...... the history of the word - boycott?? Mr. Boycott was a land agent in Co. Mayo and according to Wikipedia....... *Charles Cunningham Boycott* (12 March 1832 – 19 June 1897) was an English land agent <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_agent> whose ostracism <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism> by his local community in Ireland gave the English language the verb "to boycott <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boycott>". He had served in the British Army <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Army> 39th Foot <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/39th_(Dorsetshire)_Regiment_of_Foot>, which brought him to Ireland. After retiring from the army, Boycott worked as a land agent for Lord Erne <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Crichton,_3rd_Earl_Erne>, a landowner in the Lough Mask <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lough_Mask> area of County Mayo <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_Mayo>.[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Boycott#cite_note-1> In 1880, as part of its campaign for the Three Fs <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Fs> (fair rent, fixity of tenure, and free sale) and specifically in resistance to proposed evictions on the estate, local activists of the Irish National Land League <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_National_Land_League> encouraged Boycott's employees (including the seasonal workers required to harvest the crops on Lord Erne's estate) to withdraw their labour, and began a campaign of isolation against Boycott in the local community. This campaign included shops in nearby Ballinrobe <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballinrobe> refusing to serve him, and the withdrawal of services. Some were threatened with violence to ensure compliance. The campaign against Boycott became a *cause célèbre <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cause_c%C3%A9l%C3%A8bre>* in the British press after he wrote a letter to *The Times <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Times>*. Newspapers sent correspondents to the West of Ireland to highlight what they viewed as the victimisation of a servant of a peer of the realm <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer_of_the_realm> by Irish nationalists. Fifty Orangemen <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_Institution> from County Cavan <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_Cavan> and County Monaghan <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_Monaghan> travelled to Lord Erne's estate to harvest the crops, while a regiment of the 19th Royal Hussars <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_Royal_Hussars> and more than 1,000 men of the Royal Irish Constabulary <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Irish_Constabulary> were deployed to protect the harvesters. The episode was estimated to have cost the British government and others at least £10,000 to harvest about £500 worth of crops. Boycott left Ireland on 1 December 1880, and in 1886, became land agent for Hugh Adair <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Adair>'s Flixton <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flixton,_The_Saints> estate in Suffolk <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffolk>. He died at the age of 65 on 19 June 1897 in his home in Flixton, after an illness earlier that year. Jim McKane Kitchener, Ontario