John Mandeville

John Mandeville (24 June 1849 – 8 July 1888), was an Irish Fenian and member of the Irish National Land League.

Early life and family John Mandeville was born in Ballydine, near Carrick-on-Suir, County Tipperary on 24 June 1849. He was the third son of James Hackett Mandeville (1797–1858) and Jane Mandeville (née O'Mahony) (died 1893). His maternal uncle was the founder of the Fenian Brotherhood, John O'Mahony. Mandeville was splashed on the ear as an infant with a drop of molten lead from a broken mould the O'Mahonys were using to manufacture bullets for an unsuccessful rising in 1849, which resulted in a scar Mandeville was proud of. There are no records of Mandeville's schooling, but it is thought he attended secondary school. He was a committed Fenian from his adolescence, and may have had minor involvement in the 1867 rising. It is thought that through his Fenian connections, he first met William O'Brien when he was conducting his investigative journalism in the Galtee Mountains on social conditions there in 1876–1877. By 1886, Mandeville was the ex-officio chairman of the Mitchelstown board of guardians, and a close confidant of O'Brien who drew him into the Irish National Land League and reform politics. He married Mary O'Geran on 3 February 1880.

Activism

Mandeville was a farmer, working a 200-acre freehold farm, a mile outside Mitchelstown, County Cork. The land had been ceded to his mother by his uncle, John O'Mahony, in 1853 before he emigrated to the United States. The local economy of the time was suffering from continuous fall in butter prices, and intense resistance at the evictions taking place around Mitchelstown on the Kingston estate in 1881 to 1882 led to unrest and resentment among tenant farmers. Mandeville chaired the local National League branch, and was eager to launch the Plan of Campaign, announced in October 1886, if appeals by tenants for 20% reduction in rent went unheeded. On 11 December 1886, the estate tenantry formally adopted this plan at a meeting in the town. Mandeville oversaw the campaign, which was highly publicised, from O'Sullivan's pub near the town's Royal Irish Constabulary barracks. On 23 February 1887, he organised a demonstration of solidarity by neighbouring farmers and labourers. In May 1887, he was one of the key members who established a boycott of Mitchelstown Castle.