Disturbed Ireland : $b being the letters written during the winter of 1880-81Becker, Bernard H. (Bernard Henry)
History
Disturbed Ireland : $b being the letters written during the winter of 1880-81
Becker, Bernard H. (Bernard Henry)
Ireland -- Social conditions; Working class -- Ireland
The 3,300 tenants on Lord Kenmare's property have been mainly put upon
the land by middlemen who made a great profit out of their three-life
leases. The lands of Mastergechy, Knockacrea, and Knockacappul are all
let at an immense reduction on Griffith's valuation, but to middlemen,
who realise from 200 to 300 per cent. on their investment. Despite
these drawbacks, Lord Kenmare is an "improving" landlord, and has laid
out in the last ten months some 7,000l. on his property. The pretty
tile-roof cottages outside of Killarney are a reproach to the town
itself, over which Lord Kenmare, after the manner of many other Irish
landlords, has no kind of control.
VALENTIA, CO. KERRY, _Dec. 12th._
In a previous letter I alluded to the length of time it had taken the
Land League agitation to make itself felt in Kerry, and to the
swiftness with which, when once ignited, the far south-west of Ireland
blazed into open disaffection. The causes of this slowness to light
up, immediately followed by a fierce and sudden flame, are by no means
obscure. Kerry has always been the last place to follow a popular
movement, and the last to relinquish it.
As the French Revolution and its effects on Ireland were not heard of
in Kerry till long after the establishment of the Empire, so was Ross
Castle, on the lower lake at Killarney, the last stronghold subdued by
Ludlow; and so also was Kerry the last stronghold of Fenianism.
Moribund in the other parts of Ireland until Nationalists and Land
Leaguers were united, by the prosecution of Mr. Parnell, Fenianism
still lingered and lingers on in Kerry. In the pot-houses of Tralee,
Castle Island, and Cahirciveen the embers of Fenianism have smouldered
since the outbreak of 1867. Slow to learn, Kerry has been slow to
forget, and when once the emissaries of the Land League arrived here
they found ready to their hand the _cadre_ at least of a formidable
organisation, and the reign of terrorism at once commenced.
Up to the present moment I have not heard of houses being blown up by
dynamite after the fashion in Bantry, but the farmers who have already
not paid their rents decline to do so, or pay in full secretly, while
openly subscribing to the Land League and denouncing the mean-spirited
serfs who would pay a farthing above Griffith's valuation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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