The term boycott entered the English language in 1880 via Irish history. It means social ostracism or refusing to buy or do business with someone for a specific reason.
Charles Boycott was a land agent for an absentee landlord in County Mayo at the height of the land league wars. Harvests had been poor that year and when tenants demanded a 25% reduction in their rents, Lord Erne refused, instructing Boycott to evicted eleven of his tenants. Charles Stewart Parnell, president of the land league said that if a farmer attempts to take a farm where another man was evicted. he should be shunned by everyone who does business with him. A nonviolence protest was just as effective, Parnell believed. And shun they did. Lord Erne's holding at Lough Mask was the first victim of Parnell's policy. Field and stable workers dropped what they were doing and local businessman stopped trading. There was no one to harvest the fields and the mail carrier refused to deliver the mail. Soon the word boycott was known all over Ireland. With the travel of news the word stuck
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