Evictions — Distraining for Rent

Galway Vindicator, October 30th, 1847

Mr. Dudley Persse of Roxboro', near Loughrea, has adopted a rather novel mode of enforcing payment of his rents in this part of the country. On Tuesday last a party of about twenty men — tenants of Mr. Persse on another portion of his estates — all armed with guns, bayonets, and pistols, and headed by a bailiff named O'Donnell, marched into this town, after having distrained the cattle of several defaulting tenants on the lands of Ballygill and Ruan. It appears that at the latter place, a poor farmer named Tim Keady, a tenant to Sir William Brabazon, whose land adjoins one of Mr. Persse's tenants, hearing that seizures were being made, and having a cow of his grazing on his neighbour's land, went and drove her away to his own door, where he was followed by O'Donnell and some of his party, who demanded the cow. Some altercation, as we have been informed, then took place, whereupon O'Donnell stabbed Keady in the side with a bayonet but providentially did not inflict a very severe wound ; they did not, however, take the cow, fearing, we suspect, the people of the neighbourhood, who on seeing the man bleeding, were gathering very fast to his assistance. On Wednesday the same party proceeded to the lands of Perssepark and Loughbound, conveying their arms, as they did on the previous day, to the scene of action, in a large wooden box on a cart, and levelled the houses of several tenants who had given up possession. We understand the persons thus left without shelter, are building sheds on the property. On Thursday the party proceeded to Spring—grove and Killimore, where they distrained, but without having in any case met with opposition. We do not pretend to call in question the right of Mr. Dudley Persse, or any other landlord, to do all in his power to get in his rents, from such tenants as are really able to pay, but we decidedly object to the means employed in the present instance. There is ill—feeling enough existing already, both at home and abroad, against the landlords of Ireland, without giving cause for more ; and besides, it is a bad example to an exacitable people, to enforce by arms what the law should be powerful enough to do well. If any necessity for force existed — and we are assured that such was not the case — surely it would have been wiser for Mr. Persse, and of infinitely more benefit to the peace of the country, to have called in the aid of the military or police, than thus to organise a rural militia, and send a band of armed and undisciplined guerrillas throughout the country, whose deeds of bloodshed and barbarity, if once excited by resistance, no man could for a moment hope to controll.

The above are the circumstances as they first reached us. It will be perceived, however, by the following report of the case as heard at the petty sessions this day, that the real version differs in one or two material points, the most important of which is, that the cow seized by O'Donnell was actually on the lands of Sir William Brabazon at the time, and had not been at all on any portion of Mr. Persse's property. We are happy to find that Lord Clancarty and his brother magistrates are of our opinion in reprobating the course adopted by Mr. Persse on this occasion :—