Charles Boycott - Life in Lough Mask Before Controversy

Life in Lough Mask Before Controversy

In 1873, Boycott moved to Lough Mask House, owned by Lord Erne, four miles (6 km) from Ballinrobe in County Mayo. Lord Erne, the third Earl of Erne, was a wealthy landowner who lived in Crom Castle in County Fermanagh. He owned 40,386 acres (163.44 km2) of land in Ireland, of which 31,389 were in County Fermanagh, 4,826 in County Donegal, 1,996 in County Sligo, and 2,184 in County Mayo. Lord Erne also owned properties in Dublin.

Boycott agreed to be Lord Erne's agent for 1,500 acres (6.1 km2) he owned in County Mayo. One of Boycott's responsibilities was to collect rents from the tenant farmers on the land for which he earned ten per cent of the total rent due to Lord Erne, which was £500 each year. In his roles as farmer and agent, Boycott employed numerous local people as labourers, grooms, coachmen and house-servants. Joyce Marlow wrote that Boycott had become set in his mode of thought, and that his twenty years on Achill had "strengthened his innate belief in the divine right of the masters, and the tendency to behave as he saw fit, without regard to other people's point of view or feelings".

During his time in Lough Mask before the controversy began, Boycott had become unpopular with the tenants. He had become a magistrate and was an Englishman, which may have contributed to his unpopularity, but according to Marlow it was due more to his personal temperament. While Boycott himself maintained that he was on good terms with his tenants, they said that he had laid down many petty restrictions, such as not allowing gates to be left open and not allowing hens to trespass on his property, and that he fined anyone who transgressed these restrictions. He had also withdrawn privileges such as collecting wood from the estate from his tenants. In August 1880, his labourers went on strike in a dispute over a wage increase.