independence. In October 1879, after forming the Land League of Mayo, Davitt formed the Irish National Land League. The Land League's aims were to reduce rents and to stop evictions, and in the long term, to make tenant farmers owners of the land they farmed. Davitt asked Parnell to become the leader of the league. In 1880, Parnell was also elected leader of the Home Rule Party. Parnell's speech in Ennis On 19 September 1880, Parnell gave a speech in Ennis, County Clare to a crowd of Land League members. He asked the crowd, "What do you do with a tenant who bids for a farm from which his neighbour has been evicted?" The crowd responded, "kill him", "shoot him". Parnell replied: This speech set out the Land League's powerful weapon of social ostracism, which was first used against Charles Boycott. Community action The Land League was very active in the Lough Mask area, and one of the local leaders, Father John O'Malley, had been involved in the labourer's strike in August 1880. The following month, Lord Erne's tenants were due to pay their rents. He had agreed to a 10 per cent reduction owing to a poor harvest, but all except two of his tenants demanded a 25 per cent reduction. Boycott said that he had written to Lord Erne, and that Erne had refused to accede to the tenants' demands. He then issued demands for the outstanding rents, and obtained eviction notices against eleven tenants. Three days after Parnell's speech in Ennis, a process server and seventeen members of the RIC began the attempt to serve Boycott's eviction notices. Legally, they had to be delivered to the head of the household or his spouse within a certain time period. The process server successfully delivered notices to three of the tenants, but a fourth, Mrs Fitzmorris, refused to accept the notice and began waving a red flag to alert other tenants that the notices were being served. The women of the area descended on the process server and the constabulary, and began throwing stones, mud, and manure at them, succeeding in driving them away to seek refuge in Lough Mask House. The process server tried unsuccessfully to serve the notices the following day. News soon spread to nearby Ballinrobe, from where many people descended on Lough Mask House, where, according to journalist James Redpath, they advised Boycott's servants and