In the autumn of 1880, Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott, a land agent for Lord Eme on his Co. Mayo estate, was called upon by the Land League to reduce rents after a bad harvest. He refused to do so.
Due to Captain Boycott’s hard-heartedness towards the tenants who were facing great hardship, the Land League organised a ‘moral coventry’ against Boycott and the tenants refused to have any dealings with him. This meant he had no one to bring in the harvest on the estate that he managed.
This biography of Captain Boycott was written by his Great Great Grand Nephew.