394 



GKEAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, UNITED KINGDOM OF. 



ford, near the border of County Wicklow, 

 there were eighty tenants, and of these all 

 but tea were evicted. One of these, John 

 Kinsella, took refuge on the farm of a man 

 named Kavanagh, and some days afterward 18 

 emergency men with Freeman, the bailiff of 

 the estate, made a raid for cattle on this farm. 

 They were warned by the police that the in- 

 tended seizure was illegal. Kavanagh, Kin- 

 sella, and many others of the evicted tenants 

 were in the court-yard, and as the emergency 

 men came up Kavanagh raised a pitchfork in 

 a threatening manner. Upon that Freeman 

 stepped forward, and, taking aim with a pistol, 

 shot Kinsella dead, after which the emergency 

 rnen entered the yard and drove off the cattle. 

 One of the policemen went before the magis- 

 trate, Lord Courtown, to report the murder, 

 but he refused to issue a warrant. At the in- 

 quest five witnesses swore to the killing of 

 Kinsella by Freeman, and yet, when the mat- 

 ter was presented to the grand jury, that body 

 ignored the bill. An indictment against Free- 

 man was nevertheless tried, but the prosecut- 

 ing attorney seemed to act in collusion with 

 the defense, a pistol was produced as Free- 

 man's which the bullet did not fit, the judge 

 instructed the jury that Freeman did not fire 

 the shot, and no steps were taken to find out 

 who else could have been the murderer. The 

 landlord of Coolgreany, Mr. Brooke, gained a 

 victory by compelling the managers of the Plan 

 to pull down the comfortable houses that had 

 been, erected for the evicted tenants in order 

 to prevent their seizure for rent. 



The Plan of Campaign was adopted on the 

 Vandeleur estate in West Clare more recently 

 than in the other cases. The reduction asked 

 was 25 per cent, on judicial, and 35 per cent, 

 on non-judicial rents. Several of the tenants 

 went before the land court in 1888 and ob- 

 tained reductions averaging 32 per cent. The 

 rents had been raised 25 per cent, in 1874, 

 out of revenge, it is said, for the landlord's de- 

 feat as a parliamentary candidate, and a con- 

 siderable rent was exacted even for bog-land 

 that the tenants had reclaimed. The tenants 

 had taken the land originally in the wild state, 

 and had brought it under cultivation and made 

 all the improvements. The Plan of Campaign 

 was adopted in the beginning of 1887, when 

 300 tenants put their money into the u war 

 chest," 100 others joined the combination, and 

 120 were not admitted because they were in- 

 solvent and unable to pay their rent into the 

 fund. The agent negotiated with the nine 

 parish priests on the estate, headed by the 

 Rev. Dr. M. Dinan, who insisted on the origi- 

 nal demand. Proceedings were taken against 

 85 tenants, and writs of ejectment were pro- 

 cured in 24 cases, and carried out in July, 18S8. 

 The alarm was sounded with the church bells 

 at the approach of the evicting party, and the 

 people cut all the bridges on the road to Kil- 

 rush. A force of 200 police and military was 

 employed to carry out the executions, who ef- 



fected an entrance into the barricaded houses 

 by means of a battering-ram, and were received 

 with showers of missiles and boiling water. 

 The 7nen who defended the houses were threat- 

 ened with rifles if they would not come out, 

 many were badly beaten with clubs, and the 

 furniture in the houses was destroyed by the 

 police. After the evictions the houses were 

 demolished. 



The Papal Rescript. Since the nomination of 

 Archbishop Walsh to the Irish primacy the 

 hierarchy as well as the local clergy have been 

 practically unanimous in the National cause, 

 which Cardinal Manning and many of the Eng- 

 lish Catholic clergy embraced with Mr. Glad- 

 stone and his party. The Catholic landlord 

 class, headed by the Duke of Norfolk, on the 

 other hand, redoubled their efforts to secure 

 the Church's condemnation of the Irish move- 

 ment, especially the agrarian phase. The Duke 

 of Norfolk was sent as the representative of 

 t!;e Catholic Union on the occasion of the 

 Pope's sacerdotal jubilee. In January Pope 

 Leo, in replying to some Irish pilgrims, said 

 that no occasion can arise when public benefit 

 can come from the violation of justice, which 

 is the foundation of order and the common 

 good. The view indicated by this pronounce- 

 ment was called in question by Archbishop 

 Walsh on the authority of private declarations 

 of the Pope. On April 18, however, the Pope 

 formally condemned the Plan of Campaign arid 

 boycotting, in an edict addressed to the Irish 

 clergy, which was the result of the mission of 

 Monsignor Persico to Ireland, and of the de- 

 liberations of the Congregation of the Inquisi- 

 tion on his report. The grounds of the con- 

 demnation are that it is unlawful to break a 

 voluntary contract that has been freely made 

 between landlord and tenant ; that the land 

 law has opened the courts to tenants who 

 think that they have entered into inequitable 

 contracts, although of their own free will ; and 

 that the funds collected for the prosecution of 

 the Plan of Campaign are in many cases ex- 

 torted from the contributors. Boycotting is 

 declared to be opposed to the principles both 

 of justice and of charity when it is used against 

 people who are willing to pay a fair rent or 

 who are desirous of exercising the legal right 

 to take vacant farms. The Irish clergy and 

 laity are advised and exhorted not to transgress 

 the bounds of Christian charity and of justice 

 while endeavoring to secure a remedy for the 

 distress of the people. 



Mr. Dillon, Mr. O'Brien, and other leaders 

 in the Plan of Campaign raised their voices to 

 protest against the conclusions of this decree 

 even before it was circulated in Ireland, dwell- 

 ing especially on the point that the contracts 

 between landlords and tenants are far from be- 

 ing voluntary on the part of the latter. It failed 

 of the effect that the Tories expected, and even 

 the clergy largely disregarded the command, 

 while the Irish leaders vehemently protested 

 against the Papal interposition in politics. The 



