DEATH OF AN IRISH PATRIOT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8124, 1 June 1906, Page 3

DEATH OF AN IRISH PATRIOT.

MICHAEL DAVITT. Received 31,10.29 p.m. London, May 31. Michael Davitt died after midnigh: at a private hpspital in Dublin.

[Michael Davrtt was born in Ireland in 1846, and was thus 60 years of age. He early endured his share of th. hardship*, which fifty years ago wen daily incidents in the lives of hundred of Irishmen, bein? evicted in 18-51 Four years later he began work in » Lancashire cotton mill, losing his ami » year afterwards in a machinery acei dent. He vas subsequently employed a : a newstoy, printer's devil and assistant letter carrier, and joined tho Fenian Brotherhood in 1865. Five years latei he was arrested and tried in London for treason-felony, being released on " "„*l" leaTe " in 77. With thf late Mr Parnell and others he founded the Irish Land League in 1879, wa> arrested on a charge of making « seditions speech in the same year, but the prosecution was abandoned. He organised the Land Leagm organisation in 1880. He was arrested on his return to England in the following year and sent back to penal servitude, being released a year later. He was again arrested in 1883, and tried undei a law of King Edward 111. for seditious speech and imprisoned for three months. He was first elected to Parliament (Meath) in 1882, when, a prisoner in Portland, but was disqualified by special vote of the House of Commons for non-expiry or the sentence for treason-felony. While, in Australia in 1895 he was returned unopposed for E. Kerry and 8. Mayo. He travelled in United- States, Canada, Australia. New Zealand, Egypt, Palestine, France. Italy .and Switzerland, and was the author of a number of well-known publications.!