ARE THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS KNAVES?

From Irish Ideas by William O'Brien, 1893

Page 83

ARE THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS KNAVES?

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who have had to face the larger share of the suffering and self-sacrifice of the common struggle. It is safe to predict that at this time of day no serious attempt will be made to deny that the evicted tenants are the victims of heartless landlord embezzlement—the prey of a system of dishonesty which Lord Salisbury's own Government was coerced into restraining by Act of Parliament. The Clanricarde and Ponsonby estates include one-fourth of the total number of evicted Campaigners. No human being has yet been found to say an apologetic word for Lord Clanricarde. His own leading counsel could not help designating his clearances as 'the devil's work.' 'Lord Clanricarde,' wrote the Times newspaper in reference to the trial of Joyce v. Clanricarde, 'has been proved to have behaved throughout the entire transaction with a baseness and a harshness to his agent and his tenantry which are hardly credible.' Hardly credible even by the late Mr. Pigott's paymaster! Nevertheless, this man of hardly credible baseness has been permitted for eight years past to devastate twenty square miles of country; has been supplied with extra police escorts uncounted for his agents and bailiffs, to accompany them in their walks, protect them in their evictions, and sweep through the country with them, moss-trooper-wise, in their nightly raids for cattle; there were one hundred and fifty Coercion prosecutions against his heart-broken tenantry, long terms of imprisonment, one shocking death in prison, a bare escape from prosecution of a present Cabinet Minister for daring to hold a public meeting upon the estate, and at the present moment there is pending an order of the High Courts to raze the wooden huts that are sheltering the heads of the evicted from the mountain blast. Perhaps Lord Salisbury would kindly favour the Commission with his views as to … continue reading »

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