In Land League Days
The Connacht Tribune, Saturday, November 7, 1981.
In Land League Days
Galway's Struggle for Land and Liberty
Some notable figures amongst the men of the west who fought and won the battle between the people and the oppressors.
Battles long ago are vividly described in the following series of articles by an Old Land Leaguer who lived and fought through the struggle. This old photograph was sent to us by an American reader whose father was evicted from the Clanricarde estate. It represents an eviction near Loughrea.
By an Old Land Leaguer
Landlordism in Ireland is dead. The memories of a system so tyrannical and corrupt are fast fading from the minds of our people.
Yet but little more than a half—century ago it was a thing to be feared. By its power and its tyranny British government ruled the Gael, and kept him a slave in the land which was his birthright.
Around the names of members of the hated class there have been woven tales of wanton cruelty and inhumanity which Irish blood even yet boils with indignation.
The Famine of '46 has left its imprint deep in the hearts of the Irish people. Yet it was not the loss of half our population, the flower of the race, nor the terrible sufferings through hunger and plague that has filled the Irish heart with bitterness. It is the knowledge that while, men died of starvation and lay unburied by the roadside, there was exported from this country an amount of food which was more than sufficient to support every man, woman and child in the land. Such is the most glaring instance, but by no means the only one, of the harsh treatment meted out to our people by the oppressor.
Passing over those harrowing scenes we come to one of he most stirring periods of our history, when the Irish peasant dared at last to lift his head from the mire of slavery and with new fury and zeal pitch himself headlong into the struggle for his rights. From first to last the name of Galway county ranks high as being the scene of some of the greatest and most bitter fights of the time. Here was enacted the first scene of the drama, which ended finally with the downfall of landlordism.
The First Shock
The victory of Col. Nolan at the Nolan, Trench election of 1872 came as the first shock to the proud system. In a county where, for twenty years either a Burke or a Dunkeellin had been regularly returned, the election of a priest's and people's candidate was a heavy blow. For their 'disloyalty' many of the tenant farmers who supported Col. Nolan, in after years paid the penalty in the shape of raised rents, while Dr. Duggan, the saintly Bishop of Clonfert, and many of his leading priests, suffered the ignominy of being tried, before the notorious Judge Keogh, on a charge of undue influence on voters.
Nolan was unseated on petition but the election did its work. The new spirit, a confidence in themselves and the potency of their cause, which, coupled with the knowledge that the landlord combined was not invulnerable, accounted for a great part of their success in the subsequent struggle.
Throughout Ireland during the "Eighties" the names of Loughrea, Ballinkill and Woodford were spoken of with pride by men whose hearts were given to the farmers within our shores, in daily dread for the safety of their homes, he saw in Loughrea, Ballinakill and Woodford fights the making or marring of at lead and the men of those districts Ballinakill between Sir Henry Burke and his tenants decided the action of the majority of landlords of Ireland, while that with Clanrickarde in Woodford disclosed landlordism at its worst and to it also we can trace the origin of the "Plan of Campaign" the tenants most forcible means for the assertion of their rights.
Is it not right that the present generation, basking in the sunshine of peace struggle, should know something of the hardest phases of another struggle which, though not so wide in its scope, was none the less bitter, and paved the way for that to come? To that end, therefore, we will give a detailed account of the Loughrea, Ballinkill and Woodford fights. But first, for the benefit of readers unacquainted with the facts there will be given s short history of the Land League between the years of '79 and 87'.
The Land League
For two years immediately before 1879 the prices of stock and farm produce had been declining owing to the increased importation of foreign meat and corn into England and this fall particularly affected the large farmers in Ireland. As Galway was the greatest sheep raising district in Ireland, the losses in sheep through the fluke disease which broke out at this time also contributed to the bad position of the big grazers. The potato crop failed and created a partial famine in Connacht, which made it necessary for a relief committee to be formed in every parish west of the Shannon, through which was distributed by America. In Loughrea parish alone over £8,000 was raised and misguidance of the Most Rev. Dr. Duggan, for the relief of the distressed. This famine may be said to have produced the land war. The people were unable to pay their rents and the landlords refusing to give any abatement, began to evict them, sometimes at the rate of twenty and thirty families per day.
In April, 1879, Michael Davitt, who had been out of prison since December, 1877, started the land agitation at Irishtown in County Mayo. In the following summer (1889), about sixty—eight meetings were held in the West of Ireland to further the cause. The first great meeting in the County Galway was held at Loughrea on January 6, 1880. The secretary Father Egan, C.C., and a lay committee organized it, having been backed up by Dr. Duggan, whose Father Carroll, Adm., presided, and besides, Michael Davitt, Mitchell Henry, M.P. for Galway, Matt Harris, and a number of the clergy spoke. Clanrickade, amongst other landlords, was invited, and to the invitation he sent the following reply:
"London, December 29, 1879 —
Gentlemen. I have received the invitation you have been good enough to send to me to attend a Grand Land Meeting at Loughrea on the 6th approx. As I feel I should deserve most severe censure for attending a meeting so ill—timed in the actual disturbed state of Ireland about the land, and for being count naming many of the resolutions to be proposed I must decline your invitation to share the very heavy responsibility and is possible consequences, which the deliberate promoters of this meeting will not be permitted to evade. — I am, gentlemen, your obedient servant, Clanrickarde."
At this meeting resolutions were adopted calling the attention of the English Government to the evictions and great distress prevalent in Connacht and emphasizing the want of sympathy with their tenants shown by the landlords. At the other meetings throughout the year 1880 similar resolutions were passed.
Objects of League
Although started in April, 1879, it was not till October of the same year that the Land League was definitely founded. Then it was that its principles were set forth in the following resolutions: "If that the objects of the League are, first, to bring about a reduction of rack—rents; second, to facilitate the obtaining of the ownership of the soil by the occupiers. 2 That the objects of the League can be best attained (i) by promoting organization among the tenant farmers; (ii) by defending those who may be threatened with eviction for refusing to pay unjust rents; (iii) by facilitating the working of the Bright Clauses of the Land Act during the winter; and (iv) by obtaining such reform in the laws relating to land as will enable every tenant to become the owner of his holding by paying a fair rent for a limited number of years.
In June, 1879, Parnell first openly supported the formation at a meeting in Westport and his assistance in the promotion of the organization was one of the greatest influences which led to its success.
Throughout the year 1880 the Land League increased by leaps and bounds, and the agitation, combined with the activities of Parnell and the Irish Party in Parliament in showing up the condition of the tenants in Ireland ,caused Gladstone to introduce and get passed the Land Bill of 1881, which was intended to give "Fair Rents, Free sale, and Fixity of Tenure", to the tenants. But the landlords defeated its objects by demanding from those who entered the Land Courts old arrears the tenants were still subject to eviction.
Evictions and land grabbing increased in the Loughrea district. This resulted in the many murders and other agrarian crimes committed there. These occurrences were so frequent that police stations were established on all the roads leading from the town, and the removable Clifford Lloyd R. M. threatened that he would make the grass grow on the streets of Loughrea. The Government through the "Times" tried to hold Parnell and the Land League responsible for those crimes but they failed to prove the charges before the "Times" Commission.