GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



339 



maintain them until they returned to their 

 homes. Money was subscribed freely for the 

 purpose. The minor tenants on the estate 

 were given some weeks to come to terms, and 

 when they adhered to the plan of campaign 

 were evicted in the latter part of April. Will- 

 iam O'Brien carried out his threat to carry the 

 war into Canada, where his speeches against 

 Lord Lansdowne were enthusiastically received 

 by Irish audiences, but were reprobated by 

 other elements in the community. He was 

 mobbed in Toronto, and barely escaped with 

 his life. He afterward delivered speeches in 

 the United States. 



A suit brought against Lord Clanricarde, 

 in the latter part of 1887, revealed traits of 

 aristocratic arrogance, injustice, and inhuman- 

 ity on the part of an Irish landlord that brought 

 additional discredit on the entire class. Dis- 

 turbances took place on Lord Clanricarde's 

 property at Woodford, in the autumn of 1886, 

 in consequence of the exaction of exorbitant 

 rents. Mr. Joyce, his agent, whose predecessor 

 had been shot, and whose own life was in dan- 

 ger on account of his employer's- course of ac- 

 tion, wrote to Lord Clanricarde that there was 

 a combination against paying the rents, but 

 that they were more than the land could pro- 

 duce, and that, if he would grant the same 

 abatements that all theother landlords of thedis- 

 trict were giving, the country would be quiet. 

 Lord Clanricarde, assuming the role of a man 

 who was making a struggle for the sake of 

 political principle, ordered the evictions to 

 proceed, but the Irish executive refused to send 

 forces to aid in enforcing the decrees, unless 

 Clanricarde should grant reductions. The facts 

 were laid bare by the press, and the public 

 was horrified. In order to rehabilitate him- 

 self, the nobleman sent letters to the news- 

 papers, quoting his agent as saying that there 

 was a combination, but suppressing the other 

 parts of his letter. Mr. Joyce asked to have 

 the entire letter given to the public, but Lord 

 Clanricarde demanded from him a letter deny- 

 ing that he had said that the district would be 

 quiet if abatements were granted. Finally, the 

 agent sent his resignation, giving his reasons 

 in an open letter, to which Lord Clanricarde 

 replied that a scullery-maid might as reasonably 

 give to the public her grounds for quitting a 

 place. Mr. Joyce recovered heavy damages 

 from the employer who had placed him on a 

 pedestal to be shot at and sought to fasten on 

 him the opprobrium of his own actions, pre- 

 suming on his poverty and dependent posi- 

 tion. 



Mr. Ponsonby took proceedings in bankrupt- 

 cy against the tenants on his estate near Youjihal 

 without gaining any satisfaction. Father Kel- 

 ler, a priest, was summoned before the court 

 to testify in regard to the bankruptcy of the 

 tenant Patrick O'Brien. He refused to appear 

 as a witness in matters that had been confided 

 to him as a priest, though not in the confes- 

 sional, and though O'Brien was not one of his 



parishioners. In this determination he was 

 publicly upheld by Archbishops Croke and 

 Walsh. A warrant was issued for his arrest, 

 producing great excitement among the Catho- 

 lics of Ireland. Riots attended its execution at 

 Youghal, and a fisherman named Hanlon was 

 killed by a bayonet-thrust, for which the coro- 

 ner's jury found Ward, the constable, and 

 Somerville, the inspector who ordered the 

 charge, guilty of murder. 



Father Keller, an old priest, who had not 

 long been an adherent of the National League, 

 was examined before Judge Boyd in Dublin on 

 March 19, and, on persisting in his refusal to 

 give information regarding O'Brien and the 

 disposal of his assets, was committed to Kil- 

 mainham Jail for contempt of court. Rev. 

 Matthew Ryan, president of the Herbertstown 

 branch of the National League, in like manner, 

 refused to attend the Court of Bankruptcy in 

 Dublin to give evidence in the case of Thomas 

 Moroney, a bankrupt, whose assets had disap- 

 peared. The police were sent to arrest him on 

 March 27, but were unable to find him. His 

 friends promised that he would appear in court 

 if the police were withdrawn, and a few hours 

 later he was conducted in a great procession 

 to the train at Limerick, and was received by 

 another enthusiastic concourse in Dublin. The 

 tenants of the entire district declared that they 

 would pay no rent until their "general," as 

 they called Father Ryan, should be released. 

 A constable named Dorney refused to take part 

 in the arrest, saying that, when asked to lay 

 hands on a priest of his Church, he would go 

 with the English Government no further. 

 Father Ryan was the leader of the tenantry on 

 the O'Grady estate at Herbertstown, who had 

 barricaded their dwellings, and were evicted 

 with much violence, while Capt. Plunkett, di- 

 visional magistrate for the south of Ireland, 

 ordered Father Ryan to be removed, and sev- 

 eral times commanded the police to charge into 

 the jeering crowd. The house of Honora Crim- 

 mins, a widow, was entered through the roof, 

 and the inmates were handcuffed and taken to 

 jail, Capt. Plunkett refusing to admit them to 

 bail. When the police and military were re- 

 turning, the people groaned at them from the 

 roadside, whereupon another charge was or- 

 dered by Capt. Plunkett, and many were se- 

 verely beaten, among those who were struck 

 being Mr. Condon, a member of Parliament, and 

 two English gentlemen. Evictions were car- 

 ried out with violence also on the Brooke prop- 

 erty at Coolgreany, in County Wexford, where 

 the tenants were thoroughly united, and the 

 ejectments did not take place without physical 

 resistance and riotous scenes. 



Mr. O'Brien was subsequently brought into 

 court on a bench warrant, and was convicted 

 by the magistrates, and sentenced to three 

 months' imprisonment. He appealed under the 

 act, and at quarter sessions the appeal was re- 

 jected, and he was imprisoned in Cork jail, and 

 afterward in the prison at Tullamore. He 



