Ireland Under Coercion - vol. 2 | Page 3

ROSSBEHY,[1] _Feb. 21._--We are here on the eve of battle! An
"eviction" is to be made to-morrow on the Glenbehy[1] estate of Mr.
Winn, an uncle of Lord Headley, so upon the invitation of Colonel
Turner, who has come to see that all is done decently and in order, I left
Ennis with him at 7.40 A.M. for Limerick; the "city of the Liberator"
for "the city of the Broken Treaty." There we breakfasted at the
Artillery Barracks.
The officers showed us there the new twelve-pounder gun with its
elaborately scientific machinery, its Scotch sight, and its four-mile
range. I compared notes about the Trafalgar Square riots of February
1886 with an Irish officer who happened to have been on the opposite

side of Pall Mall from me at the moment when the mob, getting out of
the hand of my socialistic friend Mr. Hyndman, and advancing towards
St. James' Street and Piccadilly was broken by a skilful and very
spirited charge of the police. He gave a most humorous account of his
own sensations when he first came into contact with the multitude after
emerging from St. Paul's, where, as he put it, he had left the people "all
singing away like devils." But I found he quite agreed with me in
thinking that there was a visible nucleus of something like military
organisation in the mob of that day, which was overborne and, as it
were, smothered by the mere mob element before it came to trying
conclusions with the police.
On our way to Limerick, Colonel Turner caught sight, at a station, of
Father Little, the parish priest of Six Mile Bridge, in County Clare, and
jumping out of the carriage invited him to get in and pursue his journey
with us, which he very politely did. Father Little is a tall fine-looking
man of a Saxon rather than a Celtic type, and I daresay comes of the
Cromwellian stock. He is a staunch and outspoken Nationalist, and has
been made rather prominent of late by his championship of certain of
his parishioners in their contest with their landlord, Mr. H.V. D'Esterre,
who lives chiefly at Bournemouth in England, but owns 2833 acres in
County Clare at Rosmanagher, valued at £1625 a year. More than a
year ago one of Father Little's parishioners, Mr. Frost, successfully
resisted a large force of the constabulary bent on executing a process of
ejectment against him obtained by Mr. D'Esterre.
Frost's holding was of 33 Irish, or, in round numbers, about 50 English,
acres, at a rental of £117, 10s., on which he had asked but had not
obtained an abatement. The Poor-Law valuation of the holding was £78,
and Frost estimated the value of his and his father's improvements,
including the homestead and the offices, or in other words his
tenant-right, at £400. The authorities sent a stronger body of constables
and ejected Frost. But as soon as they had left the place Frost came
back with his family, on the 28th Jan. 1887, and reoccupied it. Of
course proceedings were taken against him immediately, and a small
war was waged over the Frost farm until the 5th of September last,
when an expedition was sent against it, and it was finally captured, and

Frost evicted with his family. Upon this last occasion Father Little
(who gave me a very temperate but vigorous account of the whole
affair) distinguished himself by a most ingenious and original attempt
to "hold the fort." He chained himself to the main doorway, and
stretching the chains right and left secured them to two other doors. It
was of this refreshing touch of humour that I heard the other day at
Abbeyleix as happening not in Clare but in Kerry.
Since his eviction Frost has been living, Father Little tells me, in a
wooden hut put up for him on the lands of a kinsman of the same name,
who is also a tenant of Mr. D'Esterre, and who has since been served by
his landlord with a notice of ejectment for arrears, although he had paid
up six months' dues two months only before the service. Father Little
charged the landlord in this case with prevarication and other evasive
proceedings in the course of his negotiations with the tenants; and
Colonel Turner did not contest the statements made by him in support
of his contention that the Rosmanagher difficulty might have been
avoided had the tenants been more fairly and more considerately dealt
with. It is strong presumptive evidence against the landlord that a
kinsman, Mr. Robert D'Esterre, is one of the subscribers to a fund
raised by Father Little in aid of the evicted man Frost. On the other
hand, as illustrating the condition of the tenants, it is noteworthy that
the Post-Office Savings Bank's