 