The children in this school discovered that the word ‘boycott’ came from the agent of a landlord in the town many years ago, called Captain Boycott who refused to reduce rents. The parish priest urged the townspeople to ‘isolate and boycott him’. Ever since then, people all over the world have used this word. 

For their project, the children also looked at other boycotts in Ireland such as those at Judge Patwell’s court in Cork and on the meat processing plants. Other areas looked at in the project included more recent conflicts such as World War II, the Korean War and the conflicts in Iraq and powerful world leaders such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King who were involved in major boycotts.