Davitt, Michael

1846 - Born on the 25th of March in Straide, County Mayo, Ireland. He was an Irish social campaigner and nationalist politician who founded the Irish National Land League.

1855 - He began working in a cotton mill at the age of 9 but a month later he left and spent a short period with another employer, before taking a job in Stellfoxe's Victoria Mill, near Baxenden.

1861 - At the age of 15 he went to work in a local post office, owned by Henry Cockcroft, who also ran a printing business.

1865 - He joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the Fenians organization in Ireland.

1870 - Arrested in Paddington Station in London in May while awaiting a delivery of arms. He was convicted of treason felony and sentenced to 15 years of penal servitude in Dartmoor Prison.

1877 - Released when he had served seven and half years, along with other political prisoners on 19th of December.

1882 - Elected Member of Parliament for County Meath but was disqualified because he was in prison.

1886 - Married Mary Yore, of Oakland, California.

     - He left the Commons with a prediction that "no just cause could succeed there unless backed by physical force." Parliament alleviated this need by granting full democratic control of all local affairs, a form of "grass roots home rule", to County and District Councils under the Local Government (Ireland) Act.

1899 - He left his seat in the parliament in protest of the Boer War and later wrote about it.

1903 - Wrote the book, within the pale: The True Story of Anti-Semitic Persecutions in Russia.

1906 - Died in Elphis Hospital, Dublin on the 30th of May aged 60, from septic poisoning.