ABSTRACT
Davitt s activities at the centre of the Land League were abruptly cut short on 3 February 1881, when he was arrested while crossing O’Connell Bridge with two colleagues on their way to lunch. Taken to England, he was to spend the next eighteen months in Portland Prison in Dorset. Throughout Davitt’s incarceration there were questions asked about his treatment and the state of his health. In fact, the conditions in which he was held were comparatively good. He was kept alone in the prison infirmary and allowed to work in the prison garden for exercise. In 1881-2, Henry George, whom Davitt had met in 1880, was in Ireland as a correspondent for the New York Irish World. He tried unsuccessfully to visit Davitt in prison but was on the platform in London to greet him on his return from Portsmouth, and it was he who broke the news of the Phoenix Park murders to his friend the following day.
