Ireland Under Coercion - vol. 2 | Page 5

and discouraging other tenants from paying their rents. He took a great part in promoting the refusal to pay which led to the famous evictions of last year. As to these, it seems the tenants had agreed, in 1886, to accept a proposition from Mr. Head, remitting four-fifths of all their arrears upon payment of one year's rent and costs. Mr. Sheehan, M.P., a hotel-keeper in Killarney, intervened, advising the tenants that the Dublin Parliament would soon be established, and would abolish "landlordism," whereupon they refused to keep their agreement.[3] Sir Redvers Buller, who then filled the post now held by Sir West Ridgway, seeing this alarming deadlock, urged Mr. Head to go further, and offer to take a half-year's rent and costs. If the tenants refused this Sir Redvers advised Mr. Head to destroy all houses occupied by mere trespassers, such as Griffin, who, if they could hold a place for twelve years, would acquire a title under the Statute of Limitations. A negotiation conducted by Sir Redvers and Father Quilter, P.P., followed, and Father Quilter, for the tenants, finally, in writing, accepted Mr. Head's offer, under which, by the payment of ��865, they would be rid of a legal liability for ��6177. The League again intervened with bribes and threats, and Father Quilter found himself obliged to write to Colonel Turner a letter in which he said, "Only seventeen of the seventy tenants have sent on their rents to Mr. Roe (the agent). Though promising that they would accept the terms, they have withdrawn at the last moment from fulfilment.... I shall never again during my time in Glenbehy interfere between a landlord and his tenants. I have poor slaves who will not keep their word. Now let Mr. Roe or any other agent in future deal with Glenbeighans as he likes." The farms lie at a distance even from this inn, and very far therefore from Killorglin, and the agent, knowing that the tenants would be encouraged by Griffin and by Mr. Harrington, M.P., and others, to come back into their holdings as soon as the officers withdrew, ordered the woodwork of several cottages to be burned in order to prevent this. This burning of the cottages, which were the lawful property of the mortgagee, made a great figure in the newspaper reports, and "scandalised the civilised world." The present agent thinks it was impolitic on that account, but he has no doubt it was a good thing financially for the evicted tenants. "You will see the shells of the cottages to-morrow," he said, "and you will judge for yourself what they were worth." But the sympathy excited by the illustrations of the cruel conflagration and the heartrending descriptions of the reporters, resulted in a very handsome subscription for the benefit of the tenants of Glenbehy. General Sir William Butler, whose name came so prominently before the public in connection with his failure to appear and give evidence in a recent _cause c��l��bre_, and whose brother is a Resident Magistrate in Kerry, was one of the subscribers. The fund thus raised has been since administered by two trustees, Father Quilter, P.P., and Mr. Shee, a son of our brisk little landlady here, who maintain out of it very comfortably the evicted tenants. Not long ago a man in Tralee tried to bribe the agent into having him evicted, that he might make a claim on this fund! At Killorglin the Post-Office Savings Bank deposits, which stood at ��282, 15s. 9d. in 1880, rose in 1887 to ��1299, 2s. 6d. James Griffin, despite, or because, of the two evictions through which he has passed, is very well off. He owns a very good horse and cart, and seven or eight head of cattle. His arrears now amount to about ��240, and on being urged yesterday to make a proposition which might avoid an eviction, he gravely offered to pay ��8 of the current half-year's rent in cash, and the remaining ��5 in June, the landlord taking on himself all the costs and giving him a clean receipt! This liberal proposition was declined. The zeal of her son in behalf of the evicted tenants does not seem to affect the amiable anxiety of our trim and energetic hostess to make things agreeable here to the minions of the alien despotism. The officers both of the police and of the military appear to be on the best of terms with the whole household, and everything is going as merrily as marriage bells on this eve of an eviction.
TRALEE, _Wednesday evening, Feb. 22._--We rose early at Mrs. Shee's, made a good breakfast, and set out for the scene of the day's work. It was a glorious morning for Washington's birthday, and I could not help imagining the amazement with which that